A Hard School
The throne of France was occupied at that time by the insatiable
Napoleon I. Born on the island of Corsica, the son of an advocate, he
entered the French army during the Revolution and rose step by step
until by his remarkable talents and ability he attained the highest
honors of state. His ambition was to make France mistress of the world,
and aided by the blind devotion of the people he seemed in a fair way of
realizing this dream, for one country after another succumbed with
astonishing rapidity to his victorious legions.
Prussia was spared for some time, but in 1806 King Frederick William
Third, unable for his own honor or that of his country longer to endure
Napoleon’s aggressions, was reluctantly forced to declare war, and the
country’s doom was sealed. Deluded by the traditions of former glories
under the great Frederick, the army and its leaders thought it would
prove an easy task for the battalions that had once withstood the onset
of half Europe to protect the frontiers of the Fatherland against the
Corsican conqueror, but disaster followed swiftly. The guns of Jena and
Auerstädt scattered those golden mists of self-delusion and betrayed
with startling clearness the degeneracy of the military organization,
which, like the machine of government, bore little trace of Frederick
the Great’s influence save in outward forms.
The defeat of October 14, 1806, decided the fate of Prussia. Like a
roaring sea the French swept over the country, and two days later it
became necessary for the safety of the royal children to remove them
from Berlin. Their nearest refuge was the castle at Schwedt on the Oder,
where their mother joined them, prepared to share with her darlings the
cruel fate that had befallen them. Sitting with her two eldest sons and
their tutor Delbrück that evening, she spoke those stirring words that
proved such a help and inspiration to Emperor William in after years.
“In one day,” she said, “I have seen destroyed a structure which great
and good men have labored for two hundred years to build up. There is no
longer a Prussian kingdom, no longer an army, nor a national honor. Ah,
my sons, you are already old enough to appreciate the calamity that has
overtaken us. In days to come, when your mother is no longer living,
think of these unhappy times and weep in memory of the tears I now am
shedding. But do not weep only! Work, work with all your strength! You
yet may prove the good geniuses of your country. Wipe out its shame and
humiliation, restore the tarnished glory of your house as your ancestor,
the great Elector, avenged at Fehrbellin his father’s disgraceful defeat
in Sweden! Do not allow yourselves to be influenced by the degeneracy of
the age! Be men, and strive to attain the glorious fame of heroes!
Without such aims you would be unworthy the name of Prussian princes,
successors of the great Frederick; but if all your efforts are powerless
to uplift your fallen country, then seek death as Prince Louis Ferdinand
sought it!”
Their stay in Schwedt was but a short one. The rapid advance of the
French army, driving the retreating Prussians before them, compelled the
Queen and her children to flee to Dantzig and Königsberg, where they
would be safe for a time at least. But what a journey it was! There was
no time to make any preparations for their comfort. Day and night they
pressed on, without stopping to rest, in any kind of a vehicle that
could be obtained, over rough roads and through a strange part of the
country, often suffering from hunger and thirst, their hearts full of
sorrow and anxiety for the beloved Fatherland.
Emperor William used to relate an incident connected with this journey
which makes a touching picture of those dark days. “While my mother was
fleeing with us from the French in that time of tribulation,” he said,
“we had the misfortune to break one of the wheels of our coach, in the
middle of an open field. There was no place for us to go, and we sat on
the bank of a ditch while the damage was being repaired as well as
possible. My brother and I were tired and hungry, and much put out by
the delay. I remember that I especially, being rather a puny lad,
troubled my dear mother greatly with my complaints. To divert our minds,
she arose and, pointing to the quantities of pretty blue flowers with
which the field was covered, told us to pick some and bring them to her.
Then she wove them into wreaths as we eagerly watched her dexterous
fingers. As she worked, overcome with thoughts of her country’s
sorrowful plight and her own danger and anxiety for the future of her
sons, the tears began to drop slowly from her beautiful eyes upon the
cornflower wreaths. Smitten to the heart by her distress and completely
forgetting my own childish troubles, I flung my arms about her neck and
tried to comfort her, till she smiled and placed the wreath upon my
head. Though I was only ten years old at the time, this scene remains
undimmed in my memory, and after all these years I can still see those
blossoms all sparkling with my mother’s tears, and that is why I love
the cornflower better than any other flower.”
[Illustration: _The cornflower wreaths_]
At Königsberg the Queen was attacked with a fever, but this did not
prevent her from continuing her flight to Memel with her children in
January, 1807. It seemed doubtful at one time if she would live to get
there, but she insisted upon pressing on, through cold and storm, ill as
she was. Once, almost at the point of death, she was forced to spend the
night in a poor peasant’s hut, without proper food or covering, the
freezing wind blowing through the broken windowpanes and scattering
snowflakes on her wretched cot. But God did not forsake the heroic
Queen, and she succeeded at last in reaching Memel, there to await the
no longer doubtful issue of the war, which cost Frederick William Third
half of his kingdom. This sudden change from peace and prosperity to
deepest humiliation was the anvil on which Providence forged the sword
that was one day to make Germany a united and powerful nation, and some
words of the Queen’s, written at this time to her father, are
significant and memorable.
“It may be well for our children to have learned the serious side of
life while they are young. Had they grown up surrounded by ease and
luxury, they would have accepted such things as a matter of course;
that must always be so. But alas! their father’s anxious face and
their mother’s tears have taught them otherwise.”
Our hero was ten years old when the King was forced to sign the
disastrous peace of Tilsit, and according to the usual custom he was
raised at this age to the rank of officer. The great event should
properly have taken place March 22, 1807, but owing to the unsettled
state of the country his father presented him with his appointment on
New Years’ Day, just before the royal family left Königsberg for Memel,
and he was made ensign in the newly formed regiment of foot-guards. At
Christmas he was advanced to a second-lieutenantship, and on June 21,
1808, marched with his regiment back to Königsberg. A report made about
this time states: “Prince William, during his first two years of service
with the Prussian infantry, has become familiar with every detail of
army life and is already heart and soul a soldier,”—a tribute well
deserved by the young officer, for he was faithful and industrious and
devoted to his profession. The two following years that the royal family
remained in Königsberg were an important period in the life of Prince
William. The sole tuition of Delbrück no longer satisfied the Queen, and
on the advice of Baron von Stein, she appointed General Diericke and
Colonel Gaudy as governors for the Crown Prince, and Major von Pirch and
Professor Reimann for Prince William. At the same time Karl August
Zeller, a pupil of the Queen’s honored Swiss teacher Pestalozzi, was
summoned to Königsberg and given charge of the school system. He also
assisted in the education of Prince William, whose untiring zeal and
industry caused him to make steady and rapid progress in all branches of
learning. His best efforts, however, were given to his military duties,
and he eagerly treasured up everything that was said at court of famous
generals and heroes.
On November 12, 1808, he paraded for the first time with his regiment.
In September of the following year he was present at the placing of the
memorial tablets to the first East Prussian Infantry in the palace
chapel at Königsberg, and after the court had returned to Berlin, he
entered that city with his regiment on his parents’ wedding anniversary,
December 24, 1809. It was a melancholy home-coming, and never again did
our hero make so sad an entry into his capital, for in spite of the joy
with which the citizens welcomed the return of their beloved sovereigns
once more, the country’s shameful bondage under the yoke of Napoleon lay
heavily on all hearts. No one felt the disgrace more keenly than Queen
Louise, however: it rankled in her bosom and gradually consumed her
strength till her health began to give way under it.
In the Summer of 1810 she visited her father at Strelitz, whither the
King soon followed her, and it was decided to make a long stay at the
ducal castle of Hohenzieritz, hoping the change and rest might benefit
the Queen. Soon after her arrival, she was taken seriously ill with an
acute attack of asthma, but recovered sufficiently by the first of July
for the King to return to Charlottenburg, where the royal family were
then in the habit of spending the Summer. For some days she seemed much
better, but the attacks of pain and suffocation soon returned, and on
the nineteenth of July the King hastened back to Hohenzieritz, where he
found his wife fully conscious but so altered in appearance that he was
forced to leave the room, weeping aloud. As soon as he had recovered his
self-control he returned to the Queen, who laid her hand in his with the
question:
“Did you bring any one with you?”
“Yes, Fritz and William,” replied the King.
“Ah, God! what joy!” she cried. “Let them be brought to me.”
The two boys came in and knelt beside their mother’s bed. “My Fritz, my
William!” she murmured repeatedly. Soon the paroxysms seized her again,
the children were led away weeping bitterly, and soon afterward the King
closed forever those eyes that had been the light of his life’s dark
pathway.
The death of their beloved Queen turned all Prussia into a house of
mourning, so deeply did the sorrowful news affect the hearts of her
subjects. Still deeper and more lasting, however, was the impression
made upon Prince William by the early loss of his adored mother. All
through his life her memory was treasured as a holy image in his heart,
and to his latest days he never forgot her devotion and self-sacrifice,
or that nineteenth of July which deprived him of a mother’s care, his
father of the best of wives, and the nation of a noble sovereign and
benefactress.
The years passed on, but Prussia did not remain in her deep humiliation,
prostrate and powerless. A new spirit began to awake, and through the
efforts of such men as Stein and Hardenberg, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau,
who nobly and without hope of reward devoted themselves to the
redemption of the Fatherland, a feeling began to stir throughout the
country that the day of deliverance must come. And it did come. Arrogant
with his successes and thirsting for fresh conquests, Napoleon in the
year 1812 aspired to seize the mighty Russian Empire and add it to his
dependencies, but there a check was placed on his victorious career. To
be sure he penetrated as far as Moscow, expecting to winter there, but
the Russians sacrificed their ancient capital and Napoleon with his
troops was driven from the burning city out into the open country in the
depth of Winter. The Lord of Hosts seemed to have allied himself with
the Russians to destroy the disturber of the peace of Europe, for the
Winter was an early and unusually severe one and Napoleon was forced to
order a retreat. And what a retreat it was! Day after day, through the
heavy snows and the bitter cold, plodded the exhausted soldiers, pursued
and harried by the Russians like hunted animals. Of the five hundred
thousand men who set out in all the proud assurance of victory, only a
few thousands returned again to France. It was a bitter blow to the
aspiring conqueror—God himself had dealt out judgment to him! He hastily
collected together a new army, it is true, but now all Germany was
allied with Russia to defeat the tyrant’s schemes. The glorious war of
1813-1815 was about to begin.
Among those great men who had labored untiringly to emancipate Prussia
from the yoke of France, the work of reorganizing the army had fallen
chiefly to Scharnhorst.
It had been his idea to train the whole population of the smaller
outlying States in the use of arms, and thus continually to introduce
fresh forces into the army of forty thousand men which Prussia was
allowed to support, to take the place of older and well-disciplined
regiments which were dismissed. The news of Napoleon’s disastrous
experience in Russia filled the Prussians with new hope and enthusiasm,
but the King was slow to determine on any decisive action. Napoleon
still had powerful resources at his command, and if the struggle for
which the people clamored were to go against them, the ruin of Prussia
would be complete. Further delay, however, became at last impossible,
and on January 22, 1813, Frederick William left Berlin, where his
personal safety was still menaced by French troops, and removed the
court to Breslau. An alliance was concluded, February 28, between Russia
and Prussia, and on March 17 war was declared against Napoleon. That
same day General Scharnhorst’s ordinance in regard to the militia was
carried into effect and the large body of well-drilled men which he had
been quietly training for so long, took their place in the newly formed
army.
Shortly before this, on his deceased wife’s birthday, March 10, the King
established the order of the Iron Cross.
“With God for King and Fatherland!” was the watchword with which Prussia
entered the struggle that was to lift her to her old position of power
and independence or end in hopeless ruin. The King issued a call for
troops and the whole nation responded. Not a man but would gladly die
rather than longer endure the shame of subjection. The lofty spirit of
their departed Queen seemed still to inspire the hearts of the people,
for they arrayed themselves against the conqueror who had chosen the
heroes of Pagan antiquity for his models, with a Christian faith and
devotion rarely equalled in the history of the world. Prince William too
longed with all his heart to take part in the liberation of Prussia and
with tears in his eyes besought his father to allow him to take the
field, but out of regard for his son’s health the King was obliged to
refuse his prayer, and he remained in Breslau, in bitter discontent,
anxiously waiting and hoping for news from the seat of war, at that time
so difficult to obtain and so slow in arriving. Even his advance to a
first-lieutenantship in the course of the summer failed to cheer him,
for he felt that he had done nothing to deserve it. But after the battle
of Leipzic, in which the French were routed and driven back across the
Rhine, the King returned to Breslau and, handing the Prince a captain’s
commission, placed on his shoulders with his own hands the epaulettes
then just introduced for army officers, and told him to prepare to join
the army. This was joyful news indeed! On to France, on against the foe
that so long had held the Fatherland in bondage and sent his adored
mother to a premature grave! His heart beat high with pride and courage,
and he could hardly wait for the day of departure, which was finally set
for November 8.
The French were already driven out of Germany at that time and the
victorious allies had pursued them into their own country. On January 1,
1814, the King and his son reached Mannheim, on the Rhine, and were soon
across the borders and in the midst of the seat of war. From Brienne and
Rosny sounded the thunder of cannon, and at Bar-sur-Aube on February 27
Prince William was permitted for the first time to take part in active
service.
Early on the morning of that day the King sent for his two sons (the
Crown Prince had been with the army from the beginning of the war) and
said to them: “There will be a battle to-day. We have taken the
offensive and there may be hot work. You shall watch it. Ride on and I
will follow, but do not expose yourselves to danger unnecessarily. Do
you understand?”
The brothers dashed off to General Prince Wittgenstein, where their
father joined them, and they were soon in the middle of the fight and in
constant danger of their lives. Suddenly the King turned to Prince
William. “Ride back and find out what regiment it is over yonder that is
losing so many men,” he ordered. Like a flash William was off, followed
by admiring glances from the soldiers as he galloped calmly through the
hail of bullets, obtained the desired information, and rode slowly back.
The King made no comment, but General Wittgenstein, who had watched the
Prince with apprehension, gave him a kindly glance and shook him warmly
by the hand, William himself seeming quite unconscious that he had been
in such danger and had just received his baptism of fire.
On March 10, his mother’s birthday, he received from his father’s hand
the Iron Cross, and a few days before this the royal allies of Prussia
and Russia had bestowed on him the fourth class of the Order of Saint
George for his bravery. These two decorations, which can only be won
under fire, made the Prince realize for the first time the real meaning
of the incident at Bar-sur-Aube.
“Now I know,” he said, “why Herr von Jagow and Herr von Luck pressed my
hand and why the others smiled so significantly.”
The Emperor wore these two little crosses to the end of his life, with
special pride, as the first honors he ever won, and would never have
them replaced by new ones. They were precious relics of his baptism of
fire at Bar-sur-Aube.
Swiftly the tide of war rolled on. Battle after battle was won. Napoleon
was dethroned and banished to the island of Elba, and on March 31, 1814,
Prince William made his first victorious entry into the enemy’s proud
capital. Here he took up his quarters in the Hotel of the Legion of
Honor and on May 30 received the rank of Major in the army. After
visiting England and Switzerland with his father in the course of the
Summer, our hero returned to Potsdam on the King’s birthday (August 3),
where he was joyously welcomed by his sisters. The following year
Napoleon escaped from Elba and regained possession of the throne of
France, only to exchange it after a sovereignty of one hundred days for
the lonely island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
On June 8 of this year (1815) the confirmation of Prince William took
place, having been postponed till that date on account of the war. In
the palace chapel at Charlottenburg he took the usual vows and laid down
for himself at the same time those principles of life and conduct that
are a splendid witness to his nobility of mind, his seriousness of
purpose, his sincere piety and faith in the Almighty, and his lofty
conception of the duties of his high calling.