BLUCHER AS A WRITER.
Darkness came, and the rain continued. The "dear little angels in
heaven," who, as Blucher said in the morning, wept for joy at the
prospect of a fight, were now perhaps shedding tears of grief at the
many thousands lying on the battle-field with gaping wounds, and
whose last sighs were borne away on the stormy wind of the night.
Blucher rode across the field toward his headquarters; no one was by
his side but his friend, General Gneisenau, and, at some distance
behind them, Christian Hennemann, holding a burning pipe in his
mouth. Absorbed in deep reflections, they were riding along the
dreadful road strewed with dead and wounded soldiers, and through
pools of blood. Even Blucher felt exhausted after the day's work;
his joy was suppressed by the incessant rain that had drenched his
clothes, and by the groans of the dying, which rent his ears and
filled his soul with compassion. But soon overcoming his sadness, he
turned toward Gneisenau. "Well," he said, "this battle we have
gained, and all the world will have to admit it; now let us think
what we may put into our bulletin to tell the people HOW we have
gained it. For ten years past Bonaparte has issued such high-
sounding accounts of his victories that I always felt in my anger as
though my heart were a bombshell ready to burst. Well, this time,
let us also draw up such a bulletin of victory, and show that we
have learned something. Let us proclaim that we have conquered, and
draw up the document as soon as we arrive at Brechtelshof."
"General, you will have to decide the name of the battle," said
Gneisenau. "How is it to be known in history?"
"Yes, that is true," said Blucher, thoughtfully, "it must have a
name. Well, propose one, Gneisenau!"
"We might call it the battle of Brechtelshof, because the
headquarters of our brave chieftain, our Father Blucher, are at that
place," said Gneisenau, in a mild tone.
"No, do not mix me up with the matter," said Blucher, hastily; "the
good God has vouchsafed us a victory, let us humbly thank Him for
it, and not grow overbearing.--Wait, I have it now! We shall call
it, in honor of General von Sacken, the battle of the Katzbach; for,
by Sacken's vigorous cannonade from Eichholz, on the Katzbach, and
with the assistance of his brave cavalry, that drove the enemy into
the river, we gained the victory, and the battle ought to have that
name. 'The battle of the Katzbach!'--Well, here are our quarters!"
"Now, general, you must rest," said Gneisenau, with the tenderness
of a son. "You must change your dress, take food, and repose on your
laurels, though there is but a straw mattress for you."
Blucher shook his head. "My clothes will dry quickest if I keep them
on my body," he said, "and I must do so, for we have still a great
many things to attend to; we must inform the king of our victory,
take care of our wounded, arrange for the pursuit of the enemy; and,
finally, write the bulletins of victory. We may take refreshment,
but I do not care for laurels with it--laurels are bitter. But let
us take a drink, and smoke a pipe.--Pipe-master!"
Fifteen minutes afterward, General Blucher entered with Gneisenau
the small chamber called his headquarters; all the other rooms were
filled with the wounded prior to the general's arrival at
Brechtelshof. Pains had been taken to render this chamber as cosy
and comfortable as possible, and, when Blucher entered, he was
gratified in seeing a straw mattress near the wall, and on the table
(beside a flickering tallow-candle placed in a bottle) a flask of
wine, with a few glasses, and near it a large inkstand and several
sheets of paper.
"Well," cried Blucher, cheerfully, "let us divide fraternally,
Gneisenau; I will take the wine, and you the ink. But, first, I will
give you a glass, and in return you will afterward let me have a
drop of ink." Sitting down on one of the wooden stools, he quickly
filled two glasses to the brim. "Gneisenau," he said, solemnly, "let
us drink this in honor of those who are lying on the battle-field,
and who hare died like brave men! May God bid them welcome, and be a
merciful Judge to them! Let us drink also in commemoration of Queen
Louisa and Scharnhorst, who both doubtless looked down upon us from
heaven to-day, and assisted us in achieving a victory. To them I am
indebted for all I am. But for the angelic face of the queen the
calamity of the accursed year 1807 would have driven me to despair
and death: and but for Scharnhorst I should never have been
appointed general-in-chief. Why, they all considered me a bombastic
old dotard of big words and small deeds; but Scharnhorst defended me
before the king and the emperor, and what I am now I am through him,
because he, the noblest of men, believed in me. And I will not give
the lie to his faith, I will still accomplish glorious things--to-
day's work is only a beginning."
"But what you have done to-day is something glorious, your
excellency," said Gneisenau. "That we have gained the battle, thanks
to your generalship and the enthusiasm of the troops, is not the
greatest advantage. A more important one is, that the Silesian army
has been able to prove what it is, and what a chieftain is at its
head. Now, all those will be silenced who constantly mistrusted and
suspected us; who tried to sow the seeds of discord between the
Silesian army and the headquarters of the allies; and who were
intent on preventing your excellency from entering upon an
independent and energetic course of action."
"It is true, they call me a mad hussar," said Blucher, shrugging his
shoulders; "and Bonaparte, as I read somewhere the other day, calls
me even a drunken hussar. Well, no matter! let them say what they
please. And, moreover, they are all, to some extent, justified in
making such assertions; for I cannot deny that the years of waiting,
during which I was obliged to swallow my grief, really made me a
little mad, and with sobriety I never intend to meet Bonaparte; but,
for all that, it is unnecessary for me to be drunk with wine. I am
still intoxicated with joy that we have at length been allowed to
attack the French, and God grant that I may never awaken from this
intoxication! Well, Gneisenau, now let us go to work!--you with the
ink, and I with the wine! Draw up the necessary instructions for the
pursuit of the enemy, and, in the mean time, I will consider what I
have to write."
Gneisenau took the pen, and wrote; Blucher the glass, and drank.
Half an hour passed in silence; Gneisenau then laid down his pen,
for he had finished the instructions; and Blucher pushed the glass
aside, for the bottle was empty.
"I beg leave now to read the instructions to your excellency," said
Gneisenau.
"No," said Blucher, "not now! I have myself gathered some thoughts,
and if I defer writing them down, they will fly away like young
swallows. Such ideas, that are to be written down, are not
accustomed to have their nest in my head, and for this reason I will
let them out immediately. I will write to the king and to the city
of Breslau, informing him that we have gained the battle, and the
city of Breslau that it ought to do something for my wounded. Give
me the pen; I shall not be long about it." With extraordinary
rapidity he wrote words of such a size that it would have been easy
even for a short-sighted person to read them at a distance; and,
although they were drawn across the paper very irregularly, the
general always took pains to have broad intervals between the lines,
that there might be no probability of leaving them illegible. A
sheet was soon filled; Blucher fixed his signature, and contemplated
the paper for a moment. Half an hour afterward two other sheets,
filled with strange and uncouth characters, lay before the old
general, and he cast the pen aside with a sigh. "It is abominable
work to write letters," he said; "I cannot comprehend why you,
Gneisenau, who are so good a soldier, at the same time know so well
how to wield the pen. It is not my forte, although I had a notion
once to be a savant, and really become a sort of writer. In those
calamitous days, subsequent to 1807, despair and ennui sought for
some relief to my mind, and made me write a book, and I believe a
good one."
"A book?" asked Gueisenau, in amazement. "And you had it printed,
your excellency?"
"Not I; I was no such fool as to do that. The critics and newspaper
editors, who talk about every thing, and know nothing, would have
pounced upon my book, and severely censured it. No, my dear
Gneisenau, one must not cast pearls before swine. I keep my book in
my desk, and show it only to those whom I particularly esteem. When
we return home from the campaign I will let you read it; I know it
will please you, and you will learn something. My work is called
'Observations on the Instruction and Tactics of Cavalry.' A splendid
title, is it not? Well, you may believe me, there is a great deal in
it, and many a one would be glad of having written it. [Footnote:
Blucher was proud of this work, the only one he ever wrote, and
always referred to it in terms of great satisfaction.--Vide
Varnhagen von Ense, "Life of Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt," p. 530.]
Let us say no more about it. Here are my two dispatches; there is
the letter to the king, and here is my letter to the city of
Breslau, and--you must do me a favor, Gneisenau. You must read what
I have written, and if I have made any blunders in orthography or
grammar, be so kind as to correct them."
"But, your excellency," said Gneisenau, "no one can express himself
so vigorously as you, and no one knows how to put the right word in
the right place as quickly as you do."
"Yes, as to the words, yon are right. But the grammar! there's the
rub. Men are so foolish as to refuse speaking as they please, but
render life even more burdensome by all sorts of grammatical rules.
I have never in my whole life paid any attention to them, but have
spoken my mind freely and fearlessly. But as people really do
consider him a blockhead who does not talk as they do, let us humor
them, and please correct my mistakes; but, pray, do so in such a
manner that it will not be found out." He handed Gneisenau the pen,
and pushed the two letters toward him. "Correct what I have
written," he said; "in the mean time I will read what you have
written."
"And pray be so kind as to correct it, too, your excellency," begged
Gneisenau, "for possibly I may have made mistakes weighing heavier
than mere infractions of grammatical rules, and I may not have
succeeded in rendering your instructions in words as concise and
distinct as you gave them to me."
"Well, we shall see," exclaimed Blucher, smiling, and taking up the
paper.
"Very good," he said, after reading it through, "every thing is done
just as I wished it, and if all our commanders act in accordance
with these instructions, we shall give the enemy no time for taking
a position anywhere, but completely disperse his forces without
being compelled to fight another battle."
"And when the city of Breslau reads this noble and affecting plea
for your wounded," said Gneisenau, "they will be nursed in the most
careful manner, and our able-bodied soldiers will receive wagon-
loads of food and refreshments. And when the king reads this
dispatch, announcing our victory in language so modest and
unassuming, his heart will feel satisfaction, and he will rejoice
equally over the victory and the general to whom he is indebted for
it."
"Have you corrected the grammatical blunders?"
"I have, your excellency; I have erased them so cautiously that no
one can see that any thing has been corrected."
"Well, then, be so kind as to dispatch a courier."
"But, your excellency," said Gneisenau, "shall the courier take only
these two dispatches? Have you forgotten that you promised Madame
von Blucher to write to her after every battle, whether victorious
or not, and that I solemnly pledged her my word to remind your
excellency of it?"
"Well, it is unnecessary to remind me," cried Blucher, taking up the
letter he had first written. "Here is my letter to Amelia. She is a
faithful wife, and I surely owed it to her to tell her first that
the Lord has been kind and gracious enough toward me to let me gain
the battle. But you need not correct it. My Amelia will not blame me
for my grammatical blunders, and to her I freely speak my mind."
"Did you inform your wife, too, that you drew your sword yourself,
and rushed into the thickest of the fray?"
"I shall take good care not to tell her any thing of the kind,"
exclaimed Blucher. "As far as that is concerned, I did not speak my
mind to her. It is true I had promised my dear wife to be what she
calls sensible, and only to command and play the distinguished
general who merely looks on while others do the fighting. But it
would not do--you must admit, Gneisenau, it would not do; I could
not stand still like a scarecrow, while my old adjutant, Katzeler,
was charging with the hussars; I had to go with them, if it cost my
life. You will do me the favor, however, not to betray it to
Amelia."
"Even though I should be silent, your excellency, your wife would
hear of it."
"You believe Hennemann will tell her?" asked Blucher, almost in
dismay. "Yes, it is true, she has ordered the pipe-master not to
lose sight of me in battle, and always to remain near me with the
pipe. Well, the fellow has kept his word; but he will now also
fulfil what he promised my wife, and tell her every thing. Yes, the
pipe-master will tell her that I was in the charge of the light
cavalry."
"Yes," exclaimed Gneisenau, smiling, "he will betray to your wife
and to history that Blucher fought and charged at the battle of the
Katzbach like a young man of twenty. But for the pipe-master history
might not know it at all."
"Gneisenau, you are decidedly too sharp," cried Blucher, stroking
his mustache. "Well, please forward the dispatches, and then let us
try to sleep a little. We must invigorate ourselves, for we shall
have plenty to do to-morrow. 'Forward, always forward!' until
Bonaparte is hurled from his throne; and hurled from it he will be!
Yes, as sure as there is a God in heaven!"