THE PRUSSIAN TERROR
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
A FIRST TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH
BY
R.S. GARNETT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
LONDON: STANLEY PAUL & CO
PHILADELPHIA: DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
1916
[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS.]
"L'ennemi, c'est le Prussien"
GAMBETTA.
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. BERLIN
II. THE HOUSE OF HOHENZOLLERN
III. COUNT VON BISMARCK
IV. IN WHICH BISMARCK EMERGES FROM AN IMPOSSIBLE POSITION
V. A SPORTSMAN AND A SPANIEL
VI. BENEDICT TURPIN
VII. KAULBACH'S STUDIO
VIII. THE CHALLENGE
IX. THE TWO DUELS
X. WHAT WAS WRITTEN IN A KING'S HAND
XI. BARON FREDERIC VON BÜLOW
XII. HELEN
XIII. COUNT KARL VON FREYBERG
XIV. THE GRANDMOTHER
XV. FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN
XVI. THE DEPARTURE
XVII. AUSTRIANS AND PRUSSIANS
XVIII. THE DECLARATION OF WAR
XIX. THE BATTLE OF LANGENSALZA
XX. IN WHICH BENEDICT'S PREDICTION CONTINUES TO BE FULFILLED
XXI. WHAT PASSED AT FRANKFURT BETWEEN THE BATTLES OF LANGENSALZA
AND SADOWA
XXII. THE FREE MEAL
XXIII. THE BATTLE OF ASCHAFFENBURG
XXIV. THE EXECUTOR
XXV. FRISK
XXVI. THE WOUNDED MAN
XXVII. THE PRUSSIANS AT FRANKFORT
XXVIII. GENERAL MANTEUFFEL'S THREATS
XXIX. GENERAL STURM
XXX. THE BREAKING OF THE STORM
XXXI. THE BURGOMASTER
XXXII. QUEEN AUGUSTA
XXXIII. THE TWO PROCESSIONS
XXXIV. THE TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD
XXXV. THE MARRIAGE _IN EXTREMIS_
XXXVI. "WAIT AND SEE"
CONCLUSION
EPILOGUE
INTRODUCTION
"The enemy passed beneath our window and then out of view. A moment
afterwards we heard the sound as it were of a hurricane; the house
trembled to the gallop of horses. At the end of the street the enemy had
been charged by our cavalry; and, not knowing our small numbers, they
were returning at full speed hotly pursued by our men. Pell-mell they
all passed by--a whirlwind of smoke and noise. Our soldiers fired and
slashed away, the enemy on their side fired as they fled. Two or three
bullets struck the house, one of them shattering a bar of the
window-shutter through which I was looking on. The spectacle was at once
magnificent and terrible. Pursued too closely the enemy had decided to
face about, and there, twenty paces from us, was going on a combat life
for life. I saw five or six of the enemy fall, and two or three of our
men. Then, defeated after a ten minutes' struggle, the enemy trusted
themselves again to the swiftness of their horses, and cleared off at
full gallop. The pursuit recommenced, the whirlwind resumed its course,
leaving, before it disappeared, three or four men strewn on the
pavement. Suddenly we heard the drum beating to the charge. It was our
hundred infantry soldiers who were coming up in their turn. They marched
with fixed bayonets and disappeared at the bend of the road. Five
minutes later we heard a sharp platoon firing. Then we saw our hussars
reappearing, driven by five or six hundred cavalry; they reappeared the
pursued, as they had started the pursuers. Amid this second tempest of
men it was impossible to see or distinguish anything; only, when it was
past, three or four dead bodies more lay stretched on the ground."
The boy who saw these scenes, to record them in his Memoirs many years
later, was living with his mother at Villers-Cotterets, on the Soissons
road in the Aisne, where fierce fighting between our little army and our
allies the French on the one hand, and the Germans on the other, is
taking place as these lines are being written. The time was 1814.
Napoleon had retreated from Moscow and had lost the battle of Leipzig,
and the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians in alliance were gradually
closing in on France. All confidence in Napoleon's star had disappeared.
Every hour was bringing the roar of cannon nearer to Paris: in a few
days the Allies were to enter it and Napoleon to sign the decree of
abdication and leave for Elba.
The name of the boy was Alexandre Dumas. His mother had filled her
cellar with furniture, bedding, and household goods, and had then had a
new plank floor made for the room above, so that treasure seekers might
look in vain, and had buried her little store of money in a box in the
middle of the garden. She was as much in terror of Napoleon as she was
of the Prussian and Russian troops. If her own countrymen, the French,
were beaten, she and her son might be killed, but if Napoleon was
victorious he would want her son as a soldier. Now Alexandre was twelve
and conscription began at sixteen.
The boy's father, General Alexandre Dumas, was dead, and as on account
of his republican principles the First Consul had disgraced, exiled, and
ruined him, so by the Emperor the widow and her son were disowned,
forgotten and left to starve. In spite of this Madame Dumas's neighbours
called her a Bonapartist, her husband having fought under Bonaparte, and
the term Bonapartist was one which was presently to amount to an
accusation as Louis XVIII neared the throne.
The enemy seen by the boy fighting in the street were
Prussians--Prussians long expected by his mother, who had made three
successive enormous dishes of haricot mutton for their pacification.
Although young Alexandre had partaken of the mutton and thought very
little of the threatened danger before it occurred, he never forgot the
sudden Prussian inroad and the dead men left outside this door. And he
often said that the Valley of the Aisne might see the Prussians again.
In 1848, when a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, Dumas lost many
votes by making a speech in the course of which, when passing the state
of Europe in review, he said. "Geographically, Prussia has the shape of
a serpent, and like a serpent it seems always to sleep and prepare to
swallow everything around it--Denmark, Holland, and Belgium; and when it
has engulfed them all you will see that Austria will pass in its turn
and perhaps, alas! France also."
In June 1866 Prussia's rapid campaign against Austria startled Europe.
Every thoughtful man was calculating the consequences of the
preponderance of Prussia in Germany, and Dumas was one of those
Frenchmen who were seized with sad presentiments of the future for their
own country. Particularly does he appear to have been struck with the
barbarous conduct of the Prussians in the free city of Frankfort[1]
which the newspapers were daily reporting. Unable to remain at home
while such events were occurring, he travelled to Frankfort and observed
them for himself. Then he went to Gotha, Hanover, and Berlin; he visited
the battlefields of Langensalza and Sadowa and returned to Paris with
his notebooks crammed with precious details, his pockets bulging with
unpublished documents.
Then M. Hollander, the owner of the political journal "The Situation,"
came running to the author of "The Three Musketeers," "Queen Margot,"
and of so many other famous historical romances to ask for one to be
called "The Prussian Terror." Dumas, who like M. Hollander was anxious
to do all he could to arouse France, fast crumbling under the Second
Empire, to a sense of her danger from Prussia, gladly complied. Such is
the genesis of this book in which on every page the author seems to
say--"Awake! the danger is at hand."
To render it more easily intelligible to readers of the present day who
appear to us to know very little of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, let
us glance at the important events which the newspaper proprietor and the
historical romancer had in mind.
The death of the King of Denmark occurred in 1863[2] and North Germany
buzzed like a swarm of angry bees over the Duchies of Schleswig,
Holstein, and Luxemburg. By the treaty of London (1852), which fixed the
succession to the Danish Crown, Austria and Prussia, although
signatories to it, denied the right of the new king to those duchies and
claimed them as part of Germany. In February 1864 Austrian and Prussian
troops crossed the Danish border. The Danes fought well, but were forced
to submit and eventually the duchies were made over to their enemies.
Then Prussia, which had long looked with jealousy on the power of
Austria and considered a war with her inevitable sooner or later,
opposed her desire to form the duchies into a separate state under the
Duke of Augustenburg. Austria referred the matter to the Frankfort Diet,
which decided in favour of the duke, but Bismarck, as Prussia's Prime
Minister, to secure the complete control of North Germany, required
that, not only the duchies but the whole of Hanover, Hesse Cassel, Hesse
Nassau, and the city of Frankfort should be absorbed in Prussia. Both
Prussia and Austria prepared for war, Prussia entering into an alliance
with Victor Emanuel. On June 7th Prussian troops entered Holstein.
On June 14th, in regard to the decisive question whether the federal
army should be mobilized, Hanover voted in the Diet with Austria, and by
so doing irrevocably declared on which side she would range herself in
the approaching struggle. Prussia at once issued an ultimatum to
Hanover, requesting her to maintain neutrality and to accept her scheme
for the reformation of the Confederation. Hanover immediately rejected
these demands and Prussian troops at once crossed the frontier. The
resulting battles are known as those of Langensalza and Aschaffenburg.
The Austrians were disastrously defeated in the terrific battle of
Sadowa or Königsrätz, and Bismarck was thus nearer to the formation of
German Unity under Prussia.
After Sadowa, the first act of the Prussians was to enter the "free"
city of Frankfort, which did not attempt any defence, relying as it did
on its treaties, and terrorise its inhabitants. It was these "acts of
terror," then, of which M. Hollander and Dumas were particularly
thinking, hoping that the recital of them in a popular romance would do
something to awaken France.
It has been repeatedly stated that before the Franco-German War of 1870
the German soldiers were guiltless of acts of atrocity. This story
proves the contrary, and it is not a little curious that no work in the
English language, save books of reference, covering the ground traversed
by "The Prussian Terror," appears to be now accessible. For this reason
alone Dumas's book, which, though in story form, is an authoritative
contribution to history, deserves attention at the present time. Apart
from this, it is so spirited and interesting that it is quite surprising
that at so late a date--forty-seven years after its original issue--I
should be the first to offer a version[3] to the British public.
Dumas was still living in Paris when, in the summer of 1869, war was
declared with Germany. His health was now bad, and his son, the author
of "La Dame aux Camélias," did not wish him to remain during the siege.
In the autumn he took his father with him to Puys near Dieppe, where he
had a villa. There Dumas died on December 5th, 1870.
He did not know it--news being kept from him--but during his last days
his worst prognostications had been verified. A detachment of the
Prussian army was actually taking possession of Dieppe as he breathed
his last. While the soldiers marched along the streets, their bands
playing German airs and the inhabitants hid in their houses behind
shuttered windows, the news flew round the town that the country had
lost Alexandre Dumas, the most typically French writer who has ever
existed. The coffin was borne to the grave at Neuville, where the
German soldiers were in occupation, before a Prussian patrol. In 1872
the body was exhumed, and buried in the family tomb at Villers-Cotterets.
Hard by, where as a boy of twelve Dumas heard the Prussian cannon, three
nations are now fighting.
R.S. GARNETT.
[1] Dumas knew Frankfort well, having lived there for some time in 1838
with Gérard de Nerval, the author of "Les Filles de Feu."
[2] These facts are taken from the "Encyclopædia Britannica."
[3] It should be stated that M. Hollander, who wished the brilliant name
of Dumas to shine on as many issues of his newspaper as possible,
stipulated for not less than sixty _feuilletons_. Dumas complied, but
was forced to include some hunting stories which he puts into the mouth
of his hero, Benedict Turpin. These stories will not be found in the
present volume.
THE PRUSSIAN TERROR
CHAPTER I
BERLIN
The architect of Berlin appears to have carefully designed his plan
according to line and rule in order to produce a capital of dullness as
far removed from the picturesque as his ingenuity could accomplish. Seen
from the cathedral, which is the loftiest point attainable, the place
suggests an enormous chess-board on which the Royal Palace, the Museum,
Cathedral, and other important buildings fairly represent kings, queens,
and castles. And, much as Paris is intersected by the Seine, so is
Berlin divided by the Spree, except that instead of surrounding one
island, as does the former river, two artificial canals branch out right
and left like the handles of a vase, and form two islands of unequal
size in the centre of the town. Berlin being the capital of Privilege,
one of these islands is distinguished by possessing the Royal Palace,
the Cathedral, the Museum, the Bourse, most other public buildings, and
a score of houses which in Turin, the Berlin of Italy, would certainly
be called palaces; the other contains nothing remarkable, corresponding
to the Parisian Rue Saint-Jacques and the quarter Saint-André-des-Arts.
The aristocratic, the smart Berlin lies to the right and left of the
Friedrich Strasse, which extends from the Place de La Belle Alliance by
which one enters Berlin to that of Oranienburg by which one leaves it,
and which is crossed nearly in the middle by the Unter den Linden. This
famous promenade traverses the fashionable quarter and extends from the
Royal Palace to the Place d'Armes. It owes its name to two rows of
magnificent lime trees which form a charming promenade on each side of
the broad carriage-way. Both sides abound in cafés and restaurants,
whose crowds of customers, overflowing in summer on to the public road,
cause a considerable amount of lively motion. This, however, never rises
into noisy horse-play or clamour, for the Prussian prefers to amuse
himself _sub rosa_, and keeps his gaiety within doors.
But on June 7th, 1866, as beautiful a day as Prussia can produce, Unter
den Linden, at about six in the evening, presented a scene of most
unusual commotion. The excitement was caused in the first place by the
increasingly hostile attitude assumed by Prussia towards Austria, in
refusing to allow the States of Holstein to proceed to the election of
the Duke of Augustenburg, also by the general arming on all sides, by
reports concerning the immediate calling up of the Landwehr and the
dissolution of the Chamber, and finally by rumours of telegrams from
France containing threats against Prussia, said to have been made by
Louis Napoleon himself.
It is necessary to travel in Prussia before one can in the least
comprehend the sort of hatred therein cherished against the French. It
is a species of monomania which distorts even the very clearest vision.
No minister can be popular, no orator will gain a hearing unless the one
lets it be supposed his policy is for war, and the other can produce
some brilliant epigram or clever _sous-entendu_ levelled against France.
Nor will the title of poet be allowed, unless the claimant can qualify
by being the author of some popular rhyme, entitled "The Rhine,"
"Leipzig," or "Waterloo."
Whence comes this hatred for France--a deep, inveterate, indestructible
hatred which seems to pervade the very earth and air? It is impossible
to say. Can it date from the time when a legion from Gaul, the advanced
guard of the Roman army, first entered Germany? Abandoning this idea we
come down to the battle of Rosbach as a possible cause, in which case
the German national character must be an uncommonly bad one, seeing they
beat us there. Still later, it might possibly be explained by the
military inferiority shown by the pupils of Frederic the Great ever
since the Duke of Brunswick's famous manifesto threatening that not one
stone of Paris should be left on another! One battle, that of Valmy,
expelled the Prussians from France in 1792; and another, that of Jena,
opened the gates of Berlin to us in 1806. Still, to these dates, our
enemies--no, our rivals--can oppose the names of Leipzig and of
Waterloo. Of Leipzig, however, they cannot claim more than a quarter,
seeing their army was combined with those of Russia, Austria, and
Sweden, to say nothing of that of Saxony, which also deserves to be
remembered. Nor is more than one-half of Waterloo to their credit, for
Napoleon, who till then had the advantage, was already exhausted by a
six hours' struggle with the English when they arrived.
Consequently, remembering this heritage of hate, which, indeed, they
have always shown quite openly--one could not be surprised at the
popular emotion caused by a rumour, non-official but widely spread, that
France would throw down the gauntlet and join in the impending conflict.
Many, however, doubted the news, as not a word of it had appeared in the
"Staat's Anzeiger" that morning. Berlin, like Paris, has its faithful
adherents to the Government and the "Moniteur," who believe that the
latter cannot lie, and that a paternal Government would never, never
keep back news interesting to its affectionate subjects. These were
joined by the readers of the "Tages Telegraphe" ("Daily Telegraphic
News"), certain that their special organ would have known whatever was
to be known, and also by those of the ministerial and aristocratic
"Kreuz Zeitung," who equally declined to believe anything not contained
in its usually well-informed columns. And besides these one heard the
names of a dozen other daily or weekly issues bandied from side to side
in the excited crowd, until suddenly a harsh cry of "French news! French
news! Telegraphic News" "One kreutzer," succeeded in dominating the din.
The effect produced on the crowd may be imagined. Despite the proverbial
Prussian economy, every hand sought its pocket and drawing forth a
kreutzer, proceeded to exchange it for the square bit of paper
containing the long-desired news. And indeed the importance of the
contents made amends for the delay in obtaining it. The dispatch ran as
follows:
"June 6th, 1866. His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon III, having gone to
Auxerre, in order to be present at the provincial assembly, was met at
the gates of the town by the mayor, who presented an address, offering
the respectful homage of himself and the inhabitants. His Majesty
replied in the following terms, which do not require to be explained to
our countrymen. Their meaning must be sufficiently clear to all.
"I see with much pleasure that Auxerre still remembers the First Empire.
Let me assure you that I, on my side, have inherited the feelings of
affection entertained by the Chief of our family for the patriotic and
energetic communities which supported him alike through good and evil.
And I myself owe a debt of gratitude to the department of the Yonne as
being one of the first to declare for me in 1848. It knew, as indeed the
greater part of the nation knew, that its interests and mine were
identical and that we both equally detested those treaties of 1815,
which are used to-day as a means of controlling our external policy."
Here the dispatch broke off, the sender evidently not considering the
remainder of the emperor's discourse worth transcribing. Certainly his
meaning was sufficiently clear without it. Nevertheless some minutes
elapsed before the sense of the communication was understood by the
readers, and evoked the display of hatred which naturally followed.
When at last they began to comprehend and to see the hand of the nephew
of Napoleon the Great overshadowing their beloved Rhine, there arose
from one end of Unter den Linden to the other such a tempest of threats,
howls, and hurrahs, that, to borrow Schiller's lively expression, one
would have thought the encircling hoops of the heavenly concave must all
be burst asunder. Threatening toasts were called, curses shouted, and
fists shaken against offending France. A Göttingen student springing on
a table began to recite with due emphasis Rückert's ferocious poem
entitled "The Return," in which a Prussian soldier, having returned home
in consequence of peace being declared, bitterly regrets the various
outrages he is in consequence debarred from committing. Needless to say,
this recital was enthusiastically applauded. Shouts of "Bravo!" and
"Hurrah!" mixed with cries of "Long live King William!" "Hurrah for
Prussia!" "Down with France!" formed an accompaniment which would
doubtless have been continued to the next piece, the reciter proposing
to give a lyric by Theodor Körner. The announcement was received with
loud applause.
It was, however, by no means the only safety valve at which the passion
of the surging crowd, now at white heat, sought and found a vent. A
little lower down, at the corner of the Friedrich Strasse, a well-known
singer happened to be returning from rehearsal, and as he chanced on one
occasion to have made a hit by singing "The German Rhine" some one who
remembered this raised a cry of "The German Rhine! the German Rhine!
Heinrich! sing 'The German Rhine!'" The crowd instantly recognized and
surrounded the artist, who, owning a fine voice, and being familiar with
the piece demanded, did not wait to be asked twice, but gratified his
audience by singing his very best, thereby far surpassing the Return in
the tremendous reception he obtained.
But all at once a loud and furious hiss which might have issued from the
throttle of a steam engine was heard above all the wild applause, and
produced the effect of a blow in the face bestowed on the singer. A bomb
suddenly exploding in the crowd could hardly have been more effective;
the hiss was answered by a dull roar something like that which precedes
a hurricane and every eye was turned towards the quarter whence it
proceeded.
Standing by a solitary table was a handsome young man, apparently about
five-and-twenty, fair-haired, fair-skinned, rather slightly built, and
in face, moustache and costume somewhat resembling the portrait of
Vandyke. He had just opened a bottle of champagne and held a foaming
glass aloft. Undisturbed by angry looks and threatening gestures he drew
himself up, placed one foot on his chair, and raising his glass above
his head cried loudly, "Vive la France!" then swallowed the contents at
one draught.