and justice. He belonged to one of the oldest reigning families in
Europe. The Hohenzollern, and even the Hohenstaufen, were but of
yesterday compared with the glorious ancestors of the Ascanian princes.
They did not actually claim descent from Ascanius, the son of Aeneas,
nor from Askenas, the grandson of Japhet, though some crazy genealogists
may have done so; but there is no flaw in their pedigree from the
present Duke to Albrecht the Bear, Markgrave of Brandenburg in 1134.
Some people would probably say that he belonged to a _totemistic_ age.
The Duke whom I knew, and who died in 1871, was the eighteenth successor
of this Albrecht the Bear, and though his possessions had been much
reduced in the course of centuries, he knew what was due from him to his
name, and to the blood of his ancestors. He never forgot it. He was a
tall and very handsome man, very quiet, very self-contained,
particularly during the later part of his life, when his increasing
deafness made any free intercourse between him and his friends and
officials extremely difficult. He worked as hard as any of his
ministers, and no wonder, considering that everything, whether important
or not, had finally to be decided by him. As he had been much attached
to my father, and as my grandfather was his president or prime minister,
he took some interest in me when I was a boy at school in Dessau, and I
can remember standing before him and looking up to him in his cabinet
with fear and trembling, although nothing could be kinder than the
handsome tall man with his deep voice and his slowly uttered words; he
seemed to move in an atmosphere of his own, far removed from the life of
his subjects. The ducal castle at Dessau was a grand old building, a
quadrangle open in front, with turrets that held the staircases leading
up to the reception rooms. Some of his ancestors had been highly
cultivated men, who had travelled in Italy, France, and England, and had
collected treasures of art, which were afterwards stored up in the old
Palace (Schloss) at Dessau, and in several beautiful parks in the
neighbourhood that had been laid out a hundred years ago after the model
of English parks. The orange trees (Orangerie) in those parks and
gardens were magnificent, and I do not remember having seen such an
abundance of them anywhere else; but they suddenly began to wither and
die, and even replanting them by their heads and letting the roots grow
as new branches does not seem to have saved them.
The Duke and his highly cultivated Duchess were the little gods of
Dessau. They seemed to live on their own Olympus. Everything depended on
them; everything, such as theatre, concerts, or any public amusements,
had to be provided out of their private purse. No wonder that the people
looked up to them, and that whatever they did was considered right,
whatever they said was repeated as gospel.
Scholars are just now writing learned essays as to whether the idea of
the apotheosis of Augustus came to the Romans from Greece or from Egypt,
or whether it may be a survival of fetishism. It may have had a much
more homely origin, however. To the common people in the villages round
Dessau, I feel sure that the Duke was little short of a god, provided
always that they knew what was meant by a god. He might not have created
the world, even _Divus Augustus_ was not credited with that _tour de
force_; but there was nothing else, I believe, that the peasants would
have thought beyond the power of their Duke. To us children also, the
Duke, the Duchess, and all the members of the Ducal family, were
something quite different from the rest of the world, and some of these
impressions of childhood often remain for life. When their carriage
passed through the streets, everybody stood still, took off his hat, and
remained bareheaded till they had passed. There was nothing servile in
all this, as little as there is in a Frenchman signing himself _Votre
très-obéissant serviteur_, for no one ever thought at that time that it
could be otherwise. Nor am I at all certain that this outward respect
for a sovereign is a mistake, for in honouring their sovereign, people
after all but honour themselves. Whether he is supposed to be a
sovereign by the grace of God, or by hereditary right, or by the voice
of the people, he represents the country and the people; he is their
duke, their king, their emperor, and if they wish to see him honoured by
others, they must not fail to honour him themselves. When I saw the
other day a king passing through the streets of his own capital, and no
one touching his hat, I thought, “What a low opinion these people must
have of themselves.” Even as boys at school we felt a pride in our Duke,
and, though we knew scraps only of the glorious history of his
ancestors, we knew how they had borne the brunt of the battle in all the
greatest episodes of the history of Germany.
Little is said of these numerous small principalities in the history of
Germany, but without them German history would often be quite
unintelligible, and Germany would never have had so intense a vitality,
would never have become what it is now. No doubt there was also an
element of danger in them, particularly during the first half of this
century, when as members of the German Confederation they could band
together and support either Austria or Prussia in their fatal rivalry.
They were the horses, as Bismarck said, harnessed to the chariot of
Germany, some before and some behind, and pulling in different
directions, so that it was impossible to advance. But that danger is
past, thanks chiefly to Bismarck’s policy, and for the future the
smaller principalities that have escaped from his grasp will form the
most useful centres of intellectual life, nor are they likely now to be
absorbed by Prussia, if well advised. There was a time during the
Austro-Prussian war in 1866 when everybody expected that Anhalt, being
almost an enclave of Prussia, would share the fate of Hanover, Nassau,
and the Electorate of Hessia. The reigning Duke had the strongest
sympathies for Austria. But he had a clever minister, who showed him
that there were only two ways open to him under the circumstances,
either to abdicate of his own free will, and make as advantageous an
arrangement with Prussia as possible, or to say yes to whatever demand
was made from Berlin. He chose the latter alternative, and it is
reported that it was of him that Bismarck said: “I know what to do with
my enemies, but what to do with my friends, I don’t.”
I cannot resist the temptation of giving here a short sketch of the
really glorious history of the duchy and the Dukes of Anhalt, such as it
was known to us as boys. Nor should it be supposed that I exaggerate the
importance of my native duchy. I doubt, indeed, whether there is any
reigning house now that can produce such a splendid record as Anhalt. If
it has remained small and lost much of its former political influence,
that is due chiefly to a law of inheritance which prevailed in the ducal
family. Instead of making the eldest son the ruler of the whole duchy,
it was the custom to divide the land among all the princes. Thus instead
of one Duchy of Anhalt there were four duchies, Anhalt-Dessau,
Anhalt-Cöthen, Anhalt-Zerbst, and Anhalt-Bernburg, some of them again
subdivided. From time to time the duchies were reunited, and so they are
at present, the last of the collateral branches having died out in 1863,
when they were united once more into one duchy.
If we go slowly back into the past, and that seems to me the real task
of the historian, we shall find that there is no critical epoch in the
history of Germany, and of the history of the world, where we do not
meet with some of the princes of the small Duchy of Anhalt, standing in
the very front of the fight. I only wonder that no one has yet attempted
to write a popular history of the four principalities of Anhalt, in
order to show the share which they took in the historical development of
Germany. I have tried to refresh my memory by reading a carefully
written manual, “Anhalt’s Geschichte in Wort und Bild,” by Dr. Hermann
Lorenz, 1893, but instead of quoting his opinion, or the opinions of any
historians, as to the personal merits and the historical achievements of
the princes of Anhalt, whether as warriors or as rulers, I shall try to
quote, wherever it is possible, the judgments pronounced on them by some
of their own contemporaries, whose names will carry greater weight.
The beginning of the nineteenth century was dominated by Napoleon’s
invasion and almost annihilation of Germany. Dessau was then ruled by
Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz (1740–1806). He had done an immense
amount to raise both the material and the intellectual status of his
people, and had well earned the name he is still known by, of “Father
Franz.” Many of the princes of that time were far in advance of the
people, and they met, as he did, with considerable difficulty in
overcoming the resistance of those whom they wished to benefit by their
reforms. The young prince of Dessau had travelled in Holland, England,
and Italy. He avoided France, which he said was dangerous to young
princes, and yet he was enlightened enough to erect a monument to
Rousseau in his beautiful park at Wörlitz. He loved England. “In
England,” he used to say, “one becomes a man.” Nor did he travel for
pleasure only. While in England, he studied agriculture, architecture,
gardening, brewing, and various other manufactures, in order to
introduce as many improvements as possible among his own people. In
Italy he studied art, both ancient and modern, under Winckelmann, and
this great antiquarian was so delighted with the young prince and his
companion that he spoke of their visit as the appearance of two young
Greek gods. At that time it was still possible to buy old classical
statues and old Italian pictures, and the young prince gladly availed
himself of his opportunities as far as his financial resources would
allow, and brought home to Dessau many valuable specimens of ancient and
modern art. These he arranged in his various palaces and museums, all
open to the people, and in the beautiful parks and gardens which he had
created after English models in the neighbourhood of his capital. After
a hundred years some of these parks, particularly that of Wörlitz, can
vie with some of the finest parks in England. Like the neighbouring
duchy of Weimar, Dessau soon attracted visitors from all parts of
Germany. Goethe himself and his enlightened patron, the Duke Karl
August, were often the guests of the Duke of Dessau, and Goethe has in
several places spoken in rapturous terms of the beauties of Wörlitz, and
the charm of the Duke’s society. Wieland, Lavater, Matthison, and other
celebrities often passed happy days at Dessau as guests of the Duke.
But after Duke Franz had spent all his life in embellishing his land and
inspiring his subjects with higher and nobler ideals, the Napoleonic
thunder-cloud, which had long threatened Germany, burst over his head,
and threatened to destroy everything that he had planted. After the
battle of Jena in 1806 Prussia and the whole of Germany were at the
mercy of the great French conqueror, and Napoleon, with his army of
100,000 men, who had to be lodged and fed in every town of Germany
through which they passed, appeared at Dessau on 21st October, 1806. The
old Prince had to receive him bareheaded at the foot of the staircase of
his castle. My mother, then a child of six, remembered seeing her own
grand and beautiful prince standing erect before the small and pale
Corsican. The Prince, however, in his meeting with the Emperor, was not
afraid to wear the Prussian order of the Black Eagle on his breast, and
when he was asked by Napoleon whether he too had sent a contingent to
the Prussian army, he said, “No, sir.” “Why not?” asked the Emperor.
“Because I have not been asked,” was the answer. “But if you had been
asked?” continued the Emperor. “Then I should certainly have sent my
soldiers,” the Prince replied; and he added: “Your Majesty knows the
right of the stronger.” This was a not very prudent remark to make, but
the Emperor seems to have liked the outspoken old man. He invited him to
inspect with him the bridge over the Elbe which had been burnt by the
Prussians to cover their retreat. He demanded that it should be rebuilt
at once, and on that condition he promised to grant neutrality to the
duchy. Nay, before leaving Dessau in the morning he went so far as to
ask his host whether he could do anything for him. “For myself,” the
Prince replied, “I want nothing. I only ask for mercy for my people, for
they are all to me like my children.”
The next critical period in the history of Germany is that of Frederick
the Great, marked by the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and the
establishment of Prussia as one of the great Powers of Europe.
Here again we find a prince of Anhalt as one of the principal actors.
The instrument with which Frederick the Great won his victories was his
well-drilled army, and the drill-master of that army had been Leopold,
Fürst zu Anhalt, the Field-Marshal of Frederick’s father. At the head of
his grenadiers and by the side of Prince Eugène, Prince Leopold of
Dessau had won, or helped to win, the great battles of Höchstadt,
Blindheim (corrupted to Blenheim), Turin, and Malplaquet in the War of
the Spanish Succession, and had thus helped in establishing against the
overweening ambition of Louis XIV. what was then called the political
equilibrium of Europe. The Prussian Field-Marshal was known at the time
all over Germany as the “Alte Dessauer,” and through Carlyle’s “Life of
Frederick the Great” his memory has lately been revived in England also.
Having completely reorganised the Prussian army and having led it ever
so many times to brilliant victories, he was for Prussia in his time
what Bismarck was in our own. But after the death of Frederick I. and
Frederick William II., Frederick II., or the Great, disliked the old
general’s tutelage and dismissed him: much as Bismarck has been
dismissed in our own time. The young King wrote to the old Field-Marshal
quite openly: “I shall not be such a fool as to neglect my most
experienced officers, but this campaign (in Silesia) I reserve for
myself lest the world should think that the Prussian King cannot go to
war without his tutor.” His old tutor was very angry, but he did not
rebel, and in a State like Prussia, Frederick the Great was probably as
right as the present Emperor in saying “Let one be King.” However, after
Frederick had once established his own position as a general, he
recalled his old tutor, and in the second Silesian War it was the brave
warrior who stormed the heights of Kesselsdorf at the head of his old
grenadiers, and won one of the most difficult and most decisive
victories for his King. The King after the battle took off his hat
before his tutor and embraced him in the sight of the whole army. The
inscription placed on the Field-Marshal’s monument at Berlin, probably
composed by the King himself, is simple and true: “He led the Prussian
auxiliary forces victoriously to the Rhine, the Danube, and the Po; he
took Stralsund and the island of Rügen. The battle of Kesselsdorf
crowned his military career. The Prussian army owes him its strict
discipline and the improvement of its infantry.” The successors of
Frederick the Great have never forgotten what they owe to the “Alte
Dessauer,” and I doubt not they may be counted on in the future also as
the stoutest friends and supporters of the illustrious house of Albrecht
the Bear, the first Markgrave of Brandenburg.
If stronger testimony to the military genius of the Old Dessauer were
wanted from the mouth of his own contemporaries, it might easily be
quoted from the despatches of Prince Eugène. That great general freely
admits that the Prince’s troops surpassed his own in courage and
discipline; nay, he adds, “the Prince of Dessau has done wonders in the
battle of Turin.” The Emperor of Austria endorsed this judgment, and
added, “that he had earned immortal glory,” and he conferred on him the
title of Serene Highness.
So much for the eighteenth century. If now we look back to the
seventeenth, the century of the Thirty Years’ War, we find Anhalt the
constant trysting-ground of the two parties, the Catholic and the
Protestant Powers, and we see the princes of Anhalt again and again at
the head of the Northern or Protestant armies. The Elbe often divided
the two, and the bridge over the river near Dessau was contested then as
it was during the Napoleonic wars. Well do I remember, when as a boy I
went to the Schanzenhaus, a coffeehouse on the way to the new bridge
over the Elbe, how it was explained to me that these Schanzen or
fortifications were what was left of the works erected by Wallenstein:
just as I learnt at a later time that my own house at Oxford called
_Park’s End_, was so called not because it stood as it does now at the
end of the Park, but because what is now called the Park was originally
the Parks, _i.e._, the parks of artillery erected by Cromwell’s army
against the walls of Oxford. The right name of my house should therefore
have been not Park’s End, but Parks’ End. A more merciless war than the
Thirty Years’ War was seldom waged; villages and whole towns vanished
from the ground, and many tracts of cultivated land, particularly along
the Elbe, were changed into deserts. Yet during all that time the Anhalt
princes never wavered. When the Elector of the Palatinate, Frederick
II., had been proclaimed King in Bohemia in 1619, his commander-in-chief
was Prince Christian of Anhalt. When after years of slaughter Gustavus
Adolphus came to the assistance of the Protestant Powers in Germany and
won the decisive battle of Lützen, one of Prince Christian’s sons,
Prince Ernest, fought at his side and died of his wounds soon after the
battle. The memory of Gustavus Adolphus has been kept alive in Dessau to
the present day. He has become the hero of popular romance, and as a
schoolboy I heard several stories told by the common people of his
adventures during the war. There stands a large red brick house which I
often passed on my way from Dessau to Wörlitz, and which is simply
called Gustavus Adolphus. The story goes that the Swedish king was in
hiding there under a bridge while the enemy’s cavalry passed over it.
One more century back brings us to the time of the Reformation, and once
more among the most prominent champions of the Protestant cause we see
the princes of Anhalt. The very cradle of the Reformation, Wittenberg,
was not far from Dessau, and the reigning family of Anhalt was closely
connected by marriage with the Saxon princes of the house of Wettin, the
chief protectors of the reforming movement in Germany. Prince Wolfgang
of Anhalt was present at the Diet of Worms, in 1521, and again in 1529,
at the Diet of Speier. He openly declared in favour of ecclesiastical
reform, and he extended his patronage to Luther when he came to preach
at Zerbst. This was at that time a most dangerous step to take, but the
young prince was not to be frightened by Pope or Emperor, and at the
Diet of Augsburg he was again one of the first princes to sign the
Augsburg Confession. During the momentous years that followed, the
Anhalt princes were willing, as they declared, to risk life and wealth,
land and throne, for the Gospel. Nor was this a mere phrase, for Prince
Wolfgang, when he found himself surrounded at Bernburg by the Imperial
army, chiefly Spanish, had in good earnest to fly for his life and
remain in hiding for some time. When he was able to return to his duchy,
he devoted his remaining years to repairing, as much as possible, the
ravages of the war, and he then retired into private life of his own
free will, leaving the government to his three cousins, and ending his
days as a simple citizen in the small town of Zerbst. Let me quote once
more the judgment passed on him by the most eminent of his own
contemporaries. Luther and Philip Melanchthon have spoken in no
uncertain tone of the merits of the Anhalt princes during the most
critical period of the Reformation. Of Prince Wolfgang Melanchthon said:
“No one will come again, equal to him in authority among princes, in
love towards churches and schools, in zeal to maintain peace and
concord, and in readiness to give up his life for his faith.” Of Prince
George, called the _Gottselige_, Luther is reported to have declared:
“He is more pious than I am, and if he does not get into heaven, I too
shall certainly have to remain outside.” Nay, even his antagonist, the
Emperor Charles V., confessed that he knew no other person in the whole
of his empire who could be compared in piety or ability to Prince George
of Anhalt. Who knows of him now outside the limits of the Duchy of
Dessau? but it is all the more the duty of his descendants to keep his
memory fresh as one of that small band of men who have done their duty.
So much for the princes of the house of Anhalt during the period of the
Reformation. No other reigning family could produce a brighter
escutcheon during the troubles of the sixteenth century, and we saw how
that escutcheon was preserved bright and brilliant during the centuries
that followed, the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth. If the title
of Grand Duke does not depend on the number of square miles, surely no
family has deserved that title so well as the ducal family of Anhalt.