HANS BREITMANN'S BARTY
BREITMANN AND THE TURNERS
BALLAD
A BALLAD APOUT DE ROWDIES
THE PICNIC
I GILI ROMANESKRO
STEINLI VON SLANG
TO A FRIEND STUDYING GERMAN
LOVE SONG
DER FREISCHUTZ
WEIN GEIST
SCHNITZERL'S PHILOSOPEDE --
I. PROLOGUE
II. HANS BREITMANN AND HIS PHILOSOPEDE
DIE SCHONE WITTWE --
I. VOT DE YANKEE CHAP SUNG
II. HOW DER BREITMANN CUT HIM OUT
BREITMANN IN BATTLE
BREITMANN IN MARYLAND
BREITMANN AS A BUMMER
SECOND PART
BREITMANN'S GOING TO CHURCH
BREITMANN IN KANSAS
HANS BREITMANN'S CHRISTMAS
BREITMANN ABOUT TOWN
BREITMANN IN POLITICS --
I.
1. THE NOMINATION
2. THE COMMITTEE OF INSTRUCTIONS
3. MR. TWINE EXPLAINS BEING "SOUND UPON THE GOOSE"
II.
4. HOW BREITMANN AND SMITH WERE REPORTED
TO BE LOG-ROLLING
5. HOW THEY HELD THE MASS MEETING
6. BREITMANN'S GREAT SPEECH
III.
PARDT DE VIRST: -- THE AUTHOR ASSERTS THE VAST INTELLECTUAL
SUPERIORITY OF GERMANS TO AMERICANS
PARDT DE SECOND: -- SHOWING HOW MR. HIRAM TWINE "PLAYED OFF"
ON SMITH
BREITMANN AS AN UHLAN --
I. THE VISION
II. BREITMANN IN A BALLOON
III. BREITMANN AND BOUILLI
IV. BREITMANN TAKES THE TOWN OF NANCY
V. BREITMANN IN BIVOUAC
VI. BREITMANN'S LAST BARTY
EUROPE --
BREITMANN IN PARIS
BREITMANN IN LA SORBONNE
BREITMANN IN FORTY-EIGHT
BREITMANN IN BELGIUM --
SPA
OSTENDE
GENT
BREITMANN IN HOLLAND --
'S GRAVENHAGE -- THE HAGUE
LEYDEN
SCHEVENINGEN
AMSTERDAM
GERMANY --
BREITMANN AM RHEIN -- COLOGNE
AM RHEIN -- NO. II
AM RHEIN -- NO. III
MUNICH
FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN
ITALY --
BREITMANN IN ROME
LA SCALA SANTA
BREITMANN INTERVIEWS THE POPE
THE FIRST EDITION OF BREITMANN --
SHOWING HOW AND WHY IT WAS THAT IT NEVER APPEARED
LAST BALLADS --
BREITMANN IN TURKEY
COBUS HAGELSTEIN
FRITZERL SCHNALL
THE GYPSY LOVER
DORNENLIEDER
BREITMANN'S SLEIGH-RIDE
THE MAGIC SHOES
GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION
BY THE PUBLISHER
---
"HANS BREITMANN GIFE A BARTY" - the first of the poems here
submitted to the English public - appeared originally in 1857, in
Graham's Magazine, in Philadelphia, and soon became widely
known. Few American poems, indeed, have been held in better or
more constant remembrance than the ballad of "Hans Breitmann's
Barty;" for the words just quoted have actually passed into a
proverbial expression. The other ballads of the present
collection, likewise published in several newspapers, were first
collected in 1869 by Mr. Leland, the translator of Heine's
"Pictures of Travel" and "Book of Songs," and author of Meister
Karl's Sketch -Book," Philadelphia, 1856 and "Sunshine in
Thought," New York, 1863. They are much of the same character as
"The Barty" - most of them celebrating the martial career of
"Hans Breitmann," whose prototype was a German, serving during
the war in the 15th Pennsylvanian cavalry, and who - we have it
on good authority - was a man of desperate courage whenever a
cent could be made, and one who never fought unless
something could be made. The "rebs" "gobbled" him
one day; but he re-appeared in three weeks overloaded with money
and valuables. One of the American critics remarks: -
"Throughout all the ballads it is the same figure presented - an
honest 'Deutscher,' drunk with the New World as with new wine,
and rioting in the expression of purely Deutsch nature and
half-Deutsch ideas through a strange speech."
The poems are written in the dull broken English (not to be
confounded with the Pennsylvanian German) spoken by millions of -
mostly uneducated - Germans in America, immigrants to a great
extent from southern Germany. Their English has not yet become a
distinct dialect; and it would even be difficult to fix at
present the varieties in which it occurs. One of its prominent
peculiarities, however, is easily perceived: it consists in the
constant confounding of the soft and hard consonants; and the
reader must well bear it in mind when translating the language
that meets his eye into one to become intelligible to his ear.
Thus to the German of our poet, kiss becomes giss; company -
gompany; care - gare; count - gount; corner - gorner; till -
dill; terrible - derrible; time - dime; mountain - moundain;
thing - ding; through - droo; the - de; themselves - demselves;
other - oder; party - barty; place - blace; pig - big; priest -
breest; piano - biano; plaster - blaster; fine - vine; fighting -
vighting; fellow - veller; or, vice versa, he sounds got -
cot; green - creen; great - crate; gold dollars - cold tollars;
dam - tam; dreadful - treadful; drunk - troonk; brown - prown;
blood - ploot; bridge - pridge; barrel - parrel; boot - poot;
begging - peggin'; blackguard - plackguart; rebel - repel; never
- nefer; river - rifer; very - fery; give - gife; victory -
fictory; evening - efening; revive - refife; jump - shoomp; join
- choin; joy - choy; just - shoost; joke - choke; jingling -
shingling;, &c.; or, through a kindred change, both - bofe; youth
- youf; but mouth - mout'; earth - eart'; south - sout'; waiting
- vaiten;' was - vas; widow - vidow; woman - voman; work - vork;
one - von; we - ve, &c. And hence, by way of a compound mixture,
we get from him drafel for travel, derriple for terrible, a
daple-leck for a table-leg, bepples for pebbles, tisasder for
disaster, schimnastig dricks for gymnastic tricks, let-bencil for
lead-pencil, &c. The peculiarity of Germans pronouncing in their
mother tongue s like sh when it is followed by a t or
p, and of Germans in southern Germany often also final
s like sh, naturally produced in their American
jargon such results as shplit, shtop, shtraight, shtar,
shtupendous, shpree, shpirit, &c; ish(is), ash(as), &c.; and, by
analogy led to shveet(sweet), schwig(swig), &c. We need not
notice, however, more than these freaks of the
German-American-English of the present poems, as little as we
need advert to simple vulgarisms also met with in England, such
as the omission of the final g in words terminating in
ing (blayin' - playing; shpinnen' - spinning; ridin',
sailin', roonin', &c.). We must, of course, assume that the
reader of this little volume is well acquainted both with English
and German.
The reader will perceive that the writer has taken another
flight in "Hans Breitmann's Christmas," and many of the later
ballads, from what he did in those preceding; and exception might
be taken to his choice of subjects, and treatment of them, if the
language employed by him were a fixed dialect - that is, a
language arrested at a certain stage of its progress; for in that
case he would have had to subordinate his pictures to the narrow
sphere of the realistic incidents of a given locality. But the
imperfect English utterances of the German, newly arrived in
America, coloured more or less by the peculiarities of his native
idiom, do not make, and never will make a dialect, for the simple
reason that, in proportion to his intelligence, his
opportunities, and the length of time spent by him among his new
English-speaking countrymen, he will sooner or later rid himself
of the crudenesses of his speech, thus preventing it from
becoming fixed. Many of the Germans who have emigrated and are
still emigrating to America belong to the well-educated classes,
and some possess a very high culture. Our poet has therefore
presented his typical German, with perfect propriety, in a
variety of situations which would be imperceptible within which
the the dialect necessarily moves, and has endowed him with
character, even where the local colour is wanting.
In "Breitmann in Politics," we are on purely American ground.
In it the Germans convince themselves that, as their hero can
no longer plunder the rebels, he ought to plunder the nation, and
they resolve on getting him elected to the State Legislature.
They accordingly form a committee, and formulate for their
candidate six "moral ideas" as his platform. These they show to
their Yankee helper, Hiram Twine, who, having changed his
politics fifteen times, and managed several elections, knows how
matters should be handled. He says the moral ideas are very
fine, but not worth a "dern;" and instead of them proclaims the
true cry, that Breitmann is sound upon the goose, about
which he tells a story. Then it is reported that the German
cannot win, and that, as he is a soldier, he has been sent into
the political field only to lead the forlorn hope and get beaten.
In answer to this, Twine starts the report that Smith has sold
the fight to Breitmann, a notion which the Americans take to
at once -
"For dey mostly dinked id de naturalest ding as efer couldt pefall
For to sheat von's own gonstituents is de pest mofe in de came,
Und dey nefer sooposed a Dootchman hafe de sense to do de same."
Accordingly, Breitmann calls a meeting of Smith's supporters,
tells them that he hopes to get a good place for his friend
Smith, though he cannot approve of Smith's teetotal principles,
because he, Breitmann, is a republican, and the meaning of that
word is plain: - "... If any enlightened man vill seeken in his
Bibel, he will find dat a publican is a barty ash sells
lager; und de ding is very blain, dat a re-publican
ish von who sells id 'gain und 'gain." Moreover, Smith believes
in God, and goes to church, - what liberal German can
stand this? - while Breitmann, being a publican, must be a
sinner. As to parties, the principles of both are the
same - plunder - and "any man who gifes me his fote, - votefer
his boledics pe, - shall alfays pe regardet ash bolidigal friendt
py me."
This brings the house down. And when Breitmann announces that he
sells the best beer in the city, and stands drinks gratis to his
"bolidigal friendts," and orders in twelve barrels of lager for
the meeting, he is unanimously voted "a brickbat, and no
sardine."
After this brilliant success, the author is obliged to pause,
in order to proclaim the intellectual superiority of Germans to
the whole world. He gets tremendously be-fogged in the process,
but that is no matter -
"Ash der Hegel say of his system,' Dat only von mans knew
Vot der tyfel id meant; and he couldn't tell,' und der Jean
Paul Richter, too,
Who saidt, 'Gott knows, I meant somedings vhen foorst dis
buch I writ,
Boot Gott only weiss vot das buch means now, for I hafe
forgotten it!'"
But, taking the point as proved, our German still allows that the
Yankees have some sharp-pointed sense, which he illustrates by
narrating how Hiram Twine turned a village of Smith-voters into
the Breitmann camp. The village is German and Democrat. Smith
has forgotten his meeting, and Twine, who is very like Smith, and
rides into the village to watch the meeting, is taken by the
Germans for Smith. On this, Twine resolves to personate Smith,
and give his supporters a dose of him. Accordingly, on being
asked to drink, he tells the Germans that none but hogs would
drink their stinking beer, and that German wine was only made for
German swine. Then he goes to the meeting, and, having wounded
their feelings in the tenderest point, - the love of beer, -
attacks the next tenderest, - their love for their language, - by
declaring that he will vote for preventing the speaking of it all
through the States; and winds up by exhorting them to stop
guzzling beer and smoking pipes, and set to work to un-Germanise
themselves as soon as possible. On this "dere coomed a shindy,"
with cries of "Shoot him with a bowie-knife," and "Tar and
feather him." A revolver-ball cuts the chandelier-cord; all is
dark; and amidst the row, Twine escapes and gallops off, with
some pistol-balls after him. But the village votes for
Breitmann, and be "licks der Schmit."
The ballad, "Breitmann's Going to Church," is based on a
real occurrence. A certain colonel, with his men, did really,
during the war, go to a church in or near Nashville, and, as the
saying is, "kicked up the devil, and broke things," to such an
extent, that a serious reprimand from the colonel's superior
officer was the result. The fact is guaranteed by Mr. Leland,
who heard the offender complain of the "cruel and heartless
stretch of military authority." As regards the firing into the
guerilla ball-room, it took place near Murfreesboro', on the
night of Feb. 10 or 11, 1865; and on the next day, Mr. Leland was
at a house where one of the wounded lay. On the same night a
Federal picket was shot dead near Lavergne; and the next night a
detachment of cavalry was sent off from General Van Cleve's
quarters, the officer in command coming in while the author was
talking with the general, for final orders. They rode twenty
miles that night, attacked a body of guerillas, captured a
number, and brought back prisoners early next day. The same day
Mr. Leland, with a small cavalry escort, and a few friends, went
out into the country, during which ride one or two curious
incidents occurred, illustrating the extraordinary fidelity of
the blacks to Federal soldiers.
The explanation of the poem entitled, "The First Edition of
Breitmann," is as follows: - It was not long after the war that a
friend of the writer's to whom "the Breitmann Ballads" had been
sent in MSS., and who had frequently urged the former to have
them published, resolved to secure, at least, a small private
edition, though at his own expense. Unfortunately the printers
quarrelled about the MSS., and, as the writer understood, the
entire concern broke up in a row in consequence. And, in fact,
when we reflect on the amount of fierce attack and recrimination
we reflect this unpretending and peaceful little volume elicited
after the appearance of the fifth English edition, and the injury
which it sustained from garbled and falsified editions, in not
less than three unauthorised reprints, it would really seem as if
this first edition, which "died a borning," had been typical of
the stormy path to which the work was predestined.
"I Gili Romaneskro," a gipsy ballad, was written both in the
original and translation - that is to say, in the German gipsy
and German English dialects - to cast a new light on the many-sided
Bohemianism of Herr Breitmann.
The readers of more than one English newspaper will recall that
the idea of representing Breitmann as an Uhlan, scouting over France,
and frequently laying houses and even cities under heavy contribution,
has occurred to very many of "Our Own." A spirited correspondent of
the Telegraph, and others of literary fame, have familiarly
referred to the Uhlan as Breitmann, indicating that the
German-American free-lance has grown into a type; and more than one
newspaper, anticipating this volume, has published Anglo-German poems
referring to Hans Breitmann and the Prussian-French war. In several
pamphlets written in Anglo-German rhymes, which appeared in London in
1871, Breitmann was made the representative type of the war by both
the friends and opponents of Prussia, while during February of the
same year Hans figured at the same time, and on the same evenings for
several weeks, on the stages of three London theatres. So many
imitations of these poems were published, and so extensively and
familiarly was Mr. Leland's hero spoken of as the exponent of the
German cause, that it seemed to a writer at the time as if he had
become "as regards Germany what John Bull and Brother Jonathan have
long been to England and America." In connection with this remark, the
following extract from a letter of the Special Correspondent of the
London Daily Telegraph of August 29, 1870, may not be without
interest: -
"The Prussian Uhlan of 1870 seems destined to fill in French
legendary chronicle the place which, during the invasions of 1814
- 15, was occupied by the Cossack. He is a great traveller.
Nancy, Bar-le-Duc, Commercy, Rheims, Chalons, St. Dizier,
Chaumont, have all heard of him. The Uhlan makes himself quite
at home, and drops in, entirely in a friendly way, on mayors and
corporations, asking not only himself to dinner, but an
indefinite number of additional Uhlans, who, he says, may be
expected hourly. The Uhlan wears a blue uniform turned up with
yellow, and to the end of his lance is affixed a streamer
intimately resembling a very dirty white pocket-handkerchief.
Sometimes he hunts in couples, sometimes he goes in threes, and
sometimes in fives. When he lights upon a village, he holds it
to ransom; when he comes upon a city, he captures it, making it
literally the prisoner of his bow and his spear. A writer in
Blackwood's Magazine once drove the people of Lancashire to
madness by declaring that, in the Rebellion of 1745, Manchester
'was taken by a Scots sergeant and a wench;' but it is a
notorious fact that Nancy submitted without a murmur to five
Uhlans, and that Bar-le-Duc was occupied by two. When the Uhlan
arrives in a conquered city, he visits the mayor, and makes his
usual inordinate demands for meat, drink, and cigars. If his
demands are acceded to, he accepts everything with a grin. If he
is refused, he remarks, likewise with a grin, that he will come
again to-morrow with three thousand light horsemen, and he
gallops away; but in many cases he does not return. The secret
of the fellow's success lies mainly in his unblushing impudence,
his easy mendacity, and that intimate knowledge of every highway
and byway of the country which, thanks to the military
organisation of the Prussian army, he has acquired in the
regimental school. He gives himself out to be the precursor of
an imminently advancing army, when, after all, he is only a
boldly adventurous free-lance, who has ridden thirty miles across
country on the chance of picking up something in the way of
information or victuals. Only one more touch is needed to
complete the portrait of the Uhlan. His veritable name would
seem to be Hans Breitmann, and his vocation that of a 'bummer;'
and Breitmann, we learn from the preface to Mr. Leland's
wonderful ballad, had a prototype in a regiment of Pennsylvanian
cavalry by the name of Jost, whose proficiency in 'bumming,'
otherwise 'looting,' in swearing, fighting, and drinking lager
beer, raised him to a pitch of glory on the Federal side which
excited at once the envy and the admiration of the boldest
bush-whackers and the gauntest guerillas in the Confederate
host."
The present edition embraces all the Breitmann poems which
have as yet appeared; and the publisher trusts that in their
collected form they will be found much more attractive than in
scattered volumes. Many new lyrics, illustrating the hero's
travels in Europe, have been added, and these, it is believed,
are not inferior to their predecessors.