Kitobni o'qish: «History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 12»

BOOK XII. — FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. — December, 1740-May, 1741

Chapter I. — OF SCHLESIEN, OR SILESIA

Schlesien, what we call Silesia, lies in elliptic shape, spread on the top of Europe, partly girt with mountains, like the crown or crest to that part of the Earth;—highest table-land of Germany or of the Cisalpine Countries; and sending rivers into all the seas. The summit or highest level of it is in the southwest; longest diameter is from northwest to southeast. From Crossen, whither Friedrich is now driving, to the Jablunka Pass, which issues upon Hungary, is above 250 miles; the AXIS, therefore, or longest diameter, of our Ellipse we may call 230 English miles;—its shortest or conjugate diameter, from Friedland in Bohemia (Wallenstein's old Friedland), by Breslau across the Oder to the Polish Frontier, is about 100. The total area of Schlesien is counted to be some 20,000 square miles, nearly the third of England Proper.

Schlesien—will the reader learn to call it by that name, on occasion? for in these sad Manuscripts of ours the names alternate—is a fine, fertile, useful and beautiful Country. It leans sloping, as we hinted, to the East and to the North; a long curved buttress of Mountains ("RIESENGEBIRGE, Giant Mountains," is their best-known name in foreign countries) holding it up on the South and West sides. This Giant-Mountain Range,—which is a kind of continuation of the Saxon-Bohemian "Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE)" and of the straggling Lausitz Mountains, to westward of these,—shapes itself like a bill-hook (or elliptically, as was said): handle and hook together may be some 200 miles in length. The precipitous side of this is, in general, turned outwards, towards Bohmen, Mahren, Ungarn (Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, in our dialects); and Schlesien lies inside, irregularly sloping down, towards the Baltic and towards the utmost East, From the Bohemian side of these Mountains there rise two Rivers: Elbe, tending for the West; Morawa for the South;—Morawa, crossing Moravia, gets into the Donau, and thence into the Black-Sea; while Elbe, after intricate adventures among the mountains, and then prosperously across the plains, is out, with its many ships, into the Atlantic. Two rivers, we say, from the Bohemian or steep side: and again, from the Silesian side, there rise other two, the Oder and the Weichsel (VISTULA); which start pretty near one another in the Southeast, and, after wide windings, get both into the Baltic, at a good distance apart.

For the first thirty, or in parts, fifty miles from the Mountains, Silesia slopes somewhat rapidly; and is still to be called a Hill-country, rugged extensive elevations diversifying it: but after that, the slope is gentle, and at length insensible, or noticeable only by the way the waters run. From the central part of it, Schlesien pictures itself to you as a plain; growing ever flatter, ever sandier, as it abuts on the monotonous endless sand-flats of Poland, and the Brandenburg territories; nothing but Boundary Stones with their brass inscriptions marking where the transition is; and only some Fortified Town, not far off, keeping the door of the Country secure in that quarter.

On the other hand, the Mountain part of Schlesien is very picturesque; not of Alpine height anywhere (the Schnee-Koppe itself is under 5,000 feet), so that verdure and forest wood fail almost nowhere among the Mountains; and multiplex industry, besung by rushing torrents and the swift young rivers, nestles itself high up; and from wheat husbandry, madder and maize husbandry, to damask-weaving, metallurgy, charcoal-burning, tar-distillery, Schlesien has many trades, and has long been expert and busy at them to a high degree. A very pretty Ellipsis, or irregular Oval, on the summit of the European Continent;—"like the palm of a left hand well stretched out, with the Riesengebirge for thumb!" said a certain Herr to me, stretching out his arm in that fashion towards the northwest. Palm, well stretched out, measuring 250 miles; and the crossway 100. There are still beavers in Schlesien; the Katzbach River has gold grains in it, a kind of Pactolus not now worth working; and in the scraggy lonesome pine-woods, grimy individuals, with kindled mounds of pine-branches and smoke carefully kept down by sods, are sweating out a substance which they inform you is to be tar.

HISTORICAL EPOCHS OF SCHLESIEN;—AFTER THE QUADS AND MARCHMEN

Who first lived in Schlesien, or lived long since in it, there is no use in asking, nor in telling if one knew. "The QUADI and the Lygii," says Dryasdust, in a groping manner: Quadi and consorts, in the fifth or sixth Century, continues he with more confidence, shifted Rome-ward, following the general track of contemporaneous mankind; weak remnant of Quadi was thereupon overpowered by Slavic populations, and their Country became Polish, which the eastern rim of it still essentially is. That was the end of the Quadi in those parts, says History. But they cannot speak nor appeal for themselves; History has them much at discretion. Rude burial urns, with a handful of ashes in them, have been dug up in different places; these are all the Archives and Histories the Quadi now have. It appears their name signifies WICKED. They are those poor Quadi (WICKED PEOPLE) who always go along with the Marcomanni (MARCHMEN), in the bead-roll Histories one reads; and I almost guess they must have been of the same stock: "Wickeds and Borderers;" considered, on both sides of the Border, to belong to the Dangerous Classes in those times. Two things are certain: First, QUAD and its derivatives have, to this day, in the speech of rustic Germans, something of that meaning,—"nefarious," at least "injurious," "hateful, and to be avoided:" for example, QUADdel, "a nettle-burn;" QUETSchen, "to smash" (say, your thumb while hammering); &c. &c. And then a second thing: The Polish equivalent word is ZLE (Busching says ZLEXI); hence ZLEzien, SCHLEsien, meaning merely BADland, QUADland, what we might called DAMAGitia, or Country where you get into Trouble. That is the etymology, or what passes for such. As to the History of Schlesien, hitherwards of these burial urns dug up in different places, I notice, as not yet entirely buriable, Three Epochs.

FIRST EPOCH; CHRISTIANITY: A.D. 966. Introduction of Christianity; to the length of founding a Bishopric that year, so hopeful were the aspects; "Bishopric of Schmoger" (SchMAGram, dim little Village still discoverable on the Polish frontier, not far from the Town of Namslau); Bishopric which, after one removal farther inward, got across the Oder, to "WRUTISLAV," which me now call Breslau; and sticks there, as Bishopric of Breslau, to this day. Year 966: it was in Adalbert, our Prussian Saint and Missionary's younger time. Preaching, by zealous Polacks, must have been going on, while Adalbert, Bright in Nobleness, was studying at Magdeburg, and ripening for high things in the general estimation. This was a new gift from the Polacks, this of Christianity; an infinitely more important one than that nickname of "ZLEZIEN," or "DAMAGitia," stuck upon the poor Country, had been.

SECOND EPOCH; GET GRADUALLY CUT LOOSE FROM POLAND: A.D. 1139-1159. Twenty years of great trouble in Poland, which were of lasting benefit to Schlesien. In 1139 the Polack King, a very potent Majesty whom we could name but do not, died; and left his Dominions shared by punctual bequest among his five sons. Punctual bequest did avail: but the eldest Son (who was King, and had Schlesien with much else to his share) began to encroach, to grasp; upon which the others rose upon him, flung him out into exile; redivided; and hoped now they might have quiet. Hoped, but were disappointed; and could come to no sure bargain for the next twenty years,—not till "the eldest brother," first author of these strifes, "died an exile in Holstein," or was just about dying, and had agreed to take Schlesien for all claims, and be quiet thenceforth.

His, this eldest's, three Sons did accordingly, in 1159, get Schlesien instead of him; their uncles proving honorable. Schlesien thereby was happy enough to get cut loose from Poland, and to continue loose; steering a course of its own;—parting farther and farther from Poland and its habits and fortunes. These three Sons, of the late Polish Majesty who died in exile in Holstein, are the "Piast Dukes," much talked of in Silesian Histories: of whose merits I specify this only, That they so soon as possible strove to be German. They were Progenitors of all the "Piast Dukes," Proprietors of Schlesien thenceforth, till the last of them died out in 1675,—and a certain ERBVERBRUDERUNG they had entered into could not take effect at that time. Their merits as Sovereign Dukes seem to have been considerable; a certain piety, wisdom and nobleness of mind not rare among them; and no doubt it was partly their merit, if partly also their good luck, that they took to Germany, and leant thitherward; steering looser and looser from Poland, in their new circumstances. They themselves by degrees became altogether German; their Countries, by silent immigration, introduction of the arts, the composures and sobrieties, became essentially so. On the eastern rim there is still a Polack remnant, its territories very sandy, its condition very bad; remnant which surely ought to cease its Polack jargon, and learn some dialect of intelligible Teutsch, as the first condition of improvement. In all other parts Teutsch reigns; and Schlesien is a green abundant Country; full of metallurgy, damask-weaving, grain-husbandry.—instead of gasconade, gilt anarchy, rags, dirt, and NIE POZWALAM.

A.D. 1327; GET COMPLETELY CUT LOOSE. The Piast Dukes, who soon ceased to be Polish, and hung rather upon Bohemia, and thereby upon Germany, made a great step in that direction, when King Johann, old ICH-DIEN whom we ought to recollect, persuaded most of them, all of them but two, "PRETIO AC PRECE," to become Feudatories (Quasi-Feudatories, but of a sovereign sort) to his Crown of Bohemia. The two who stood out, resisting prayer and price, were the Duke of Jauer and the Duke of Schweidnitz,—lofty-minded gentlemen, perhaps a thought too lofty. But these also Johann's son, little Kaiser Karl IV., "marrying their heiress," contrived to bring in;—one fruitful adventure of little Karl's, among the many wasteful he made, in the German Reich. Schlesien is henceforth a bit of the Kingdom of Bohemia; indissolubly hooked to Germany; and its progress in the arts and composures, under wise Piasts with immigrating Germans, we guess to have become doubly rapid. [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, viii. 725; Hubner, t. 94.]

THIRD EPOCH; ADOPT THE REFORMATION: A.D. 1414-1517. Schlesien, hanging to Bohemia in this manner, extensively adopted Huss's doctrines; still more extensively Luther's; and that was a difficult element in its lot, though, I believe, an unspeakably precious one. It cost above a Century of sad tumults, Zisca Wars; nay above two Centuries, including the sad Thirty-Years War;—which miseries, in Bohemia Proper, were sometimes very sad and even horrible. But Schlesien, the outlying Country, did, in all this, suffer less than Bohemia Proper; and did NOT lose its Evangelical Doctrine in result, as unfortunate Bohemia did, and sink into sluttish "fanatical torpor, and big Crucifixes of japanned Tin by the wayside," though in the course of subsequent years, named of Peace, it was near doing so. Here are the steps, or unavailing counter-steps, in that latter direction:—

A.D. 1537. Occurred, as we know, the ERBVERBRUDERUNG; Duke of Liegnitz, and of other extensive heritages, making Deed of Brotherhood with Kur-Brandenburg;—Deed forbidden, and so far as might be, rubbed out and annihilated by the then King of Bohemia, subsequently Kaiser Ferdinand I., Karl V.'s Brother. Duke of Liegnitz had to give up his parchments, and become zero in that matter: Kur-Brandenburg entirely refused to do so; kept his parchments, to see if they would not turn to something.

A.D. 1624. Schlesien, especially the then Duke of Liegnitz (great-grandson of the ERBVERBRUDERUNG one), and poor Johann George, Duke of Jagerndorf, cadet of the then Kur-Brandenburg, went warmly ahead into the Winter-King project, first fire of the Thirty-Years War; sufferings from Papal encroachment, in high quarters, being really extreme. Warmly ahead; and had to smart sharply for it;—poor Johann George with forfeiture of Jagerndorf, with REICHES-ACHT (Ban of the Empire), and total ruin; fighting against which he soon died. Act of Ban and Forfeiture was done tyrannously, said most men; and it was persisted in equally so, till men ceased speaking of it;—Jagerndorf Duchy, fruit of the Act, was held by Austria, ever after, in defiance of the Laws of the Reich. Religious Oppression lay heavy on Protestant Schlesien thenceforth; and many lukewarm individualities were brought back to Orthodoxy by that method, successful in the diligent skilled hands of Jesuit Reverend Fathers, with fiscals and soldiers in the rear of them.

A.D. 1648. Treaty of Westphalia mended much of this, and set fair limits to Papist encroachment;—had said Treaty been kept: but how could it? By Orthodox Authority, anxious to recover lost souls, or at least to have loyal subjects, it was publicly kept in name; and tacitly, in substance, it was violated more and more. Of the "Blossoming of Silesian Literature," spoken of in Books; of the Poet Opitz, Poets Logan, Hoffmannswaldau, who burst into a kind of Song better or worse at this Period, we will remember nothing; but request the reader to remember it, if he is tunefully given, or thinks it a good symptom of Schlesien.

A.D. 1707. Treaty of Altranstadt: between Kaiser Joseph I. and Karl XII. Swedish Karl, marching through those parts,—out of Poland, in chase of August the Physically Strong, towards Saxony, there to beat him soft,—was waited upon by Silesian Deputations of a lamentable nature; was entreated, for the love of Christ and His Evangel, to "Protect us poor Protestants, and get the Treaty of Westphalia observed on our behalf, and fair-play shown!" Which Karl did; Kaiser Joseph, with such weight of French War lying on him, being much struck with the tone of that dangerous Swede. The Pope rebuked Kaiser Joseph for such compliance in the Silesian matter: "Holy Father," answered this Kaiser (not of distinguished orthodoxy in the House), "I am too glad he did not ask me to become Lutheran; I know not how I should have helped myself!" [Pauli, Allgemeine Preussische Staats-Geschichte (viii. 298-592); Busching, Erdbeschreibung (viii. 700-739); &c.—Heinrich Wuttke, Friedrichs des Grossen Besitzergreifung von Schlesien (Seizure of Silesia by Friedrich, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1843), I mention only lest ingenuous readers should be tempted by the Title to buy it. Wuttke begins at the Creation of the World; and having, in two heavy volumes, at last struggled down close TO the BESITZERGREIFUNG or Seizure in question, calls halt; and stands (at ease, we will hope) immovably there for the seventeen years since.]

These are the Three Epochs;—most things, in respect of this Third or Reformation Epoch, stepping steadily downward hitherto. As to the Fourth Epoch, dating "13th Dec. 1740," which continues, up to our day and farther, and is the final and crowning Epoch of Silesian History,—read in the following Chapters.

Chapter II. — FRIEDRICH MARCHES ON GLOGAU

At what hour Friedrich ceased dancing on that famous Ball-night of Bielfeld's, and how long he slept after, or whether at all, no Bielfeld even mythically says: but next morning, as is patent to all the world, Tuesday, 13th December, 1740, at the stroke of nine, he steps into his carriage; and with small escort rolls away towards Frankfurt-on-Oder; [Helden-Geschichte, i. 452; Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 456.] out upon an Enterprise which will have results for himself and others.

Two youngish military men, Adjutant-Generals both, were with him, Wartensleben, Borck; both once fellow Captains in the Potsdam Giants, and much in his intimacy ever since. Wartensleben we once saw at Brunswick, on a Masonic occasion; Borck, whom we here see for the first time, is not the Colonel Borck (properly Major-General) who did the Herstal Operation lately; still less is he the venerable old Minister, Marlborough Veteran, and now Field-Marshal Borck, whom Hotham treated with, on a certain occasion. There are numerous Borcks always in the King's service; nor are these three, except by loose cousinry, related to one another. The Borcks all come from Stettin quarter; a brave kindred, and old enough,—"Old as the Devil, DAS IST SO OLD ALS DE BORCKEN UND DE DUWEL," says the Pomeranian Proverb;—the Adjutant-General, a junior member of the clan, chances to be the notablest of them at this moment. Wartensleben, Borck, and a certain Colonel von der Golz, whom also the King much esteems, these are his company on this drive. For escort, or guard of honor out of Berlin to the next stages, there is a small body of Hussars, Life-guard and other Cavalry, "perhaps 500 horse in all."

They drive rapidly, through the gray winter; reach Frankfurt-on-Oder, sixty miles or more; where no doubt there is military business waiting. They are forward, on the morrow, for dinner, forty miles farther, at a small Town called Crossen, which looks over into Silesia; and is, for the present, headquarters to a Prussian Army, standing ready there and in the environs. Standing ready, or hourly marching in, and rendezvousing; now about 28,000 strong, horse and foot. A Rearguard of Ten or Twelve Thousand will march from Berlin in two days, pause hereabouts, and follow according to circumstances: Prussian Army will then be some 40,000 in all. Schwerin has been Commander, manager and mainspring of the business hitherto: henceforth it is to be the King; but Schwerin under him will still have a Division of his own.

Among the Regiments, we notice "Schulenburg Horse-Grenadiers,"—come along from Landsberg hither, these Horse-Grenadiers, with little Schulenburg at the head of them;—"Dragoon Regiment Bayreuth," "Lifeguard Carbineers," "Derschau of Foot;" and other Regiments and figures slightly known to us, or that will be better known. [List in Helden-Geschichte, i. 453.] Rearguard, just getting under way at Berlin, has for leaders the Prince of Holstein-Beck ("Holstein-VAISSELLE," say wags, since the Principality went all to SILVER-PLATE) and the Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, whom we called the Young Dessauer, on the Strasburg Journey lately: Rearguard, we say, is of 12,000; main Army is 28,000; Horse and Foot are in the proportion of about 1 to 3. Artillery "consists of 20 three-pounders; 4 twelve-pounders; 4 howitzers (HAUBITZEN); 4 big mortars, calibre fifty pounds; and of Artillerymen 166 in all."

With this Force the young King has, on his own basis (pretty much in spite of all the world, as we find now and afterwards), determined to invade Silesia, and lay hold of the Property he has long had there;—not computing, for none can compute, the sleeping whirlwinds he may chance to awaken thereby. Thus lightly does a man enter upon Enterprises which prove unexpectedly momentous, and shape the whole remainder of his days for him; crossing the Rubicon as it were in his sleep. In Life, as on Railways at certain points,—whether you know it or not, there is but an inch, this way or that, into what tram you are shunted; but try to get out of it again! "The man is mad, CET HOMME-LA EST FOL!" said Louis XV. when he heard it. [Raumer, Beitrage (English Translation, called Frederick II. and his Times; from British Museum and State-Paper Office:—a very indistinct poor Book, in comparison with whet it might have been), p. 73 (24th Dec. 1740).]