BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER.
Brittanic Majesty with his Yarmouth, and martial Prince of Cumberland,
arrived at Hanover May 15th; soon followed by Carteret from the Hague:
[_Biographia Britannica_ (Kippin's,? Carteret), iii. 277.] a Majesty
prepared now for battle and for treaty alike; kind of earthly Jove,
Arbiter of Nations, or victorious Hercules of the Pragmatic, the sublime
little man. At Herrenhausen he has a fine time; grandly fugling about;
negotiating with Wilhelm of Hessen and others; commanding his Pragmatic
Army from the distance: and then at last, dashing off rather in haste,
he--It is well known what enigmatic Exploit he did, at least the Name of
it is well known! Here, from the Imbroglios, is a rough Account; parts
of which are introducible for the sake of English readers.
BATTLE OF DETTINGEN.
"After some five leisurely weeks in Herrenhausen, George II. (now an old
gentleman of sixty), with his martial Fat Boy the Duke of Cumberland,
and Lord Carteret his Diplomatist-in-Chief, quitted that pleasant
sojourn, rather on a sudden, for the actual Seat of War. By speedy
journeys they got to Frankfurt Country; to Hanau, June 19th;
whence, still up the Mayn, twenty or thirty miles farther up, to
Aschaffenburg,--where the Pragmatic Army, after some dangerous
manoeuvring on the opposite or south bank of the River, has lain
encamped some days, and is in questionable posture. Whither his Majesty
in person has hastened up. And truly, if his Majesty's head contain any
good counsel, there is great need of it here just now.
"Captains and men were impatient of that long loitering, hanging idle
about Frankfurt all through May; and they have at length started real
business,--with more valor than discretion, it is feared. They are some
40 or 44,000 strong: English 16,000; Hanoverians the like number; and of
Austrians [by theory 20,000], say, in effect, 12,000 or even 8,000: all
paid by England. They have Hanau for Magazine; they have rearguard of
12,000 [the 6,000 Hessians, and 6,000 new Hanoverians], who at last
are actually on march thither, near arriving there: 'Forward!' said the
Captaincy [said Stair, chiefly, it was thought]: 'Shall the whole summer
waste itself to no purpose?'--and are up the River thus far, not on the
most considerate terms.
"What this Pragmatic Army means to do? That is, and has been, a great
question for all the world; especially for Noailles and the French,--not
to say, for the Pragmatic itself! 'Get into Lorraine?' think the French:
'Get into Alsace, and wrest it from us, for behoof of her Hungarian
Majesty,'--plundered goods, which indeed belong to the Reich and her,
in a sense! ELS-SASS (Alsace, OUTER-seat), with its ROAD-Fortress
(STRASburg) plundered from the Holy Romish Reich by Louis XIV., in a way
no one can forget; actually plundered, as if by highway robbery, or
by highway robbery and attorneyism combined, on the part of that
great Sovereign. 'To Strasburg? To Lorraine perhaps? Or to the Three
Bishoprics'" (Metz, Toul, Verdun:--readers recollect that Siege of
Metz, which broke the great heart of Karl V.? Who raged and fired as man
seldom did, with 50,000 men, against Guise and the intrusive French, for
six weeks; sound of his cannon heard at Strasburg on winter nights, 300
years ago: to no purpose; for his Captains of the Siege, after trial and
second trial, solemnly shook their heads; and the great Kaiser, breaking
into tears, had to raise the Siege of Metz; and went his way, never to
smile more in this world: and Metz, and Toul, and Verdun, remain with
the French ever since):--"To the Three Bishoprics, possibly enough!"
"'Or they may purpose for the Donau Countries, where Broglio is
crackling off like trains of gunpowder; and lend hand to Prince Karl,
thereby enclosing Broglio fires?' This, according to present aspects, is
between two the likeliest. And perhaps, had provenders and arrangements
been made beforehand for such a march, this had been the feasiblest:
and, to my own notion, it was some wild hope of doing this without
provenders or prearrangements that had brought the Pragmatic into its
present quarters at Aschaffenburg, which are for the military mind a
mystery to this day.
"Early in the Spring, the French Government had equipped Noailles
with 70,000 men, to keep watch, and patrol about, in the Rhine-Mayn
Countries, and look into those points. Which he has been vigilantly
doing,--posted of late on the south or left bank of the Mayn;--and is
especially vigilant, since June 14th, when the Pragmatic Army got on
march, across the Mayn at Hochst; and took to offering him battle,
on his own south side of the River. Noailles--though his Force [still
58,000, after that Broglio Detachment of 12,000] was greatly the
stronger--would not fight; preferred cutting off the Enemy's supplies,
capturing his river-boats, provision-convoys from Hanau, and settling
him by hunger, as the cheaper method. Impetuous Stair was thwarted, by
flat protest of his German colleagues, especially by D'Ahremberg, in
FORCING battle on those rash terms: 'We Austrians absolutely will not!'
said D'Ahremberg at last, and withdrew, or was withdrawing, he for his
part, across the River again. So that Stair also was obliged to recross
the River, in indignant humor; and now lies at Aschaffenburg, suffering
the sad alternative, short diet namely, which will end in famine soon,
if these counsels prevail.
"Stair and D'Ahremberg do not well accord in their opinions; nor, it
seems, is anybody in particular absolute Chief; there are likewise heats
and jealousies between the Hanoverian and the English troops ('Are not
we come for all your goods?' 'Yes, damn you, and for all our chattels
too!')--and withal it is frightfully uncertain whether a high degree of
intellect presides over these 44,000 fighting men, which may lead them
to something, or a low degree, which can only lead them to nothing!--The
blame is all laid on Stair; 'too rash,' they say. Possibly enough, too
rash. And possibly enough withal, even to a sound military judgment, in
such unutterable puddle of jarring imbecilities, 'rashness,' headlong
courage, offered the one chance there was of success? Who knows, had all
the 44,000 been as rash as Stair and his English, but luck, and sheer
hard fighting, might have favored him, as skill could not, in those
sad circumstances! Stair's plan was, 'Beat Noailles, and you have done
everything: provisions, opulent new regions, and all else shall be added
to you!' Stair's plan might have answered,--had Stair been the master to
execute it; which he was not. D'Ahremberg's also, who protested, 'Wait
till your 12,000 join, and you have your provisions,' was the orthodox
plan, and might have much to say for itself. But the two plans
collapsing into one,--that was the clearly fatal method! Magnanimous
Stair never made the least explanation, to an undiscerning Public or
Parliament; wrapt himself in strict silence, and accepted in a grand way
what had come to him. [His Papers, to voluminous extent, are still in
the Family Archives;--not inaccessible, I think, were the right student
of them (who would be a rare article among us!) to turn up.] Clear it
is, the Pragmatic Army had come across again, at Aschaffenburg,
Sunday, June 16th; and was found there by his Majesty on the Wednesday
following, with its two internecine plans fallen into mutual death; a
Pragmatic Army in truly dangerous circumstances.
"The English who were in and round Aschaffenburg itself, Hanoverians
and Austrians encamping farther down, had put a battery on the Bridge of
Aschaffenburg; hoping to be able to forage thereby on the other side of
the Mayn. Whereupon Noailles had instantly clapt a redoubt, under
due cover of a Wood, at his end of the Bridge, 'No passage this way,
gentlemen, except into the cannon's throat!'--so that Marshal Stair,
reconnoitring that way, 'had his hat shot off,' and rapidly drew back
again. Nay, before long, Noailles, at the Village of Seligenstadt, some
eight miles farther down, throws two wooden or pontoon bridges
over; [Sketch of Plan at p. 257.] can bring his whole Army across at
Seligenstadt; prohibits all manner of supply to us from Hanau or our
Magazines by his arrangement there:"--(Notable little Seligenstadt,
"City of the Blessed;" where Eginhart and Emma, ever since Charlemagne's
time, lie waiting the Resurrection; that is the place of these Noailles
contrivances!)--"Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post
twenty miles farther up the river (Miltenberg the name of it); and will
prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Branken or the Neckar
Country. We had forgotten, or our COLLAPSE of plans had done it, that
'an army moves on its stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that
we have nothing to live upon in these parts!
"Such has the unfortunate fact turned out to be, when Britannic Majesty
arrives; and it can now be discovered clearly, by any eyes, however flat
to the head. And a terrible fact it is. Discordant Generals accuse one
another; hungry soldiers cannot be kept from plundering: for the horses
there is unripe rye in quantity; but what is there for the men? My poor
traditionary friends, of the Grey Dragoons, were wont (I have heard)
to be heart-rending on this point, in after years! Famine being urgent,
discipline is not possible, nor existence itself. For a week longer,
George, rather in obstinate hope than with any reasonable plan or
exertion, still tries it; finds, after repeated Councils of War, that
he will have to give it up, and go back to Hanau where his living
is. Wednesday night, 26th June, 1743, that is the final resolution,
inevitably come upon, without argument: and about one on Thursday
morning, the Army (in two columns, Austrians to vanward well away from
the River, English as rear-guard close on it) gets in motion to execute
said resolution,--if the Army can.
"If the Army can: but that is like to be a formidably difficult
business; with a Noailles watching every step of you, to-day and for
ten days back, in these sad circumstances. Eyes in him like a lynx, they
say; and great skill in war, only too cautious. Hardly is the Army gone
from Aschaffenburg, when Noailles, pushing across by the Bridge, seizes
that post,--no retreat now for us thitherward. His Majesty, who marches
in the rear division, has happily some artillery with him; repels the
assaults from behind, which might have been more serious otherwise. As
it is, there play cannon across the River upon him:--Why not bend to
right, and get out of range, asks the reader? The Spessart Hills rise,
high and woody, on the right; and there is in many places no marching
except within range. Noailles has Five effective Batteries, at the
various good points, on his side of the River:--and that is nothing to
what he has got ready for us, were we once at Dettingen, within wind
of his Two Bridges a little beyond! Noailles has us in a perfect
mouse-trap, SOURICIERE as he felinely calls it; and calculates on having
annihilation ready for us at Dettingen.
"Dettingen, short way above those Pontoons at Seligenstadt, is near
eight miles westward [NORTHwestward, but let us use the briefer term]
from Aschaffenburg: Dettingen is a poor peasant Village, of some size,
close on the Mayn, and on our side of it. A Brook, coming down from the
Spessart Mountains, falls into the Mayn there; having formed for itself,
there and upwards, a considerable dell or hollow way; chiefly on the
western or right bank of which stands the Village with its barnyards and
piggeries: on both sides of the great High-road, which here crosses
the Brook, and will lead you to Hanau twenty miles off,--or back to
Aschaffenburg, and even to Nurnberg and the Donau Countries, if you
persevere. Except that of the high-road, Dettingen Brook has no bridge.
Above the Village, after coming from the Mountains, the banks of it are
boggy; especially the western bank, which spreads out into a scrubby
waste of moor, for some good space. In which scrubby moor, as elsewhere
in this dell or hollow way itself, where the Village hangs, with its
hedges, piggeries, colegarths,--there is like to be bad enough marching
for a column of men! Noailles, as we said, has Two Bridges thrown across
the Mayn, just below; and the last of his Five Batteries, from the other
side, will command Dettingen. His plan of operation is this:--
"By these Bridges he has passed 24,000 horse and foot across the River,
under his Nephew the chivalrous Duke of Grammont: these, with due
artillery and equipment, are to occupy the Village; and to rank
themselves in battle-order to leftward of it, on the moor just
mentioned,--well behind that hollow way, with its brook and bogs;--and,
one thing they must note well, Not to stir from that position, till
the English columns have got fairly into said hollow way and brook
of Dettingen, and are plunging more or less distractedly across the
entanglements there. With cannon on their left flank, and such a gullet
to pass through, one may hope they will be in rather an attackable
condition. Across that gullet it is our intention they shall never get.
How can they, if Grammont do his duty?
"This is Noailles's plan; one of the prettiest imaginable, say
military men,--had the execution but corresponded. Noailles had seized
Aschaffenburg, so soon as the English were out of it; Noailles, from his
batteries beyond the River, salutes the English march with continuous
shot and thunder, which is very discomposing: he sees confidently
a really fair likelihood of capturing the Britannic Majesty and his
Pragmatic Army, unless they prefer to die on the ground. Seldom, since
that of the Caudine Forks, did any Army, by ill-luck and ill-guidance,
get into such a pinfold,--death or flat surrender seemingly their one
alternative.
"Thus march these English, that dewy morning, Thursday, June 27th, 1743,
with cannon playing on their left flank; and such a fate ahead of them,
had they known it;--very short of breakfast, too, for most part. But
they have one fine quality, and Britannic George, like all his Welf race
from Henry the Lion down to these days, has it in an eminent degree:
they are not easily put into flurry, into fear. In all Welf Sovereigns,
and generally in Teuton Populations, on that side of the Channel or
on this, there is the requisite unconscious substratum of taciturn
inexpugnability, with depths of potential rage almost unquenchable, to
be found when you apply for it. Which quality will much stead them on
the present occasion: and, indeed, it is perhaps strengthened by their
'stupidity' itself, what neighbors call their 'stupidity;'--want of idle
imagining, idle flurrying, nay want even of knowing, is not one of the
worst qualities just now! They tramp on, paying a minimum of attention
to the cannon; ignorant of what is ahead; hoping only it may be
breakfast, in some form, before the day quite terminate. The day
is still young, hardly 8 o'clock, when their advanced parties find
Dettingen beset; find a whole French Army drawn up, on the scrubby moor
there; and come galloping back with this interesting bit of news! Pause
hereupon; much consulting; in fact, endless hithering and thithering,
the affair being knotty: 'Fight, YES, now at last! But how?' Impetuous
Stair was not wanting to himself; Neipperg too, they say, was useful
with advice; D'Ahremberg, I should imagine, good for little.
"Some six hours followed of thrice-intricate deploying, planting of
field-pieces, counter-batteries; ranking, re-ranking, shuffling hither
and then thither of horse and foot; Noailles's cannonade proceeding all
the while; the English, still considerably exposed to it, and standing
it like stones; chivalrous Grammont, and with better reason the English,
much wishing these preliminaries were done. A difficult business, that
of deploying here. The Pragmatic had no room, jammed so against the
Spessart Hills, and obliged to lean FROM the River and Noailles's
cannon; had to rank itself in six, some say in eight lines; horse behind
foot, as well as on flank; unsatisfactory to the military mind: and I
think had not done shuffling and re-shuffling at 2 P.M.,--when the
Enemy came bursting on, with a peremptory finish to it, 'Enough of
that, MESSIEUR'S LES ANGLAIS!' 'Too much of it, a great deal!' thought
Messieurs grimly, in response. And there ensued a really furious
clash of host against host; French chivalry (MAISON DU ROI, Black
Mousquetaires, the Flower of their Horse regiments) dashing, in right
Gallic frenzy, on their natural enemies,--on the English, that is; who,
I find, were mainly on the left wing there, horse and foot; and had
mainly (the Austrians and they, very mainly) the work to do;--and did,
with an effort, and luck helping, manage to do it.
"'Grammont breaks orders! Thrice-blamable Grammont!' exclaim Noailles
and others, sorrowfully wringing their hands. Even so! Grammont had
waited seven mortal hours; one's courage burning all the while, courage
perhaps rather burning down,--and not the least use coming of if.
Grammont had, in natural impatience, gradually edged forward; and, in
the end, was being cannonaded and pricked into by the Enemy;--and did at
last, with his MAISON-DU-ROI, dash across that essential Hollow Way, and
plunge in upon them on their own side of it. And 'the, English foot gave
their volley too soon;' ad Grammont did, in effect, partly repulse and
disorder the front ranks of them; and, blazing up uncontrollable, at
sight of those first ranks in disorder, did press home upon them more
and more; get wholly into the affair, bringing on his Infantry as well:
'Let us finish it wholly, now that our hand is in!'--and took one cannon
from the Enemy; and did other feats.
"So furious was that first charge of his; 'MAISON-DU-ROI covering itself
with glory,'--for a short while. MAISON-DU-ROI broke three lines of the
Enemy [three, not "Five"]; did in some places actually break through; in
others 'could not, but galloped along the front.' Three of their lines:
but the fourth line would not break; much the contrary, it advanced
(Austrians and English) with steady fire, hotter and hotter: upon this
fourth line MAISON-DU-ROI had, itself, to break, pretty much altogether,
and rush home again, in ruinous condition. 'Our front lines made lanes
for them; terribly maltreating them with musketry on right and left, as
they galloped through.' And this was the end of Grammont's successes,
this charge of horse; for his infantry had no luck anywhere; and the
essential crisis of the Battle had been here. It continued still a good
while; plenty of cannonading, fusillading, but in sporadic detached
form; a confused series of small shocks and knocks; which were mostly,
or all, unfortunate for Grammont; and which at length knocked him quite
off the field. 'He was now interlaced with the English,' moans Noailles;
'so that my cannon, not to shoot Grammont as well as the English, had to
cease firing!' Well, yes, that is true, M. le Marechal; but that is not
so important as you would have it. The English had stood nine hours in
this fire of yours; by degrees, leaning well away from it; answering
it with counter-batteries;--and were not yet ruined by it, when the
Grammont crisis came! Noailles should have dashed fresh troops across
his Bridges, and tried to handle them well. Noailles did not do that; or
do anything but wring his hands.
"The Fight lasted four hours; ever hotter on the English part, ever less
hot on the French [fire of anthracite-coal VERSUS flame of dry wood,
which latter at last sinks ASHY!]--and ended in total defeat of the
French. The French Infantry by no means behaved as their Cavalry had
done. The GARDES FRANCAISES [fire burning ashy, after seven hours of
flaming], when Grammont ordered them up to take the English in flank,
would hardly come on at all, or stand one push. They threw away their
arms, and plunged into the River, like a drove of swimmers; getting
drowned in great numbers. So that their comrades nicknamed them 'CANARDS
DU MEIN (Ducks of the Mayn):' and in English mess-rooms, there went
afterwards a saying: 'The French had, in reality, Three Bridges; one of
them NOT wooden, and carpeted with blue cloth!' Such the wit of military
mankind.
"... The English, it appears, did something by mere shouting. Partial
huzzas and counter-huzzas between the Infantries were going on at one
time, when Stair happened to gallop up: 'Stop that,' said Stair; 'let
us do it right. Silence; then, One and all, when I give you signal!'
And Stair, at the right moment, lifting his hat, there burst out such
a thunder-growl, edged with melodious ire in alt, as quite seemed
to strike a damp into the French, says my authority, 'and they never
shouted more.... Our ground in many parts was under rye,' hedgeless
fields of rye, chief grain-crop of that sandy country. 'We had already
wasted above 120,000 acres of it,' still in the unripe state, so hungry
were we, man and horse, 'since crossing to Aschaffenburg;'--fighting for
your Cause of Liberty, ye benighted ones!
"King Friedrich's private accounts, deformed by ridicule, are, That the
Britannic Majesty, his respectable old Uncle, finding the French there
barring his way to breakfast, understood simply that there must and
should be fighting, of the toughest; but had no plan or counsel farther:
that he did at first ride up, to see what was what with his own eyes;
but that his horse ran away with him, frightened at the cannon; upon
which he hastily got down; drew sword; put himself at the head of his
Hanoverian Infantry [on the right wing], and stood,--left foot
drawn back, sword pushed out, in the form of a fencing-master doing
lunge,--steadily in that defensive attitude, inexpugnable like the
rocks, till all was over, and victory gained. This is defaced by the
spirit of ridicule, and not quite correct. Britannic Majesty's horse
[one of those 500 fine animals] did, it is certain, at last dangerously
run away with him; upon which he took to his feet and his Hanoverians.
But he had been repeatedly on horseback, in the earlier stages;
galloping about, to look with his own eyes, could they have availed him;
and was heard encouraging his people, and speaking even in the English
language, 'Steady, my boys; fire, my brave boys, give them fire; they
will soon run!' [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ (iii. 14): compare Anonymous,
_Life of the Duke of Cumberland_ (p. 64 n.); Henderson's LIFE of ditto;
&c.] Latterly, there can be no doubt, he stands [and to our imagination,
he may fitly stand throughout] in the above attitude of lunge; no fear
in him, and no plan; 'SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS,' as me might term it. Like
a real Hanoverian Sovereign of England; like England itself, and its
ways in those German Wars. A typical epitome of long sections of English
History, that attitude of lunge!--
"The English Officers also, it is evident, behaved in their usual
way:--without knowledge of war, without fear of death, or regard to
utmost peril or difficulty; cheering their men, and keeping them steady
upon the throats of the French, so far as might be. And always, after
that first stumble with the French Horse was mended, they kept gaining
ground, thrusting back the Enemy, not over the Dettingen Brook and
Moor-ground only, but, knock after knock, out of his woody or other
coverts, back and ever back, towards Welzheim, Kahl, and those Two
Bridges of his. The flamy French [ligneous fire burning lower and lower,
VERSUS anthracitic glowing brighter and brighter] found that they had
a bad time of it;--found, in fact, that they could not stand it; and
tumbled finally, in great torrents, across their Bridges on the Mayn,
many leaping into the River, the English sitting dreadfully on the
skirts of them. So that had the English had their Cavalry in readiness
to pursue, Noailles's Army, in the humor it had sunk to, was ruined, and
the Victory would have been conspicuously great. But they had, as too
common, nothing ready. Impetuous Stair strove to get ready; "pushed out
the Grey Dragoons" for one item. But the Authorities refused Stair's
counsel, as rash again; and made no effectual pursuit at all;--too glad
that they had brushed their Battle-field triumphantly clear, and got out
of that fatal pinfold in an honorable manner.
MAP: BOOK XIV, Chap V, page 257 GOES HERE--------------------------
"They stayed on the ground till 10 at night; settling, or trying to
settle, many things. The Surgeons were busy as bees, but able for
Officers only;--'Dress HIM first!' said the glorious Duke of Cumberland,
pointing to a young Frenchman [Excellency Fenelon's Son, grand-nephew
of TELEMAQUE] who was worse wounded than his Highness. Quite in the
Philip-Sydney fashion; which was much taken notice of. 'All this while,
we had next to nothing to eat' (says one informant).--Ten P.M.: after
which, leaving a polite Letter to Noailles, 'That he would take care of
our Wounded, and bury our Slain as well as his own,' we march [through a
pour of rain] to Hanau, where our victuals are, and 12,000 new Hessians
and Hanoverians by this time.
"Noailles politely bandaged the Wounded, buried the Dead. Noailles,
gathering his scattered battalions, found that he had lost 2,659 men;
no ruinous loss to him,--the Enemy's being at least equal, and all his
Wounded fallen Prisoners of War. No ruinous loss to Noailles, had it not
been the loss of Victory,--which was a sore blow to French feeling; and,
adding itself to those Broglio disgraces, a new discouragement to Most
Christian Majesty. Victory indisputably lost:--but is it not Grammont's
blame altogether? Grammont bears it, as we saw; and it is heavily laid
on him. But my own conjecture is, forty thousand enraged people, of
English and other Platt-Teutsch type, would have been very difficult to
pin up, into captivity or death instead of breakfast, in that manner:
and it is possible if poor Grammont had not mistaken, some other would
have done so, and the hungry Baresarks (their blood fairly up, as
is evident) would have ended in getting through." [Espagnac, i. 193;
_Guerre de Boheme,_ i. 231.]--_Gentleman's Magazine,_ vol. xiii. (for
1743), pp. 328-481;--containing Carteret's Despatch from the field;
followed by many other Letters and indistinct Narrations from Officers
present (p. 434, "Plan of the Battle," blotchy, indecipherable in
parts, but essentially rather true),--is worth examining. See likewise
Anonymous, _Memoirs of the late Duke of Cumberland_ (Lond. 1767; the
Author an ignorant, much-adoring military-man, who has made some study,
and is not so stupid as he looks), pp. 56-78; and Henderson (ignorant he
too, much-adoring, and not military), _Life of the Duke of Cumberland_
(Lond. 1766), pp. 32-48. Noailles's Official Account (ingenuously at a
loss what to say), in _ Campagnes,_ ii. B, 242-253, 306-310. _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ iii. 11-14 (incorrect in many of the DETAILS).
This was all the Fighting that King George got of his Pragmatic Army;
the gain from conquest made by it was, That it victoriously struggled
back to its bread-cupboard. Stair, about two months hence, in the
mere loitering and higgling that there was, quitted the Pragmatic;
magnanimously silent on his many wrongs and disgusts, desirous only
of "returning to the plough," as he expressed himself. The lofty man;
wanted several requisites for being a Marlborough; wanted a Sarah
Jennings, as the preliminary of all!--We will not attend the lazy
movements and procedures of the Pragmatic Army farther; which were of
altogether futile character, even in the temporary Gazetteer estimate;
and are to be valued at zero, and left charitably in oblivion by a pious
posterity. Stair, the one brightish-looking man in it, being gone, there
remain Majesty with his D'Ahrembergs, Neippergs, and the Martial Boy;
Generals Cope, Hawley, Wade, and many of leaden character, remain:--let
the leaden be wrapped in lead.
It was not a successful Army, this Pragmatic. Dettingen itself, in
spite of the rumoring of Gazetteers and temporary persons, had no
result,--except the extremely bad one, That it inflated to an alarming
height the pride and belligerent humor of his Britannic, especially of
her Hungarian Majesty; and made Peace more difficult than ever. That of
getting Ostein, with his Austrian leanings, chosen Kur-Mainz,--that too
turned out ill: and perhaps, in the course of the next few months, we
shall judge that, had Ostein leant AGAINST Austria, it had been better
for Austria and Ostein. Of the Pragmatic Army, silence henceforth,
rather than speech!--
One thing we have to mark, his Britannic Majesty, commander of such an
Army,--and of such a Purse, which is still more stupendous,--has risen,
in the Gazetteer estimate and his own, to a high pitch of importance. To
be Supreme Jove of Teutschland, in a manner; and acts, for the present
Summer, in that sublime capacity. Two Diplomatic feats of his,--one
a Treaty done and tumbled down again, the other a Treaty done and
let stand ("Treaty of Worms," and "Conferences," or NON-Treaty "of
Hanau"),--are of moment in this History and that of the then World.
Of these two Transactions, due both of them to such an Army and such
a Purse, we shall have to take some notice by and by; the rest shall
belong to Night and her leaden sceptre--much good may they do her!
Some ten days after Dettingen, Broglio (who was crackling off from
Donauwurth, in view of the Lines of Schellenberg, that very 27th of
June) ended his retreat to the Rhine Countries; "glorious," though
rather swift, and eaten into by the Tolpatcheries of Prince Karl. "July
8th, at Wimpfen" (in the Neckar Region, some way South of Dettingen),
Broglio delivers his troops to Marechal de Noailles's care; and, next
morning, rushes off towards Strasburg, and quiet Official life, as
Governor there.
"The day after his arrival," says Friedrich, "he gave a grand ball in
Strasburg:" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 10.] "Behold your conquering
hero safe again, my friends!" An ungrateful Court judged otherwise of
the hero. Took his Strasburg Government from him, gave it to Marechal de
Coigny; ordered the hero to his Estates in the Country, Normandy, if I
remember;--where he soon died of apoplexy, poor man; and will trouble
none of us again. "A man born for surprises," said Friedrich long since,
in the Strasburg Doggerel. Lost his indispensable garnitures, at
the Ford of Secchia once; and now, in these last twelve months, is
considered to have done a series of blustery explosions, derogatory to
the glory of France, and ruinous to that sublime Belleisle Enterprise
for oue thing.
A ruined Enterprise that, at any rate; seldom was Enterprise better
ruined. Here, under Broglio, amid the titterings of mankind, has the
tail of the Oriflamme gone the same bad road as its head did;--into zero
and outer darkness; leaving the expenses to pay. Like a mad tavern-brawl
of one's own raising, the biggest that ever was. Has cost already, I
should guess, some 80,000 French drilled Men, paid down, on the nail, to
the inexorable Fates: and of coined Millions,--how many? In subsidies,
in equipments, in waste, in loss and wreck: Dryasdust could not have
told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable;
the probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people
by the nose, in your wanton humor, over your wine!--One willing man, or
Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need
always two or more to end it again.
Most Christian Majesty is not so sensible of this fact as he afterwards
became; but what with Broglio and the extinct Oriflamme, what with
Dettingen and the incipient Pragmatic, he is heartily disgusted and
discouraged; and wishes he had not thought of cutting Germany in Four.
July 26th, Most Christian Majesty applies to the German Diet; signifying
"That he did indeed undertake to help the Kaiser, according to treaties;
but was the farthest in the world from meaning to invade Germany, on
his own score. That he had and has no quarrel, except with Austria as
Kaiser's enemy; and is ready to be friends even with Austria. And now
indeed intends to withdraw his troops wholly from the German territory.
And can therefore hope that all unpleasantness will cease, between the
German Nation and him; and that perhaps the Kaiser will be able to
make peace with her Majesty of Hungary on softer terms than at one
time seemed likely. If only the animosities of sovereign persons would
assuage themselves, and each of us would look without passion at the
issue really desirable for him!" [Espagnac, i. 200. Adelung, iii. B, 199
(26th July); Ib. 201 (the Answer to it, 16th August).]
That is now, 26th July, 1743, King Louis's story for himself to the Diet
of the Holy Roman Empire, Teutsch by Nation, sitting at Frankfurt in
rather disconsolate circumstances. The Diet naturally answered, "JA
WOHL, JA WOHL," in intricate official language,--nobody need know what
the Diet answered. But what the Hungarian Majesty answered, strong and
high in such Britannic backing,--this was of such unexpected tone, that
it fixed everybody's attention; and will very specially require to be
noted by us, in the course of a week or two.
We said, her Hungarian Majesty was getting crowned in Bohemia, getting
personally homaged in Upper Austria, about to get vice-homaged in
Bavaria itself,--nothing but glorious pomp, but loyalty loudly vocal, in
Prag, in Linz and the once-afflicted Countries; at her return to Vienna,
she has met the news of Dettingen; and is ready to strike the stars with
her sublime head. "My little Paladin become Supreme Jove, too: aha!"
BRITANNIC MAJESTY HOLDS HIS CONFERENCES OF HANAU.
Britannic Majesty stayed two whole months in Hanau, brushing himself
up again after that fierce bout; and considering, with much dubitation,
What is the next thing?"Go in upon Noailles [who is still hanging about
here, with Broglio coming on in the exploded state]; wreck Broglio and
him! Go in upon the French!" so urges Stair always: rash Stair, urgent
to the edge of importunity; English Officers and Martial Boy urgently
backing Stair; while the Hanoverian Officers and Martial Parent are
steady to the other view. So that, in respect of War, the next thing,
for two months coming, was absolutely nothing, and to the end of
the Campaign was nothing worth a moment's notice from us. But on the
Diplomatic side, there were two somethings, CONFERENCES AT HANAU
with poor Kaiser Karl, and TREATY AT WORMS with the King of Sardinia;
which--as minus quantities, or things less than nothing--turned out to
be highly considerable for his Britannic Majesty and us.
HANAU, 7th July-1st AUGUST, 1743. "Poor Kaiser Karl had left Augsburg
June 26th,--while his Broglio was ferrying at Donauworth, and his
Seckendorf treatying for Armistice at Nieder-Schonfeld,--the very day
before Dettingen. What a piece of news to him, that Dettingen, on his
return to Frankfurt!
"A few days after Dettingen, July 3d, Noailles, who is still within
call, came across to see this poor stepson of Fortune; gives piteous
account of him, if any one were now curious on that head: How he
bitterly complains of Broglio, of the no-subsidies sent, and is driven
nearly desperate;--not a penny in his pocket, beyond all. Upon which
latter clause Noailles munificently advanced him a $6,000. 'Draught
of 40,000 crowns, in my own name; which doubtless the King, in his
compassion, will see good to sanction.' [_Campagnes de Noailles_
(Amsterdam, 1760: this is a Sequel, or rather VICE VERSA, to that which
we have called DES TROIS MARECHAUX, being of the same Collection), i.
316-328.] His feelings on the loss of Dettingen may be pictured. But he
had laid his account with such things;--prepared for the worst, since
that Interview with Broglio and Conti; one plan now left, 'Peace, cost
what it will!'
"The poor Kaiser had already, as we saw, got into hopes of bargaining
with his Britannic Majesty; and now he instantly sets about it, while
Hanau is victorious head-quarters. Britannic Majesty is not himself very
forward; but Carteret, I rather judge, had taken up the notion; and
on his Majesty's and Carteret's part, there is actually the wish and
attempt to pacificate the Reich; to do something tolerable for the poor
Kaiser, as well as satisfactory to the Hungarian Majesty,--satisfactory,
or capable of being (by the Purse-holder) insisted on as such.
"And so the Landgraf of Hessen, excellent Wilhelm, King George's friend
and gossip, is come over to that little Town of Hanau, which is his
own, in the Schloss of which King George is lodged: and there, between
Carteret and our Landgraf,--the King of Prussia's Ambassador (Herr
Klinggraf), and one or two selectly zealous Official persons, assisting
or watching,--we have 'Conferences of Hanau' going on; in a zealous
fashion; all parties eager for Peace to Kaiser and Reich, and in good
hope of bringing it about. The wish, ardent to a degree, had been the
Kaiser's first of all. The scheme, I guess, was chiefly of Carteret's
devising; who, in his magnificent mind, regardless of expense, thinks
it may be possible, and discerns well what a stroke it will be for the
Cause of Liberty, and how glorious for a Britannic Majesty's Adviser in
such circumstances. July 7th, the Conferences began; and, so frank and
loyal were the parties, in a week's time matters were advanced almost
to completion, the fundamental outlines of a bargain settled, and almost
ready for signing.
"'Give me my Bavaria again!' the Kaiser had always said: 'I am Head of
the Reich, and have nothing to live upon!' On one preliminary, Carteret
had always been inexorable: 'Have done with your French auxiliaries;
send every soul of them home; the German soil once cleared of them, much
will be possible; till then nothing.' KAISER: 'Well, give me back my
Bavaria; my Bavaria, and something suitable to live upon, as Head of
the Reich: some decent Annual Pension, till Bavaria come into paying
condition,--cannot you, who are so wealthy? And Bavaria might be made
a Kingdom, if you wished to do the handsome thing. I will renounce my
Austrian Pretensions, quit utterly my French Alliances; consent to have
her Hungarian Majesty's august Consort made King of the Romans [which
means Kaiser after me], and in fact be very safe to the House of Austria
and the Cause of Liberty.' To all this the thrice-unfortunate gentleman,
titular Emperor of the World, and unable now to pay his milk-scores, is
eager to consent. To continue crossing the Abysses on bridges of French
rainbow? Nothing but French subsidies to subsist on; and these how
paid,--Noailles's private pocket knows how! 'I consent,' said the
Kaiser; 'will forgive and forget, and bygones shall be bygones all
round!' 'Fair on his Imperial Majesty's part,' admits Carteret; 'we will
try to be persuasive at Vienna. Difficult, but we will try.' In a meek
matters had come to this point; and the morrow, July 15th, was appointed
for signing. Most important of Protocols, foundation-stone of Peace to
Teutschland; King Friedrich and the impartial Powers approving, with
Britannic George and drawn sword presiding.
"King Friedrich approves heartily; and hopes it will do. Landgraf
Wilhelm is proud to have saved his Kaiser,--who so glad as the Landgraf
and his Kaiser? Carteret, too, is very glad; exulting, as he well
may, to have composed these world-deliriums, or concentrated them upon
peccant France, he with his single head, and to have got a value out of
that absurd Pragmatic Army, after all. A man of magnificent ideas; who
hopes 'to bring Friedrich over to his mind;' to unite poor Teutschland
against such Oriflamme Invasions and intolerable interferences, and to
settle the account of France for a long while. He is the only English
Minister who speaks German, knows German situations, interests, ways; or
has the least real understanding of this huge German Imbroglio in which
England is voluntarily weltering. And truly, had Carteret been King
of England, which he was not,--nay, had King Friedrich ever got to
understand, instead of misunderstand, what Carteret WAS,--here might
have been a considerable affair!
"But it now, at the eleventh hour, came upon magnificent Carteret, now
seemingly for the first time in its full force, That he Carteret was
not the master; that there was a bewildered Parliament at home, a poor
peddling Duke of Newcastle leader of the same, with his Lords of the
Regency, who could fatally put a negative on all this, unless they
were first gained over. On the morrow, July 15th, Carteret, instead
of signing, as expected, has to--purpose a fortnight's delay till he
consult in England! Absolutely would not and could not sign, till
a Courier to England went and returned. To Landgraf Wilhelm's, to
Klinggraf's and the Kaiser's very great surprise, disappointment and
suspicion. But Carteret was inflexible: 'will only take a fortnight,'
said he; 'and I can hope all will yet be well!'
"The Courier came back punctually in a fortnight. His Message was
presented at Hanau, August 1st,--and ran conclusively to the effect:
'No! We, Noodle of Newcastle, and my other Lords of Regency, do
not consent; much less, will undertake to carry the thing through
Parliament: By no manner of means!' So that Carteret's lately towering
Affair had to collapse ignominiously, in that manner; poor Carteret
protesting his sorrow, his unalterable individual wishes and future
endeavors, not to speak of his Britannic Majesty's,--and politely
pressing on the poor Kaiser a gift of 15,000 pounds (first weekly
instalment of the 'Annual Pension' that HAD, in theory, been set apart
for him); which the Kaiser, though indigent, declined. [Adelung, iii.
B, 206, 209-212; see Coxe, _Memoirs of Pelham_ (London, 1829), i. 75,
469.]'
"The disgust of Landgraf Wilhelm was infinite; who, honest man, saw in
all this merely an artifice of Carteret's, To undo the Kaiser with his
French Allies, to quirk him out of his poor help from the French, and
have him at their mercy. 'Shame on it!' cried Landgraf Wilhelm aloud,
and many others less aloud, Klinggraf and King Friedrich among them:
'What a Carteret!' The Landgraf turned away with indignation from
perfidious England; and began forming quite opposite connections. 'You
shall not even have my hired 6,000, you perfidious! Thing done with such
dexterity of art, too!' thought the Landgraf,--and continued to think,
till evidence turned up, after many months. [CARTERET PAPERS (in British
Museum), Additional MSS. No. 22,529 (May, 1743-January, 1745); in No.
22,527 (January-September, 1742) are other Landgraf-Wilhelm pieces
of Correspondence.] This was Friedrich's opinion too,--permanently, I
believe;--and that of nearly all the world, till the thing and the Doer
of the thing were contemptuously forgotten. A piece of Machiavelism on
the part of Carteret and perfidious Albion,--equal in refined cunning to
that of the Ships with foul bottom, which vanished from Cadiz two years
ago, and were admired with a shudder by Continental mankind who could
see into millstones!
"This is the second stroke of Machiavellian Art by those Islanders, in
their truly vulpine method. Stroke of Art important for this History;
and worth the attention of English readers,--being almost of pathetic
nature, when one comes to understand it! Carteret, for this Hanau
business, had clangor enough to undergo, poor man, from Germans and from
English; which was wholly unjust. 'His trade,' say the English--(or used
to say, till they forgot their considerable Carteret altogether)--'was
that of rising in the world by feeding the mad German humors of little
George; a miserable trade.' Yes, my friends;--but it was not quite
Carteret's, if you will please to examine! And none say, Carteret did
not do his trade, whatever it was, with a certain greatness,--at least
till habits of drinking rather took him, Poor man: impatient, probably,
of such fortune long continued! For he was thrown out, next Session of
Parliament, by Noodle of Newcastle, on those strange terms; and never
could get in again, and is now forgotten; and there succeeded him still
more mournful phenomena,--said Noodle or the poor Pelhams, namely,--of
whom, as of strange minus quantities set to manage our affairs, there is
still some dreary remembrance in England. Well!"--
Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart this
fine scheme, would have had his difficulties in making her Hungarian
Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably grieved about
Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one day, which is a hope
she never quits, at any rate some ample (cannot be too ample) equivalent
elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme, united Teutschland, with England for
soul to it, would have fallen vigorously on the throat of France, and
made France disgorge: Lorraine, Elsass, the Three Bishoprics,--not to
think of Burgundy, and earlier plunders from the Reich,--here would have
been "cut and come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!--But
Diana, in the shape of his Grace of Newcastle, intervenes; and all this
has become chimerical and worse.
It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come
back, that King Louis made the above-mentioned mild, almost penitent,
Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have Peace; and all be as
we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of it; I am for home!" And, in
effect, was already home; every Frenchman in arms being, by this time,
on his own side of the Rhine, as we shall presently observe.
For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt, and
Carteret's return-courier was due in five days, his Britannic Majesty at
Hanau had a splendid visit,--tending not towards Peace with France, but
quite the opposite way. Visit from Prince Karl, with Khevenhuller and
other dignitaries; doing us that honor "till the evening of the 28th."
Quitting their Army,--which is now in these neighborhoods (Broglio well
gone to air ahead of it; Noailles too, at the first sure sniff of it,
having rushed double-quick across the Rhine),--these high Gentlemen have
run over to us, for a couple of days, to "congratulate on Dettingen;"
or, better still, to consult, face to face, about ulterior movements.
"Follow Noailles; transfer the seat of war to France itself? These are
my orders, your Majesty. Combined Invasion of Elsass: what a slash may
be made into France [right handselling of your Carteret Scheme] this
very year!" "Proper, in every case!" answers the Britannic Majesty; and
engages to co-operate. Upon which Prince Karl--after the due reviewing,
dinnering, ceremonial blaring, which was splendid to witness [Anonymous,
_Duke of Cumberland,_ pp. 65, 86.]--hastens back to his Army (now lying
about Baden Durlach, 70,000 strong); and ought to be swift, while the
chance lasts.
HUNGARIAN MAJESTY ANSWERS, IN THE DIET, THAT FRENCH DECLARATION, "MAKE
PEACE, GOOD PEOPLE; I WISH TO BE OUT OF IT!"--IN AN OMINOUS MANNER.
These are fine prospects, in the French quarter, of an equivalent for
Schlesien;--very fine, unless Diana intervene! Diana or not, French
prospects or not, her Hungarian Majesty fastens on Bavaria with uncommon
tightness of fist, now that Bavaria is swept clear; well resolved to
keep Bavaria for equivalent, till better come. Exacts, by her deputy,
Homage from the Population there; strict Oath of Fealty to HER; poor
Kaiser protesting his uttermost, to no purpose; Kaiser's poor Printer
(at Regensburg, which is in Bavaria) getting "tried and hanged" for
printing such Protest! "She draughts forcibly the Bavarian militias
into her Italian Army;" is high and merciless on all hands;--in a word,
throttles poor Bavaria, as if to the choking of it outright. So that
the very Gazetteers in foreign places gave voice, though Bavaria itself,
such a grasp on the throat of it, was voiceless. Seckendorf's poor
Bargain for neutrality as a Bavarian Reich-Army, her Hungarian Majesty
disdains to confirm; to confirm, or even to reject; treats Seckendorf
and his Bavarian Army little otherwise than as a stray dog which she
has not yet shot. And truly the old Feldmarschall lies at Wembdingen,
in most disconsolate moulting condition; little or nothing to live
upon;--the English, generous creatures, had at one time flung him
something, fancying the Armistice might be useful; but now it must be
the French that do it, if anybody! [Adelung, iii. B, 204 ("22d August"),
206, &c.]
Hanau Conferences having failed, these things do not fail. Kaiser Karl
is become tragical to think of. A spectacle of pity to Landgraf Wilhelm,
to King Friedrich, and serious on-lookers;--and perhaps not of pity
only, but of "pity and fear" to some of them!--sullen Austria taking
its sweet revenges, in this fashion. Readers who will look through these
small chinks, may guess what a world-welter this was; and how Friedrich,
gazing into phase on phase of it, as into Oracles of Fate, which to him
they were, had a History, in these months, that will now never be known.
August 16th came out her Hungarian Majesty's Response to that mild
quasi-penitent Declaration of King Louis to the Reich; and much
astonished King Louis and others, and the very Reich itself. "Out of
it?" says her Hungarian Majesty (whom we with regret, for brevity's
sake, translate from Official into vulgate): "His Most Christian Majesty
wishes to be out of it:--Does not he, the (what shall I call him)
Crowned Housebreaker taken in the fact? You shall get out of it, please
Heaven, when you have made compensation for the damage done; and till
then not, if it please Heaven!" And in this strain (lengthily Official,
though indignant to a degree) enumerates the wanton unspeakable
mischiefs and outrages which Austria, a kind of sacred entity guaranteed
by Law of Nature and Eleven Signatures of Potentates, has suffered from
the Most Christian Majesty,--and will have compensation for, Heaven now
pointing the way! [IN EXTENSO in Adelung, iii. B, 201 et seqq.]
A most portentous Document; full of sombre emphasis, in sonorous
snuffling tone of voice; enunciating, with inflexible purpose, a number
of unexpected things: very portentous to his Prussian Majesty among
others. Forms a turning-point or crisis both in the French War, and in
his Prussian Majesty's History; and ought to be particularly noted and
dated by the careful reader. It is here that we first publicly hear
tell of Compensation, the necessity Austria will have of
Compensation,--Austria does not say expressly for Silesia, but she says
and means for loss of territory, and for all other losses whatsoever:
"Compensation for the past, and security for the future; that is my
full intention," snuffles she, in that slow metallic tone of hers,
irrevocable except by the gods.
"Compensation for the past, Security for the future:" Compensation? what
does her Hungarian Majesty mean? asked all the world; asked Friedrich,
the now Proprietor of Silesia, with peculiar curiosity! It is the
first time her Hungarian Majesty steps articulately forward with
such extraordinary Claim of Damages, as if she alone had suffered
damage;--but it is a fixed point at Vienna, and is an agitating topic
to mankind in the coming months and years. Lorraine and the Three
Bishoprics; there would be a fine compensation. Then again, what say you
to Bavaria, in lieu of the Silesia lost? You have Bavaria by the throat;
keep Bavaria, you. Give "Kur-Baiern, Kaiser as they call him,"
something in the Netherlands to live upon? Will be better out of Germany
altogether, with his French leanings. Or, give him the Kingdom of
Naples,--if once we had conquered it again? These were actual schemes,
successive, simultaneous, much occupying Carteret and the high Heads at
Vienna now and afterwards; which came all to nothing; but should were it
not impossible, be held in some remembrance by readers.
Another still more unexpected point comes out here, in this singular
Document, publicly for the first time: Austria's feelings in regard to
the Imperial Election itself. Namely, That Austria, considers, and has
all along considered, the said Election to be fatally vitiated by that
Exclusion of the Bohemian Vote; to be in fact nullified thereby; and
that, to her clear view, the present so-called Kaiser is an imaginary
quantity, and a mere Kaiser of French shreds and patches! "DER
SEYN-SOLLENDE KAISER," snuffles Austria in one passage, "Your Kaiser as
you call him;" and in another passage, instead of "Kaiser," puts flatly
"Kur-Baiern." This is a most extraordinary doctrine to an Electoral
Romish Reich! Is the Holy Romish Reich to DECLARE itself an "Enchanted
Wiggery," then, and do suicide, for behoof of Austria?--
"August 16th, this extraordinary Document was delivered to the Chancery
of Mainz; and September 23d, it was, contrary to expectation, brought
to DICTATUR by said Chancery,"--of which latter phrase, and phenomenon,
here is the explanation to English readers.
Had the late Kur-Mainz (general Arch-Chairman, Speaker of the Diet)
been still in office and existence, certainly so shocking a Document had
never been allowed "to come to DICTATUR,"--to be dictated to the Reich's
Clerks; to have a first reading, as we should call it; or even to lie on
the table, with a theoretic chance that way. But Austria, thanks to our
little George and his Pragmatic Armament, had got a new Kur-Mainz;--by
whom, in open contempt of impartiality, and in open leaning for Austria
with all his weight, it was duly forwarded to Dictature; brought before
an astonished Diet (REICHSTAG), and endlessly argued of in Reichstag
and Reich,--with small benefit to Austria, or the new Kur-Mainz. Wise
kindness to Austria had been suppression of this Piece, not bringing
of it to Dictature at all: but the new Kur-Mainz, called upon, and
conscious of face sufficient, had not scrupled. "Shame on you, partial
Arch-Chancellor!" exclaims all the world.--"Revoke such shamefully
partial Dictature?" this was the next question brought before the
Reich. In which, Kur-Hanover (Britannic George) was the one Elector
that opined, No. Majority conclusive; though, as usual, no settlement
attainable. This is the famous "DICTATUR-SACHE (Dictature Question),"
which rages on us, for about eleven months to come, in those distracted
old Books; and seems as if it would never end. Nor is there any saying
when it would have ended;--had not, in August, 1744, something else
ended, the King of Prussia's patience, namely; which enabled it to end,
on the Kaiser's then order! [Adelung, iii. B, 201, iv. 198, &c.]
It must be owned, in general, the conduct of Maria Theresa to the Reich,
ever since the Reich had ventured to reject her Husband as Kaiser, and
prefer another, was all along of a high nature; till now it has grown
into absolute contumacy, and a treating of the Reich's elected Kaiser
as a merely chimerical personage. No law of the Reich had been violated
against her Hungarian Majesty or Husband: "What law?" asked all judges.
Vicarius Kur-Sachsen sat, in committee, hatching for many months that
Question of the Kur-Bohmen Vote; and by the prescribed methods, brought
it out in the negative,--every formality and regularity observed, and
nobody but your Austrian Deputy protesting upon it, when requested to
go home. But, the high Maria had a notion that the Reich belonged to her
august Family and her; and that all Elections to the contrary were an
inconclusive thing, fundamentally void every one of them.
Thus too, long before this, in regard to the REICHS-ARCHIV Question.
The Archives and indispensablest Official Records and Papers of the
Reich,--these had lain so long at Vienna, the high Maria could not think
of giving them up. "So difficult to extricate what Papers are Austrian
specially, from what are Austrian-Imperial;--must have time!" answered
she always. And neither the Kaiser's more and more pressing demands, nor
those of the late Kur-Mainz, backed by the Reich, and reiterated month
after month and year after year, could avail in the matter. Mere angry
correspondences, growing ever angrier;--the Archives of the Reich lay
irrecoverable at Vienna, detained on this pretext and on that: nor were
they ever given up; but lay there till the Reich itself had ended, much
more the Kaiser Karl VII.! These are high procedures.
As if the Reich had been one's own chattel; as if a Non-Austrian Kaiser
mere impossible, and the Reich and its laws had, even Officially, become
phantasmal! That, in fact, was Maria Theresa's inarticulate inborn
notion; and gradually, as her successes on the field rose higher, it
became ever more articulate: till this of "the SEYN-SOLLENDE Kaiser" put
a crown on it. Justifiable, if the Reich with its Laws were a chattel,
or rebellious vassal, of Austria; not justifiable otherwise. "Hear ye?"
answered almost all the Reich (eight Kurfursts, with the one exception
of Kur-Hanover: as we observed): "Our solemnly elected Kaiser, Karl
VII., is a thing of quirks and quiddities, of French shreds and patches;
at present, it seems, the Reich has no Kaiser at all; and will go ever
deeper into anarchies and unnamabilities, till it proceed anew to get
one,--of the right Austrian type!"--The Reich is a talking entity: King
Friedrich is bound rather to silence, so long as possible. His thoughts
on these matters are not given; but sure enough they were continual,
too intense they could hardly be. "Compensation;" "The Reich as good
as mine:" Whither is all this tending? Walrave and those Silesian
Fortifyings,--let Walrave mind his work, and get it perfected!
BRITANNIC MAJESTY GOES HOME.
The "Combined Invasion of Elsass"--let us say briefly, overstepping
the order of date, and still for a moment leaving Friedrich--came to
nothing, this year. Prince Karl was 70,000; Britannic George (when
once those Dutch, crawling on all summer, had actually come up) was
66,000,--nay 70,000; Karl having lent him that beautiful cannibal
gentleman, "Colonel Mentzel and 4,000 Tolpatches," by way of
edge-trimming. Karl was to cross in Upper Elsass, in the Strasburg
parts; Karl once across, Britannic Majesty was to cross about Mainz, and
co-operate from Lower Elsass. And they should have been swift about
it; and were not! All the world expected a severe slash to France; and
France itself had the due apprehension of it: but France and all the
world were mistaken, this time.
Prince Karl was slow with his preparations; Noailles and Coigny
(Broglio's successor) were not slow; "raising batteries everywhere,"
raising lines, "10,000 Elsass Peasants," and what not;--so that, by the
time Prince Karl was ready (middle of August), they lay intrenched
and minatory at all passable points; and Karl could nowhere, in that
Upper-Rhine Country, by any method, get across. Nothing got across;
except once or twice for perhaps a day, Butcher Trenck and his loose
kennel of Pandours; who went about, plundering and rioting, with loud
rodomontade, to the admiration of the Gazetteers, if of no one else.
Nor was George's seconding of important nature; most dubitative, wholly
passive, you would rather say, though the River, in his quarter, lay
undefended. He did, at last, cross the Rhine about Mainz; went languidly
to Worms,--did an ever-memorable TREATY OF WORMS there, if no fighting
there or elsewhere. Went to Speyer, where the Dutch joined him (sadly
short of numbers stipulated, had it been the least matter);--was at
Germersheim, at what other places I forget; manoeuvring about in a
languid and as if in an aimless manner, at least it was in a perfectly
ineffectual one. Mentzel rode gloriously to Trarbach, into Lorraine;
stuck up Proclamation, "Hungarian Majesty come, by God's help, for her
own again," and the like;--of which Document, now fallen rare, we give
textually the last line: "And if any of you DON'T [don't sit quiet at
least], I will," to be brief, "first cut off your ears and noses, and
then hang you out of hand." The singular Champion of Christendom, famous
to the then Gazetteers! [In Adelung (iii. B, 193) the Proclamation
at large. I have, or once had, a _Life of Mentzel_ (Dublin, I think,
1744), "price twopence,"--dear at the money.] Nothing farther could
George, with his Dutch now adjoined, do in those parts, but wriggle
slightly to and fro without aim; or stand absolutely still, and eat
provision (great uncertainty and discrepancy among the Generals, and
Stair gone in a huff [Went, "August 27th, by Worms" (Henderson,
_Life of Cumberlund,_ p. 48), just while his Majesty was beginning to
cross.]),--till at length the "Combined Pragmatic Troops" returned to
Mainz (October 11th); and thence, dreadfully in ill-humor with each
other, separated into their winter-quarters in the Netherlands and
adjacent regions.
Prince Karl tried hard in several places; hardest at, Alt-Breisach, far
up the River, with Swabian Freiburg for his place of arms;--an
Austrian Country all that, "Hither Austria," Swabian Austria. There,
at Alt-Breisach, lay Prince Karl (24th August-3d September), his left
leaning on that venerable sugar-loaf Hill, with the towers and ramparts
on the top of it; looking wistfully into Alsace, if there were no way
of getting at it. He did get once half-way across the River, lodging
himself in an Island called Rheinmark; but could get no farther, owing
to the Noailles-Coigny preparations for him. Called a Council of War;
decided that he had not Magazines, that it was too late in the season;
and marched home again (October 12th) through the Schwabenland; leaving,
besides the strong Garrison of Freiburg, only Trenck with 12,000
Pandours to keep the Country open for us, against next year. Britannic
Majesty, as we observed, did then, almost simultaneously, in like manner
march home; [Adelung, iii. B, 192, 215; Anonymous, _Cumberland,_ p.
121.]--one goal is always clear when the day sinks: Make for your
quarters, for your bed.
Prince Karl was gloriously wedded, this Winter, to her Hungarian
Majesty's young Sister;--glorious meed of War; and, they say, a union
of hearts withal;--Wife and he to have Brussels for residence, and be
"Joint-Governors of the Netherlands" henceforth. Stout Khevenhuller,
almost during the rejoicings, took fever, and suddenly died; to the
great sorrow of her Majesty, for loss of such a soldier and man.
[_Maria Theresiens Leben,_ pp. 94, 45.] Britannic Majesty has not been
successful with his Pragmatic Army. He did get his new Kur-Mainz,
who has brought the Austrian Exorbitancy to a first reading, and into
general view. He did get out of the Dettingen mouse-trap; and, to the
admiration of the Gazetteer mind, and (we hope) envy of Most Christian
Majesty, he has, regardless of expense, played Supreme Jove on the
German boards for above three months running. But as to Settlement of
the German Quarrel, he has done nothing at all, and even a good deal
less! Let me commend to readers this little scrap of Note; headed,
"METHODS OF PACIFICATING GERMANY:-- 1. There is one ready method of
pacificating Germany: That his Britannic Majesty should firmly button
his breeches-pocket, 'Not one sixpence more, Madam!'--and go home to his
bed, if he find no business waiting him at home. Has not he always the
EAR-OF-JENKINS Question, and the Cause of Liberty in that succinct form.
But, in Germany, sinews of war being cut, law of gravitation would at
once act; and exorbitant Hungarian Majesty, tired France, and all else,
would in a brief space of time lapse into equilibrium, probably of the
more stable kind. 2. Or, if you want to save the Cause of Liberty on
there are those HANAU CONFERENCES,--Carteret's magnificent scheme:
A united Teutschland (England inspiring it), to rush on the throat of
France, for 'Compensation,' for universal salving of sores. This second
method, Diana having intervened, is gone to water, and even to poisoned
water. So that, 3". There was nothing left for poor Carteret but a TR
WORMS (concerning which, something more explicit by and by): A
Teutschland (the English, doubly and trebly inspiring it, as surely they
will now need!) to rush as aforesaid, in the DISunited and indeed nearly
internecine state. Which third method--unless Carteret can conquer
Naples for the Kaiser, stuff the Kaiser into some satisfactory
'Netherlands' or the like, and miraculously do the unfeasible (Fortune
perhaps favoring the brave)--may be called the unlikely one! As poor
Carteret probably guesses, or dreads;--had he now any choice left. But
it was love's last shift! And, by aid of Diana and otherwise, that is
the posture in which, at Mainz, 11th October, 1743, we leave the German
Question."
"Compensation," from France in particular, is not to be had gratis, it
appears. Somewhere or other it must be had! Complaining once, as she
very often does, to her Supreme Jove, Hungarian Majesty had written:
"Why, oh, why did you force me to give up Silesia!"--Supreme Jove
answers (at what date I never knew, though Friedrich knows it, and "has
copy of the Letter"): "Madam, what was good to give is good to take back
(CC QUI EST BON A PRENDRE EST BON A RENDRE)!" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
iii. 27.]