Franz of Lorraine, the young favorite of Fortune, whom we once saw at
Berlin on an interesting occasion, was about this time to have married
his Imperial Archduchess; Kaiser's consent to be formally demanded and
given; nothing but joy and splendor looked for in the Court of Vienna at
present. Nothing to prevent it,--had there been no Polish Election;
had not the Kaiser, in his Shadow-Hunt (coursing the Pragmatic Sanction
chiefly, as he has done these twenty years past), gone rashly into that
combustible foreign element. But so it is: this was the fatal limit. The
poor Kaiser's Shadow-Hunt, going Scot-free this long while, and merely
tormenting other people, has, at this point, by contact with inflammable
Poland, unexpectedly itself caught fire; goes now plunging, all in
mad flame, over precipices one knows not how deep: and there will be a
lamentable singeing and smashing before the Kaiser get out of this, if
he ever get! Kaiser Karl, from this point, plunges down and down, all
his days; and except in that Shadow of a Pragmatic Sanction, if he can
still save that, has no comfort left. Marriages are not the thing to be
thought of at present!--
Scarcely had the news of August's Election, and Stanislaus's flight
to Dantzig, reached France, when France, all in a state of readiness,
informed the Kaiser, ready for nothing, his force lying in Silesia,
doing the Election functions on the Polish borders there, "That he
the Kaiser had, by such treatment of the Grandfather of France and
the Polish Kingdom fairly fallen to him, insulted the most Christian
Majesty; that in consequence the most Christian Majesty did hereby
declare War against the said Kaiser,"--and in fact had, that very day
(14th of October, 1733), begun it. Had marched over into Lorraine,
namely, secured Lorraine against accidents; and, more specially, gone
across from Strasburg to the German side of the Rhine, and laid siege
to Kehl. Kehl Fortress; a dilapidated outpost of the Reich there, which
cannot resist many hours. Here is news for the Kaiser, with his few
troops all on the Polish borders; minding his neighbors' business, or
chasing Pragmatic Sanction, in those inflammable localities.
Pacific Fleury, it must be owned, if he wanted a quarrel with the
Kaiser, could not have managed it on more advantageous terms. Generals,
a Duc de Berwick, a Noailles, Belleisle; generals, troops, artillery,
munitions, nothing is wanting to Fleury; to the Kaiser all things. It is
surmised, the French had their eye on Lorraine, not on Stanislaus, from
the first. For many centuries, especially for these last two,--ever
since that Siege of Metz, which we once saw, under Kaiser Karl V. and
Albert Alcibiades,--France has been wrenching and screwing at this
Lorraine, wriggling it off bit by bit; till now, as we perceived on
Lyttelton junior of Hagley's visit, Lorraine seems all lying unscrewed;
and France, by any good opportunity, could stick it in her pocket. Such
opportunity sly Fleury contrived, they say;--or more likely it might
be Belleisle and the other adventurous spirits that urged it on pacific
Fleury;--but, at all events, he has got it. Dilapidated Kehl yields
straightway: [29th October, 1733. _Memoires du Marechal de Berwick_ (in
Petitot'e Collection, Paris, 1828), ii. 303.] Sardinia, Spain, declare
alliance with Fleury; and not Lorraine only, and the Swabian Provinces,
but Italy itself lies at his discretion,--owing to your treatment of the
Grandfather of France, and these Polish Elective methods.
The astonished Kaiser rushes forward to fling himself into the arms
of the Sea-Powers, his one resource left: "Help! moneys, subsidies,
ye Sea-Powers!" But the Sea-Powers stand obtuse, arms not open at all,
hands buttoning their pockets: "Sorry we cannot, your Imperial Majesty.
Fleury engages not to touch the Netherlands, the Barrier Treaty; Polish
Elections are not our concern!" and callously decline. The Kaiser's
astonishment is extreme; his big heart swelling even with a
martyr-feeling; and he passionately appeals: "Ungrateful, blind
Sea-Powers! No money to fight France, say you? Are the Laws of Nature
fallen void?" Imperial astonishment, sublime martyr-feeling, passionate
appeals to the Laws of Nature, avail nothing with the blind
Sea-Powers: "No money in us," answer they: "we will help you to
negotiate."--"Negotiate!" answers he: and will have to pay his own
Election broken-glass, with a sublime martyr-feeling, without money from
the Sea-Powers.
Fleury has got the Sardinian Majesty; "Sardinian doorkeeper of the
Alps," who opens them now this way, now that, for a consideration: "A
slice of the Milanese, your Majesty;" bargains Fleury. Fleury has got
the Spanish Majesty (our violent old friend the Termagant of Spain)
persuaded to join: "Your infant Carlos made Duke of Parma and Piacenza,
with such difficulty: what is that? Naples itself, crown of the Two
Sicilies, lies in the wind for Carlos;--and your junior infant, great
Madam, has he no need of apanages?" The Termagant of Spain, "offended by
Pragmatic Sanction" (she says), is ready on those terms; the Sardinian
Majesty is ready: and Fleury, this same October, with an overwhelming
force, Spaniards and Sardinians to join, invades Italy; great Marshal
Villars himself taking the command. Marshal Villars, an extremely
eminent old military gentleman,--somewhat of a friend, or husband of a
lady-friend, to M. de Voltaire, for one thing;--and capable of slicing
Italy to pieces at a fine rate, in the condition it was in.
Never had Kaiser such a bill of broken-glass to pay for meddling in
neighbors, elections before. The year was not yet ended, when Villars
and the Sardinian Majesty had done their stroke on Lombardy; taken Milan
Citadel, taken Pizzighetone, the Milanese in whole, and appropriated it;
swept the poor unprepared Kaiser clear out of those parts. Baby Carlos
and the Spaniards are to do the Two Sicilies, Naples or the land one to
begin with, were the Winter gone. For the present, Louis XV. "sings TE
DEUM, at Paris, 23d December, 1733" [_Fastes du Regne de Louis XV._]
Villars, now above four-score, soon died of those fatigues; various
Marshals, Broglio, Coigny, Noailles, succeeding him, some of whom
are slightly notable to us; and there was one Maillebois, still a
subordinate under them, whose name also may reappear in this History.
SUBSEQUENT COURSE OF THE WAR, IN THE ITALIAN PART OF IT.
The French-Austrian War, which had now broken out, lasted a couple of
years; the Kaiser steadily losing, though he did his utmost; not so much
a War, on his part, as a Being Beaten and Being Stript. The Scene was
Italy and the Upper-Rhine Country of Germany; Italy the deciding scene;
where, except as it bears on Germany, our interest is nothing, as indeed
in Germany too it is not much. The principal events, on both stages, are
chronologically somewhat as follows;--beginning with Italy:--
MARCH 29th, 1734. Baby Carlos with a Duke of Montemar for General, a
difficult impetuous gentleman, very haughty to the French allies and
others, lands in Naples Territory; intending to seize the Two Sicilies,
according to bargain. They find the Kaiser quite unprepared, and their
enterprise extremely feasible.
"MAY 10th. Baby Carlos--whom we ought to call Don Carlos, who is now
eighteen gone, and able to ride the great horse--makes triumphant entry
into Naples, having easily swept the road clear; styles himself 'King of
the Two Sicilies' (Papa having surrendered him his 'right' there);
whom Naples, in all ranks of it, willingly homages as such. Wrecks of
Kaiser's forces intrench themselves, rather strongly, at a place called
Bitonto, in Apulia, not far off.
"MAY 25th. Montemar, in an impetuous manner, storms them there:--which
feat procures for him the title, Duke of Bitonto; and finishes off
the First of the Sicilies. And indeed, we may say, finishes Both the
Sicilies: our poor Kaiser having no considerable force in either, nor
means of sending any; the Sea-Powers having buttoned their pockets, and
the Combined Fleet of France and Spain being on the waters there.
"We need only add, on this head, that, for ten months more, Baby Carlos
and Montemar went about besieging, Gaeta, Messina, Syracuse; and making
triumphal entries;--and that, on the 30th of June, 1735, Baby Carlos had
himself fairly crowned at Palermo. [_Fastes de Louis XV., i. 278._]
'King of the Two Sicilies' DE FACTO; in which eminent post he and his
continue, not with much success, to this day.
"That will suffice for the Two Sicilies. As to Lombardy again, now that
Villars is out of it, and the Coignys and Broglios have succeeded:--
"JUNE 29th, 1734. Kaiser, rallying desperately for recovery of the
Milanese, has sent an Army thither, Graf von Mercy leader of it: Battle
of Parma between the French and it (29th June);--totally lost by the
Kaiser's people, after furious fighting; Graf von Mercy himself killed
in the action. Graf von Mercy, and what comes nearer us, a Prince of
Culmbach, amiable Uncle of our Wilhelmina's Husband, a brave man and
Austrian Soldier, who was much regretted by Wilhelmina and the rest;
his death and obsequies making a melancholy Court of Baireuth in this
agitated year. The Kaiser, doing his utmost, is beaten at every point.
"SEPTEMBER 15th. Surprisal of the Secchia. Kaiser's people rally,--under
a General Graf von Konigseck worth noting by us,--and after some
manoeuvring, in the Guastalla-Modena region, on the Secchia and Po
rivers there, dexterously steal across the Secchia that night (15th
September), cutting off the small guard-party at the ford of the
Secchia, then wading silently; and burst in upon the French Camp in a
truly alarming manner. [Hormayr, xx. 84; _Fastes,_ as it is liable to
do, misdates.] So that Broglio, in command there, had to gallop with
only one boot on, some say 'in his shirt,' till he got some force
rallied, and managed to retreat more Parthian-like upon his brother
Marechal's Division. Artillery, war-chest, secret correspondence, 'King
of Sardinia's tent,' and much cheering plunder beside Broglio's odd
boot, were the consequences; the Kaiser's one success in this War;
abolished, unluckily, in four days!--The Broglio who here gallops is
the second French Marechal of the name, son of the first; a military
gentleman whom we shall but too often meet in subsequent stages. A son
of this one's, a third Marechal Broglio, present at the Secchia that
bad night, is the famous War-god of the Bastille time, fifty-five years
hence,--unfortunate old War-god, the Titans being all up about him. As
to Broglio with the one boot, it is but a triumph over him till--
"SEPTEMBER 19th. Battle of Guastalla, that day. Battle lost by the
Kaiser's people, after eight hours, hot fighting; who are then obliged
to hurry across the Secchia again;--and in fact do not succeed in
fighting any more in that quarter, this year or afterwards. For, next
year (1735), Montemar is so advanced with the Two Sicilies, he can
assist in these Northern operations; and Noailles, a better Marechal,
replaces the Broglio and Coigny there; who, with learned strategic
movements, sieges, threatenings of siege, sweeps the wrecks of Austria,
to a satisfactory degree, into the Tyrol, without fighting, or event
mentionable thenceforth.
"This is the Kaiser's War of two Campaigns, in the Italian, which was
the decisive part of it: a continual Being Beaten, as the reader sees; a
Being Stript, till one was nearly bare in that quarter."
COURSE OF THE WAR, IN THE GERMAN PART OF IT.
In Germany the mentionable events are still fewer; and indeed, but for
one small circumstance binding on us, we might skip them altogether. For
there is nothing comfortable in it to the human memory otherwise.
Marechal Duc de Berwick, a cautious considerable General (Marlborough's
Nephew, on what terms is known to readers), having taken Kehl and
plundered the Swabian outskirts last Winter, had extensive plans of
operating in the heart of Germany, and ruining the Kaiser there. But
first he needs, and the Kaiser is aware of it, a "basis on the Rhine;"
free bridge over the Rhine, not by Strasburg and Kehl alone: and for
this reason, he will have to besiege and capture Philipsburg first of
all. Strong Town of Philipsburg, well down towards Speyer-and-Heidelberg
quarter on the German side of the Rhine: [See map] here will be our
bridge. Lorraine is already occupied, since the first day of the War;
Trarbach, strong-place of the Moselle and Electorate of Trier, cannot
be difficult to get? Thus were the Rhine Country, on the French side,
secure to France; and so Berwick calculates he will have a basis on the
Rhine, from which to shoot forth into the very heart of the Kaiser.
Berwick besieged Philipsburg accordingly (Summer and Autumn); Kaiser
doing his feeble best to hinder: at the Siege, Berwick lost his life,
but Philipsburg surrendered to his successor, all the same;--Kaiser
striving to hinder; but in a most paralyzed manner, and to no purpose
whatever. And--and this properly WAS the German War; the sum of all done
in it during those two years.
Seizure of Nanci (that is, of Lorraine), seizure of Kehl we already
heard of; then, prior to Philipsburg, there was siege or seizure of
Trarbach by the French; and, posterior to it, seizure of Worms by them;
and by the Germans there was "burning of a magazine in Speyer by bombs."
And, in brief, on both sides, there was marching and manoeuvring under
various generals (our old rusty Seckendorf one of them), till the end of
1735, when the Italian decision arrived, and Truce and Peace along with
it; but there was no other action worth naming, even in the Newspapers
as a wonder of nine days, The Siege of Philipsburg, and what hung
flickering round that operation, before and after, was the sum-total of
the German War.
Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in those parts, has had many sieges; nor
would this one merit the least history from us; were it not for one
circumstance: That our Crown-Prince was of the Opposing Army, and made
his first experience of arms there. A Siege of Philipsburg slightly
memorable to us, on that one account. What Friedrich did there, which
in the military way was as good as nothing; what he saw and experienced
there, which, with some "eighty Princes of the Reich," a Prince Eugene
for General, and three months under canvas on the field, may have been
something: this, in outline, by such obscure indications as remain,
we would fain make conceivable to the reader. Indications, in the
History-Books, we have as good as none; but must gather what there is
from WILHELMINA and the Crown-Prince's LETTERS,--much studying to be
brief, were it possible!