History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XIV Part 6

"Thus march these English, that dewy morning, Thursday, June 27th, 1743, with cannon playing on their left flank; and such a fate ahead of them, had they known it;--very short of breakfast, too, for most part. But they have one fine quality, and Britannic George, like all his Welf race from Henry the Lion down to these days, has it in an eminent degree: they are not easily put into flurry, into fear. In all Welf Sovereigns, and generally in Teuton Populations, on that side of the Channel or on this, there is the requisite unconscious substratum of taciturn inexpugnability, with depths of potential rage almost unquenchable, to be found when you apply for it. Which quality will much stead them on the present occasion: and, indeed, it is perhaps strengthened by their 'stupidity' itself, what neighbors call their 'stupidity;'--want of idle imagining, idle flurrying, nay want even of knowing, is not one of the worst qualities just now! They tramp on, paying a minimum of attention to the cannon; ignorant of what is ahead; hoping only it may be breakfast, in some form, before the day quite terminate. The day is still young, hardly 8 o'clock, when their advanced parties find Dettingen beset; find a whole French Army drawn up, on the scrubby moor there; and come galloping back with this interesting bit of news! Pause hereupon; much consulting; in fact, endless. .h.i.thering and thithering, the affair being knotty: 'Fight, YES, now at last! But how?' Impetuous Stair was not wanting to himself; Neipperg too, they say, was useful with advice; D'Ahremberg, I should imagine, good for little.

"Some six hours followed of thrice-intricate deploying, planting of field-pieces, counter-batteries; ranking, re-ranking, shuffling hither and then thither of horse and foot; Noailles's cannonade proceeding all the while; the English, still considerably exposed to it, and standing it like stones; chivalrous Grammont, and with better reason the English, much wis.h.i.+ng these preliminaries were done. A difficult business, that of deploying here. The Pragmatic had no room, jammed so against the Spessart Hills, and obliged to lean FROM the River and Noailles's cannon; had to rank itself in six, some say in eight lines; horse behind foot, as well as on flank; unsatisfactory to the military mind: and I think had not done shuffling and re-shuffling at 2 P.M.,--when the Enemy came bursting on, with a peremptory finish to it, 'Enough of that, MESSIEUR'S LES ANGLAIS!' 'Too much of it, a great deal!' thought Messieurs grimly, in response. And there ensued a really furious clash of host against host; French chivalry (MAISON DU ROI, Black Mousquetaires, the Flower of their Horse regiments) das.h.i.+ng, in right Gallic frenzy, on their natural enemies,--on the English, that is; who, I find, were mainly on the left wing there, horse and foot; and had mainly (the Austrians and they, very mainly) the work to do;--and did, with an effort, and luck helping, manage to do it.

"'Grammont breaks orders! Thrice-blamable Grammont!' exclaim Noailles and others, sorrowfully wringing their hands. Even so! Grammont had waited seven mortal hours; one's courage burning all the while, courage perhaps rather burning down,--and not the least use coming of if.

Grammont had, in natural impatience, gradually edged forward; and, in the end, was being cannonaded and p.r.i.c.ked into by the Enemy;--and did at last, with his MAISON-DU-ROI, dash across that essential Hollow Way, and plunge in upon them on their own side of it. And 'the, English foot gave their volley too soon;' ad Grammont did, in effect, partly repulse and disorder the front ranks of them; and, blazing up uncontrollable, at sight of those first ranks in disorder, did press home upon them more and more; get wholly into the affair, bringing on his Infantry as well: 'Let us finish it wholly, now that our hand is in!'--and took one cannon from the Enemy; and did other feats.

"So furious was that first charge of his; 'MAISON-DU-ROI covering itself with glory,'--for a short while. MAISON-DU-ROI broke three lines of the Enemy [three, not "Five"]; did in some places actually break through; in others 'could not, but galloped along the front.' Three of their lines: but the fourth line would not break; much the contrary, it advanced (Austrians and English) with steady fire, hotter and hotter: upon this fourth line MAISON-DU-ROI had, itself, to break, pretty much altogether, and rush home again, in ruinous condition. 'Our front lines made lanes for them; terribly maltreating them with musketry on right and left, as they galloped through.' And this was the end of Grammont's successes, this charge of horse; for his infantry had no luck anywhere; and the essential crisis of the Battle had been here. It continued still a good while; plenty of cannonading, fusillading, but in sporadic detached form; a confused series of small shocks and knocks; which were mostly, or all, unfortunate for Grammont; and which at length knocked him quite off the field. 'He was now interlaced with the English,' moans Noailles; 'so that my cannon, not to shoot Grammont as well as the English, had to cease firing!' Well, yes, that is true, M. le Marechal; but that is not so important as you would have it. The English had stood nine hours in this fire of yours; by degrees, leaning well away from it; answering it with counter-batteries;--and were not yet ruined by it, when the Grammont crisis came! Noailles should have dashed fresh troops across his Bridges, and tried to handle them well. Noailles did not do that; or do anything but wring his hands.

"The Fight lasted four hours; ever hotter on the English part, ever less hot on the French [fire of anthracite-coal VERSUS flame of dry wood, which latter at last sinks ASHY!]--and ended in total defeat of the French. The French Infantry by no means behaved as their Cavalry had done. The GARDES FRANCAISES [fire burning ashy, after seven hours of flaming], when Grammont ordered them up to take the English in flank, would hardly come on at all, or stand one push. They threw away their arms, and plunged into the River, like a drove of swimmers; getting drowned in great numbers. So that their comrades nicknamed them 'CANARDS DU MEIN (Ducks of the Mayn):' and in English mess-rooms, there went afterwards a saying: 'The French had, in reality, Three Bridges; one of them NOT wooden, and carpeted with blue cloth!' Such the wit of military mankind.

"... The English, it appears, did something by mere shouting. Partial huzzas and counter-huzzas between the Infantries were going on at one time, when Stair happened to gallop up: 'Stop that,' said Stair; 'let us do it right. Silence; then, One and all, when I give you signal!'

And Stair, at the right moment, lifting his hat, there burst out such a thunder-growl, edged with melodious ire in alt, as quite seemed to strike a damp into the French, says my authority, 'and they never shouted more.... Our ground in many parts was under rye,' hedgeless fields of rye, chief grain-crop of that sandy country. 'We had already wasted above 120,000 acres of it,' still in the unripe state, so hungry were we, man and horse, 'since crossing to Aschaffenburg;'--fighting for your Cause of Liberty, ye benighted ones!

"King Friedrich's private accounts, deformed by ridicule, are, That the Britannic Majesty, his respectable old Uncle, finding the French there barring his way to breakfast, understood simply that there must and should be fighting, of the toughest; but had no plan or counsel farther: that he did at first ride up, to see what was what with his own eyes; but that his horse ran away with him, frightened at the cannon; upon which he hastily got down; drew sword; put himself at the head of his Hanoverian Infantry [on the right wing], and stood,--left foot drawn back, sword pushed out, in the form of a fencing-master doing lunge,--steadily in that defensive att.i.tude, inexpugnable like the rocks, till all was over, and victory gained. This is defaced by the spirit of ridicule, and not quite correct. Britannic Majesty's horse [one of those 500 fine animals] did, it is certain, at last dangerously run away with him; upon which he took to his feet and his Hanoverians.

But he had been repeatedly on horseback, in the earlier stages; galloping about, to look with his own eyes, could they have availed him; and was heard encouraging his people, and speaking even in the English language, 'Steady, my boys; fire, my brave boys, give them fire; they will soon run!' [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ (iii. 14): compare Anonymous, _Life of the Duke of c.u.mberland_ (p. 64 n.); Henderson's LIFE of ditto; &c.] Latterly, there can be no doubt, he stands [and to our imagination, he may fitly stand throughout] in the above att.i.tude of lunge; no fear in him, and no plan; 'SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS,' as me might term it. Like a real Hanoverian Sovereign of England; like England itself, and its ways in those German Wars. A typical epitome of long sections of English History, that att.i.tude of lunge!--

"The English Officers also, it is evident, behaved in their usual way:--without knowledge of war, without fear of death, or regard to utmost peril or difficulty; cheering their men, and keeping them steady upon the throats of the French, so far as might be. And always, after that first stumble with the French Horse was mended, they kept gaining ground, thrusting back the Enemy, not over the Dettingen Brook and Moor-ground only, but, knock after knock, out of his woody or other coverts, back and ever back, towards Welzheim, Kahl, and those Two Bridges of his. The flamy French [ligneous fire burning lower and lower, VERSUS anthracitic glowing brighter and brighter] found that they had a bad time of it;--found, in fact, that they could not stand it; and tumbled finally, in great torrents, across their Bridges on the Mayn, many leaping into the River, the English sitting dreadfully on the skirts of them. So that had the English had their Cavalry in readiness to pursue, Noailles's Army, in the humor it had sunk to, was ruined, and the Victory would have been conspicuously great. But they had, as too common, nothing ready. Impetuous Stair strove to get ready; "pushed out the Grey Dragoons" for one item. But the Authorities refused Stair's counsel, as rash again; and made no effectual pursuit at all;--too glad that they had brushed their Battle-field triumphantly clear, and got out of that fatal pinfold in an honorable manner.

MAP: BOOK XIV, Chap V, page 257 GOES HERE--------------------------

"They stayed on the ground till 10 at night; settling, or trying to settle, many things. The Surgeons were busy as bees, but able for Officers only;--'Dress HIM first!' said the glorious Duke of c.u.mberland, pointing to a young Frenchman [Excellency Fenelon's Son, grand-nephew of TELEMAQUE] who was worse wounded than his Highness. Quite in the Philip-Sydney fas.h.i.+on; which was much taken notice of. 'All this while, we had next to nothing to eat' (says one informant).--Ten P.M.: after which, leaving a polite Letter to Noailles, 'That he would take care of our Wounded, and bury our Slain as well as his own,' we march [through a pour of rain] to Hanau, where our victuals are, and 12,000 new Hessians and Hanoverians by this time.

"Noailles politely bandaged the Wounded, buried the Dead. Noailles, gathering his scattered battalions, found that he had lost 2,659 men; no ruinous loss to him,--the Enemy's being at least equal, and all his Wounded fallen Prisoners of War. No ruinous loss to Noailles, had it not been the loss of Victory,--which was a sore blow to French feeling; and, adding itself to those Broglio disgraces, a new discouragement to Most Christian Majesty. Victory indisputably lost:--but is it not Grammont's blame altogether? Grammont bears it, as we saw; and it is heavily laid on him. But my own conjecture is, forty thousand enraged people, of English and other Platt-Teutsch type, would have been very difficult to pin up, into captivity or death instead of breakfast, in that manner: and it is possible if poor Grammont had not mistaken, some other would have done so, and the hungry Baresarks (their blood fairly up, as is evident) would have ended in getting through." [Espagnac, i. 193; _Guerre de Boheme,_ i. 231.]--_Gentleman's Magazine,_ vol. xiii. (for 1743), pp. 328-481;--containing Carteret's Despatch from the field; followed by many other Letters and indistinct Narrations from Officers present (p. 434, "Plan of the Battle," blotchy, indecipherable in parts, but essentially rather true),--is worth examining. See likewise Anonymous, _Memoirs of the late Duke of c.u.mberland_ (Lond. 1767; the Author an ignorant, much-adoring military-man, who has made some study, and is not so stupid as he looks), pp. 56-78; and Henderson (ignorant he too, much-adoring, and not military), _Life of the Duke of c.u.mberland_ (Lond. 1766), pp. 32-48. Noailles's Official Account (ingenuously at a loss what to say), in _ Campagnes,_ ii. B, 242-253, 306-310. _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 11-14 (incorrect in many of the DETAILS).

This was all the Fighting that King George got of his Pragmatic Army; the gain from conquest made by it was, That it victoriously struggled back to its bread-cupboard. Stair, about two months hence, in the mere loitering and higgling that there was, quitted the Pragmatic; magnanimously silent on his many wrongs and disgusts, desirous only of "returning to the plough," as he expressed himself. The lofty man; wanted several requisites for being a Marlborough; wanted a Sarah Jennings, as the preliminary of all!--We will not attend the lazy movements and procedures of the Pragmatic Army farther; which were of altogether futile character, even in the temporary Gazetteer estimate; and are to be valued at zero, and left charitably in oblivion by a pious posterity. Stair, the one brightish-looking man in it, being gone, there remain Majesty with his D'Ahrembergs, Neippergs, and the Martial Boy; Generals Cope, Hawley, Wade, and many of leaden character, remain:--let the leaden be wrapped in lead.

It was not a successful Army, this Pragmatic. Dettingen itself, in spite of the rumoring of Gazetteers and temporary persons, had no result,--except the extremely bad one, That it inflated to an alarming height the pride and belligerent humor of his Britannic, especially of her Hungarian Majesty; and made Peace more difficult than ever. That of getting Ostein, with his Austrian leanings, chosen Kur-Mainz,--that too turned out ill: and perhaps, in the course of the next few months, we shall judge that, had Ostein leant AGAINST Austria, it had been better for Austria and Ostein. Of the Pragmatic Army, silence henceforth, rather than speech!--

One thing we have to mark, his Britannic Majesty, commander of such an Army,--and of such a Purse, which is still more stupendous,--has risen, in the Gazetteer estimate and his own, to a high pitch of importance. To be Supreme Jove of Teutschland, in a manner; and acts, for the present Summer, in that sublime capacity. Two Diplomatic feats of his,--one a Treaty done and tumbled down again, the other a Treaty done and let stand ("Treaty of Worms," and "Conferences," or NON-Treaty "of Hanau"),--are of moment in this History and that of the then World.

Of these two Transactions, due both of them to such an Army and such a Purse, we shall have to take some notice by and by; the rest shall belong to Night and her leaden sceptre--much good may they do her!

Some ten days after Dettingen, Broglio (who was crackling off from Donauwurth, in view of the Lines of Sch.e.l.lenberg, that very 27th of June) ended his retreat to the Rhine Countries; "glorious," though rather swift, and eaten into by the Tolpatcheries of Prince Karl. "July 8th, at Wimpfen" (in the Neckar Region, some way South of Dettingen), Broglio delivers his troops to Marechal de Noailles's care; and, next morning, rushes off towards Strasburg, and quiet Official life, as Governor there.

"The day after his arrival," says Friedrich, "he gave a grand ball in Strasburg:" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 10.] "Behold your conquering hero safe again, my friends!" An ungrateful Court judged otherwise of the hero. Took his Strasburg Government from him, gave it to Marechal de Coigny; ordered the hero to his Estates in the Country, Normandy, if I remember;--where he soon died of apoplexy, poor man; and will trouble none of us again. "A man born for surprises," said Friedrich long since, in the Strasburg Doggerel. Lost his indispensable garnitures, at the Ford of Secchia once; and now, in these last twelve months, is considered to have done a series of bl.u.s.tery explosions, derogatory to the glory of France, and ruinous to that sublime Belleisle Enterprise for oue thing.

A ruined Enterprise that, at any rate; seldom was Enterprise better ruined. Here, under Broglio, amid the t.i.tterings of mankind, has the tail of the Oriflamme gone the same bad road as its head did;--into zero and outer darkness; leaving the expenses to pay. Like a mad tavern-brawl of one's own raising, the biggest that ever was. Has cost already, I should guess, some 80,000 French drilled Men, paid down, on the nail, to the inexorable Fates: and of coined Millions,--how many? In subsidies, in equipments, in waste, in loss and wreck: Dryasdust could not have told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable; the probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people by the nose, in your wanton humor, over your wine!--One willing man, or Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need always two or more to end it again.

Most Christian Majesty is not so sensible of this fact as he afterwards became; but what with Broglio and the extinct Oriflamme, what with Dettingen and the incipient Pragmatic, he is heartily disgusted and discouraged; and wishes he had not thought of cutting Germany in Four.

July 26th, Most Christian Majesty applies to the German Diet; signifying "That he did indeed undertake to help the Kaiser, according to treaties; but was the farthest in the world from meaning to invade Germany, on his own score. That he had and has no quarrel, except with Austria as Kaiser's enemy; and is ready to be friends even with Austria. And now indeed intends to withdraw his troops wholly from the German territory.

And can therefore hope that all unpleasantness will cease, between the German Nation and him; and that perhaps the Kaiser will be able to make peace with her Majesty of Hungary on softer terms than at one time seemed likely. If only the animosities of sovereign persons would a.s.suage themselves, and each of us would look without pa.s.sion at the issue really desirable for him!" [Espagnac, i. 200. Adelung, iii. B, 199 (26th July); Ib. 201 (the Answer to it, 16th August).]

That is now, 26th July, 1743, King Louis's story for himself to the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, Teutsch by Nation, sitting at Frankfurt in rather disconsolate circ.u.mstances. The Diet naturally answered, "JA WOHL, JA WOHL," in intricate official language,--n.o.body need know what the Diet answered. But what the Hungarian Majesty answered, strong and high in such Britannic backing,--this was of such unexpected tone, that it fixed everybody's attention; and will very specially require to be noted by us, in the course of a week or two.

We said, her Hungarian Majesty was getting crowned in Bohemia, getting personally homaged in Upper Austria, about to get vice-homaged in Bavaria itself,--nothing but glorious pomp, but loyalty loudly vocal, in Prag, in Linz and the once-afflicted Countries; at her return to Vienna, she has met the news of Dettingen; and is ready to strike the stars with her sublime head. "My little Paladin become Supreme Jove, too: aha!"

BRITANNIC MAJESTY HOLDS HIS CONFERENCES OF HANAU.

Britannic Majesty stayed two whole months in Hanau, brus.h.i.+ng himself up again after that fierce bout; and considering, with much dubitation, What is the next thing?"Go in upon Noailles [who is still hanging about here, with Broglio coming on in the exploded state]; wreck Broglio and him! Go in upon the French!" so urges Stair always: rash Stair, urgent to the edge of importunity; English Officers and Martial Boy urgently backing Stair; while the Hanoverian Officers and Martial Parent are steady to the other view. So that, in respect of War, the next thing, for two months coming, was absolutely nothing, and to the end of the Campaign was nothing worth a moment's notice from us. But on the Diplomatic side, there were two somethings, CONFERENCES AT HANAU with poor Kaiser Karl, and TREATY AT WORMS with the King of Sardinia; which--as minus quant.i.ties, or things less than nothing--turned out to be highly considerable for his Britannic Majesty and us.

HANAU, 7th July-1st AUGUST, 1743. "Poor Kaiser Karl had left Augsburg June 26th,--while his Broglio was ferrying at Donauworth, and his Seckendorf treatying for Armistice at Nieder-Schonfeld,--the very day before Dettingen. What a piece of news to him, that Dettingen, on his return to Frankfurt!

"A few days after Dettingen, July 3d, Noailles, who is still within call, came across to see this poor stepson of Fortune; gives piteous account of him, if any one were now curious on that head: How he bitterly complains of Broglio, of the no-subsidies sent, and is driven nearly desperate;--not a penny in his pocket, beyond all. Upon which latter clause Noailles munificently advanced him a $6,000. 'Draught of 40,000 crowns, in my own name; which doubtless the King, in his compa.s.sion, will see good to sanction.' [_Campagnes de Noailles_ (Amsterdam, 1760: this is a Sequel, or rather VICE VERSA, to that which we have called DES TROIS MARECHAUX, being of the same Collection), i.

316-328.] His feelings on the loss of Dettingen may be pictured. But he had laid his account with such things;--prepared for the worst, since that Interview with Broglio and Conti; one plan now left, 'Peace, cost what it will!'

"The poor Kaiser had already, as we saw, got into hopes of bargaining with his Britannic Majesty; and now he instantly sets about it, while Hanau is victorious head-quarters. Britannic Majesty is not himself very forward; but Carteret, I rather judge, had taken up the notion; and on his Majesty's and Carteret's part, there is actually the wish and attempt to pacificate the Reich; to do something tolerable for the poor Kaiser, as well as satisfactory to the Hungarian Majesty,--satisfactory, or capable of being (by the Purse-holder) insisted on as such.

"And so the Landgraf of Hessen, excellent Wilhelm, King George's friend and gossip, is come over to that little Town of Hanau, which is his own, in the Schloss of which King George is lodged: and there, between Carteret and our Landgraf,--the King of Prussia's Amba.s.sador (Herr Klinggraf), and one or two selectly zealous Official persons, a.s.sisting or watching,--we have 'Conferences of Hanau' going on; in a zealous fas.h.i.+on; all parties eager for Peace to Kaiser and Reich, and in good hope of bringing it about. The wish, ardent to a degree, had been the Kaiser's first of all. The scheme, I guess, was chiefly of Carteret's devising; who, in his magnificent mind, regardless of expense, thinks it may be possible, and discerns well what a stroke it will be for the Cause of Liberty, and how glorious for a Britannic Majesty's Adviser in such circ.u.mstances. July 7th, the Conferences began; and, so frank and loyal were the parties, in a week's time matters were advanced almost to completion, the fundamental outlines of a bargain settled, and almost ready for signing.

"'Give me my Bavaria again!' the Kaiser had always said: 'I am Head of the Reich, and have nothing to live upon!' On one preliminary, Carteret had always been inexorable: 'Have done with your French auxiliaries; send every soul of them home; the German soil once cleared of them, much will be possible; till then nothing.' KAISER: 'Well, give me back my Bavaria; my Bavaria, and something suitable to live upon, as Head of the Reich: some decent Annual Pension, till Bavaria come into paying condition,--cannot you, who are so wealthy? And Bavaria might be made a Kingdom, if you wished to do the handsome thing. I will renounce my Austrian Pretensions, quit utterly my French Alliances; consent to have her Hungarian Majesty's august Consort made King of the Romans [which means Kaiser after me], and in fact be very safe to the House of Austria and the Cause of Liberty.' To all this the thrice-unfortunate gentleman, t.i.tular Emperor of the World, and unable now to pay his milk-scores, is eager to consent. To continue crossing the Abysses on bridges of French rainbow? Nothing but French subsidies to subsist on; and these how paid,--Noailles's private pocket knows how! 'I consent,' said the Kaiser; 'will forgive and forget, and bygones shall be bygones all round!' 'Fair on his Imperial Majesty's part,' admits Carteret; 'we will try to be persuasive at Vienna. Difficult, but we will try.' In a meek matters had come to this point; and the morrow, July 15th, was appointed for signing. Most important of Protocols, foundation-stone of Peace to Teutschland; King Friedrich and the impartial Powers approving, with Britannic George and drawn sword presiding.

"King Friedrich approves heartily; and hopes it will do. Landgraf Wilhelm is proud to have saved his Kaiser,--who so glad as the Landgraf and his Kaiser? Carteret, too, is very glad; exulting, as he well may, to have composed these world-deliriums, or concentrated them upon peccant France, he with his single head, and to have got a value out of that absurd Pragmatic Army, after all. A man of magnificent ideas; who hopes 'to bring Friedrich over to his mind;' to unite poor Teutschland against such Oriflamme Invasions and intolerable interferences, and to settle the account of France for a long while. He is the only English Minister who speaks German, knows German situations, interests, ways; or has the least real understanding of this huge German Imbroglio in which England is voluntarily weltering. And truly, had Carteret been King of England, which he was not,--nay, had King Friedrich ever got to understand, instead of misunderstand, what Carteret WAS,--here might have been a considerable affair!

"But it now, at the eleventh hour, came upon magnificent Carteret, now seemingly for the first time in its full force, That he Carteret was not the master; that there was a bewildered Parliament at home, a poor peddling Duke of Newcastle leader of the same, with his Lords of the Regency, who could fatally put a negative on all this, unless they were first gained over. On the morrow, July 15th, Carteret, instead of signing, as expected, has to--purpose a fortnight's delay till he consult in England! Absolutely would not and could not sign, till a Courier to England went and returned. To Landgraf Wilhelm's, to Klinggraf's and the Kaiser's very great surprise, disappointment and suspicion. But Carteret was inflexible: 'will only take a fortnight,'

said he; 'and I can hope all will yet be well!'

"The Courier came back punctually in a fortnight. His Message was presented at Hanau, August 1st,--and ran conclusively to the effect: 'No! We, Noodle of Newcastle, and my other Lords of Regency, do not consent; much less, will undertake to carry the thing through Parliament: By no manner of means!' So that Carteret's lately towering Affair had to collapse ignominiously, in that manner; poor Carteret protesting his sorrow, his unalterable individual wishes and future endeavors, not to speak of his Britannic Majesty's,--and politely pressing on the poor Kaiser a gift of 15,000 pounds (first weekly instalment of the 'Annual Pension' that HAD, in theory, been set apart for him); which the Kaiser, though indigent, declined. [Adelung, iii.

B, 206, 209-212; see c.o.xe, _Memoirs of Pelham_ (London, 1829), i. 75, 469.]'

"The disgust of Landgraf Wilhelm was infinite; who, honest man, saw in all this merely an artifice of Carteret's, To undo the Kaiser with his French Allies, to quirk him out of his poor help from the French, and have him at their mercy. 'Shame on it!' cried Landgraf Wilhelm aloud, and many others less aloud, Klinggraf and King Friedrich among them: 'What a Carteret!' The Landgraf turned away with indignation from perfidious England; and began forming quite opposite connections. 'You shall not even have my hired 6,000, you perfidious! Thing done with such dexterity of art, too!' thought the Landgraf,--and continued to think, till evidence turned up, after many months. [CARTERET PAPERS (in British Museum), Additional MSS. No. 22,529 (May, 1743-January, 1745); in No.

22,527 (January-September, 1742) are other Landgraf-Wilhelm pieces of Correspondence.] This was Friedrich's opinion too,--permanently, I believe;--and that of nearly all the world, till the thing and the Doer of the thing were contemptuously forgotten. A piece of Machiavelism on the part of Carteret and perfidious Albion,--equal in refined cunning to that of the s.h.i.+ps with foul bottom, which vanished from Cadiz two years ago, and were admired with a shudder by Continental mankind who could see into millstones!

"This is the second stroke of Machiavellian Art by those Islanders, in their truly vulpine method. Stroke of Art important for this History; and worth the attention of English readers,--being almost of pathetic nature, when one comes to understand it! Carteret, for this Hanau business, had clangor enough to undergo, poor man, from Germans and from English; which was wholly unjust. 'His trade,' say the English--(or used to say, till they forgot their considerable Carteret altogether)--'was that of rising in the world by feeding the mad German humors of little George; a miserable trade.' Yes, my friends;--but it was not quite Carteret's, if you will please to examine! And none say, Carteret did not do his trade, whatever it was, with a certain greatness,--at least till habits of drinking rather took him, Poor man: impatient, probably, of such fortune long continued! For he was thrown out, next Session of Parliament, by Noodle of Newcastle, on those strange terms; and never could get in again, and is now forgotten; and there succeeded him still more mournful phenomena,--said Noodle or the poor Pelhams, namely,--of whom, as of strange minus quant.i.ties set to manage our affairs, there is still some dreary remembrance in England. Well!"--

Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart this fine scheme, would have had his difficulties in making her Hungarian Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably grieved about Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one day, which is a hope she never quits, at any rate some ample (cannot be too ample) equivalent elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme, united Teutschland, with England for soul to it, would have fallen vigorously on the throat of France, and made France disgorge: Lorraine, Elsa.s.s, the Three Bishoprics,--not to think of Burgundy, and earlier plunders from the Reich,--here would have been "cut and come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!--But Diana, in the shape of his Grace of Newcastle, intervenes; and all this has become chimerical and worse.

It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come back, that King Louis made the above-mentioned mild, almost penitent, Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have Peace; and all be as we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of it; I am for home!" And, in effect, was already home; every Frenchman in arms being, by this time, on his own side of the Rhine, as we shall presently observe.

For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt, and Carteret's return-courier was due in five days, his Britannic Majesty at Hanau had a splendid visit,--tending not towards Peace with France, but quite the opposite way. Visit from Prince Karl, with Khevenhuller and other dignitaries; doing us that honor "till the evening of the 28th."

Quitting their Army,--which is now in these neighborhoods (Broglio well gone to air ahead of it; Noailles too, at the first sure sniff of it, having rushed double-quick across the Rhine),--these high Gentlemen have run over to us, for a couple of days, to "congratulate on Dettingen;"

or, better still, to consult, face to face, about ulterior movements.

"Follow Noailles; transfer the seat of war to France itself? These are my orders, your Majesty. Combined Invasion of Elsa.s.s: what a slash may be made into France [right handselling of your Carteret Scheme] this very year!" "Proper, in every case!" answers the Britannic Majesty; and engages to co-operate. Upon which Prince Karl--after the due reviewing, dinnering, ceremonial blaring, which was splendid to witness [Anonymous, _Duke of c.u.mberland,_ pp. 65, 86.]--hastens back to his Army (now lying about Baden Durlach, 70,000 strong); and ought to be swift, while the chance lasts.

HUNGARIAN MAJESTY ANSWERS, IN THE DIET, THAT FRENCH DECLARATION, "MAKE PEACE, GOOD PEOPLE; I WISH TO BE OUT OF IT!"--IN AN OMINOUS MANNER.

These are fine prospects, in the French quarter, of an equivalent for Schlesien;--very fine, unless Diana intervene! Diana or not, French prospects or not, her Hungarian Majesty fastens on Bavaria with uncommon tightness of fist, now that Bavaria is swept clear; well resolved to keep Bavaria for equivalent, till better come. Exacts, by her deputy, Homage from the Population there; strict Oath of Fealty to HER; poor Kaiser protesting his uttermost, to no purpose; Kaiser's poor Printer (at Regensburg, which is in Bavaria) getting "tried and hanged" for printing such Protest! "She draughts forcibly the Bavarian militias into her Italian Army;" is high and merciless on all hands;--in a word, throttles poor Bavaria, as if to the choking of it outright. So that the very Gazetteers in foreign places gave voice, though Bavaria itself, such a grasp on the throat of it, was voiceless. Seckendorf's poor Bargain for neutrality as a Bavarian Reich-Army, her Hungarian Majesty disdains to confirm; to confirm, or even to reject; treats Seckendorf and his Bavarian Army little otherwise than as a stray dog which she has not yet shot. And truly the old Feldmarschall lies at Wembdingen, in most disconsolate moulting condition; little or nothing to live upon;--the English, generous creatures, had at one time flung him something, fancying the Armistice might be useful; but now it must be the French that do it, if anybody! [Adelung, iii. B, 204 ("22d August"), 206, &c.]

Hanau Conferences having failed, these things do not fail. Kaiser Karl is become tragical to think of. A spectacle of pity to Landgraf Wilhelm, to King Friedrich, and serious on-lookers;--and perhaps not of pity only, but of "pity and fear" to some of them!--sullen Austria taking its sweet revenges, in this fas.h.i.+on. Readers who will look through these small c.h.i.n.ks, may guess what a world-welter this was; and how Friedrich, gazing into phase on phase of it, as into Oracles of Fate, which to him they were, had a History, in these months, that will now never be known.

August 16th came out her Hungarian Majesty's Response to that mild quasi-penitent Declaration of King Louis to the Reich; and much astonished King Louis and others, and the very Reich itself. "Out of it?" says her Hungarian Majesty (whom we with regret, for brevity's sake, translate from Official into vulgate): "His Most Christian Majesty wishes to be out of it:--Does not he, the (what shall I call him) Crowned Housebreaker taken in the fact? You shall get out of it, please Heaven, when you have made compensation for the damage done; and till then not, if it please Heaven!" And in this strain (lengthily Official, though indignant to a degree) enumerates the wanton unspeakable mischiefs and outrages which Austria, a kind of sacred ent.i.ty guaranteed by Law of Nature and Eleven Signatures of Potentates, has suffered from the Most Christian Majesty,--and will have compensation for, Heaven now pointing the way! [IN EXTENSO in Adelung, iii. B, 201 et seqq.]

A most portentous Doc.u.ment; full of sombre emphasis, in sonorous snuffling tone of voice; enunciating, with inflexible purpose, a number of unexpected things: very portentous to his Prussian Majesty among others. Forms a turning-point or crisis both in the French War, and in his Prussian Majesty's History; and ought to be particularly noted and dated by the careful reader. It is here that we first publicly hear tell of Compensation, the necessity Austria will have of Compensation,--Austria does not say expressly for Silesia, but she says and means for loss of territory, and for all other losses whatsoever: "Compensation for the past, and security for the future; that is my full intention," snuffles she, in that slow metallic tone of hers, irrevocable except by the G.o.ds.