History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XII Part 13

"Wednesday Evening, 15th March, 1741, We anchor in the Playa Grande, the waste surfy Shallow which washes Carthagena seaward: 124 sail of us, big and little. We find Don Blas in a very prepared posture. Don Blas has been doing his best, this twelvemonth past; plugging up that Boca-Chica (LITTLE MOUTH) Ingate, with batteries, booms, great s.h.i.+ps; and has castles not a few thereabouts and in the Interior Lake or Harbor; all which he has put in tolerable defence, so far as can be judged: not an inactive, if an insolent Don. We spend the next five days in considering and surveying these Performances of his: What is to be done with them; how, in the first place, we may force Boca-Chica; and get in upon his Interior Castles and him. After consideration, and plan fixed:

"Monday, 20th March, Sir Chaloner, with broadsides, sweeps away some small defences which lie to left of Boca-Chica [to our LEFT, to Boca-Chica's RIGHT, if anybody cares to be particular]. Whereupon the Troops land, some of them that same evening; and, within the next two days, are all ash.o.r.e, implements, Negroes and the rest; building batteries, felling wood; intent to capture Boca-Chica Castle, and demolish the War-s.h.i.+ps, Booms, and fry of Fascine and other Batteries; and thereby to get in upon Don Blas, and have a stroke at his Interior Castles and Carthagena itself. Till April 5th, here are sixteen days of furious intricate work; not ill done:--the physical labor itself, the building of batteries, with Boca-Chica firing on you over the woods, is scarcely do-able by Europeans in that season; and the Negroes who are able for it, 'fling down their burdens, and scamper, whenever a gun goes off.' Furious fighting, too, there was, by seamen and landsmen; not ill done, considering circ.u.mstances.

"On the sixteenth day, April 5th [King Friedrich hurrying from the Mountains that same day, towards Steinau, which took fire with him at night], Boca-Chica Castle and the intricate War-s.h.i.+ps, Booms, and Castles thereabouts (Don Blas running off when the push became intense), are at last got. So that now, through Boca-Chica, we enter the Interior Harbor or Harbors. 'Harbors' which are of wide extent, and deep enough: being in fact a Lake, or rather Pair of Lakes, with Castles (CASTILLO GRANDE, 'Castle Grand,' the chief of them), with War-s.h.i.+ps sunk or afloat, and miscellaneous obstructions: beyond all which, at the farther sh.o.r.e, some five miles off, Carthagena itself does at last lie potentially accessible; and we hope to get in upon Don Blas and it.

There ensue five days of intricate sea-work; not much of broadsiding, mainly tugging out of sunk War-s.h.i.+ps, and the like, to get alongside of Castle Grand, which is the chief obstruction.

"April 10, Castle Grand itself is got; n.o.body found in it when we storm.

Don Blas and the Spaniards seem much in terror; burning any s.h.i.+ps they still have, near Carthagena; as if there were no chance now left." This is the very day of Mollwitz Battle; near about the hour when Schwerin broke into field-music, and advanced with thunderous glitter against the evening sun! Carthagena Expedition is, at length, fairly in contact with its Problem,--the question rising, 'Do you understand it, then?'

"Up to this point, mistakes of management had been made good by obstinate energy of execution; clear victory had gone on so far, the Capture of Carthagena now seemingly at hand. One thing was unfortunate: 'the able Mr. Moor [meritorious Captain of Foot, who, by accident, had spent some study on his business], the one real Engineer we had,' got killed in that Boca-Chica struggle: an end to poor Moor! So that the Siege of Carthagena will have to go on WITHOUT Engineer science henceforth. May be important, that,--who knows? Another thing was still more palpably important: Sea-General Vernon had an undisguised contempt for Land-General Wentworth. 'A mere blockhead, whose Brother has a Borough,' thinks Vernon (himself an Opposition Member, of high-sniffing, angry, not too magnanimous turn);--and withdraws now to his s.h.i.+ps; intimating: 'Do your Problem, then; I have set you down beside it, which was my part of the affair!'--Let us give the attack of Fort Lazar, and end this sad business.

"Sunday, 16th April, Wentworth, once master of the Uppermost Lake or Harbor (what the Natives call the SURGIDERO, or Anchorage Proper), had disembarked, high up to the right, a good way south of Carthagena; meaning to attack there-from a certain Fort Lazar, which stands on a Hill between Carthagena and him: this Hill and Fort once his, he has Carthagena under his cannon; Carthagena in his pocket, as it were. 'Fort not to be had without batteries,' thinks Wentworth; though the sickly rainy season has set in. 'Batteries? Scaling-ladders, you mean!' answers Vernon, with undisguised contempt. For the two are, by this time, almost in open quarrel. Wentworth starts building batteries, in spite of the rain-deluges; then stops building;--decides to do it by scalade, after all. And, at two in the morning of this Sunday, April 16th, sets forth, in certain columns,--by roads ill-known, with arrangements that do NOT fit like clock-work,--to storm said Hill and Fort. The English are an obstinate people; and strenuous execution will sometimes amend defects of plan,--sometimes not.

"The obstinate English, nothing in them but sullen fire of valor, which has to burn UNluminous, did, after mistake on mistake, climb the rocks or heights of Lazar Hill, in spite of the world and Don Blas's cannonading; but found, when atop, That Fort Lazar, raining cannon-shot, was still divided from them by chasms; that the scaling-ladders had not come (never did come, owing to indiscipline somewhere),--and that, without wings as of eagles, they could not reach Fort Lazar at all!

For about four hours, they struggled with a desperate doggedness, to overcome the chasms, to wrench aside the Laws of Nature, and do something useful for themselves; patiently, though sulkily; regardless of the storm of shot which killed 600 of them, the while. At length, finding the Laws of Nature too strong for them, they descended gloomily: 'in gloomy silence' marched home to their tents again,--in a humor too deep for words.

"Yes; and we find they fell sick in mult.i.tudes, that night; and, 'in two days more, were reduced from 6,645 to 3,200 effective;' Vernon, from the sea, looking disdainfully on:--and it became evident that the big Project had gone to water; and that nothing would remain but to return straightway to Jamaica, in bankrupt condition. Which accordingly was set about. And ten days hence (April 26th)) the final party of them did get on board,--punctual to take 'three tents,' their last rag of Siege-furniture, along with them; 'lest Don Blas have trophies,' thinks poor Wentworth. And sailed away, with their sad Siege finished in such fas.h.i.+on. Strenuous Siege; which, had the War-Sciences been foolishness, and the Laws of Nature and the rigors of Arithmetic and Geometry been stretchable ent.i.ties, might have succeeded better!" [Smollett's Account, _Miscellaneous Works_ (Edinburgh, 1806), iv. 445-469, is that of a highly intelligent Eye-witness, credible and intelligible in every particular.]

"Evening of April 26th:"--I perceive it was in the very hours while Belleisle arrived in Friedrich's Camp at Mollwitz; eve of that Siege of Brieg, which we saw performing itself with punctual regard to said Laws and rigors, and issuing in so different a manner! Nothing that my Const.i.tutional Historian has said equals in pungent enormity the matter-of-fact Picture, left by Tobias Smollett, of the sick and wounded, in the interim which follow&d that attempt on Fort Lazar and the Laws of Nature:--

"As for the sick and wounded", says Tobias, "they were, next day, sent on board of the transports and vessels called hospital-s.h.i.+ps; where they languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They were dest.i.tute of surgeons, nurses, cooks and proper provision; they were pent up between decks in small vessels, where they had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves with their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence, was the prospect of those poor wretches who had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld the naked bodies of their fellow-soldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbor, affording prey to the carrion-crows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to the mortality that prevailed.

"This picture cannot fail to be shocking to the humane reader, especially when he is informed, that while those miserable objects cried in vain for a.s.sistance, and actually perished for want of proper attendance, every s.h.i.+p of war in the fleet could have spared a couple of surgeons for their relief; and many young gentlemen of that profession solicited their captains in pain for leave to go and administer help to the sick and wounded. The necessities of the poor people were well known; the remedy was easy and apparent; but the discord between the chiefs was inflamed to such a degree of diabolical rancor, that the one chose rather to see his men perish than ask help of the other, who disdained to offer his a.s.sistance unasked, though it might have saved the lives of his fellow-subjects." [Smollett, IBID. (Anderson's Edition), iv. 466.]

In such an amazing condition is the English Fighting Apparatus under Walpole, being important for England's self only; while the Talking Apparatus, important for Walpole, is in such excellent gearing, so well kept in repair and oil! By Wentworth's blame, who had no knowledge of war; by Vernon's, who sat famous on the Opposition side, yet wanted loyalty of mind; by one's blame and another's, WHOSE it is idle arguing, here is how your Fighting Apparatus performs in the hour when needed.

Unfortunate General, or General's c.o.c.ked-Hat (a brave heart too, they say, though of brain too vacant, too opaque); unfortunate Admiral (much blown away by vanity, in-nature and Parliamentary wind);--doubly unfortunate Nation, that employs such to lead its armaments! How the English Nation took it? The English Nation has had much of this kind to take, first and last; and apparently will yet have. "Gloomy silence,"

like that of the poor men going home to their tents, is our only dialect towards it.

This is a dreadful business, this of the wrecked Carthagena Expedition; such a force of war-munitions in every kind,--including the rare kind, human Courage and force of heart, only not human Captaincy, the rarest kind,--as could have swallowed South America at discretion, had there been Captains over it. Has gone blundering down into Orcus and the shark's belly, in that unutterable manner. Might have been didactic to England, more than it was; England's skin being very thick against lessons of that nature. Might have broken the heart of a little Sovereign Gentleman Curator of England, had he gone hypochondriacally into it; which he was far from doing, brisk little Gentleman; looking out else-whither, with those eyes A FLEUR DE TETE, and nothing of insoluble admitted into the brain that dwelt inside.

What became subsequently of the Spanish War, we in vain inquire of History-Books. The War did not die for many years to come, but neither did it publicly live; it disappears at this point: a River Niger, seen once flowing broad enough; but issuing--Does it issue nowhere, then?

Where does it issue? Except for my Const.i.tutional Historian, still unpublished, I should never have known where.--By the time these disastrous Carthagena tidings reached England, his Britannic Majesty was in Hanover; involved, he, and all his State doctors, English and Hanoverian, in awful contemplation on Pragmatic Sanction, Kaiserwahl, Celestial Balance, and the saving of Nature's Keystone, should this still prove possible to human effort and contrivance. In which Imminency of Doomsday itself, the small English-Spanish matter, which the Official people, and his Majesty as much as any, had bitterly disliked, was quite let go, and dropped out of view. Forgotten by Official people; left to the dumb English Nation, whose concern it was, to administer as IT could.

Anson--with his three s.h.i.+ps gone to two, gone ultimately to one--is henceforth what Spanish War there officially is. Anson could not meet those Vernon-Wentworth gentlemen "from the other side of the Isthmus of Darien," the gentlemen, with their Enterprise, being already bankrupt and away. Anson, with three inconsiderable s.h.i.+ps, which rotted gradually into one, could not himself settle the Spanish War: but he did, on his own score, a series of things, ending in beautiful finis of the Acapulco s.h.i.+p, which were of considerable detriment, and of highly considerable disgrace, to Spain;--and were, and are long likely to be, memorable among the Sea-heroisms of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in England; and Sea-kings, equal to any that were. Luckily, too, he had some chaplain or s.h.i.+p's-surgeon on board, who saw good to write account of that memorable VOYAGE of his; and did it, in brief, perspicuous terms, wise and credible: a real Poem in its kind, or Romance all Fact; one of the pleasantest little Books in the World's Library at this date. Anson sheds some tincture of heroic beauty over that otherwise altogether hideous puddle of mismanagement, plat.i.tude, disaster; and vindicates, in a pathetically potential way, the honor of his poor Nation a little.

Apart from Official Anson, the Spanish War fell mainly, we may say, into the hands of--of Mr. Jenkins himself, and such Friends of his, at Wapping, Bristol and the Seaports, as might be disposed to go privateering. In which course, after some crosses at first, and great complaints of losses to Spanish Privateers, Wapping and Bristol did at length eminently get the upper hand; and thus carried on this Spanish War (or Spanish-French, Spain and France having got into one boat), for long years coming; in an entirely inarticulate, but by no means quite ineffectual manner,--indeed, to the ultimate clearance of the Seas from both French and Spaniard, within the next twenty years. Readers shall take this little Excerpt, dated Three Years hence, and set it twinkling in the night of their imaginations:--

BRISTOL, MONDAY, 21st (10th) SEPTEMBER, 1744.... "Nothing is to be seen here but rejoicings for the number of French prizes brought into this port. Our Sailors are in high spirits, and full of money; and while on sh.o.r.e, spend their whole time in carousing, visiting their mistresses, going to plays, serenading, &c., dressed out with laced hats, tossels (SIC), swords with sword-knots, and every other way of spending their money." [Extract of a Letter from Bristol, in _Gentleman's Magazine,_ xiv. 504.]

Carthagena, Walpole, Viners: here are Sorrows for a Britannic Majesty;--and these are nothing like all. But poor readers should have some respite; brief breathing-time, were it only to use their pocket-handkerchiefs, and summon new courage!

Chapter XIII. -- SMALL-WAR: FIRST EMERGENCE OF ZIETHEN THE HUSSAR GENERAL INTO NOTICE.

After Brieg, Friedrich undertook nothing military, except strict vigilance of Neipperg, for a couple of months or more. Military, especially offensive operations, are not the methods just now. Rest on your oars; see how this seething Ocean of European Politics, and Peace or War, will settle itself into currents, into set winds; by which of them a man may steer, who happens to have a fixed port in view.

Neipperg, too, is glad to be quiescent; "my Infantry hopelessly inferior," he writes to head-quarters: "Could not one hire 10,000 Saxons, think you,"--or do several other chimerical things, for help?

Except with his Pandour people, working what mischief they can, Neipperg does nothing. But this Hungarian rabble is extensively industrious, scouring the country far and wide; and gives a great deal of trouble both to Friedrich and the peaceable inhabitants. So that there is plenty of Small War always going on:--not mentionable here, any pa.s.sage of it, except perhaps one, at a place called Rothschloss; which concerns a remarkable Prussian Hussar Major, their famed Ziethen, and is still remembered by the Prussian public.

We have heard of Captain, now Major Ziethen, how Friedrich Wilhelm sent him to the Rhine Campaign, six years ago, to learn the Hussar Art from the Austrians there. One Baronay (BARONIAY, or even BARANYAI, as others write him), an excellent hand, taught him the Art;--and how well he has learned, Baronay now sadly experiences. The affair of Rothschloss (in abridged form) befell as follows:--

"In these Small-War businesses, Baronay, Austrian Major-General of Hussars, had been exceedingly mischievous. .h.i.therto. It was but the other day, a Prussian regular party had to go out upon him, just in time; and to RE-wrench 'sixty cart-loads of meal,' wrenched by him from suffering individuals; with which he was making off to Neisse, when the Prussians [from their Camp of Mollwitz, where they still are] came in sight.

"And now again (May 16th) news is, That Baronay, and 1,400 Hussars with him, has another considerable set of meal-carts,--in the Village of Rothschloss, about twenty miles southward, Frankenstein way; and means to march with them Neisse-ward to-morrow. Two marches or so will bring him home; if Prussian diligence prevent not. 'Go instantly,' orders Friedrich,--appointing Winterfeld to do it: Winterfeld with 300 dragoons, with Ziethen and Hussars to the amount of 600; which is more than one to two of Austrians.

"Winterfeld and Ziethen march that same day; are in the neighborhood of Rothschloss by nightfall; and take their measures,--block the road to Neisse, and do other necessary things. And go in upon Baronay next morning, at the due rate, fiery men both of them; sweep poor Baronay away, MINUS the meal; who finds even his road blocked (bridge bursting into cannon-shot upon him, at one point), instead of bridge, a stream, or slow current of quagmire for him,--and is in imminent hazard.

Ziethen's behavior was superlative (details of it unintelligible off the ground); and Baronay fled totally in wreck;--his own horse shot, and at the moment no other to be had; swam the quagmire, or swashed through it, 'by help of a tree;' and had a near miss of capture. Recovering himself on the other side, Baronay, we can fancy, gave a grin of various expression, as he got into saddle again: 'The arrow so near killing was feathered from one's own wing, too!'--And indeed, a day or two after, he wrote Ziethen a handsome Letter to that effect." [_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 927; Orlich, i. 120. _The Life of General de Zieten_ (English Translation, very ill printed, Berlin, 1803), BY FRAU VON BLUMENTHAL (a vaguish eloquent Lady, but with access to information, being a connection of Z.'s), p. 84.]

Ziethen, for minor good feats, had been made Lieutenant-Colonel, the very day he marched; his Commission dates May 16th, 1741; and on the morrow he handsels it in this pretty manner. He is now forty-two; much held down hitherto; being a man of inarticulate turn, hot and abrupt in his ways,--liable always to multifarious obstruction, and unjust contradiction from his fellow-creatures. But Winterfeld's report on this occasion was emphatic; and Ziethen shoots rapidly up henceforth; Colonel within the year, General in 1744; and more and more esteemed by Friedrich during their subsequent long life together.

Though perhaps the two most opposite men in Nature, and standing so far apart, they fully recognized one another in their several spheres. For Ziethen too had good eyesight, though in abstruse sort:--rugged simple son of the moorlands; nourished, body and soul, on orthodox frugal oatmeal (so to speak), with a large sprinkling of fire and iron thrown in! A man born poor: son of some poor Squirelet in the Ruppin Country;--"used to walk five miles into Ruppin on Sat.u.r.day nights," in early life, "and have his hair done into club, which had to last him till the week following." [_Militair-Lexikon,_ iv. 310.] A big-headed, thick-lipped, decidedly ugly little man. And yet so beautiful in his ugliness: wise, resolute, true, with a dash of high uncomplaining sorrow in him;--not the "bleached n.i.g.g.e.r" at all, as Print-Collectors sometimes call him! No; but (on those oatmeal terms) the Socrates-Odysseus, the valiant pious Stoic, and much-enduring man. One of the best Hussar Captains ever built. By degrees King Friedrich and he grew to be,--with considerable tiffs now and then, and intervals of gloom and eclipse,--what we might call sworn friends. On which and on general grounds, Ziethen has become, like Friedrich himself, a kind of mythical person with the soldiery and common people; more of a demi-G.o.d than any other of Friedrich's Captains.

Friedrich is always eagerly in quest of men like Ziethen; specially so at this time. He has meditated much on the bad figure his Cavalry made at Mollwitz; and is already drilling them anew in multiplex ways, during those leisure days he now has,--with evident success on the next trial, this very Summer. And, as his wont is, will not rest satisfied there.

But strives incessantly, for a series of summers and years to come, till he bring them to perfection; or to the likeness of his own thought, which probably was not far from that. Till at length it can be said his success became world-famous; and he had such Seidlitzes and Ziethens as were not seen before or since.

[MAP FOR THE FIRST AND SECOND SILESIAN WAR HERE--missing]

END OF BOOK 12