CHAPTER XI.

RISE OF THE NATION.

(1807-1815.)

The greatest blessing which Reformers leave behind them to succeeding

generations seldom lies in that which they themselves consider as the

fruit of their earthly life, nor in the dogmas for which they have

contended, suffered and conquered, and been blessed and cursed by their

contemporaries. It is not their system which has the lasting effect,

but the numerous sources of new life, which through their labour is

brought to light from the depths of the popular mind. The new system

which Luther opposed to the old church, lost a portion of its

constructive power a few years after he had laid his head to rest. But

that which, during his great conflict with the hierarchy, he had done

to rouse independence of mind in his people, to increase the feeling of

duty, to raise the morals and to found discipline and culture, the

impress of his soul in every domain of ideal life, remained in the

severe struggles of the following century, an indestructible gain from

which at last grew a fulness of new life. The system also of Frederic

the Great, not many years after his death, was discarded by a foreign

conqueror as an imperfect invention; but again the best result of his

life remained an enduring acquisition for Prussia and Germany. He had

called forth in thousands of his officials and soldiers zeal and

faithfulness to duty, and in millions of his subjects devotion to his

family; he had, as a wise political husbandman, sown everywhere the

seed of intellectual and material prosperity. This was what remained to

his State, the excellent cultivated soil from which the new life was to

blossom. When his army was crushed, the country overrun by strangers,

and the pangs of bitter need compelled men to seek the means of

supporting life wherever they could find them, then in the midst of all

this desolation arose a new power in the nation, their capacity for

work. Even the rapidity and completeness with which the old system

broke down, melancholy as it was to behold, was, nevertheless,

fortunate; for though it did not cast aside suddenly all the upholders

of the old system, yet it averted the greater danger of their

resistance. It now became evident how great was the material to be

found in Prussia, not only among officials and officers, but in the

people itself. Unexampled was the fall, and equally unexampled was the

recovery.

The nation was stunned; it looked listlessly on the shipwreck of its

State; it had always received its impulse from the government. In the

chaotic confusion that now followed, there seemed no hope of rescue;

the weak cursed the bad government, the superficial viewed maliciously

the prostration of the unintellectual and privileged orders, and the

weakest followed the star of the conqueror. Men of warm feeling

secluded themselves like Steffens, who wrote a sorrowful ode on the

fall of the Fatherland; but cooler heads investigated sullenly the

defects of the old system, and with bitterness condemned alike the good

and bad.

The misery becomes greater, it is the intention of the Emperor to open

all the veins, and draw blood from that portion of Prussia to which he

has left a semblance of life. Exorbitant are the contributions. The

French army is distributed over the country--it occupies cantonments in

Silesia and the March; officers and soldiers are billeted upon the

citizens--they are to be fed and entertained. At the cost of the

district a table d'hote is to be established, and balls given. The

soldier is to be compensated for the hardships of war. We are the

conquerors, exclaim the officers arrogantly. There is no law against

their brutality, or the impudence with which they disturb the peace of

families in which they now rule as masters. If they are polite to the

ladies of the house, that does not make them more acceptable to the

men. Still worse is the conduct of the Generals and Marshals.

Prince Jerome has his head-quarters at Breslau, and there keeps a

dissolute court; the people still relate how licentiously he lived, and

daily bathed in a cask of wine. At Berlin, General-Intendant Daru

raises his demands higher every month. Even the humiliating conditions

of the peace are still too good for Prussia; the tyrant scornfully

alters the schedules. The fortresses are not restored, as was promised;

with refined cruelty the war charges are increased enormously. They

have drawn from the country, which still bears the name of Prussia,

more than 200 millions of thalers in six years.

On trade and commerce, also, the new system lays its destroying hand.

By the Continental system, imports and exports are almost abolished.

Manufactories are stationary, and the circulation of money stagnates;

the number of bankrupts becomes alarmingly great: even the necessaries

of daily life are exorbitantly high; the multitude of poor increases

frightfully; even in the great cities the troops of hungry souls that

traverse the streets can scarcely be controlled. The more wealthy also

restrict their wants to the smallest possible compass; they begin a

voluntary discipline in their own life, denying themselves small

enjoyments to which they are accustomed. Instead of coffee, they drink

roasted acorns, and eat black and rye bread; large societies bind

themselves to use no sugar, and the housewife no longer preserves

fruit. As Ludwig von Vincke, who then resided as a landed proprietor in

the new grand-dukedom of Berg, pertinaciously smoked coltsfoot instead

of tobacco, and made his wine of black currants, so did others renounce

the necessaries on which the foreign tyrant had imposed a monopoly.

But philosophy begins its great work, bringing blessing upon the State,

by purifying and elevating the minds of men. While the French drum was

beating in the streets of Berlin, and the spies of the stranger were

lurking about the houses, Fichte delivered his discourses on the German

nation: a new and powerful race was to be trained, the national

character to be improved, and lost freedom to be regained.

From the extreme east of the State, where now the greatest strength of

the Prussian bureaucracy is at the head of affairs, a new organisation

of the people began. Serfdom was abolished, landed property made free,

and self-government established in the cities. The exclusiveness of

classes was broken, privileges done away with, and a new constitution

for the army was prepared by Colonel Scharnhorst. Whatever power of

life there was in the people was now to have free play.

In the year 1808, Prussia was no longer fainthearted; it began to raise

its head hopefully, and looked about for aid. The first political

society formed itself; "_tugendbund_,"[46] education unions, scientific

societies, and officers' clubs, all had the same object--to free their

Fatherland, and to educate the people for an approaching struggle.

There was much trifling and immoderate zeal displayed, but they

included a large number of patriotic men. Messengers ran actively with

secret papers, but it was difficult for the unpractised associates to

deceive the spies of the enemy. Dark plans of revenge were proposed in

many of these unions; and desperate men hoped, by a great crime, to

save the Fatherland.

Hopes rise higher the following year: the war has begun in Spain;

Austria prepares itself for the most heroic struggle that it has ever

undertaken. In Prussia, also, the ground is hollow beneath the feet of

the stranger; all is prepared for an outbreak; and the Police

President, Justice Gruener, is one of the most active leaders of the

movement. But it is not possible to unite Prussia with Austria; the

first great rising of the people wastes itself in single hopeless

attempts. Schill, Doernberg, the Duke of Brunswick, and the rising in

Silesia fail. The battle of Wagram destroys the last hope of Austria's

help.

The courage of many sinks, but not of the best. Unweariedly do the

friends of the Fatherland exercise themselves in the use of fire-arms;

the Prussian army, also, which does not amount to more than 42,000 men,

is secretly increased to more than double that number; and in all the

military workshops the soldiers sit as artisans working at the

equipments for a future war.

A second time do the hopes of the people rise; Napoleon prepares

himself for war against Russia. Again is the time come when a struggle

is possible; already does Hardenberg venture to tell the French

ambassador, St. Marsan, that Prussia will not allow itself to be

crushed, and will encounter a foreign attack with 100,000 soldiers. But

the King will not resolve upon a desperate resistance; he gives the

half of his standing army as aid to the French Emperor. Then 300

officers leave his service, and hasten to Russia, there to fight

against Napoleon. And again hope diminishes in Prussia, freedom seems

removed to an immeasurable distance.

Violent has the hatred against the foreign Emperor become in northern

Germany; above all, west of the Elbe, where his ceaseless wars have

sacrificed the youth of the country. The conscription is there

considered as the death lot. The price of a substitute has risen to two

thousand thalers. In all the streets, mourning attire is to be seen,

worn by parents for their lost sons. But most violent of all is the

hatred in Prussia, in every vocation of life, in every house it calls

to the struggle. Everything that is pure and good in Germany--language,

poetry, philosophy, and morals--work silently against Napoleon.

Everything that is bad, corrupt, and wicked, all duplicity and cruelty,

calumny, knavishness and brutal violence, is considered as Gallic and

Corsican. Like the fantastic Jahn, other eager spirits call the Emperor

no longer by his name: they speak of him as once they did of the devil,

as "he," or with a contemptuous expression as Bonaparte.

Thus had six years hardened the character in Prussia.

It was no longer a great State that in the spring of 1813 armed itself

for a struggle of life and death. What remained of Prussia only

comprehended 4,700,000. This small nation in the first campaign brought

into the field an army of 247,000 men, reckoning one out of nineteen of

the whole population. The significance of this is clear, when one

reckons that an equal effort on the part of Prussia as it is, with its

eighteen millions of inhabitants, would give the enormous amount of

950,000 soldiers for an army in the field.[47] And this calculation

conveys only the relative number of men, not the proportion of the then

and present wealth of the country.

It was a much impoverished nation that entered upon the war. Merchants,

manufacturers, and artisans, had for six years struggled fearlessly

against the hard times. The agriculturist had his barns emptied, and

his best horses taken from his stables; the debased coin that

circulated in the country disturbed the interior commerce even with the

nearest neighbours, the thalers which had been saved from a better time

had long been spent. In the mountain valleys the people were famishing;

on the line of march of the great armies even the commonest necessaries

of life were failing; teams and seed had been wanting to the countryman

as early as 1807; in 1812 there was the same distress.

It is true that there was bitter sorrow among the people over the

downfall of Prussia, and deep hatred against the Emperor of the French.

But it would be doing great injustice to the Prussians to consider

their rising as more especially occasioned by the fiery passion of

resentment. More than once, both in ancient and modern times, has a

city or small nation carried on its desperate death-struggle to the

last extremity; more than once we have been filled with astonishment at

the wild heroic courage and self-devotion which have led men to

voluntary death in the flames of their own houses, or under the fire of

the enemy. But this lofty power of resistance is not perhaps free from

a certain degree of fanaticism, which inflames the soul almost to

madness. Of this there is no trace in the Prussians. On the contrary,

there was a cheerful serenity throughout the whole nation which seems

very touching to us. It arose from faith in their own strength,

confidence in a good cause, and, above all, in an innocent youthful

freshness of feeling.

For the German, this period in the life of his nation has a special

significance. It was the first time that for many centuries political

enthusiasm had burst forth in bright flames among the people. For

centuries there had been in Germany nations of individuals, living

under the government of princes, for which they had no love or honour,

and in which they took no active share. Now, in the hour of greatest

danger, the people claimed its own inalienable right in the State. It

threw its whole strength voluntarily and joyfully into a death-struggle

to preserve its State from destruction.

This struggle has a still higher significance for Prussia and its royal

house. In the course of a hundred and fifty years the Hohenzollerns, by

uniting unconnected provinces as one State, had formed their subjects

into a nation. A great prince, and the costly victories, and brilliant

success of the house, had excited a feeling of love in the new nation

for their princes. Now the government of a Hohenzollern had been too

weak to preserve the inheritance of his father. Now did the people,

whom his ancestors had created, rise and give to the last effort that

its prince could make, a direction and a grandeur which forced the King

from his state of prostration almost against his will. The Prussian

people paid with its blood to the race of its princes the debt of

gratitude that it owed the Hohenzollerns for the greatness and

prosperity which they had procured for it. This faithful and dutiful

devotion arose from feeling that the life and true interests of the

royal house were one with the people.

But in the glow of popular feeling in 1813 there was something

peculiar, which already appears strange to us. When a great political

idea fills a people, we can now accurately define the stages through

which it must pass before it can be condensed into a firm resolve. The

press begins to teach and to excite; those of like minds assemble

together at public meetings, and the discourse of an enthusiastic

speaker exercises its influence. Gradually the number of those who are

interested increases; from the strife of different views, which contend

together in public, is developed a knowledge of what is necessary, an

insight into the ways and means, the will to meet such requirements,

and, lastly, self-sacrifice and devotion. Of this gradual growth of the

popular mind through public life there is scarcely a trace in 1813.

What worked upon the nation externally was of another kind. The feeling

was excited by a single great moment; but, in general, a tranquillity

rested on the nation which one may well call epic. The feeling of

millions burst forth simultaneously; not abounding in words, without

any imposing appearance, still quiet, but, like one of nature's forces,

irresistible There is a pleasure in observing its course in certain

great moments. It shall be here portrayed, not as it shines forth in

prominent characters, but as it appears in the life of minor

personages.

It was after New Year's Day, 1813. The parting year had left a severe

winter as a heritage to the new one, but, in a moderate-sized city in

Prussia, the people stood in crowds before the post-office. Happy was

he who could first carry home a newspaper. Short and cautious were the

accounts of the events of the day, for in Berlin there was a French

military governor, who watched every expression of the intimidated

press. Nevertheless, the news of the fate of the great army had long

penetrated into the most remote huts; first came vague reports of

danger and suffering, the account of a tremendous fire in Moscow and

flames up to the skies, which had risen, as from the earth, around the

Emperor; then of a flight through snow and desert plains, of hunger and

indescribable misery. Cautiously did the people speak of it, for the

French not only occupied the capital and fortresses of the country, but

had also in the provinces their agents, spies, and hated informers,

whom the citizens avoided. Within a few days it was known that the

Emperor himself had fled from his army; in an open sledge, disguised as

Duke of Vicenza, and, with only one follower, he had travelled day and

night through Prussia. On the 12th of December, about eight o'clock in

the evening, he arrived at Glogau, there he reposed for an hour, and

started again about ten o'clock, in spite of the terrible cold.

The following morning he entered the castle of Hanau, where the

posting-station then was. The resolute post-mistress, Kramtsch,

recognised him, and with violent gestures swore she would give him no

tea, but rather another drink. At the earnest representations of those

around her, she was softened so far as to pour some camomile tea into a

pot with a vehement oath; he, however, drank of it, and went on to

Dresden. Now he had come to Paris, and it was told in the newspapers

how happy Paris was, how tenderly his wife and son had greeted him, how

well he was, and that he had already, on the 27th of December, been to

hear the beautiful opera of "Jerusalem Delivered." It was said further

that the great army, in spite of the unfavourable time of year, would

return in fearful masses through Prussia, and that the Emperor was

making new preparations. But the trial of General Mallet was also

reported; and it was known how impudently the French newspapers lied.

It was seen, also, what remained of the great army. In the first days

of the year the snow fell in flakes; it lay like a shroud over the

country. A train of men moved slowly and noiselessly along the high

road to the first houses of the suburb. It was the returning French.

Only a year ago, they had set forth at sunrise, with the sound of

trumpets, and the rattle of drums, in warlike splendour, and with

revolting arrogance. Endless had been the procession of troops; day

after day, without ceasing, the masses had rolled through the streets

of the city; never had the people seen so prodigious an army, of all

nations of Europe, with every kind of uniform, and hundreds of

Generals. The gigantic power of the Emperor sank deep into all souls,

the military spectacle still filled the fancy with its splendour and

its terrors.

But there was also an undefined expectation of a fearful fate. For a

whole month did this endless passage of troops last; like locusts the

strangers consumed everything in the country, from Kolberg to Breslau.

There had been a failure of the harvest in 1811, scarcely had the

country-people been able to save the seed oats, and these were eaten in

1812 by the French war horses. They devoured the last blade of grass

and the last bundle of straw; the villagers had to pay sixteen thalers

for a shock of chopped straw, and two thalers for a hundredweight of

hay. And greedily as the animals, did the men consume; from the Marshal

down to the common French soldier, they were insatiable. King Jerome

had demanded for his maintenance at Glogau, a not very large town,

four hundred thalers daily. The Duke of Abrantes had for a month

seventy-five thalers daily; the officers obliged the wife of a poor

village pastor to cook their ham with red wine; they drank the richest

cream out of the pitchers, and poured essence of cinnamon over it; the

common soldiers, also, even to the drummer, blustered if they did not

have two courses at dinner. They ate like madmen. But even then the

people prognosticated that they would not so return. And they said so

themselves. When formerly they had marched to war with their Emperor

their horses had neighed whenever they were led from the stable, but

now they hung their heads sorrowfully; formerly the crows and ravens

flew the contrary way to the army of the Emperor, now these birds of

the battle-field accompanied the army to the east, expecting their

prey.[48]

But those who now returned came in a more pitiable condition than

anyone had dreamed of. It was a herd of poor wretches who had entered

upon their last journey--they were wandering corpses. A disorderly

multitude of all races and nations collected together; without a drum

or word of command, and silent as a funeral procession, they approached

the city. They were all without weapons or horses, none in perfect

uniform, their clothes, ragged and dirty, mended with patches from the

dress of peasants and their wives. They had hung over their heads and

shoulders whatever they could lay hands on, as a covering against the

deadly penetrating cold; old sacks, torn horse-clothes, carpets,

shawls, and the fresh skins of cats and dogs; Grenadiers were to be

seen in large sheepskins. Cuirassiers wearing women's dresses of

coloured baize, like Spanish mantles. Few had helmets or shakos; they

wore every kind of head-dress, coloured and white nightcaps like the

peasants, drawn low over their faces, a handkerchief or a bit of fur as

a protection to their ears, and handkerchiefs also over the lower part

of their face; and yet the ears and noses of most were frost-bitten or

fiery red, and their dark eyes were almost extinguished in their

cavities. Few had either shoe or boot; fortunate was he who could go

through that miserable march with felt socks or large fur shoes, and

the feet of many were enveloped in straw, rags, the covering of

knapsacks, or the felt of an old hat. All tottered, supported by

sticks, lame and limping. The Guards even were little different from

the rest; their mantles were scorched, only their bear-skin caps gave

them still a military aspect. Thus did officers and soldiers, one with

another, crawl along with bent heads, in a state of gloomy

stupefaction. All had become forms of horror from hunger, frost, and

indescribable misery.

Day after day they came along the high road, generally as soon as

twilight and the iron winter fog were spread over the houses.

Demoniacal was the effect of these noiseless apparitions of horrible

figures, terrible the sufferings they brought with them; the people

asserted that warmth could not be restored to their bodies, nor their

craving hunger allayed. If they were taken into a warm room, they

thrust themselves violently against the hot stove, as if they would get

into it, and in vain did the compassionate women endeavour to keep them

away from the dangerous heat. Greedily they devoured the dry bread, and

some would not leave off till they died. Till after the battle of

Leipzig, the people were under the belief that they had been smitten by

Heaven with eternal hunger. Even then it occurred that the prisoners,

when close to their hospital, roasted for themselves pieces of dead

horses, although they had already received the regular hospital

food; still, therefore, did the citizens maintain that it was a

hunger specially inflicted by God; once they had thrown beautiful

wheat-sheaves into their camp fire, and had scattered good bread on the

dirty floor, now they were condemned never to be satiated by any human

food.[49]

Everywhere in the cities, along the road of the army, hospitals were

prepared for the homeward bound, and immediately all the sick wards

were overflowing, and virulent fevers annihilated the last strength of

the unfortunates. Countless were the corpses carried out, and the

citizens had to be careful that the infection did not penetrate into

their houses. Any of the foreigners that could, after the necessary

rest, crept home weary and hopeless. But the boys in the streets sang,

"Knights without swords, knights without horses, fugitives without

shoes, find nowhere rest and repose. God has struck man, horse, and

carriage," and behind the fugitives they yelled the mocking call, "The

Cossacks are coming." Then there was a movement of horror in the flying

mass, and they quickly tottered on through the gates.

These were the impressions of 1813. Meanwhile the newspapers announced

that General York had concluded the convention of Tauroggin with the

Russian Wittgenstein, and the Prussians read with dismay that the King

had rejected the stipulations, and dismissed the General from his

command. But immediately after it was said that he could not be in

earnest, for the King had left Berlin, where his precious head was no

longer safe among the French, and gone to Breslau. Now there were some

hopes.

In the Berlin paper of 4th March, among the foreign arrivals were still

French Generals; but the same day Herr von Tschernischef, commander of

a corps of cavalry, entered the capital in peaceful array.

It had been known for three months that the Russian winter, and the

army of the Emperor Alexander, had destroyed the great army. Already

had Gropius, at Christmas, introduced a diorama of the burning of

Moscow. For some weeks many of the new books had treated of Russia,

giving descriptions of the people; Russian manuals and Russian national

music were in vogue. Whatever came from the east was glorified by the

excited minds of the people. Nothing more so than the vanguard of the

foreign army, the Cossacks. Next the frost and hunger, they were

considered the conquerors of the French. Wonderful stories of their

deeds preceded them, they were said to be half wild men, of great

simplicity of manners, of remarkable heartiness, indescribable

dexterity, astuteness, and valour. It was reported how active their

horses were, how irresistible their attacks, that they could swim

through great rivers, climb the steepest hills, and bear the most

horrible cold with good courage.

On the 17th February, they appeared in the neighbourhood of Berlin;

after that, they were expected daily in the cities which lay further to

the west; daily did the boys go out of the gates to spy out whether a

troop of them could be descried coming. When, at last, their arrival

was announced, young and old streamed through the streets. They were

welcomed with joyful acclamations, eagerly did citizens carry to them

whatever would rejoice the hearts of the strangers; it was thought that

brandy, sauerkraut, and herrings would suit their national taste.

Everything about them was admired; their strong, thick beards, long

dark hair, thick sheepskins, wide blue trowsers, and their weapons,

pikes, long Turkish pistols, often of costly work, which they wore in

broad leather girdles round their bodies, and the crooked Turkish

sabre. With transport were they watched when they supported themselves

on their lances and vaulted nimbly over thick cushion saddles, which

served at the same time as sacks for their mantles; or couched their

lances, urging on their lean horses with loud hurrahs; and, again, when

they fastened their lances by a thong to the arm and trotted along,

swinging that foreign instrument, the kantschu, to the astonishment of

the youths--everyone stepped aside and looked at them with respect. All

were enchanted also with their style of riding. They bent themselves

down to the ground at full gallop, and lifted up the smallest objects.

At the quickest pace they whirled their pikes round their heads, and

hit with certainty any object at which they aimed. Astonishment soon

changed to a feeling of intimacy; they quickly won the heart of the

people. They were particularly friendly to the young, raised the

children on their horses, and rode with them round the market-place;

they sang in families in what was supposed to be the Cossack's style.

Every boy became either a Cossack, or a Cossack's horse. Some of the

customs, indeed, of these heroic friends were rather unpleasant, they

were ill-mannered enough to pilfer, and at their night quarters it was

plainly perceptible that they were not clean. Nevertheless, there long

remained a fantastic glitter about them among both friends and foes,

even when in the struggles that were now carried on among civilised

men, they showed themselves to be plunderers, not trustworthy, and

little serviceable. When later they returned home from the war, it was

remarked that they had much degenerated.

The newspapers were only delivered three times in the week, and the

roads from the spring thaw then were very bad; thus the news came

slowly at intervals through the provinces, where it was not stopped by

the march of troops and the confusion of the struggle between the

advancing Russians and retreating French. But every sheet, every report

that conveyed new information, was received with eager sympathy. It was

talked of in families, and in all the society of the cities, but the

excitement was seldom expressed with any vehemence. There was a

pathetic feeling in all hearts, but it no longer showed itself in words

and gestures. For a century the Germans had found pleasure in their

tears, had given vent to much feeling about nothing; now that great

objects engrossed their life they were calm, there was no speechifying,

with bated breath they restrained the disquiet of their hearts. If

important news came, the master of the house announced it to his

family, and quietly wiped away the tears that were in his eyes. This

tranquillity and self-control was the peculiarity of that time.

Small flying sheets were read with delight, especially what the

faithful Arndt addressed to his countrymen. New songs spread through

the country, in small parts, according to the custom of the

ballad-singers, "printed this year;" generally bad and coarse, full of

hate and scorn, they were forerunners of the beautiful poetic effusions

of youthful vigor which were sung some months later by the Prussian

battalions when they went to battle. The best of these songs were sung

in families to the harpsichord, or the husband played the melody on the

flute--which was then a favourite domestic instrument--and the mother

sang the words with her children; for weeks this was the great evening

amusement. These verses had more effect on the smaller circles of the

people than on the more cultivated, they soon supplanted the old street

songs. Sometimes the citizens bought the frightful caricatures of

Napoleon and his army which then were sold through the country as

flying-sheets, but often betrayed, by their Parisian dialect, that they

were composed by the French. The coarseness and malicious vulgarity

which now offend us, were easily overlooked, because they served to

express hatred; it was only in the larger cities that they occupied the

people in the streets, in the country they exercised little influence.

Such was the disposition of the people when they received the

proclamations of their King, which between the 3rd of February and the

17th of March, calling out first volunteer riflemen, and then the

Landwehr, put the whole defensive force of Prussia under arms. Like a

spring storm that breaks the ice, they penetrated the souls of the

people. The flood rose high, all hearts beat with emotion of pleasure

and proud hope; and again at this moment of highest elevation, we find

the same simplicity and quiet composure. There were not many words, but

quick decision. The volunteers collected quietly in the towns of their

provinces, and marched, singing energetically, to the chief cities,

Koenigsberg, Breslau, and Colberg, and then to Berlin. The clergy

announced in their churches the proclamation of the King, but it was

hardly necessary. The people knew already what they were to do. When a

young theologian, taking his father's place, admonished his

parishioners from the pulpit to do their duty, and added that these

were not empty words, for, as soon as the service was over, he himself

would volunteer as a Hussar, a number of young men stood up in the

church and declared they would do the same. When a betrothed hesitated

to separate himself from his intended, and at last made known his

resolve to go, she told him she had secretly lamented that he had not

been one of the first to depart. Sons hastened to the army, and wrote

to their parents to tell them of their hasty decision, and the parents

approved; it was not surprising to them that their sons had done

spontaneously what was only their duty. When a youth had made his way

to one of the places of meeting, he found his brother already there,

who had come from the other side of the country; they had not even

written to one another.

The academies for lectures were closed at Koenigsberg, Berlin, and

Breslau. The University of Halle, also, still under Westphahan rule,

was closed; the students had gone, either singly or in small bands, to

Breslau. The Prussian newspapers mentioned laconically in two lines,

"Almost all the students from Halle, Jena, and Goettingen, are come to

Breslau, they wish to share in the fame of fighting for German

freedom."

At the gymnasium the taller and older ones were not considered always

the best scholars, and the teachers of the Greek grammar had looked

upon them with contempt; now they were the pride and envy of the

school, the teachers gave them a hearty shake of the hand, and the

younger ones looked on them with admiration as they departed. But it

was not only those in the first bloom of youth who were excited to

enter into the struggle, but also the officials, those indispensable

servants of the State, judges and councillors, men from every circle of

the civil service, from the city courts and the departments of

government. A royal decree on the 2nd March set limits to this zeal,

and it was necessary, for the order and administration of the State

were threatened. The civil service could not be neglected; any one who

wished to be a soldier was to obtain the permission of his superiors,

and he who could not bear the refusal of his request must appeal to the

King. The stronger minded in all circles were at the head of the

movement, but the weaker followed at last the overpowering impulse.

There were few families who did not offer their sons to the fatherland;

many great names stand on the regimental lists; above all, the nobles

of east Prussia. The same Alexander Count von Dohna-Schlobitten who had

been minister of the interior in 1802, was the first man who inscribed

himself in the Landwehr battalion of the Mohrungen district. Wilhelm

Ludwig Count von der Groeben, chamberlain of Prince William, entered

into Prince William's dragoons as a subaltern officer, three of his

family fell on the field of battle in this war. Such examples

influenced the country people. Multitudes of them gave to the State all

that they possessed--their sound limbs.

Whilst the Prussians on the Vistula in this emergency carried on their

preparations independently with rapidly developed order and the

greatest devotion, Breslau, from the middle of February, had been the

rendezvous for the interior districts. Crowds of volunteers entered all

the gates of the old city. Among the first were thirteen miners, with

three apprentices from Waldenburg; these men had been fitted out by

their fellow labourers, poor men, who had worked gratuitously

underground until they had collected 221 thalers for this purpose.

Immediately afterwards the Upper Silesian miners followed with similar

zeal. The King could scarcely believe in such self-sacrificing devotion

in the people; when he looked from the windows of the government

buildings on the first long train of vehicles and men, who came past

him from the march and filled the Albrech-strasse, heard their

acclamations, and perceived the general satisfaction, tears rolled over

his cheeks, and Scharnhorst asked him whether he at last believed in

the zeal of his people.

Every day the throng increased. Fathers presented their sons armed;

among the first the Geheime Kriegsrath Eichmann equipped two sons, and

the former Secretary of Hangwitz, Buerder, three. The provincial Syndic

Elsner at Ratisbon offered himself, and armed three volunteer riflemen;

Geheime Commerzienrath Krause at Swinemund, sent a mounted rifleman,

entirely armed, with forty ducats, and an offer to arm, and pay for a

year, twenty foot riflemen, and to furnish ten pigs of lead. Justizrath

Eckart, at Berlin, gave up his salary of 1450 thalers, and entered the

service as a trooper. One Rothkirch offered himself and two men fully

equipped as troopers, besides five horses, 300 scheffels of corn, and

all the cart-horses on his farm for the baggage-waggons. Amongst the

most zealous was Heinrich von Krosigk, the eldest of an old family of

Poplitz, near Alsleben. His property lay in the kingdom of Westphalia.

In 1807, he had a pillar erected in his park of red sandstone, with

these words engraven on it, "_Fuimus Troes_," and treated the French

and the government of Westphalia with bitter contempt. When officers

were quartered on him, he always gave the worst wine, drinking the best

with his friends as soon as the strangers were gone, and if a Frenchman

complained, he was rude and ready to fight; he had always loaded

pistols on his table. At last he compelled his peasants to arrest the

gendarmes of his own King. Now he had just broken out of the fortress

of Magdeburg, where the French had placed him, and had abandoned his

property to the enemy. The heroic man fell at Moeckern.

Thus it went on, and all the cities and districts soon followed the

example. Scheivelbein, the smallest and poorest district in Prussia,

was the first to notify that it would furnish, equip, and pay, thirty

horsemen for three months. Stolpe was one of the first cities that

announced that it would pay 1000 thalers down, and a hundred for each

month for the equipment of volunteer riflemen. Stargard had collected

for the same object, on the 20th of March, 6169 thalers, 585 ounces of

silver; one landed proprietor, K., had given 308 ounces. Ever greater

and more numerous became the offers, till the organisation of the

Landwehr gave the districts full opportunity to give effect to their

devotion in their own circles.

Individuals did not lag behind. He who did not go to the field himself,

or equip half his family, endeavoured to help his Fatherland by gifts.

It is a pleasant labour to examine the long lists of benefactions.

Officials resigned a portion of their salaries, people of moderate

wealth gave up a portion of their means, the rich sent their plate,

those who were poorer brought their silver spoons; he who had no money

to give offered his effects or his labour. It became common for wives

to send their gold wedding rings, often the only gold that was in the

house; they received afterwards iron ones with the picture of Queen

Louisa; country-people presented horses, landed proprietors corn, and

children emptied out their saving boxes. There came 100 pair of

stockings, 400 ells of shirt linen, pieces of cloth, many pairs of new

boots, guns, hunting knives, sabres and pistols. A forester could not

make up his mind to give away his dear rifle, as he had promised, among

some boon companions, and preferred going himself to the field. Young

women sent their bridal attire, and, besides, the neck-ribbons they had

received from their lovers. A poor maiden, whose beautiful hair had

been praised, cut it off to be bought by the _friseur_, and patriotic

speculation caused rings to be made of it, for which more than a

hundred thalers were received. Whatever the poor could raise was sent,

and the greatest self-sacrifice was amongst the lowest.[50]

Often has the German since then been animated by patriotic aims; but

the gifts of that great year deserve a higher praise; for, excepting

the great collection of the old Pietists for their philanthropic

institution, it is the first time that such a spirit of self-sacrifice

has burst forth in the German people, and more especially the first

time that the German has had the happiness of giving voluntarily for

his State.

The sums also which were produced were, as a whole, so far beyond what

has since been collected from wider districts that they can scarcely be

compared. The equipment of the volunteer riflemen alone, and what was

collected in the old provinces for the volunteer corps, must have cost

far more than a million, and it comprehends only a small fragment of

the voluntary donations made by the people.[51] And how impoverished

were the lower orders!

Near together on the Schmiedebruecke, at Breslau, were the two

recruiting places for the volunteer rifles and the Luetzow irregulars.

Professor Steffens and a portion of the Breslau students were the first

to set on foot the rifles, Ludwig Jahn spoke, gesticulated, and wrote

concerning the Luetzowers. Both troops were equipped entirely by the

patriotic gifts of individuals. The contributions for the volunteer

rifles were collected by Heun. Betwixt the Luetzowers and riflemen there

was a friendly and manly emulation; the contrast of their dispositions

displayed itself; but whether more German or more Prussian, it was the

same ray of light, only differently refracted. The old contrast of

character in the citizens, which had been perceptible for a century,

showed itself, firm, cautious, and vigorous; and enthusiastic feeling

with loftier aspirations. The first disposition was mostly the

characteristic of the Prussians, the last of the patriotic youths who

hastened thither from foreign parts. Very different was the fate of the

two volunteer bodies. From the 10,000 rifles who were distributed in

every Prussian regiment, arose the vigour of the Prussian army; they

were the moral element in it, the aid, strength, and supply of the body

of officers; and they not only contributed a stormy valour to the

Prussia army, but gave an elevation to the character of the nobles

which was new in the history of the war. The irregulars under Luetzow,

on the other hand, experienced the rude fate that overtakes the

inspirations of the highest enthusiasm. The poetic feeling of the

educated class attached itself chiefly to them; they included a great

part of the German students, of vehement and excitable natures; but

owing to this they became such a large and unwieldy mass that they were

scarcely adapted to the work of regular warfare, and their leader, a

brave soldier, had neither the qualities nor the fortune of a daring

partisan. Their warlike deeds did not come up to the high-raised

expectations that accompanied their first taking arms. Later, the best

portion of them were absorbed in other corps of the army. But among

their officers was the poet who was destined, beyond all others, to

hand down in verse to the rising generation the magical excitement of

those days. Of the many touching, youthful characters that figured in

that struggle, he was one of the purest and most genial in his poetry,

life and death: it was Theodore Koerner.

But even in the great city where the volunteers were preparing their

equipments there was no noisy din of excited masses. Quickly and

earnestly every one did his duty. Those who had no money were supported

by comrades who had been strangers to them, and met them accidentally.

The only wish of the new comer was to find his equipments. If he had

two coats, as a Luetzower he had one quickly arranged and coloured

black; his greatest anxiety was as to whether his cartridge box would

be ready. If he was deficient in everything, and the bureau would not

supply him with what was necessary, he ventured, but this was rare, to

beg through the newspapers. Otherwise, money was of as little

importance to him as to his comrades. He made shift as he best could,

what did it signify now? As to high-sounding phrases and patriotic

speeches he had no time nor ear for them. All hectoring and braggadocio

was despised. Such was the disposition of the young men. It was a great

enthusiasm, a deep devotion without the inclination to a loud

expression of it. The consequential ways and bombast of the zealous

Jahn disgusted many, and this bad habit soon gave him the reputation of

a coward.

In many there was a disposition to enthusiastic piety, but not in the

greater part. All the better sort, however, had strongly the feeling

that they were undertaking a duty which was superior to every other

earthly object: from this arose their cheerfulness and a certain solemn

composure. With this feeling they industriously, honourably, and

conscientiously performed their duty, exercising themselves unweariedly

in the movement and use of their weapons in their rooms. They sung

among their comrades with energetic feeling some of the new war songs,

but these only kindled them because they were earnest and solemn like

themselves. They did not like to be called soldiers, that word was in

ill-repute from the time when the stick had ruled. They were warriors.

That they must obey, do their duty to their utmost, and perform all the

difficult mechanism of the service, they were thoroughly convinced; and

also that they must be a pattern and example for the less educated, who

were by their side. They were determined to be not only strict

themselves, but careful of the honour of their comrades. In this holy

war there was to be none of the insolence and coarseness of the old

soldiers, to disgrace the cause for which they fought. With their

"brethren" they held a court of honour and punished the unworthy. But

they would not remain in the army; when the Fatherland was free, and

the French put down, they would return to their lectures and legal

documents in their studies. For this wax was not like another; now they

stood as common soldiers in rank and file, but if they lived they would

another year be again what they had been.

Beside one of such volunteers was perhaps an old officer from the time

of the rule of the nobles and the stick. He had done his duty in

unlucky wars, had perhaps been a prisoner, plundered of all he had and

dragged through the streets of Berlin, the people following him with

jeering and curses, and shaking their fists at him; then after the

peace a court-martial had been held upon him, he was liberated but

discharged with a miserable pittance. Since that he had starved, and

secretly gnashed his teeth when the foreign conqueror looked down on

him as insolently as he had once done on the civilian. If he had no

wife or child to maintain, he had lived for years with his companions

in sorrow in a poor dwelling, with disorderly housekeeping, and some of

the failings of his old officer class still clung to him; this time of

deprivation had not made him softer or milder, the ruling feeling of

his soul was hate, deep furious hatred against the foreign conqueror.

He had long nourished an uncertain hope, perhaps a vain plan of

revenge, now the time was come for retaliation. Even he had been

altered by this time of servitude. He had discovered how unsatisfactory

his knowledge was, and he had in moments of earnestness done something

towards educating himself; he had learnt and read, he also had been

inspired by the noble pathos of Schiller. Still he looked with mistrust

and disfavour on the new-fashioned warrior who perhaps stood before him

in the ranks. His old grudge against scribblers was still very active,

and want of discipline, together with high pretensions, wounded him.

The same antagonism showed itself in the higher as well as lower grades

in the ranks. It is a remarkable circumstance in this war that he was

so well restrained; the volunteers soon learnt military obedience, and

to value the knowledge of service of those above them; and the officer

lost somewhat of the rough and arbitrary way with which he used to

treat his men. At last he listened complacently when a wounded rifleman

contended with the surgeon whether the _flexor_ of the middle finger

should be cut through, or when one of his men by the bivouac fire

discussed with animation--in remembrance of his legal lectures--whether

the ambiguous relation in which a Cossack had placed himself with

respect to a certain goose was to be considered _culpa lata_ or

_dolus_. On the whole, this intermixture answered excellently.

But far more important than the action of the volunteers, was the

advantage to the government of Prussia, of learning for the first time,

what was its duty to such a people. The grand dimensions which the

struggle assumed, the imposing military power of Prussia, and the

weight which this State, by the importance of its armies, acquired in

the negotiations for peace, were mainly occasioned by the exalted

feeling which took the world by surprise in the spring months of that

year. Through it the government gained courage, and was able to expand

the power of the country to the immense extent it did. East Prussia,

besides its contingent to the standing army, by its own strength, and

almost without asking the government, raised twenty battalions of

Landwehr and a mounted yeomanry regiment, and nothing but this enormous

development of power could have made the establishment of the Landwehr

possible throughout the whole realm.

At the command of its King the nation willingly and obediently and in a

regular way produced this second army; in the old provinces one hundred

and twenty battalions and ninety squadrons of Landwehr were equipped

and maintained, and this was only a portion of its exertions.

How faithfully had it obeyed the commands of its King!

The Landwehr of the spring of 1813 had little of the military aspect

which it obtained by service and later organisation.[52] The men

consisted of such as had not been drawn into the service of the

standing army, and now would be taken by lot and choice up to forty

years of age. As the youths of education, the first military spirits of

the nation, had most of them either entered the volunteer rifles, or

filled up the gaps of the standing army, the elements of the Landwehr

would probably have been of less military capacity if a certain number

of proprietors had not voluntarily entered the ranks. The solid masses

of the war consisted of common soldiers, mostly country people; the

leaders, of country nobles, officials, old officers on half-pay, and

whoever else was selected as trustworthy by his district, also of young

volunteers: a very motley material for field service, many of the

officers as well as soldiers without any experience in war. The

equipments also were in the beginning very imperfect; they were mostly

provided by the circles. The coatee, long trowsers of grey linen, a

cloth cap with a white tin cross; the weapons in the first ranks were

pikes, in the second and third muskets; for the horsemen, pistols,

sabres, and pikes. The men were put into ranks, exercised, and equipped

in what was necessary in the principal town of the circle. In the great

haste it sometimes happened that battalions were ordered to the army

which as yet had no weapons and no shoes; the people went barefooted

and with poles to the Elbe, resembling in appearance a band of robbers

more than regular soldiery, but with cheerful alacrity, singing and

giving vent to hurrahs which they had learned from the Cossacks. For

some weeks the troops of the line, especially the old officers, looked

contemptuously on this newly-established force, none with more wrath

than the strict York. When the worthy Colonel Putlitz, at Berlin,

begged for a Landwehr command,--he who had already fought valiantly in

the French campaign, and in the year 1807 had collected a corps of

sharpshooters in the Silesian mountains,--the staff officers asked him

ironically, whether he thought of fighting with such hordes. After the

war the valiant general declaimed, that the time during which he had

commanded the Landwehr was the happiest of his life. In no part of the

new organisation of the army did the power of the great year, and the

capacity of the people, shine so brilliantly as in this. These peasant

lads and awkward ploughboys became in a few weeks trustworthy and

valiant soldiers. It is true that they had a disproportionate loss of

men, and in their first encounter with the enemy did not always keep a

firm front, and showed the rapid alternations of cowardice and courage

which are peculiar to young troops; but called together from the plough

and the workshop, badly clothed, badly armed, and little drilled as

they were, they had in the very beginning to go through all the severe

fieldwork of veteran troops. That they were in general capable of doing

it, that some battalions already fought so bravely that even their

opponent (York) saluted them by taking off his hat, is as well known as

it is rare in military history. Soon they could not be distinguished

from troops of the line; it was between them an emulation of valour.

Justly do the sons of that time boast of the men of the Landwehr who

readily answered to the call; but not less was the zeal with which the

people at home laboured after the command was given for the war. People

of every calling, every citizen, the smallest places, the moat distant

districts, bore their part in the work, often undergoing the greatest

labours and sufferings, especially those on the frontiers. A simple

arrangement sufficed for the business in the circles; a military

commission was formed of two landed proprietors, one citizen and one

yeoman, the landrath of the circle, and the burgomaster of the capital

of the circle, were almost always the almost zealous members of it. It

was undoubtedly an occupation for simple men which was adapted to

awaken extraordinary powers. They had to deal with the remains of the

French army, with their hunger and typhus, with the thronging Russians

who for many months were in a doubtful position, with two languages,

that of their new friends being more strange to them than that of their

retreating enemies; and, added to this, the coarseness and wildness of

their new allies, whose subaltern officers were for the most part no

better than their soldiers, lusting after brandy, and at least as

rapacious and more brutal than irregular troops. Soon did the

commissioners learn how to deal with the wild people; tobacco chests

stood open, together with clay pipes, in the office room: it was an

endless coming and going of Russian officers, they filled their pipes

and smoked, demanded brandy, and received harmless beer. If ever the

coarseness of the strangers broke out, the Prussian officials at last

learnt to punish the ill-behaved with their own weapons, the kantschu,

which perhaps a Russian officer had left him, that he might more easily

manage his people. The last typhus sufferers of the French still filled

the hospitals of the city, the Baschkirs bivouacked with their felt

caps in the market-place; the inhabitants quarrelled with the

foreigners quartered on them; every day the Russians required the

necessaries of life and transport, couriers; Russian and Prussian

officers demanded relays of horses, the cultivators and peasants of the

neighbouring villages complained that they had been deprived of theirs,

that no ploughboys were to be found, and that the cultivation of the

land was impossible. In the midst of all this hurly-burly came the

orders of their own government, strong and dictatorial, as was required

by the times, and not always practical, which was natural in such

haste; the cloth-makers were to furnish cloth, the shoe-makers shoes,

the harness-makers and saddlers cartouche-boxes and saddles; so many

hundred pair of boots and shoes, so many hundred pieces of cloth, and

so many saddles, all in one short week, without money or secure bills

of exchange. The artisans were for the greater part poor people without

credit; how was the raw material to be obtained, how was the workman to

be paid, how were the means of life to be obtained in these weeks in

which the usual chance profit was lost? This did not go on for one

week, but for a whole year. Truly the spirit of sacrifice which showed

itself in gifts, and in the offer of their own lives, was among the

highest and noblest things of this great time; but not less honourable

was the self-sacrificing, unpretending, and unobserved fulfilment of

duty of many thousands of the lower classes, who, each in his sphere in

the city or in the village, worked for the same idea of his State to

the uttermost of his own powers.

The question is still unsolved of the military importance, in a

civilised country, of a _levee en masse_. The law for the establishment

of this popular force was carried to the very last possibility of

demand. In the first edict, the 21st of April, there was an almost

fanatical strictness, which, in the subsequent laws of the 24th of

July, was much mitigated. The edict exercised a great moral effect; it

was a sharp admonition to the dilatory, that it was a question for all,

of life or death. It had an imposing effect even upon the enemy by its

Draconic paragraphs. But it was, immediately after its appearance,

severely blamed by impartial judges, because it demanded what was

impossible, and it had no great practical effect. The Prussians had

always been a warlike people, but in 1813 they had not the military

capacity which they have now. Besides the standing army, there were,

before the introduction of the universal obligation of service, only

the peaceful citizens without any practice in arms or movement of

masses, or at the utmost, the old shooting guilds which handled the

ancient shooting weapons. But now the nation had sent into the field

all who were capable of fighting; the strength of the country was

strained to the uttermost; every family had given up what they

possessed of military spirit. The older men, who remained behind, who

were also indispensable for the daily work of the field and workshop,

were not especially capacitated to do valiant service in arms. Thus it

was no wonder that this fearful law brought to light the ludicrous side

of the picture; endless goodwill together with boorishness and

narrowmindedness. It was read with great edification, that the whole

people were to take up arms to withstand the invading enemy; that the

women and children also were to be employed in certain occupations, was

quite to the reader's mind, especially those who were not grown up; but

doubts were excited by the sentence in which it was stated, that

cowardice was to be punished by the loss of weapons, the doubling of

taxes, and corporeal chastisement, as he who showed the feeling of a

slave was to be treated as a slave. Then the poor little artisan, who

could scarcely keep his children from hunger, had never touched a

weapon, and had all his life anxiously avoided every kind of fighting,

was placed in the position to put the difficult question wistfully to

himself--what is cowardice? And when the law further forbade anyone in

a city which was occupied by the enemy to visit any play, ball, or

place of amusement, not to ring the bells, to solemnise no marriages,

and to live as if in deepest mourning, it appeared to the unprejudiced

minds of Germans as tyrannical--more Spanish and Polish than German.

Yet the people, in the enthusiasm of this spring-time, overlooked these

hardships, and prepared themselves for the struggle. Even before the

decree, patriotic feeling had, in East Prussia, established here and

there similar rules. Now this zeal had spread through the cities more

than in the open countries. The organisation began almost everywhere,

and was carried through in many places. Beacons were erected, alarm

poles rose high from Berlin to the Elbe, and towards Silesia resinous

pines, on which empty tar-barrels were nailed, surrounded with tarred

straw; near them a watch was posted, and they more than once did good

service. All kinds of weapons were searched out, fowling-pieces and

pistols, which had been cleverly foreseen in the ordinance when it

directed that, "For ammunition, in case of a deficiency in balls, every

kind of common shot may be used, and the possessors of fire-arms must

have a constant provision of powder and lead." He who had no musket,

furnished himself for the levy as the Landwehr did at first, with

pikes; they were exercised in companies--the butchers, brewers, and

farmers formed squadrons. The first rank of infantry were pikemen; the

second and third, if possible, musketeers. In this also, the

intellectual leaders of the people showed a good example; they knew

well that it was necessary, but it was no easy matter for them,

especially if they were no longer young. At Berlin, Savigny and

Eichhorn were of the Landwehr committee; in the levy none was more

zealous than Fichte; his pike, and that of his son, leant against the

wall in the front hall, and it was a pleasure to see the zealous man

brandishing his sword on the drill-ground, and placing himself in a

posture of attack. They wished to make him an officer, but he declined

with these words: "Here I am, only fit to be a common man." He,

Buttmann, Ruehs, and Schleiermacher drilled in the same company; but

Buttmann, the great Greek scholar, could not quite distinguish between

right and left; he declared that was most difficult. Ruehs was in the

same condition, and it constantly happened that the two learned men, in

their evolutions, either turned their backs, or looked each other in

the face puzzled. Once, when it was a question of an encounter with the

enemy, and how a valiant man ought to conduct himself in that case,

Buttmann listened, leaning sadly on his spear, and said at last: "It is

very well for you to talk, you are of a courageous nature."[53]

If this _Landsturm_ was to be mobilised for the maintenance of the

security of the circle, or for service in the rear of the enemy, or in

the neighbourhood of fortresses still held by them, the alarm bell was

rung, and the town became in a state of stormy excitement. Anxiously

did the women pack up food and drink, bandages and lint, in the

knapsack, for according to the regulations no one was to forget the

knapsack, bread-bag, and field-flask; it was his duty to carry with him

provisions for three days; not unfrequently did the female inhabitants

feel like the wife of a cutler in Burg, who stated to the commanding

officer that her husband must remain behind, for he was the only cutler

in the place, or like the wife of a watchmaker, who had compelled her

husband to conceal himself. He was, however, traced by other women

whose husbands had gone, was taken by them to the churchyard, placed on

a grave, and punished in a maternal way with the palm of the hand.

Any one who was a child at that time, will remember the enthusiasm with

which the boys also armed. The elder ones assembled together in

companies, and armed themselves with pikes; the smaller ones, too, had

good cudgels. A poor boy who was working in a manufactory was asked why

he carried no weapon, "I have all my pockets full of stones," was his

answer; he carried them about with him against the French.[54] And no

regulation of the _Landsturm_ ordinance was so zealously obeyed by the

rising generation, as the provision that every _Landsturmer_ should, if

possible, carry a shrill-sounding pipe with him, in order to recognise

others in the dark, and come to an understanding. By the greatest

industry the boys learnt to produce shrill tones from every kind of

signal pipe, and there is reason to believe that the present use of the

pipe in street rows was first adopted by our youths from hatred to the

French. Seldom were the _Landsturm_ employed in military service in

1813; they were more often employed in clearing the districts of

marauding rabble, and as watchers, or in the messenger service; their

only serious military service against the enemy was performed at that

Bueren, which under Frederic II. had driven back its flying sons to the

King's army. There, after the peace, all the men wore the military

medal. Up to the present day the people retain the memory of this

feature of the great war; it has been more enduring than many others of

more importance. Still do old people boast that though not in the

field, yet at home they had borne arms for the Fatherland; it also is

fitting that their sons should remember it. The time may come when in

another form, and with stricter discipline, the general armament of the

people will be an important part of German military power.

But whilst here the dangerous game was not carried on in its terrible

reality, yet all eyes and ears were incessantly directed to the

distance. The war had begun in earnest. Those who were left behind were

in continual anxiety concerning the fate of those they loved, and of

Fatherland. No day passed without some report, no post came without the

announcement of some important event; life seemed to fly amidst the

longing and the expectation with which they looked forth beyond their

city walls. Every little success filled them with transport; it was

announced at the door of the town hall, in the church, and in the

theatre, wherever men were collected together. On the 5th April was the

conflict, at Zehdenick, the first undoubted victory of the Prussians;

far and wide through the provinces did people hasten to the church

towers to endeavour to descry the first intelligence; and when the

thunder of cannon had ceased, and the joyful news ran through the

country, there was no bounds to the general exultation; everything that

was praiseworthy was proudly extolled, above all the valiant artillery

that with guns and powder waggons had chased the enemy through the

burning market-place of Leitzkau, amidst the flames that were gathering

around them; also the black Hussars, with their death's-heads, valiant

Lithuanians, who had ridden over the smart red Hussars from Paris at

the first onset. And when the proprietor of the market-place afterwards

made a collection through the newspapers for his poor people who had

been burnt out, and excused himself for begging at such a time for aid

to private misfortune, the country people were not forgotten who had

first suffered from the war.

Louder became the din of war, more furious did the conflict of masses

rage; the exultation of victory and fearful anxiety alternated in the

hearts of those remaining at home. After the battle of Grossgoerschen,

it was proclaimed that assistance was needed for the wounded. Then

there began everywhere among the people collections of linen and lint;

unweariedly did not only children but grown-up people draw out the

threads of old linen, the women cut bandages, and the teachers in

schools cut the rags which the little girls and boys at their request

brought with them from their homes, into shape, and whilst they taught

the children, these with burning tears collected the pieces into great

heaps. Making lint was the evening work of families; it might be of

some use to the soldiers.

In the neighbourhood of the allied armies and in the chief cities,

hospitals were erected, and everywhere the women assisted--court

ladies, and authoresses like Rachel Levin. In one great hospital at

Berlin there was Frau Fichte and Frau Reimer, the superintendents of

the female nurses. The hospital, owing to the retreating French, had

become a pest-house, bad nervous fevers were prevalent, and the strange

fancies of the invalids made it a terrible abode. The wife of Fichte

shuddered at these horrors, but he endeavoured to sustain her in his

noble way. When she was overtaken with nervous fever, he nursed the

invalid, caught the infection, and died. Reil also, the great physician

and scholar, died there in the midst of his philanthropic efforts. Frau

Reimer was preserved; her house had been, before the war, the resort of

the Prussian patriots, now her husband had become one of the Landwehr

under Putlitz; her anxieties about him and his business and her little

children, neither damped her spirit nor engrossed her time; from

morning to evening, spring and summer, she was actively occupied; never

weary, she divided her time betwixt her family and her care of the

sick, and her life appeared to herself indestructible.[55] To her

husband, friends and contemporaries, this zeal seemed natural, and a

matter of course. In a similar way did German women do their duty

everywhere with the greatest self-denial and devotedness, and with

quiet enduring energy.

The fearful battle of Bautzen took place; the armistice followed. The

Prussians were full of uneasiness. Streams of blood had flowed, their

army was driven back, the Emperor appeared invincible by earthly

weapons. For some weeks the most intelligent looked gloomily at the

future, but the people still maintained a right feeling of self-respect

and elevated resolution. Trust in their own energy, and the goodness of

their cause, and above all trust in God, were the source of this frame

of mind. Every one saw that the strength of Prussia in this campaign

was incomparably greater than in the last unfortunate war. Only a

little more strength seemed to be necessary to overthrow the tyrant; if

they could only make a little more exertion, he might be hurled back.

The voluntary contributions continued, late in the autumn receipts were

given for them. The equipment of the Landwehr was ended, the artisan

had everywhere worked for his King and Fatherland.

The war again raged, blow and counterblow, flux and reflux; the armies

pressed on; now one saw from Thurm the hosts of the enemy, now the

approach of friends. The cities and provinces of the west learnt from

Berlin and Breslau the fate of the war. Ah, its terrible features are

not strange to Germans; up to the time of our fathers, the hearts of

almost every generation of citizens have been shaken by them.

There are hollow, short reverberations in the air; it is the thunder of

distant cannon. Listening crowds stand in the market-place, and at the

gates; little is said, only half words in a subdued tone, as if the

speaker feared to speak too loud. From the parapet of the towers, and

the gables of the houses which look towards the field of battle, the

eyes of the citizens strain anxiously to see into the distance. On the

verge of the horizon there is a white cloud in the sunlight,

occasionally a bright flash is perceptible and a dark shadow. But on

the by-ways which lead from the nearest villages to the high road, dark

crowds are moving. They are country people flying into the wood or to

the mountains. Each carries on his shoulders what he has been able to

scrape together, but few have been able to carry off their property,

for carts and horses have for some weeks past been taken from them by

the soldiers; lads and men drive their herds nervously, the women

loudly wailing, carry their little ones. Again there is a rolling in

the air, sharper and more distinct. A horseman races through the city

gate at wild speed, then another. Our troops are retreating, the crowds

of citizens separate, the people run in terrified anguish into their

houses, and then again into the street; even in the city they prepare

for flight. Loud are the cries and lamentations. He who still possessed

a team of horses, dragged them to the pole, the clothmaker threw his

bales, and the merchant his most valuable chests on the waggons, and

over these their children and those of their neighbours. Waggons and

crowds of flying men thronged to the distant gate. If there is a swampy

marsh almost impassable, or a thick wood in the neighbourhood, they fly

thither. Inaccessible hiding-places, still remembered from the time of

the Swedes, are again sought out. Great troops collect there, closely

packed; the citizens and countrymen conceal themselves with their

cattle and horses for many days; sometimes still longer. After the

battle of Bautzen the parishioners of Tillendorf near Bunzlau abode

more than a week in the nearest wood, their faithful pastor Senftleben

accompanied them, and kept order in that wild spot, he even baptised a

child.[56]

But he who remains in the town with his property, or in the performance

of his duty, is eager to conceal his family and goods. Long has the

case been taken into consideration, and hiding-places ingeniously

devised. If the city has more especially roused the fury of the enemy,

it is threatened with fire, plunder, and the expulsion of the citizens.

In such a case the people carry their money firmly sewed in their

clothes.

One anxious hour passes in feverish hope. The first announcers of the

retreat clatter through the streets, damaged guns escorted by Cossacks.

Slowly they return, the number of their men incomplete, and blackened

by powder, more than one tottering wounded. The infantry follow, and

waggons overcrowded with wounded and dying men. The rear-guard take up

their post at the gate and the corners of the streets, awaiting the

enemy. Young lads run from the houses and carry to the soldiers what

they have called for, a drink or a bit of bread; they hold the

knapsacks for the wounded, or help them quickly to bandages.

There are clouds of dust on the high road. The first cavalry of the

enemy approach the gate, cautiously looking out, the Carabiniers on the

right flank. A shot falls from the rear-guard, the Chasseur also fires

his carbine, turns his horse, and retires. Immediately the enemy's

vanguard press on in quick trot, and the Prussian Tirailleurs withdraw

from one position to another firing. Finally the last has abandoned the

line of houses. Once more they collect outside the gate, in order to

detain the enemy's cavalry, who have again formed into rank.

The streets are empty and shut. Even the boys who have accompanied the

Prussian Tirailleurs have disappeared; the curtains of the windows are

let down, and the doors closed; but behind curtain and door are anxious

faces looking at the approaching enemy. Suddenly a cry bursts forth

from a thousand rough voices--_vive l'Empereur!_ and, like a flood, the

French infantry rush into the town. Immediately they knock against the

doors with the butt ends of their muskets, and if they are not opened

quick enough they are broken in. Now follow desperate disputes between

the defenceless citizen and the irritated enemy--exorbitant demands,

threats, and frequently ill-usage and peril of death--everywhere

clamour, lamentation, and violence. Cupboards and desks are broken

open, and everything, both valuable and valueless, plundered, spoiled,

or destroyed, especially in those houses whose inmates have fled; for

the property of an uninhabited house, according to the custom of war,

falls to the share of the soldier. The city authorities are dragged to

the townhall, and difficult negotiations begin concerning the

quartering of the troops, the delivery of provisions and forage, and

impossible contributions.

If the enemy's General cannot be satisfied with gifts, or if the town

is to be punished, the inhabitants of most consideration are collected,

forcibly detained, threatened, and, perhaps at last, carried off as

hostages. If a larger corps is encamped round the city, one battalion

bivouacs in the market-place. The French are rapidly accommodated. They

have fetched straw from the suburbs, they have robbed provisions on the

road, and cut up the doors and furniture for fire-wood. Disagreeably

sounds the crash of the axe on the beams and woodwork of the houses.

Brightly blaze up the camp fires, and loud laughter, with French songs,

sound about the flames.

When the enemy withdraws in the morning, after having remained one

night through which the citizens have held anxious watch, they gaze

with astonishment on the rapid devastation of their city, and on the

sudden change in the country outside the gates. The boundless ocean of

corn, which yesterday waved round their city walls, is vanished, rooted

up, crushed and trampled by man and horse. The wooden fences of the

gardens are broken, summer arbours and houses are torn away, and

fruit-trees cut down. The fire-wood lies in heaps round the smouldering

watch-fires, and the citizen may find there the planks of his waggon

and the doors of his barn. He can scarcely recognise the place where

his own garden was, for the site of it is covered with camp straw,

confused rubbish, and the blood and entrails of slaughtered beasts. In

the distance, where the houses of the nearest village project above the

foliage of the trees, he perceives no longer the outline of the roofs,

only the walls are standing, like a heap of ruins.

It was bitter to pass through such an hour, and many lost all heart.

Even for people of property it was now difficult to support their

families. All the provisions of the city and neighbourhood were

consumed or destroyed, and no countryman brought even the necessaries

of life to the market, it was needful therefore to send far into the

country for the means to appease hunger. But from a rapid succession of

great events men had become colder, more sturdy and hardier in

themselves. The strong participation which every individual had taken

in the fate of the State made them indifferent to their own hardships.

After every danger, it was felt to be a comfort that the last thing,

life, was saved. And there was hope.

Before long the devastating billow surged back. Again roared the

thunder of guns, and the drums rattled. Our troops are advancing; wild

struggle rages round the city. The Prussian battalions press forward

through the streets into the market-place against the enemy, who still

hold the western suburb. It is the young Landwehr who this day receive

their baptism of blood. The balls whistle through the streets; they

strike the tiles and plaster of the houses; the citizens have again

concealed their wives and children in cellars and out-of-the-way

places. The battalions halt in the market-place. The ammunition waggons

are opened. The first companies press forward to the same gate through

which, a few days before, the enemy had rushed into the city. The

struggle rages fiercely. In the assault the enemy are thrown back; but

fresh masses establish themselves in the houses of the suburb, and

contend for the entrances to the streets. Mutilated and severely

wounded men are carried back and laid down in the market-place, and

more than once the combatants have to be relieved. When the

inexperienced soldiers see their comrades borne back from the fight,

their faces blackened with powder, and covered with sweat and blood,

their courage sinks within them; but the officers, who are also for the

first time in close combat, spring forward, and "Forward, children! the

Fatherland calls!" sounds through the ranks. At one time the enemy

succeeded in storming the upper gate, but scarcely have they forced

their way into the first street leading to the market, when a company

of Landwehr throw themselves upon them with loud hurrahs, and drive

them out of the gate.[57]

The thunder roars; the fiery hail pierces through doors and windows;

the dead lie on the pavement and thresholds of the houses. Then any

citizen who has a manly heart can no longer bear the close air of his

hiding place. He presses close behind his fighting countrymen near to

the struggle. He raises the wounded from the pavement, and carries them

on his back either to his house or the hospital. Again the boys are not

among the last; they fetch water, and call at the houses for some drink

for the wounded whom they support; they climb up the ammunition waggons

and hand down the cartridges, proud of their work they are unconcerned

about the whistling bullets. Even the women rush out of the houses,

with bread in their aprons and full flasks in their hands; they may

thus do something to help the Fatherland.

The fight is over; the enemy driven back. In the warm sunshine a

sorrowful procession moves through the city--the imprisoned enemy

escorted by Cossacks. Hardheartedly do the troopers drive the weary

crowd; they are allowed only a short rest in the open place of the

suburb; the prisoners lie exhausted, weary and half fainting, in the

dust of the high road. It is the second day on which they have had

neither food nor drink; not once have their guards allowed them a drink

from brook or ditch; they have ill-treated the weary men with blows and

thrusts of their lances. These now, with outstretched hands, pour forth

entreaties in their own language to the citizens, who stand round with

curiosity and sympathy. They are, for the most part, young Frenchmen

who are here lamenting, poor boys, with pale and haggard faces. The

citizens hasten to them with food and drink; ample piles of bread are

brought; but the Russians are hungry themselves; they roughly push back

the approaching people, and tear their gifts from them. Then the women

put baskets and flasks into the hands of their children. A courageous

lad springs forward; the little troop of maidens and young boys trip

amongst the prisoners, who are lying on the ground; even the youngest

totter bravely from man to man, and distribute their gifts smilingly,

unconcerned about their bearded guards,[58] for the Cossack does no

injury to children. The German is not unkind to his enemy.

When anyone carries a wounded countryman to his house, how faithfully

and carefully he nurses him. The family treat him as they would their

own son or brother who is far away in the king's army. The best room

and a soft bed is prepared for him, and the mistress of the house

attends him herself with bandages and all necessary care.

The whole people feel like a great family. The difference of classes,

the variety of avocations, no longer divide; joy and sorrow are felt in

common, and goods and gains are willingly shared. The prince's daughter

stands in union with the wife of the artisan, and both zealously

co-operate together; and the land junker who, only a few months before,

considered every citizen as an intruder in his places of resort, now

rides daily from his property to the city in order to smoke his war

pipe with his new friends, the alderman or manufacturer, and to chat

with them over the news; or, what was still more interesting to them,

over the regiment in which their sons were fighting together. Men

became more frank, firmer and better in this time; the morose pedantry

of officials, the pride of the nobleman, and even the suspicious

egotism of the peasant, were blown away from most, like dust from

good metal; selfishness was despised by everyone; old injustice and

long-nourished rancour were forgotten, and the hidden good in man came

to light. According as every one bestirred himself for his Fatherland,

he was afterwards judged. With surprise did people, both in town and

country, see new characters suddenly rise into consideration among

them; many small citizens who had hitherto been little esteemed, became

advisers, and the delight and pride of the whole city. But he who

showed himself weak seldom succeeded in regaining the confidence of his

fellow citizens; the stain clung to him during the life of that

generation. And this free and grand conception of life, this hearty

social tone, and the unconstrained intercourse of different classes

lasted for years after the war. There are some still living who can

speak of it.

When after the armistice, the glorious time of victories came,

Grossbeeren, Hagelsberg, Dennewitz, and the Katzbach; when particular

Prussian Generals rose higher in the eyes of the people, and millions

felt pleasure and pride in their army and its leaders; when at last the

battle of nations was fought, and the great aim attained--the overthrow

and flight of the hated Emperor, and the delivery of the country from

his armies--then was the highest rapture that could be felt in this

world enjoyed with calm intensity. The people hastened to the churches

and listened reverentially to the thanksgivings of the ecclesiastics,

and in the evening they illuminated their streets.

This kind of festivity was nothing new. Wherever, in the last years,

the enemy's troops entered in the evening into a city, they had called

out for lights; wherever there was a French garrison, the citizens had

to illuminate for every victory which was announced by the hated ally

of their King. Now this was done voluntarily; everyone had experience

in it, and the simple preparation was in every house. Four candles in a

window were then thought something considerable; even the poorest

spared a few kreutzers for two, and if he had no candlestick, employed,

according to old custom, the useful potato; the more enterprising

ventured upon a transparency, and a poor mother hung out, together with

the candles, two letters which her son had written from the field.

These festivities were then simple and unpretending; now we do the same

kind of thing far more splendidly.

The great rising began in the eastern provinces of the Prussian State;

how it showed itself among the people there we have endeavoured to

portray. But the same strong current flowed in the country on the other

side of the Elbe, not only in the old Prussian districts, but with

equal vigour on the coasts of the North Sea, in Mecklenburg, Hanover,

Brunswick, Thuringia, and Hesse, almost in every district up to the

Maine. It comprehended the districts which, in the eighteenth century,

had attained a greater military capacity; in the provinces of the old

Empire it was only partial. The new States which arose there under

French influence, discovered later, and in an indirect way, the

necessity of a closer connection with the larger portion of the nation.

For Austria, this war was an act of political prudence.

Still two years followed of high strained exertion and bloody battles;

again did the rising youth of the country, who in the first year had

been wanting in age and strength, throng with enthusiasm into the ranks

of the army. It was another war, and another victory had to be

achieved, it was, however, no longer a struggle for the existence of

Prussia and Germany, but for the ruin and life of the foreign Emperor.

The year 1813 had freed Germany from the dominion of a foreign people.

Again did the Prussian eagle float over the other side of the Rhine, on

the old gates of Cleve. It had made a bloody end to an insupportable

bondage. It had united most of the German races in brotherly ties by a

new circle of moral interests. It had produced for the first time in

German history an immense political result by a powerful development of

popular strength. It had entirely altered the position of the nation to

their Princes; for, above the interests of dynasties, and the quarrels

of rulers, it had given existence to a stronger power which they all

feared, honoured, and must win, in order to maintain themselves. It had

given a greater aim to the life of every individual, a participation in

the whole, political feeling, the highest of earthly interests, a

Fatherland, a State for which he learnt to die and by degrees to live.

The Prussians did the greater part of the work of this year, which will

never be forgotten by the rest of Germany.

It would not be becoming in us, the sons of the generation of 1813, to

disparage the glorious struggle of our fathers, because they have left

us something to do.

Almost all who passed through that great time of struggle and

self-sacrifice consider the memory of it the greatest possession of

their later life, and it encircled the heads of many with a bright

glory. And thousands felt what the warm-hearted Arndt expressed,

"We can now die at any moment, as we have seen in Germany what

is alone worth living for, that men, from a feeling of the eternal,

and imperishable, have been able to offer, with the most joyful

self-devotion, all their temporalities and their lives as if they were

nothing."

But in the churches of the country a simple tablet was put up as a

memorial to later generations, on which was the iron cross of the Great

Time, and the names of those who had fallen.

As in these pages it has been attempted to portray, in the words of men

who have passed away, a picture of the time in which they lived, so

here we will give a record from the year 1813.

"Our son George was struck by a ball, at the age of two-and-twenty, on

the 2nd of April, at the ever-memorable engagement at Lueneburg. As a

volunteer rifleman in the light battalion of the first Pommeranian

regiment, he fought, according to the testimony of his brave leader,

Herr Major von Borcke, by his side, with courage and determination, and

thus, died for his Fatherland, German freedom, national honour, and our

beloved King. To lose him so early is hard; but it is comforting to

feel that we also have been able to give a son for this great and holy

object. We feel deeply the necessity of such a sacrifice.

"The Regierungsrath and Ober-Commissarius

Haese and his Wife."[59]

"Berlin, 9th April, 1813."

That portion of the people also who were not in the habit of expressing

their feelings in writing felt the same. When the Luetzower Gutike,[60]

in the Summer of 1813, was on his march from Berlin to Perleberg, he

found at Kletzke the landlady in mourning; she was waiting silently

upon him, and at last said suddenly, pointing with her hand to the

ground, "I have one there,--but Peter's wife has two." She felt that

her neighbour had superior claims to sympathy.