Restored happiness—Prussians still press toward Vienna—War practically
over—Quiet country life—Military school—My only brother
Otto—Description of flying troops—Peace in sight—Victory of
Lyssa—Our plans of retirement—Conrad comes home—He describes his
enthusiasm for war.
Thus for the second time my beloved husband was restored to me from the
dangers of war.
Who was I, that this tide of woe should have passed over and left me
safe and happy on the shore, when so many thousands had sunk beneath the
flood of misery? Happy indeed were those who were simple-hearted enough
to lift up their glance to heaven and express their deep gratitude to
the Almighty Guide, and feel that for this special blessing a divine
Providence had chosen them. Those who speak such gratitude think they
are humble, but they do not realise how arrogant and self-important they
really are. When I thought of the poor wretches and the broken hearts
and the mourning mothers and wives, I could not be so immodest as to
take all this as a favour sent from God to me. I remembered how our
housekeeper swept one day from a closet a swarm of ants. Fate had in
just such a way swept over the fields of Bohemia. The poor workers had
been ruthlessly scattered, crushed, and killed—only a few were unhurt.
In the case of the ants, would it seem reasonable and just to imagine
those few remaining ones would send up prayers of gratitude to the
housekeeper?
However great was our joy of reunion, I could not unload the burden of
sorrow and suffering I had seen. Though I could not help and nurse and
endure like those other courageous women, yet I felt a compassion toward
my brother men that I could never drown in selfish contentment again. I
would settle this account with the world some day.
Yet, though I could not feel triumphant and grateful, I could love with
a hundred fold more tenderness than ever before. “Oh, Frederick,
Frederick,” I would repeat with tears and caresses, “have I found you at
last?”
“Yes, and you rushed off to find me and nurse me—was that not heroic and
foolish of you, Martha?”
“Foolish, I agree. I imagined I heard you call. But heroic, no! If you
only could know how cowardly I was in the face of misery! If you had
been lying there I could have been brave. Such horrors as I have seen I
shall never forget. Oh, this world is so beautiful, and how can men make
it so terrible? A world in which we two can find such happiness and fill
with such unchanging love, how can any one spoil it by stirring up such
flames of hate to bring death and agony?”
“I have seen horrible things too, Martha—one thing I shall never forget.
Who do you suppose sprang at me during our cavalry engagement at Sadowa?
Gottfried von Tessow.”
“Aunt Cornelia’s son?”
“Yes; he recognised me in time, and dropped his sword, which he held
ready to sink into my skull.”
“Where was his duty? How could he spare his King’s and country’s enemy?
How dare he think first of friend or cousin?”
“The poor boy! His arm dropped, and suddenly a sabre swung from the
officer next to me, who wished to defend my life——” and Frederick
covered his face with his hands.
“Killed,” I asked, shuddering. He nodded.
“Mamma, mamma!” came from the next room, and Lilli appeared with my
little Rudolf. I rushed to him, and eagerly pressed him to me. “Ah,
poor, poor Aunt Cornelia.”
* * * * *
It looked as though the war was practically over. The quarrel with
France and Italy ceased when Austria abandoned Venice. Prussia offered
liberal terms, and our emperor was anxious lest Vienna, his capital,
should be besieged. Prussia’s other German victories, and the entry into
Frankfort, awoke a certain admiration which success always brings, and
imbued even the Austrians with the feeling that Prussia might be
destined to perform a certain historical mission in her victories.
The words “truce” and “peace” became contagious, and one could almost
count upon their coming true, in the same way as war threats gave rise
to war. My father admitted that the needle-gun had exhausted our ranks.
He did not wish to contemplate a march on Vienna, which meant the
destruction of his estate in Grumitz. That would have been too much for
even his bellicose spirit. His confidence in Austria’s invincibility was
sadly shaken, and in common with the rest of mortals he felt it was best
to put a stop to the run of luck, for no doubt some day the tide would
turn with an opportunity for vengeance. Vengeance follows vengeance!
Every war leaves one side defeated with the belief that the next war
will give them satisfaction! And so one struggle invites and demands the
next—where will it end? How can justice ever be established if in
punishing an old wrong another is committed? Can one obliterate
ink-stains with ink, or oil-spots with oil? Yet they say nothing but
blood can wash out blood.
At Grumitz a gloom settled over every one. The villagers prepared for
the coming of the Prussians, hiding their possessions. Even our family
silver was secreted. We read and talked of nothing but the war. Lilli
had heard nothing from Conrad for days. My father’s patriotism was
deeply wounded, and though Frederick and I were blissfully happy in our
reunion, yet the unhappiness of the rest affected us painfully. Over a
letter from Aunt Cornelia we shed bitter tears for she had not yet
learned of her only son’s death.
As we sat all together in the evening there was no music or cheerful
chatter, no jokes or games, only the repetition of stories of woe and
death.
Any possibility of the prolongation of the war filled my brother Otto
with enthusiasm, for in that event the seniors of the military academy
had been promised to be called into the service. He longed for this
privilege—straight from the military school into the battle-field. Just
as a girl graduate longs for her first ball, for which she has been
taught to dance, and the light and music, so the young cadet welcomes
his first engagement in the great artillery dance for which he has been
learning to shoot.
Frederick and I had decided that upon the declaration of Peace he would
resign from the army, and that under no circumstances would our son be
educated at school where the whole education was bent upon awakening in
boys the thirst for military glory. I questioned my brother Otto, and
found that in the schools they taught that war was a necessary evil (at
least acknowledging, in the spirit of the age, that it is an evil), at
the same time the chief incentive to all the noblest manly
virtues—courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice. Through war comes the
highest glory to men and the greatest progress to civilisation.
Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon, conquerors and empire builders, were to
be regarded as the supreme types of human exaltation. War’s successes
and benefits were described in high colours, but its wretched results
were piously ignored. There was complete silence as to the barbarity,
degeneration, and ruin which it brought.
I remembered my own girlish enthusiasm for war, and could hardly blame
my brother that he looked upon a possible call to battle with
impatience.
I offered one day to read the report of a retreat of our army, and Otto
impatiently said, “I would rather not hear it. If it were the enemy
retreating that would be different.”
“Retreats are generally passed over in silence,” remarked Frederick.
But my father hastily added, “A well-ordered retreat is not a flight.
Why, in ’49——”
But I knew the old story of ’49, and headed it off by beginning to
read:—
About four o’clock our troops began to retreat. We surgeons were
caring for several hundred wounded, when suddenly the cavalry broke in
on us. A general rush brought on tremendous confusion of artillery,
cavalry, infantry, and baggage, all joining in the flight. Men, horse,
and waggons were mingled together. We were swept from our work. They
shouted to us, “Save yourselves!” as the shell burst overhead. We were
carried forward by the surging mass, we knew not whither——
“Enough! enough!” cried the two girls.
“The censor of the press should stop such stuff from appearing,”
exclaimed my father angrily. “It takes away all pride in the profession
of war.”
“Yes, if they should destroy all joy in war it would be such a pity,” I
said in an undertone.
“At least,” continued my father, “those who take part in a flight ought
to be quiet about it—it is no honour. The rascal who shouted ‘Save
yourselves!’ ought to be shot. A coward raises a yell and thousands of
brave men are demoralised and run with him.”
“And in the same way,” responded Frederick, “when some brave fellow
shouts ‘Forward!’ a thousand cowards sweep after him, inspired with his
courage. Men cannot be called either cowardly or brave, for every one
has his moments of strength and weakness. When crowded together we move
as a herd, dependent upon the mind of our fellows. One man rushes,
shouting ‘Hurrah!’ and the rest do the same. Another drops his gun and
runs and the rest follow. In each case it is the same impulse, yet in
the one case they are praised for courage and in the other blamed for
cowardice. Bravery and fear are not fixed qualities, neither are joy and
sorrow: they are merely different states of mind. In my first campaign I
was drawn into such a wild confusion of flight. The official reports
called it a well-ordered retreat, but it was, in fact, a complete riot.
We rushed madly on, without orders, panting and shrieking with despair,
the enemy goading us with bullets. This is one of the most horrible
phases of war, when men are no longer gallant soldiers but beasts, and
hunt each other as prey; the pursuer becomes a blood-drunken savage and
the pursued is filled with the delirium of terror like a poor animal at
bay. All the sentiments of patriotism, ambition, and noble deeds with
which he has been educated for the battle are forgotten—he is merely
possessed with the instinct for self-preservation and filled with the
wildest paroxysms of terror.”
Frederick’s recovery progressed, even as the feverishness of the outer
world lessened, and daily we heard more of peace. The Prussians advanced
without obstacle, and surely and slowly approached Vienna, passing
through the City of Brunn, where they had already been given the keys.
But their march was more like a military promenade than an activity of
war, and by July 26 the preliminaries of peace were announced.
Another political event of the day was that Austria had, at last, joined
the Geneva Convention of the Red Cross.
“Does that satisfy you?” asked my father as he read the news aloud. “You
call war barbarism, but you see it also progresses with civilisation and
becomes more humane. I am in favour of all these efforts to relieve the
wounded. Even from the stand-point of statesmanship it is wiser, for it
is well that the sick should be made fit for service again.”
“You are right, papa. The important thing is that they be made useful
material for future battles. But no Red Cross can alleviate the agonies
I have witnessed. With multiplied men and means they could not conjure
away the results of one battle——”
“Not conjure it away, but mitigate it—what we cannot prevent we should
seek to mitigate.”
“For what I have seen there is no mitigation. We should turn the rule
about: what we cannot mitigate we ought to prevent.”
That war must cease was daily becoming a fixed idea with me—and that
every human being should work to this end. The scenes I had witnessed
after the great battle haunted me, especially at night, when I would
awake with the most terrible oppression of heart and pricking of
conscience just as if I were being commanded to stop it. And only when
fully awake would I realise my entire incapacity to stem such a tide—as
well might I face the swelling waves of the sea, and command them to dry
up.
Frederick and I had made very definite plans for the future. At the
close of the war he was to resign, and we would retire to some small
country place, and live with his pension and my allowance in a simple
way.
Frederick intended to take up the study of international law and science
apart from its sentimental and utopian aspect, and make himself capable
of grasping the practical side of all these ideas. He felt that the
world was coming into a new era of thought, and he desired to lead his
life into these lines along with our domestic pleasures.
We had not communicated our thoughts to my father, who had quite other
ambitions for our future.
“You will be a colonel at a very early age, Tilling,” he said one day,
“and in ten years you will certainly be a general. A fresh war will
certainly give you the command of an entire corps, and you may even
reach the rank of commander-in-chief, who knows. It may come to your lot
to restore the glory of the arms of Austria, which is for the moment
under a cloud. When once we adopt the needle-gun or some more effective
weapon we shall soon have the best of these Prussian gentlemen.”
“Who knows,” I suggested, “we may even make it up with the Prussians and
become their allies.”
My father shrugged his shoulders. “If women would only keep out of
politics! Our honour and our position as a Power of Europe demand that
we should punish these insolent braggarts, and take back the states
which they have annexed. What! friendship with these dastardly enemies!
Never! unless they come and humbly beg for it.”
“In that event,” remarked Frederick, “we would set our feet upon their
necks. Alliances are only sought with those whom we fear or need as a
protection against a common foe. In statecraft egotism is the ruling
motive.”
“Yes, indeed,” my father replied, “when that ego represents our own
fatherland everything else is secondary.”
“We can but wish,” replied Frederick, “that communities may adopt the
same rules of behaviour as is demanded of individuals, which does away
with the law of the fist and the vulgar self-seeking, and declares that
our own interests are best advanced when we are in harmony with the
interests of others.”
“What’s that?” asked my father, with his hand to his ear, but Frederick
wisely dropped the discussion.
* * * * *
I shall arrive at Grumitz to-morrow at one o’clock.
CONRAD.
The delight with which this dispatch was received by Lilli can be
imagined. No welcome is so loving and gracious as that given to him who
returns from war. Naturally he would have preferred to return
victoriously, to have aided in conquering for his emperor, but it was
honour enough to have fought at all—and to be among the fallen was a
specially glorious fate. Otto said that in the military academy every
one who was left dead on the field was specially inscribed in the roll
of honour, and the more ancestors one could boast as having fallen in
battle, the prouder were the descendants, and the less value should they
place upon their own lives. To show one’s appreciation of such ancestors
need one actively and passively rejoice in all kinds of bloodshed in
war?
Perhaps it is better that so long as war exists there should be plenty
that find pleasure and inspiration in it. Alas! this class is daily
growing less, while the armies are daily increasing. Where will it
finally lead?
But Conrad did not think so far ahead, and my brother Otto was his
envious admirer—of the hussar uniform, the scar that decorated his chin,
which he got in passing through a rain of bullets—all this surrounded
him with a halo of glory.
“I will admit it was an unfortunate campaign, but I have brought back
glorious memories of it.”
“Oh, tell us, tell us!” Lilli and Otto cried.
“The details are gone, but the whole lies behind me like a dream, for
powder gets into one’s head in such a strange way. The moment the order
comes to march, the intoxication and the fever begin, even at the very
moment of suffering the pain of farewell from loved ones. But when
surrounded by comrades, filled with the demand of patriotic duty,
marching with the bands playing and the flag fluttering, I would not
have turned back even to the arms of my sweetheart. Nor would I be
worthy of her if I did. One never doubts one is marching to victory. The
needle-guns, you say? Ah, they alone were the cause of our defeat—their
bullets fell upon us like hailstones. Also Benedek’s generalship was
poor. They should court-martial him. If I were ever general I should
play a forward game, ever advancing on the enemy. However, since the
Emperor did not put me in charge, the tactics were not my fault. We
officers and soldiers were ordered to fight, and fight we did. And that
was the glorious sensation of it. The anticipation, the suspense,
waiting for the order to charge—the consciousness that in the next
moment we should be creating history—the delight in one’s own courage,
with Death to the right and left—bidding this awful mystery defiance——”
“Just like poor Gottfried Tessow,” murmured Frederick to me. “Of course
it is all from the same teaching.”
Conrad continued eagerly: “One’s heart beats higher, one’s pulse
quickens, there awakes—that is the peculiar ecstasy of it all—there
wakes the mad delight in battle, the ferocious hatred of the foe, the
blazing passion for one’s menaced fatherland—and on we rush, and hewing
down becomes a mad revelry. One feels as if transported to another
world. Ordinary feelings have changed to their opposites. Life itself is
our prey; to slay is the law. The only motives that do not disappear in
the conflict are magnificent heroism and self-sacrifice. To this add
powder, smoke, and battle-cries. It is a sensation unparalleled—there is
nothing like it—except perhaps a lion or tiger hunt, when one stands
face to face with maddened beasts.”
“Yes,” Frederick added, “while man was still subject to attack from two
or four-legged savages, to protect his life by killing the latter was a
delight. The hereditary thirst for blood has not completely died out of
civilised man, and since in Europe we have no longer beast nor barbarism
to fight, we create an artificial enemy for ourselves, and the hunt goes
thus: You here, have red coats, and over there blue coats. Three claps,
and presto, the red coats are changed into tigers and the blue coats
become wild beasts to them. Again attention! Trumpets blow, one, two,
three; drums beat; now begin; eat each other up. And if 100,000 such
beasts eat each other up at X——, history records the famous X—— battle.
Then the men who clapped their hands assemble about a green table in
X——, lay down their maps, rearrange the frontier lines, haggle over who
shall pay the bills, sign a paper which figures in history as the Peace
of X——. The magicians clap again three times, and order the red coats
and the blue coats, ‘Now, dear children, embrace each other again as men
and brethren.’”