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The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, bound by every obligation which those
who are entrusted with power over their fellow-creatures ought to hold most
sacred, to respect and defend the rights of the Archduchess. Her situation and
her personal qualities were such as might be expected to move the mind of any
generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous tenderness. She was in her
twenty-fourth year. Her form was majestic, her features beautiful, her
countenance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracious and
dignified, In all domestic relations she was without reproach. She was married
to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point of giving birth to a child,
when death deprived her of her father. The loss of a parent, and the new cares
of empire, were too much for her in the delicate state of her health. Her
spirits were depressed, and her cheek lost its bloom. Yet it seemed that she had
little cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, and the faith of
treaties would have their due weight, and that the settlement so solemnly
guaranteed would be quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Poland, and
Holland, declared in form their intention to adhere to their engagements. The
French ministers made a verbal declaration to the same effect. But from no
quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive stronger assurances of friendship
and support than from the King of Prussia.
Yet the King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already fully determined to
commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom
he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and
desolating war; and all this for no end whatever, except that he might extend
his dominions, and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a
great army with speed and secrecy, to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should
be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.
We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas which the compiler of the
Memoirs before us has copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount to this, that the
House of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had in the
previous century been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the Court of
Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might originally
have been in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the House
of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the Court of
Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the
integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated
claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world
can never be at peace for a day? The laws of all nations have wisely established
a time of limitation, after which titles, however illegitimate in their origin,
cannot be questioned. It is felt by everybody, that to eject a person from his
estate on the ground of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors would
produce all the evils which result from arbitrary confiscation, and would make
all property insecure. It concerns the commonwealth--so runs the legal
maxim--that there be an end of litigation. And surely this maxim is at least
equally applicable to the great commonwealth of states; for in that commonwealth
litigation means the devastation of provinces, the suspension of trade and
industry, sieges like those of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like
those of Eylau and Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to
Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the King of Denmark be
therefore justified in landing, without any new provocation in Norway, and
commencing military operations there? The King of Holland thinks, no doubt, that
he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces. Grant that it were so. Would
he, therefore, be justified in marching with an army on Brussels? The case
against Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he
complained had been committed more than a century before. Nor must it be
forgotten that he owed the highest personal obligations to the House of Austria.
It may be doubted whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of
the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder.
To do the King justice, he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In
manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his
antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very
different tone. His own words are: "Ambition, interest, the desire of making
people talk about me, carried the day; and I decided for war."
Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability and vigor. It was
impossible wholly to conceal his preparations; for throughout the Prussian
territories regiments, guns, and baggage were in motion. The Austrian envoy at
Berlin apprised his court of these facts, and expressed a suspicion of
Frederic's designs; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to give credit to
so black an imputation on a young prince, who was known chiefly by his high
professions of integrity and philanthropy. "We will not," they wrote, "we
cannot, believe it."
In the meantime the Prussian forces had been assembled. Without any declaration
of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring forth
compliments and assurances of goodwill, Frederic commenced hostilities. Many
thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before the Queen of Hungary
knew that he had set up any claim to any part of her territories. At length he
sent her a message which could be regarded only as an insult. If she would but
let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against any power which
should try to deprive her of her other dominions; as if he was not already bound
to stand by her, or as if his new promise could be of more value than the old
one.
It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads heavy with mire.
But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The Austrian army was
then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion of that army which lay in
Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was blockaded; Breslau opened its
gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered garrisons still held out; but the
whole open country was subjugated: no enemy ventured to encounter the King in
the field; and, before the end of January 1741, he returned to receive the
congratulations of his subjects at Berlin.
Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and Maria
Theresa, it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian King of gross perfidy.
But when we consider the effects which his policy produced, and could not fail
to produce, on the whole community of civilized nations, we are compelled to
pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he began the war, it seemed
possible, even probable, that the peace of the world would be preserved. The
plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a strong temptation; and in
more than one cabinet ambitious schemes were already meditated. But the treaties
by which the Pragmatic Sanction had been guaranteed were express and recent. To
throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly unjust, was no light
matter. England was true to her engagements. The voice of Fleury had always been
for peace. He had a conscience. He was now in extreme old age, and was
unwilling, after a life which, when his situation was considered, must be
pronounced singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a great crime before the
tribunal of his God. Even the vain and unprincipled Belle-Isle, whose whole life
was one wild day-dream of conquest and spoliation, felt that France, bound as
she was by solemn stipulations, could not, without disgrace, make a direct
attack on the Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, pretended that he
had a right to a large part of the inheritance which the Pragmatic Sanction gave
to the Queen of Hungary; but he was not sufficiently powerful to move without
support. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that, after a short
period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the
arrangements made by the late Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of
Prussia gave the signal to his neighbors. His example quieted their sense of
shame. His success led them to underrate the difficulty of dismembering the
Austrian monarchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of Frederic is
all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years and in every
quarter of the globe, the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the
mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by his
wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in
order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men
fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great
Lakes of North America.
Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the Austrian troops were
advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring
Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded
any great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first
military operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was
the admiration of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by
Raphael in his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic's early
bad manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed were men of
small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of the infantry,
was unequalled in that age; and some able and experienced officers were at hand
to assist him with their advice. Of these, the most distinguished was
Field-Marshal Schwerin, a brave adventurer of Pomeranian extraction, who had
served half the governments in Europe, had borne the commissions of the
States-General of Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, had fought under
Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender.
Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz; and never did the career of a
great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not
only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able
general; but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed
the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which he commanded in person, was
put to flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and carnage of a field of battle, he
lost his self-possession, and listened too readily to those who urged him to
save himself. His English grey carried him many miles from the field, while
Schwerin, though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the day. The skill of
the old Field-Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian battalions prevailed;
and the Austrian army was driven from the field with the loss of eight thousand
men.
The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the King had taken
shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his success
to dispositions which others had made, and to the valor of men who had fought
while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the greatest
warrior of that age.
The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general explosion throughout Europe.
Bavaria took up arms. France, not yet declaring herself a principal in the war,
took part in it as an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen to whom mankind
had owed many years of tranquility, disappeared about this time from the scene,
but not till they had both been guilty of the weakness of sacrificing their
sense of justice and their love of peace to the vain hope of preserving their
power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirmity, was borne down by the
impetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole retired from the service of his ungrateful
country to his woods and paintings at Houghton; and his power devolved on the
daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the nations.
Thirty years during which Europe had, with few interruptions, enjoyed repose,
had prepared the public mind for great military efforts. A new generation had
grown up, which could not remember the siege of Turin or the slaughter of
Malplaquet; which knew war by nothing but its trophies; and which, while it
looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim, or the statue in the Place of
Victories, little thought by what privations, by what waste of private fortunes,
by how many bitter tears, conquests must be purchased.
For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederic invaded
Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia, and were there joined
by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria was raised by the
suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial throne, a throne which the practice
of centuries had almost entitled the House of Austria to regard as a hereditary
possession.
Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Caesars unbroken. Hungary was
still hers by an unquestionable title; and although her ancestors had found
Hungary the most mutinous of all their kingdoms, she resolved to trust herself
to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, turbulent, and impatient of
oppression, but brave, generous, and simple-hearted. In the midst of distress
and peril she had given birth to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph the
Second. Scarcely had she arisen from her couch, when she hastened to Presburg.
There, in the sight of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown
and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could restrain his tears
when the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after the
fashion of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, unsheathed the ancient sword
of state, shook it towards north and south, east and west, and, with a glow on
her pale face, challenged the four corners of the world to dispute her rights
and those of her boy. At the first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in deep
mourning for her father, and in pathetic and dignified words implored her people
to support her just cause. Magnates and deputies sprang up, half drew their
sabers, and with eager voices vowed to stand by her with their lives and
fortunes. Till then, her firmness had never once forsaken her before the public
eye; but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, and wept aloud. Still more
touching was the sight when, a few days later, she came again before the Estates
of her realm, and held up before them the little Archduke in her arms. Then it
was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke forth into that war-cry which soon
resounded throughout Europe, "Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa!"
In the meantime, Frederic was meditating a change of policy. He had no wish to
raise France to supreme power on the Continent, at the expense of the House of
Hapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary. His second object
was that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself. He had entered into
engagements with the powers leagued against Austria; but these engagements were
in his estimation of no more force than the guarantee formerly given to the
Pragmatic Sanction. His plan now was to secure his share of the plunder by
betraying his accomplices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to listen to any
such compromise; but the English Government represented to her so strongly the
necessity of buying off Frederic, that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation
would not, however, have ended in a treaty, had not the arms of Frederic been
crowned with a second victory. Prince Charles of Lorraine, brother-in-law to
Maria Theresa, a bold and active, though unfortunate general, gave battle to the
Prussians at Chotusitz, and was defeated. The King was still only a learner of
the military art. He acknowledged, at a later period, that his success on this
occasion was to be attributed, not at all to his own generalship, but solely to
the valor and steadiness of his troops. He completely effaced, however, by his
personal courage and energy, the stain which Molwitz had left on his reputation.
A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was the fruit of this battle.
Maria Theresa ceded Silesia: Frederic abandoned his allies: Saxony followed his
example; and the Queen was left at liberty to turn her whole force against
France and Bavaria. She was everywhere triumphant. The French were compelled to
evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty effected their escape. The whole line of
their retreat might be tracked by the corpses of thousands who had died of cold,
fatigue, and hunger. Many of those who reached their country carried with them
the seeds of death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious warriors from that
bloody debatable land which lies on the frontier between Christendom and Islam.
The terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and the Hussar, then first became
familiar to Western Europe. The unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by
Austria, betrayed by Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and neglected
by his allies, was hurried by shame and remorse to an untimely end. An English
army appeared in the heart of Germany, and defeated the French at Dettingen. The
Austrian captains already began to talk of completing the work of Marlborough
and Eugene, and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace and the three
Bishoprics.
The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederic for help. He had been
guilty of two great treasons: perhaps he might be induced to commit a third. The
Duchess of Chateauroux then held the chief influence over the feeble Lewis. She,
determined to send an agent to Berlin; and Voltaire was selected for the
mission. He eagerly undertook the task; for, while his literary fame filled all
Europe, he was troubled with a childish craving for political distinction. He
was vain, and not without reason, of his address, and of his insinuating
eloquence: and he flattered himself that he possessed boundless influence over
the King of Prussia. The truth was that he knew, as yet, only one corner of
Frederic's character. He was well acquainted with all the petty vanities and
affectations of the poetaster; but was not aware that these foibles were united
with all the talents and vices which lead to success in active life, and that
the unlucky versifier who pestered him with reams of middling Alexandrines, was
the most vigilant, suspicious, and severe of politicians.
Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friendship, was lodged in
the palace, and had a seat daily at the royal table. The negotiation was of an
extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the
conferences which took place between the first literary man and the first
practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to exchange their
parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the
great King of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put
into his Majesty's hands a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back
with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each other.
Voltaire did not spare the King's poems; and the King has left on record his
opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. "He had no credentials," says Frederic, "and
the whole mission was a joke, a mere farce."
But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the rapid progress of the
Austrian arms effected. If it should be in the power of Maria Theresa and George
the Second to dictate terms of peace to France, what chance was there that
Prussia would long retain Silesia? Frederic's conscience told him that he had
acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the Queen of Hungary. That her
resentment was strong she had given ample proof; and of her respect for treaties
he judged by his own. Guarantees, he said, were mere filigree, pretty to look
at, but too brittle to bear the slightest pressure. He thought it his safest
course to ally himself closely to France, and again to attack the Empress Queen.
Accordingly, in the autumn of 1744, without notice, without any decent pretext,
he recommenced hostilities, marched through the electorate of Saxony without
troubling himself about the permission of the Elector, invaded Bohemia, took
Prague, and even menaced Vienna.
It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the inconstancy of fortune.
An Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine threatened his communications with
Silesia. Saxony was all in arms behind him. He found it necessary to save
himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that his failure was the natural
effect of his own blunders. No general, he said, had ever committed greater
faults. It must be added, that to the reverses of this campaign he always
ascribed his subsequent successes. It was in the midst of difficulty and
disgrace that he caught the first clear glimpse of the principles of the
military art.
The memorable year 1745 followed. The war raged by sea and land, in Italy, in
Germany, and in Flanders; and even England, after many years of profound
internal quiet, saw, for the last time, hostile armies set in battle array
against each other. This year is memorable in the life of Frederic, as the date
at which his noviciate in the art of war may be said to have terminated. There
have been great captains whose precocious and self-taught military skill
resembled intuition. Conde, Clive, and Napoleon are examples. But Frederic was
not one of these brilliant portents. His proficiency in military science was
simply the proficiency which a man of vigorous faculties makes in any science to
which he applies his mind with earnestness and industry. It was at
Hohenfriedberg that he first proved how much he had profited by his errors, and
by their consequences. His victory on that day was chiefly due to his skilful
dispositions, and convinced Europe that the prince who, a few years before, had
stood aghast in the rout of Molwitz, had attained in the military art a mastery
equaled by none of his contemporaries, or equaled by Saxe alone. The victory of
Hohenfriedberg was speedily followed by that of Sorr.
In the meantime, the arms of France had been victorious in the Low Countries.
Frederic had no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa would be able to give
law to Europe, and he began to meditate a fourth breach of his engagements. The
Court of Versailles was alarmed and mortified. A letter of earnest
expostulation, in the handwriting of Lewis, was sent to Berlin; but in vain. In
the autumn of 1745, Frederic made Peace with England, and, before the close of
the year, with Austria also. The pretensions of Charles of Bavaria could present
no obstacle to an accommodation. That unhappy Prince was no more; and Francis of
Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, was raised, with the general assent of
the Germanic body, to the Imperial throne.
Prussia was again at peace; but the European war lasted till, in the year 1748,
it was terminated by the treaty of Aix-la Chapelle. Of all the powers that had
taken part in it, the only gainer was Frederic. Not only had he added to his
patrimony the fine province of Silesia: he had, by his unprincipled dexterity,
succeeded so well in alternately depressing the scale of Austria and that of
France, that he was generally regarded as holding the balance of Europe, a high
dignity for one who ranked lowest among kings, and whose great-grandfather had
been no more than a Margrave. By the public, the King of Prussia was considered
as a politician destitute alike of morality and decency, insatiably rapacious,
and shamelessly false; nor was the public much in the wrong. He was at the same
time, allowed to be a man of parts, a rising general, a shrewd negotiator and
administrator. Those qualities wherein he surpassed all mankind, were as yet
unknown to others or to himself; for they were qualities which shine out only on
a dark ground. His career had hitherto, with little interruption, been
prosperous; and it was only in adversity, in adversity which seemed without hope
or resource, in adversity which would have overwhelmed even men celebrated for
strength of mind, that his real greatness could be shown.
He had, from the commencement of his reign, applied himself to public business
after a fashion unknown among kings. Lewis the Fourteenth, indeed, had been his
own prime minister, and had exercised a general superintendence over all the
departments of the Government; but this was not sufficient for Frederic. He was
not content with being his own prime minister: he would be his own sole
minister. Under him there was no room, not merely for a Richelieu or a Mazarin,
but for a Colbert, a Louvois, or a Torcy. A love of labor for its own sake, a
restless and insatiable longing to dictate, to intermeddle, to make his power
felt, a profound scorn and distrust of his fellow-creatures, made him unwilling
to ask counsel, to confide important secrets, to delegate ample powers. The
highest functionaries under his government were mere clerks, and were not so
much trusted by him as valuable clerks are often trusted by the heads of
departments. He was his own treasurer, his own commander-in-chief, his own
intendant of public works, his own minister for trade and justice, for home
affairs and foreign affairs, his own master of the horse, steward, and
chamberlain. Matters of which no chief of an office in any other government
would ever hear, were, in this singular monarchy, decided by the King in person.
If a traveler wished for a good place to see a review, he had to write to
Frederic, and received next day, from a royal messenger, Frederic's answer
signed by Frederic's own hand. This was an extravagant, a morbid activity. The
public business would assuredly have been better done if each department had
been put under a man of talents and integrity, and if the King had contented
himself with a general control. In this manner the advantages which belong to
unity of design, and the advantages which belong to the division of labor, would
have been to a great extent combined. But such a system would not have suited
the peculiar temper of Frederic. He could tolerate no will, no reason, in the
State, save his own. He wished for no abler assistance than that of penmen who
had just understanding enough to translate and transcribe, to make out his
scrawls, and to put his concise Yes and No into an official form. Of the higher
intellectual faculties, there is as much in a copying machine, or a lithographic
press, as he required from a secretary of the cabinet.
His own exertions were such as were hardly to be expected from a human body or a
human mind. At Potsdam, his ordinary residence, he rose at three in summer and
four in winter. A page soon appeared, with a large basket full of all the
letters which had arrived for the King by the last courier, dispatches from
ambassadors, reports from officers of revenue, plans of buildings, proposals for
draining marshes, complaints from persons who thought themselves aggrieved,
applications from persons who wanted titles, military commissions, and civil
situations. He examined the seals with a keen eye; for he was never for a moment
free from the suspicion that some fraud might be practiced on him. Then he read
the letters, divided them into several packets, and signified his pleasure,
generally by a mark, often by two or three words, now and then by some cutting
epigram. By eight he had generally finished this part of his task. The
adjutant-general was then in attendance, and received instructions for the day
as to all the military arrangements of the kingdom. Then the King went to review
his guards, not as kings ordinarily review their guards, but with the minute
attention and severity of an old drill-sergeant. In the meantime the four
cabinet secretaries had been employed in answering the letters on which the King
had that morning signified his will. These unhappy men were forced to work all
the year round like negro slaves in the time of the sugar-crop. They never had a
holiday. They never knew what it was to dine. It was necessary that, before they
stirred, they should finish the whole of their work. The King, always on his
guard against treachery, took from the heap a handful of letters at random, and
looked into them to see whether his instructions had been exactly followed. This
was no bad security against foul play on the part of the secretaries; for if one
of them were detected in a trick, he might think himself fortunate if he escaped
with five years of imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederic then signed the replies,
and all were sent off the same evening.
The general principles on which this strange government was conducted, deserve
attention. The policy of Frederic was essentially the same as his father's; but
Frederic, while he carried that policy to lengths to which his father never
thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same time from the absurdities with
which his father had encumbered it. The King's first object was to have a great,
efficient, and well-trained army. He had a kingdom which in extent and
population was hardly in the second rank of European powers; and yet he aspired
to a place not inferior to that of the sovereigns of England, France, and
Austria. For that end it was necessary that Prussia should be all sting. Lewis
the Fifteenth, with five times as many subjects as Frederic, and more than five
times as large a revenue, had not a more formidable army. The proportion which
the soldiers in Prussia bore to the people seems hardly credible. Of the males
in the vigor of life, a seventh part were probably under arms; and this great
force had, by drilling, by reviewing, and by the unsparing use of cane and
scourge, been taught to form all evolutions with a rapidity and a precision
which would have astonished Villars or Eugene. The elevated feelings which are
necessary to the best kind of army were then wanting to the Prussian service. In
those ranks were not found the religious and political enthusiasm which inspired
the pikemen of Cromwell, the patriotic ardor, the thirst of glory, the devotion
to a great leader, which inflamed the Old Guard of Napoleon. But in all the
mechanical parts of the military calling, the Prussians were as superior to the
English and French troops of that day as the English and French troops to a
rustic militia.
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