Berlin.
No condition in life can be more active, and at the same time have less
variety in it, than that of a Prussian officer in the time of peace.
He is continually employed in the same occupation, and continually
occupied in the same place. There is no rotation of the troops as in the
British service. The regiments which were placed in Berlin, Magdeburg,
Schweidnitz, and the other garrisons at the conclusion of the war, remain
there still. It is dreaded, that if they were occasionally moved from one
garrison to another, the foreigners in the service, who are exceedingly
prone to desertion, might then find opportunities, which according to the
present plan they cannot: for however desirous a Prussian soldier may be
to desert, the thing is almost impossible. The moment a man is missing,
a certain number of cannons are fired, which announce the desertion to
the whole country. The peasants have a considerable reward for seizing a
deserter, and are liable to severe penalties if they harbour, or aid him
in making his escape, and parties from the garrisons are sent after him
in every direction.
As none of the soldiers are ever allowed to go without the walls of the
town, it requires great address to get over this first difficulty; and
when they have been so far fortunate, many chances remain against their
escaping through the Prussian dominions; and even when they arrive safe
in any of the neighbouring states,
Nunc eadem fortuna viros tot casibus actos
Insequitur.
For there they will probably be obliged to inlist again as soldiers; so
that on the whole, however unhappy they may be, it is absurd to attempt
desertion in any other way than by killing themselves, which method, as I
am told, begins to prevail.
In consequence of their remaining constantly in the same place,
conversing always with the same people, and being employed uniformly
in the same business, the Prussian officers acquire a staid, serious
appearance, exceedingly different from the gay, dissipated, degagé air
of British or French officers. Their only amusement, or relaxation from
the duties of their profession, seems to be walking on the parade, and
conversing with each other. The inferior officers, thus deprived of
opportunities of mixing in general society, and not having time for
study, can have no very extensive range of ideas. Their knowledge, it
must be confessed, is pretty much confined to that branch of tactics
in which they are so much employed; and many of them at length seem to
think, that to stand firm and steady, to march erect, to wheel to the
right and left, and to charge and discharge a firelock, if not the sole
use of human creatures, is at least the chief end of their creation.
The King, as I have been informed, has no inclination that they should
reason on a larger compass of thought, which might possibly lead them to
despise their daily employment of drilling soldiers, counting the buttons
of their coats, and examining the state of their spatter-dashes and
breeches. For as soon as men’s minds become superior to their business,
the business will not be so well performed. Some application to other
studies, and opportunities of mixing with a more general society, might
make them more agreeable men, but not better captains, lieutenants, and
adjutants.
His Majesty imagines he will always find a sufficient number of men of a
more liberal turn of mind, and more extensive notions, for officers of
great trust and separate commands, where the general must act according
to emergencies, and the light of his own understanding. He believes
also, that this general system will not deprive him of the advantage of
particular exceptions, or prevent genius from being distinguished, when
it exists in the humblest spheres of his service. As often, therefore, as
he observes any dawnings of this kind; when any officer, or even soldier,
discovers uncommon talents, or an extensive capacity, he is sure to be
advanced, and placed in a situation where his abilities may have a full
power of exertion; while those must stand still, or be moved by a very
slow gradation, who have no other merit to depend on for promotion but
assiduity alone, which, in the Prussian service, can never conduct to
that rank in the army, where other qualifications are wanted.
As to the common men, the leading idea of the Prussian discipline is to
reduce them, in many respects, to the nature of machines; that they may
have no volition of their own, but be actuated solely by that of their
officers; that they may have such a superlative dread of those officers
as annihilates all fear of the enemy; and that they may move forwards
when ordered, without deeper reasoning or more concern than the firelocks
they carry along with them.
Considering the length to which this system is carried, it were to be
wished that it could be carried still further, and that those unhappy
men, while they retained the faculties of hearing and obeying orders,
could be deprived of every other kind of feeling.
The common state of slavery in Asia, or that to which people of civil
professions in the most despotic countries are subject, is freedom
in comparison of this kind of military slavery. The former are not
continually under the eyes of their tyrants, but for long intervals of
time may enjoy life without restraint, and as their taste dictates; but
all the foreign soldiers in this service, and those of the natives, who
are suspected of any intention to desert, and consequently never allowed
furloughs, are always under the eye of somebody, who has the power, and
too often the inclination, to controul every action of their bodies, and
every desire of their hearts.
Since such a number of men all over Europe are doomed to this state
of constraint, it is much to be lamented that, from the nature of the
service, the doom should fall on the useful, industrious peasantry,
who, when uncontrolled by cruel and absurd policy, pass their days in
cheerfulness, tasting every real pleasure without the nausea of satiety,
or the stings of remorse, and perhaps, of all mankind, have the greatest
enjoyment of life. The sum-total of happiness, destroyed by removing men
from this situation into a state of misery, must be infinitely greater
than if many of the useless, wealthy, and luxurious could be translated
into the same state. This would not be annihilating happiness, but only
shifting the scene of the wretched. Such recruits would only be harassed
by the caprices of others instead of their own;—plagued with the manual
exercise, instead of being tortured by peevishness and disgust;—laid
up in consequence of running the gantlet, instead of being laid up with
the gout;—and, finally, knocked down by a cannon-ball, instead of being
killed by a fit of the apoplexy or a surfeit.