PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--Many wise people are of the opinion that the revolution of
another great Empire is necessary to combat or oppose the great impulse
occasioned by the Revolution of France, before Europe can recover its
long-lost order and repose. Had the subjects of Austria been as
disaffected as they are loyal, the world might have witnessed such a
terrible event, and been enabled to judge whether the hypothesis was the
production of an ingenious schemer or of a profound statesman. Our
armies under Bonaparte have never before penetrated into the heart of a
country where subversion was not prepared, and where subversion did not
follow.
How relatively insignificant, in the eyes of Providence, must be the
independence of States and the liberties of nations, when such a
relatively insignificant personage as General von Mack can shake them?
Have, then, the Austrian heroes--a Prince Eugene, a Laudon, a Lasci, a
Beaulieu, a Haddick, a Bender, a Clairfayt, and numerous other valiant
and great warriors--left no posterity behind them; or has the presumption
of General von Mack imposed upon the judgment of the Counsellors of his
Prince? This latter must have been the case; how otherwise could the
welfare of their Sovereign have been entrusted to a military quack, whose
want of energy and bad disposition had, in 1799, delivered up the capital
of another Sovereign to his enemies. How many reputations are gained by
an impudent assurance, and lost when the man of talents is called upon to
act and the fool presents himself.
Baron von Mack served as an aide-de-camp under Field-marshal Laudon,
during the last war between Austria and Turkey, and displayed some
intrepidity, particularly before Lissa. The Austrian army was encamped
eight leagues from that place, and the commander-in-chief hesitated to
attack it, believing it to be defended by thirty thousand men. To decide
him upon making this attack, Baron von Mack left him at nine o’clock at
night, crossed the Danube, accompanied only by a single Uhlan, and
penetrated into the suburb of Lissa, where he made prisoner a Turkish
officer, whom, on the next morning at seven o’clock, he presented to his
general, and from whom it was learnt that the garrison contained only six
thousand, men. This personal temerity, and the applause of Field-marshal
Laudon, procured him then a kind of reputation, which he has not since
been able to support. Some theoretical knowledge of the art of war, and
a great facility of conversing on military topics, made even the Emperor
Joseph conceive a high opinion of this officer; but it has long been
proved, and experience confirms it every day, that the difference is
immense between the speculator and the operator, and that the generals of
Cabinets are often indifferent captains when in the camp or in the field.
Preceded by a certain celebrity, Baron von Mack served, in 1793, under
the Prince of Coburg, as an adjutant-general, and was called to assist at
the Congress at Antwerp, where the operations of the campaign were
regulated. Everywhere he displayed activity and bravery; was wounded
twice in the month of May; but he left the army without having performed
anything that evinced the talents which fame had bestowed on him. In
February, 1794, the Emperor sent him to London to arrange, in concert
with your Government, the plans of the campaign then on the eve of being
opened; and when he returned to the Low Countries he was advanced to a
quartermaster-general of the army of Flanders, and terminated also this
unfortunate campaign without having done anything to justify the
reputation he had before acquired or usurped. His Sovereign continued,
nevertheless, to employ him in different armies; and in January, 1797, he
was appointed a Field-marshal lieutenant and a quartermaster-general of
the army of the Rhine. In February he conducted fifteen thousand of the
troops of this army to reinforce the army of Italy; but when Bonaparte in
April penetrated into Styria and Carinthia, he was ordered to Vienna as a
second in command of the levy ‘en masse’.
Real military characters had already formed their opinion of this
officer, and saw a presumptuous charlatan where others had admired an
able warrior. His own conduct soon convinced them that they neither had
been rash nor mistaken. The King of Naples demanding, in 1798, from his
son-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, a general to organize and head his
troops, Baron von Mack was presented to him. After war had been declared
against France he obtained some success in partial engagements, but was
defeated in a general battle by an enemy inferior in number. In the
Kingdom of Naples, as well as in the Empire of Germany, the fury of
negotiation seized him when he should have fought, and when he should
have remembered that no compacts can ever be entered into with political
and military earthquakes, more than with physical ones. This imprudence,
particularly as he was a foreigner, excited suspicion among his troops,
whom, instead of leading to battle, he deserted, under the pretence that
his life was in danger, and surrendered himself and his staff to our
commander, Championnet.
A general who is too fond of his life ought never to enter a camp, much
less to command armies; and a military chief who does not consider the
happiness and honour of the State as his first passion and his first
duty, and prefers existence to glory, deserves to be shot as a traitor,
or drummed out of the army as a dastardly coward. Without mentioning the
numerous military faults committed by General von Mack during this
campaign, it is impossible to deny that, with respect to his own troops,
he conducted himself in the most pusillanimous manner. It has often been
repeated that martial valour does not always combine with it that courage
and that necessary presence of mind which knows how to direct or repress
multitudes, how to command obedience and obtain popularity; but when a
man is entrusted with the safety of an Empire, and assumes such a
brilliant situation, he must be weak-minded and despicable indeed, if he
does not show himself worthy of it by endeavouring to succeed, or perish
in the attempt. The French emigrant, General Dumas, evinced what might
have been done, even with the dispirited Neapolitan troops, whom he
neither deserted, nor with whom he offered to capitulate.
Baron von Mack is in a very infirm state of health, and is often under
the necessity of being carried on a litter; and his bodily complaints
have certainly not increased the vigour of his mind. His love of life
seems to augment in proportion as its real value diminishes. As to the
report here of his having betrayed his trust in exchanging honour for
gold, I believe it totally unfounded. Our intriguers may have deluded
his understanding, but our traitors would never have been able to seduce
or shake his fidelity. His head is weak, but his heart is honest.
Unfortunately, it is too true that, in turbulent times, irresolution and
weakness in a commander or a Minister operate the same, and are as
dangerous as, treason.