HumanitiesWeb.org - History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great (Chapter IX. - Kaiser's Shadow-Hunt has Caught Fire.) by Napoleon Bonaparte
History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter IX. - Kaiser's Shadow-Hunt has Caught Fire.
by Napoleon Bonaparte
Franz of Lorraine, the young favorite of Fortune, whom we once saw
at Berlin on an interesting occasion, was about this time to have
married his Imperial Archduchess; Kaiser's consent to be formally
demanded and given; nothing but joy and splendor looked for in the
Court of Vienna at present. Nothing to prevent it,--had there been
no Polish Election; had not the Kaiser, in his Shadow-Hunt
(coursing the Pragmatic Sanction chiefly, as he has done these
twenty years past), gone rashly into that combustible foreign
element. But so it is: this was the fatal limit. The poor Kaiser's
Shadow-Hunt, going Scot-free this long while, and merely
tormenting other people, has, at this point, by contact with
inflammable Poland, unexpectedly itself caught fire; goes now
plunging, all in mad flame, over precipices one knows not how
deep: and there will be a lamentable singeing and smashing before
the Kaiser get out of this, if he ever get! Kaiser Karl, from this
point, plunges down and down, all his days; and except in that
Shadow of a Pragmatic Sanction, if he can still save that, has no
comfort left. Marriages are not the thing to be thought of
at present!--
Scarcely had the news of August's Election, and Stanislaus's
flight to Dantzig, reached France, when France, all in a state of
readiness, informed the Kaiser, ready for nothing, his force lying
in Silesia, doing the Election functions on the Polish borders
there, "That he the Kaiser had, by such treatment of the
Grandfather of France and the Polish Kingdom fairly fallen to him,
insulted the most Christian Majesty; that in consequence the most
Christian Majesty did hereby declare War against the said
Kaiser,"--and in fact had, that very day (14th of October, 1733),
begun it. Had marched over into Lorraine, namely, secured Lorraine
against accidents; and, more specially, gone across from Strasburg
to the German side of the Rhine, and laid siege to Kehl.
Kehl Fortress; a dilapidated outpost of the Reich there, which
cannot resist many hours. Here is news for the Kaiser, with his
few troops all on the Polish borders; minding his neighbors'
business, or chasing Pragmatic Sanction, in those
inflammable localities.
Pacific Fleury, it must be owned, if he wanted a quarrel with the
Kaiser, could not have managed it on more advantageous terms.
Generals, a Duc de Berwick, a Noailles, Belleisle; generals,
troops, artillery, munitions, nothing is wanting to Fleury; to the
Kaiser all things. It is surmised, the French had their eye on
Lorraine, not on Stanislaus, from the first. For many centuries,
especially for these last two,--ever since that Siege of Metz,
which we once saw, under Kaiser Karl V. and Albert Alcibiades,--
France has been wrenching and screwing at this Lorraine, wriggling
it off bit by bit; till now, as we perceived on Lyttelton junior
of Hagley's visit, Lorraine seems all lying unscrewed; and France,
by any good opportunity, could stick it in her pocket. Such
opportunity sly Fleury contrived, they say;--or more likely it
might be Belleisle and the other adventurous spirits that urged it
on pacific Fleury;--but, at all events, he has got it. Dilapidated
Kehl yields straightway: [29th October, 1733. Memoires du
Marechal de Berwick (in Petitot'e Collection, Paris,
1828), ii. 303.] Sardinia, Spain, declare alliance with Fleury;
and not Lorraine only, and the Swabian Provinces, but Italy itself
lies at his discretion,--owing to your treatment of the
Grandfather of France, and these Polish Elective methods.
The astonished Kaiser rushes forward to fling himself into the
arms of the Sea-Powers, his one resource left: "Help! moneys,
subsidies, ye Sea-Powers!" But the Sea-Powers stand obtuse, arms
not open at all, hands buttoning their pockets: "Sorry we cannot,
your Imperial Majesty. Fleury engages not to touch the
Netherlands, the Barrier Treaty; Polish Elections are not our
concern!" and callously decline. The Kaiser's astonishment is
extreme; his big heart swelling even with a martyr-feeling; and he
passionately appeals: "Ungrateful, blind Sea-Powers! No money to
fight France, say you? Are the Laws of Nature fallen void?"
Imperial astonishment, sublime martyr-feeling, passionate appeals
to the Laws of Nature, avail nothing with the blind Sea-Powers:
"No money in us," answer they: "we will help you to negotiate."--
"Negotiate!" answers he: and will have to pay his own Election
broken-glass, with a sublime martyr-feeling, without money from
the Sea-Powers.
Fleury has got the Sardinian Majesty; "Sardinian doorkeeper of the
Alps," who opens them now this way, now that, for a consideration:
"A slice of the Milanese, your Majesty;" bargains Fleury.
Fleury has got the Spanish Majesty (our violent old friend the
Termagant of Spain) persuaded to join: "Your infant Carlos made
Duke of Parma and Piacenza, with such difficulty: what is that?
Naples itself, crown of the Two Sicilies, lies in the wind for
Carlos;--and your junior infant, great Madam, has he no need of
apanages?" The Termagant of Spain, "offended by Pragmatic
Sanction" (she says), is ready on those terms; the Sardinian
Majesty is ready: and Fleury, this same October, with an
overwhelming force, Spaniards and Sardinians to join, invades
Italy; great Marshal Villars himself taking the command.
Marshal Villars, an extremely eminent old military gentleman,--
somewhat of a friend, or husband of a lady-friend, to M. de
Voltaire, for one thing;--and capable of slicing Italy to pieces
at a fine rate, in the condition it was in.
Never had Kaiser such a bill of broken-glass to pay for meddling
in neighbors, elections before. The year was not yet ended, when
Villars and the Sardinian Majesty had done their stroke on
Lombardy; taken Milan Citadel, taken Pizzighetone, the Milanese in
whole, and appropriated it; swept the poor unprepared Kaiser clear
out of those parts. Baby Carlos and the Spaniards are to do the
Two Sicilies, Naples or the land one to begin with, were the
Winter gone. For the present, Louis XV. "sings TE DEUM, at Paris,
23d December, 1733" [ Fastes du Regne de Louis XV.
(Paris, 1766), i. 248.]--a merry Christmas there.
Villars, now above four-score, soon died of those fatigues;
various Marshals, Broglio, Coigny, Noailles, succeeding him, some
of whom are slightly notable to us; and there was one Maillebois,
still a subordinate under them, whose name also may reappear in
this History.
SUBSEQUENT COURSE OF THE WAR, IN THE ITALIAN PART OF IT.
The French-Austrian War, which had now broken out, lasted a couple
of years; the Kaiser steadily losing, though he did his utmost;
not so much a War, on his part, as a Being Beaten and Being
Stript. The Scene was Italy and the Upper-Rhine Country of
Germany; Italy the deciding scene; where, except as it bears on
Germany, our interest is nothing, as indeed in Germany too it is
not much. The principal events, on both stages, are
chronologically somewhat as follows;--beginning with Italy:--
MARCH 29th, 1734. Baby Carlos with a Duke of Montemar for General,
a difficult impetuous gentleman, very haughty to the French allies
and others, lands in Naples Territory; intending to seize the Two
Sicilies, according to bargain. They find the Kaiser quite
unprepared, and their enterprise extremely feasible.
"MAY 10th. Baby Carlos--whom we ought to call Don Carlos, who is
now eighteen gone, and able to ride the great horse--makes
triumphant entry into Naples, having easily swept the road clear;
styles himself 'King of the Two Sicilies' (Papa having surrendered
him his 'right' there); whom Naples, in all ranks of it, willingly
homages as such. Wrecks of Kaiser's forces intrench themselves,
rather strongly, at a place called Bitonto, in Apulia, not
far off.
"MAY 25th. Montemar, in an impetuous manner, storms them there:--
which feat procures for him the title, Duke of Bitonto; and
finishes off the First of the Sicilies. And indeed, we may say,
finishes Both the Sicilies: our poor Kaiser having no considerable
force in either, nor means of sending any; the Sea-Powers having
buttoned their pockets, and the Combined Fleet of France and Spain
being on the waters there.
"We need only add, on this head, that, for ten months more, Baby
Carlos and Montemar went about besieging, Gaeta, Messina,
Syracuse; and making triumphal entries;--and that, on the 30th of
June, 1735, Baby Carlos had himself fairly crowned at Palermo.
[ Fastes de Louis XV., i. 278.] 'King of the Two Sicilies'
DE FACTO; in which eminent post he and his continue, not with much
success, to this day.
"That will suffice for the Two Sicilies. As to Lombardy again,
now that Villars is out of it, and the Coignys and Broglios
have succeeded:--
"JUNE 29th, 1734. Kaiser, rallying desperately for recovery of the
Milanese, has sent an Army thither, Graf von Mercy leader of it:
Battle of Parma between the French and it (29th June);--totally
lost by the Kaiser's people, after furious fighting; Graf von
Mercy himself killed in the action. Graf von Mercy, and what comes
nearer us, a Prince of Culmbach, amiable Uncle of our Wilhelmina's
Husband, a brave man and Austrian Soldier, who was much regretted
by Wilhelmina and the rest; his death and obsequies making a
melancholy Court of Baireuth in this agitated year. The Kaiser,
doing his utmost, is beaten at every point.
"SEPTEMBER 15th. Surprisal of the Secchia. Kaiser's people rally,
--under a General Graf von Konigseck worth noting by us,--and
after some manoeuvring, in the Guastalla-Modena region, on the
Secchia and Po rivers there, dexterously steal across the Secchia
that night (15th September), cutting off the small guard-party at
the ford of the Secchia, then wading silently; and burst in upon
the French Camp in a truly alarming manner. [Hormayr, xx. 84;
Fastes, as it is liable to do, misdates.]
So that Broglio, in command there, had to gallop with only one
boot on, some say 'in his shirt,' till he got some force rallied,
and managed to retreat more Parthian-like upon his brother
Marechal's Division. Artillery, war-chest, secret correspondence,
'King of Sardinia's tent,' and much cheering plunder beside
Broglio's odd boot, were the consequences; the Kaiser's one
success in this War; abolished, unluckily, in four days!--
The Broglio who here gallops is the second French Marechal of the
name, son of the first; a military gentleman whom we shall but too
often meet in subsequent stages. A son of this one's, a third
Marechal Broglio, present at the Secchia that bad night, is the
famous War-god of the Bastille time, fifty-five years hence,--
unfortunate old War-god, the Titans being all up about him. As to
Broglio with the one boot, it is but a triumph over him till--
"SEPTEMBER 19th. Battle of Guastalla, that day. Battle lost by the
Kaiser's people, after eight hours, hot fighting; who are then
obliged to hurry across the Secchia again;--and in fact do not
succeed in fighting any more in that quarter, this year or
afterwards. For, next year (1735), Montemar is so advanced with
the Two Sicilies, he can assist in these Northern operations;
and Noailles, a better Marechal, replaces the Broglio and Coigny
there; who, with learned strategic movements, sieges, threatenings
of siege, sweeps the wrecks of Austria, to a satisfactory degree,
into the Tyrol, without fighting, or event mentionable
thenceforth.
"This is the Kaiser's War of two Campaigns, in the Italian, which
was the decisive part of it: a continual Being Beaten, as the
reader sees; a Being Stript, till one was nearly bare in
that quarter."
COURSE OF THE WAR, IN THE GERMAN PART OF IT.
In Germany the mentionable events are still fewer; and indeed, but
for one small circumstance binding on us, we might skip them
altogether. For there is nothing comfortable in it to the human
memory otherwise.
Marechal Duc de Berwick, a cautious considerable General
(Marlborough's Nephew, on what terms is known to readers), having
taken Kehl and plundered the Swabian outskirts last Winter, had
extensive plans of operating in the heart of Germany, and ruining
the Kaiser there. But first he needs, and the Kaiser is aware of
it, a "basis on the Rhine;" free bridge over the Rhine, not by
Strasburg and Kehl alone: and for this reason, he will have to
besiege and capture Philipsburg first of all. Strong Town of
Philipsburg, well down towards Speyer-and-Heidelberg quarter on
the German side of the Rhine: [See map] here will be our bridge.
Lorraine is already occupied, since the first day of the War;
Trarbach, strong-place of the Moselle and Electorate of Trier,
cannot be difficult to get? Thus were the Rhine Country, on the
French side, secure to France; and so Berwick calculates he will
have a basis on the Rhine, from which to shoot forth into the very
heart of the Kaiser.
Berwick besieged Philipsburg accordingly (Summer and Autumn);
Kaiser doing his feeble best to hinder: at the Siege, Berwick lost
his life, but Philipsburg surrendered to his successor, all the
same;--Kaiser striving to hinder; but in a most paralyzed manner,
and to no purpose whatever. And--and this properly WAS the German
War; the sum of all done in it during those two years.
Seizure of Nanci (that is, of Lorraine), seizure of Kehl we
already heard of; then, prior to Philipsburg, there was siege or
seizure of Trarbach by the French; and, posterior to it, seizure
of Worms by them; and by the Germans there was "burning of a
magazine in Speyer by bombs." And, in brief, on both sides, there
was marching and manoeuvring under various generals (our old rusty
Seckendorf one of them), till the end of 1735, when the Italian
decision arrived, and Truce and Peace along with it; but there was
no other action worth naming, even in the Newspapers as a wonder
of nine days, The Siege of Philipsburg, and what hung flickering
round that operation, before and after, was the sum-total of the
German War.
Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in those parts, has had many sieges;
nor would this one merit the least history from us; were it not
for one circumstance: That our Crown-Prince was of the Opposing
Army, and made his first experience of arms there. A Siege of
Philipsburg slightly memorable to us, on that one account.
What Friedrich did there, which in the military way was as good as
nothing; what he saw and experienced there, which, with some
"eighty Princes of the Reich," a Prince Eugene for General, and
three months under canvas on the field, may have been something:
this, in outline, by such obscure indications as remain, we would
fain make conceivable to the reader. Indications, in the History-
Books, we have as good as none; but must gather what there is from
WILHELMINA and the Crown-Prince's LETTERS,--much studying to be
brief, were it possible!
