of the Memoirs before us has {167}copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount
to this, that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to
Silesia, and had in the previous century been compelled, by hard usage
on the part of the Court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is
certain that, whoever might originally have been in the right, Prussia
had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had
acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the Court of Berlin
had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the
integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if
antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long
possession, the world can never be at peace for a day? The laws of
all nations have wisely established a time of limitation, after which
titles, however illegitimate in their origin, cannot be questioned.
It is felt by everybody, that to eject a person from his estate on
the ground of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors would
produce all the evils which result from arbitrary confiscation, and
would make all property insecure. It concerns the commonwealth--so runs
the legal maxim--that there be an end of litigation. And surely this
maxim is at least equally applicable to the great commonwealth of
states; for in that commonwealth litigation means the devastation of
provinces, the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like these
of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and
Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was
an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the king of Denmark be therefore
justified in landing, without any new provocation, in Norway, and
commencing military operations there? The king of Holland thinks,
no doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces.
{168}Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in
marching with an army on Brussels? The case against Frederic was still
stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had been
committed more than a century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he
owed the highest personal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be
doubted whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of
the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder.
To do the King justice, he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In
manifestoes he might, for form’s sake, insert some idle stories about
his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he
took a very different tone. His own words are: “Ambition, interest, the
desire of making people talk about me, carried the day; and I decided
for war.”
Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability and vigour. It
was impossible wholly to conceal his preparations; for throughout the
Prussian territories regiments, guns, and baggage were in motion.
The Austrian envoy at Berlin apprised his court of these facts, and
expressed a suspicion of Frederic’s designs; but the ministers of Maria
Theresa refused to give credit to so black an imputation on a young
prince who was known chiefly by his high professions of integrity and
philanthropy. “We will not,” they wrote, “we cannot, believe it.”
In the mean time the Prussian forces had been assembled. Without any
declaration of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very
act of pouring forth compliments and assurances of good-will, Frederic
commenced hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were actually in
Silesia before the Queen of Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to
any {169}part of lier territories. At length he sent her a message which
could be regarded only as an insult.
If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by
her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other
dominions; as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his
new promise could be of more value than the old one.
It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads heavy
with mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The
Austrian army was then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion
of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau
was blockaded: Breslau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A few
scattered garrisons still held out; but the whole open country was
subjugated: no enemy ventured to encounter the King in the field;
and, before the end of January, 1741, he returned to receive the
congratulations of his subjects at Berlin.
Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and
Maria Theresa, it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian King
of gross perfidy. But when we consider the effects which his policy
produced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole community of
civilised nations, we are compelled to pronounce a condemnation still
more severe. Till he began the war, it seemed possible, even probable,
that the peace of the world would be preserved. The plunder of the great
Austrian heritage was indeed a strong temptation; and in more than one
cabinet ambitious schemes were already meditated. But the treaties
by which the Pragmatic Sanction had been guaranteed were express and
recent. To throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly unjust,
was no light {170}matter. England was true to her engagements. The voice
of Fleury had always been for peace. He had a conscience. He was now
in extreme old age, and was unwilling, after a life which, when his
situation was considered, must be pronounced singularly pure, to carry
the fresh stain of a great crime before the tribunal of his God. Even
the vain and unprincipled Belle-Isle, whose whole life was one wild
day-dream of conquest and spoliation, felt that France, hound as she
was by solemn stipulations, could not, without disgrace, make a direct
attack on the Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, pretended
that he had a right to a large part of the inheritance which the
Pragmatic Sanction gave to the Queen of Hungary; but he was not
sufficiently powerful to move without support. It might, therefore, not
unreasonably be expected that, after a short period of restlessness, all
the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrangements made
by the late Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia
gave the signal to his neighbours. His example quieted their sense of
shame. His success led them to underrate the difficulty of dismembering
the Austrian monarchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of
Frederic is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during
many years and in every quarter of the globe, the blood of the column
of Fontenoy, the blood of the mountaineers who were slaughtered at
Culloden. The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where
the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order that he might rob a
neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast
of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of
North America. {171}Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the
Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which
still held out. In the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen
little of war, and had never commanded any great body of men in the
field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first military operations
showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was the admiration
of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael in
his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic’s early bad
manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed were
men of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of
the infantry was unequalled in that age; and some able and experienced
officers were at hand to assist him with their advice. Of these, the
most distinguished was Field-Marshal Schwerin, a brave adventurer of
Pomeranian extraction, who had served half the governments in Europe,
had borne the commissions of the States General of Holland and of the
Duke of Mecklenburg, had fought under Marlborough at Blenheim, and had
been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender.
Frederic’s first battle was fought at Molwitz; and never did the career
of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was
victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the
character of an able general; but he was so unfortunate as to make
it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The
cavalry, which he commanded in person, was put to flight. Unaccustomed
to the tumult and carnage of a field of battle, he lost his
self-possession, and listened too readily to those who urged him to save
himself. His English grey carried him many miles from the field, while
Schwerin, {172}though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the day.
The skill of the old Field-Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian
battalions prevailed; and the Austrian army was driven from the field
with the loss of eight thousand men.
The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the King had taken
shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his
success to dispositions which others had made, and to the valour of
men who had fought while he was flying. So unpromising was the first
appearance of the greatest warrior of that age.
The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general explosion throughout
Europe. Bavaria took up arms. France, not yet declaring herself a
principal in the war, took part in it as an ally of Bavaria. The two
great statesmen to whom mankind had owed many years of tranquillity,
disappeared about this time from the scene, but not till they had both
been guilty of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of justice and
their love of peace to the vain hope of preserving their power. Fleury,
sinking under age and infirmity, was borne down by the impetuosity of
Belle-Isle. Walpole retired from the service of his ungrateful country
to his woods and paintings at Houghton; and his power devolved on
the daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the
nations. Thirty years during which Europe had, with few interruptions,
enjoyed repose, had prepared the public mind for great military efforts.
A new generation had grown up, which could not remember the siege of
Turin or the slaughter of Malplaquet; which knew war by nothing but its
trophies; and which, while it looked with pride on the tapestries at
Blenheim, or the statue in the Place {173}of Victories, little thought
by what privations, by what waste of private fortunes, by how many
bitter tears, conquests must be purchased.
For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederic
invaded Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia,
and were there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of
Bavaria was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial
throne, a throne which the practice of centuries had almost entitled the
House of Austria to regard as a hereditary possession.
Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Cæsars unbroken.
Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title; and although her
ancestors had found Hungary the most mutinous of all their kino-doms,
she resolved to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed,
turbulent, and impatient of oppression, but brave, generous, and
simple-hearted. In the midst of distress and peril she had given birth
to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph the Second. Scarcely had she
risen from her couch, when she hastened to Presburg. There, in the sight
of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown and robed
with the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could restrain his tears when
the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after
the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, unsheathed the
ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, east and west,
and with a glow on her pale face challenged the four corners of the
world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At the first sitting
of the Diet she appeared clad in deep mourning for her father, and in
pathetic and dignified words implored her people to support her just
cause. Magnates and deputies sprang up, {174}half drew their sabres, and
with eager voices vowed to stand by her with their lives and fortunes.
Till then her firmness had never once forsaken her before the public
eye; but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, and wept aloud.
Still more touching was the sight when, a few days later, she came
before the estates of her realm, and held up before them the little
Archduke in her arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke
forth into that war-cry which soon resounded throughout Europe, “Let us
die for our King, Maria Theresa!”
In the mean time, Frederic was meditating a change of policy. He had no
wish to raise France to supreme power on the Continent, at the expense
of the house of Hapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen of
Hungary. His second object was that, if possible, nobody should rob her
but himself. He had entered into engagements with the powers leagued
against Austria; but these engagements were in his estimation of no more
force than the guarantee formerly given to the Pragmatic Sanction.
His plan now was to secure his share of the plunder by betraying his
accomplices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to listen to any such
compromise; but the English government represented to her so strongly
the necessity of buying off Frederic, that she agreed to negotiate. The
negotiation would not, however, have ended in a treaty, had not the
arms of Frederic been crowned with a second victory. Prince Charles
of Loraine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, a bold and active, though
unfortunate general, gave battle to the Prussians at Chotusitz, and
was defeated. The King was still only a learner of the military art. He
acknowledged, at a later period, that his success on this occasion was
to be attributed, not at all {175}to his own generalship, but solely to
the valour and steadiness of his troops. He completely effaced, however,
by his personal courage and energy, the stain which Molwitz had left on
his reputation.
A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was the fruit of this
battle. Maria Theresa ceded Silesia: Frederic abandoned his allies:
Saxony followed his example; and the Queen was left at liberty to
turn her whole force against France and Bavaria. She was everywhere
triumphant. The French were compelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with
difficulty effected their escape. The whole line of their retreat might
be tracked by the corpses of thousands who had died of cold, fatigue and
hunger. Many of those who reached their country carried with them the
seeds of death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious warriors
from that bloody debatable land which lies on the frontier between
Christendom and Islam. The terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat,
and the Hussar, then first became familiar to western Europe. The
unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by
Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and neglected by his allies,
was hurried by shame and remorse to an untimely end. An English army
appeared in the heart of Germany, and defeated the French at Dettingen.
The Austrian captains already began to talk of completing the work of
Marlborough and Eugene, and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace
and the Three Bishoprics.
The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederic for help. He
had been guilty of two great treasons: perhaps he might be induced to
commit a third. The Duchess of Chateauroux then held the chief influence
over the feeble Lewis. She determined {176}to send an agent to Berlin;
and Voltaire was selected for the mission. He eagerly undertook the
task; for, while his literary fame filled all Europe, he was troubled
with a childish craving for political distinction, He was vain, and not
without reason, of his address, and of his insinuating eloquence; and he
flattered himself that he possessed boundless influence over the King
of Prussia. The truth was that he knew, as yet, only one corner of
Frederic’s character. He was well acquainted with all the petty vanities
and affectations of the poetaster; but was not aware that these foibles
were united with all the talents and vices which lead to success in
active life, and that the unlucky versifier who pestered him with reams
of middling Alexandrines, was the most vigilant, suspicious, and severe
of politicians.
Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friendship, was
lodged in the palace, and had a seat daily at the royal table. The
negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can be
conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place between
the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a
strange weakness had induced to exchange their parts. The great poet
would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the great King of
nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his
Majesty’s hands a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back
with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each
other. Voltaire did not spare the King’s poems; and the King has left
on record his opinion of Voltaire’s diplomacy. “He had no credentials,”
Says Frederic, “and the whole mission was a joke, a mere farce.”
{177}But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the rapid
progress of the Austrian arms effected. If it should be in the power of
Maria Theresa and George the Second to dictate terms of peace to France,
what chance was there that Prussia would long retain Silesia? Frederic’s
conscience told him that he had acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards
the Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was strong she had given ample
proof; and of her respect for treaties he judged by his own. Guarantees,
he said, were mere filigree, pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear
the slightest pressure. He thought it his safest course to ally himself
closely to France, and again to attack the Empress Queen. Accordingly,
in the autumn of 1744, without notice, without any decent pretext,
he recommenced hostilities, inarched through the electorate of Saxony
without troubling himself about the permission of the Elector, invaded
Bohemia, took Prague, and even menaced Vienna.
It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the inconstancy
of fortune. An Austrian army under Charles of Loraine threatened his
communications with Silesia. Saxony was all in arms behind him. He found
it necessary to save himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that his
failure was the natural effect of his own blunders. No general, he
said, had ever committed greater faults. It must be added, that to the
reverses of this campaign he always ascribed his subsequent successes.
It was in the midst of difficulty and disgrace that he caught the first
clear glimpse of the principles of the military art.
The memorable year 1745 followed. The war raged by sea and land, in
Italy, in Germany, and in Flanders; and even England, after many years
of profound internal {178}quiet, saw, for the last time, hostile armies
set in battle array against each other. This year is memorable in the
life of Frederic, as the date at which his noviciate in the art of war
may be said to have terminated. There have been great captains whose
precocious and self-taught military skill resembled intuition. Coudé,
Clive, and Napoleon are examples. But Frederic was not one of these
brilliant portents. His proficiency in military science was simply the
proficiency which a man of vigorous faculties makes in any science
to which he applies his mind with earnestness and industry. It was at
Hohenfriedberg that he first proved how much he had profited by his
errors, and by their consequences. His victory on that day was chiefly
due to his skilful dispositions, and convinced Europe that the prince
who, a few years before, had stood aghast in the rout of Molwitz,
had attained in the military art a mastery equalled by none of his
contemporaries, or equalled by Saxe alone. The victory of Hohenfriedberg
was speedily followed by that of Sorr.
In the mean time, the arms of France had been victorious in the Low
Countries. Frederic had no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa
would be able to give law to Europe, and he began to meditate a fourth
breach of his engagements. The court of Versailles was alarmed and
mortified. A letter of earnest expostulation, in the handwriting of
Lewis, was sent to Berlin; but in vain. In the autumn of 1745, Frederic
made peace with England, and, before the close of the year, with Austria
also. The pretensions of Charles of Bavaria could present no obstacle
to an accommodation. That unhappy prince was no more; and Francis of
Loraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, {179}was raised, with the general
assent of the Germanic body, to the Imperial throne.
Prussia was again at peace; but the European war lasted till, in the
year 1718, it was terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Of all
the powers that had taken part in it, the only gainer was Frederic. Not
only had he added to his patrimony the fine province of Silesia: he
had, by his unprincipled dexterity, succeeded so well in alternately
depressing the scale of Austria and that of France, that he was
generally regarded as holding the balance of Europe, a high dignity for
one who ranked lowest among kings, and whose great-grandfather had
been no more than a Margrave. By the public, the King of Prussia was
considered as a politician destitute alike of morality and decency,
insatiably rapacious, and shamelessly false; nor was the public much
in the wrong. He was at the same time allowed to be a man of parts, a
rising general, a shrewd negotiator and administrator. Those qualities
wherein he surpassed all mankind, were as yet unknown to others or to
himself; for they were qualities which shine out only on a dark ground.
His career had hitherto, with little interruption, been prosperous;
and it was only in adversity, in adversity which seemed without hope or
resource, in adversity which would have overwhelmed even men celebrated
for strength of mind, that his real greatness could be shown.