Part 6 (1/2)
[Footnote 3: Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had wedded a princess of Baden, was at Carlsruhe at the very moment that the Duc d'Enghien was seized as it were before his eyes. This circ.u.mstance and the ridicule heaped upon him by Napoleon, who mockingly termed him the Quixote of the North, roused his bitter hatred.]
[Footnote 4: Bulow wrote in his remarkable criticism upon this war: ”The hot coalition party--that of the ladies--of the empress and the queen of Naples--removed Prince Charles from the army and called Mack from oblivion to daylight; Mack, whose name in the books of the prophets in the Hebrew tongue signifies defeat.”]
[Footnote 5: Napoleon gained almost all his victories either by skilfully separating his opponents and defeating them singly with forces vastly superior in number, or by creeping round the concentrated forces of the enemy and placing them between two fires.]
[Footnote 6: Ney was, for this action, created Duke of Elchingen.]
[Footnote 7: Klein, the French general, also a German, allowed himself to be kept in conversation by Prince, afterward field-marshal Schwarzenberg, who had been sent to negotiate terms with him, until the Austrians had reached a place of safety.--_Prokesch.
Schwarzeriberg's Memorabilia._]
[Footnote 8: ”Prussia made use of the offers made by England (and Russia) to stipulate terms with France exactly subversive of the object of the negotiations of England (and Russia).”--_The Manifest of England against Prussia. Attgemeine Zeitung, No. 132._]
[Footnote 9: On the 4th of December, Napoleon met the emperor Francis in the open street in the village of Nahedlowitz. That the impression made by the former upon the latter was far from favorable is proved by the emperor's observation, ”Now that I have seen him, I shall never be able to endure him!” On the 5th of December, the Bavarians under Wrede were signally defeated at Iglau by the Archduke Ferdinand.]
[Footnote 10: ”After the commission of such numerous mistakes, I must nevertheless praise the minister, Von Haugwitz, for having, in the first place, evaded a war unskilfully managed, and, in the second, for having annexed Hanover to Prussia, although its possession, it must be confessed, is somewhat precarious. Here, however, I hear it said that the commission of a robbery at another's suggestion is, in the first place, the deepest of degradations, and, in the second place, unparalleled in history.”--_Von Bulow, The Campaign of 1805._ It has been a.s.serted that Haugwitz had, prior to the battle of Austerlitz, been instructed to declare war against Napoleon in case the intervention of Prussia should be rejected by him. Still, had Haugwitz overstepped instructions of such immense importance, he would not immediately afterward, on the 12th of January, 1806, have received, as was actually the case, fresh instructions, in proof that he had in no degree abused the confidence of his sovereign. Haugwitz, by not declaring war, husbanded the strength of Prussia and gained Hanover; and, by so doing, he fulfilled his instructions, which were to gain Hanover without making any sacrifice. His success gained for him the applause of his sovereign, who intrusted him, on account of his skill as a diplomatist, with the management of other negotiations. Prussia at that time still pursued the system of the treaty of Basel, was unwilling to break with France, and was simply bent upon selling her neutrality to the best advantage. Instead, however, of being able to prescribe terms to Napoleon, she was compelled to accede to his.
Napoleon said to Haugwitz, ”Jamais on n'obtiendra de moi ce qui pourrait blesser ma gloire.” Haugwitz had been instructed through the duke of Brunswick: ”Pour le cas que vos soins pour retablir la paix echouent, pour le cas ou l'apparition de la Prusse sur le theatre de la guerre soit jugee inevitable, mettez tous vos soins pour conserver a la Prusse l'epee dans le fourreau jusqu'au 22 Decembre, et s'il se peut jusqu'a un terme plus recule encore.”--_Extract from the Memoirs of the Count von Haugwitz._]
[Footnote 11: He married a Mademoiselle von Geyer. His children had merely the t.i.tle of Counts von Hochberg, but came, in 1830, on the extinction of the Agnati, to the government.]
[Footnote 12: On the 1st of January, 1806; the Bavarian state newspaper announced it at New Year with the words, ”Long live Napoleon, the restorer of the kingdom of Bavaria!” Bavarian authors, more particularly Pallhausen, attempted to prove that the Bavarians had originally been a Gallic tribe under the Gallic kings. It was considered a dishonor to belong to Germany.]
[Footnote 13: In 1797, the anonymous statesman, in the dedication ”to the congress of Rastadt,” foretold the formation of the Rhenish alliance as a necessary result of the treaty of Basel. ”The electors of Brandenburg, Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and all the princes, who defended themselves behind the line of demarcation against their obligations to the empire, and tranquilly awaited the issue of the contest between France and that part of the empire that had taken up arms; all those princes to whom their private interests were dearer than those of the empire, who, devoid of patriotism, formed a separate party against Austria and Southern Germany, from which they severed and isolated themselves, could, none of them, arrogate to themselves a voice in the matter, if Southern Germany, abandoned by them, concluded treaties for herself as her present and future interests demanded.”]
[Footnote 14: ”Oldenburg affords a glaring proof of the insecurity and meanness characteristic of the Rhenish alliance. The relation even with Bavaria was not always the purest, and I have sometimes caught a near glimpse of the claws.”--_Gagern's Share in Politics._]
[Footnote 15: No diet had, since 1770, been held in Wurtemberg, only the committee had continued to treat secretly with the duke. In 1797, Frederick convoked a fresh diet and swore to hold the const.i.tution sacred. Some modern elements appeared in this diet; the old opposition was strengthened by men of the French school. Disputes, consequently, ere long arose between it and the duke, a man of an extremely arbitrary disposition. The Estates discovered little zeal for the war with France, attempted to economize in the preparations, etc., while the duke made great show of patriotism as a prince of the German empire, nor gave the slightest symptom of his one day becoming an enemy to his country, a member of the Rhenish alliance, and the most zealous partisan of France. Moreau, however, no sooner crossed the Rhine than the duke fled, abandoned his states, and afterward not only refused to bear the smallest share of the contributions levied upon the country by the French, but also seized the subsidies furnished by England. The duke, shortly after this, quarrelling with his eldest son, William, the Estates sided with the latter and supplied him with funds, at the same time refusing to grant any of the sums demanded by the duke, who, on his part, omitted the confirmation of the new committee and ordered Grosz, the councillor, Stockmaier, the secretary of the diet, and several others, besides Batz, the agent of the diet at Vienna, to be placed under arrest, their papers to be seized, and a sum of money to be raised from the church property, 1805. Not long after this, rendered insolent by the protection of the great despot of France, he utterly annihilated the ancient const.i.tution of Wurtemberg.]
CCLIV. Prussia's Declaration of War and Defeat
Prussia, by a timely declaration of war against France before the battle of Austerlitz, might have turned the tide against Napoleon, and earned for herself the glory and the gain, instead of being, by a false policy, compelled, at a later period, to make that declaration under circ.u.mstances of extreme disadvantage. Her maritime commerce suffered extreme injury from the attacks of the English and Swedes.
War was unavoidable, either for or against France. The decision was replete with difficulty. Prussia, by continuing to side with France, was exposed to the attacks of England, Sweden, and probably Russia; it was, moreover, to be feared that Napoleon, who had more in view the diminution of the power of Prussia than that of Austria, might delay his aid. During the late campaign, the Prussian territory had been violated and the fortress of Wesel seized by Napoleon, who had also promised the restoration of Hanover to England as a condition of peace. He had invited Prussia to found, besides the Rhenish, a northern confederation, and had, at the same time, bribed Saxony with a promise of the royal dignity, and Hesse with that of the annexation of Fulda, not to enter into alliance with Prussia. Prussia saw herself scorned and betrayed by France. A declaration of war with France was, however, surrounded with tenfold danger. The power of France, unweakened by opposition, had reached an almost irresistible height.
Austria, abandoned in every former campaign and hurried to ruin by Prussia, could no longer be reckoned on for aid. The whole of Germany, once in favor of Prussia, now sided with the foe. Honor at length decided. Prussia could no longer endure the scorn of the insolent Frenchman, his desecration of the memory of the great Frederick, or, with an army impatient for action, tamely submit to the insults of both friend and foe. The presence of the Russian czar, Alexander, at Berlin, his visit to the tomb of Frederick the Great, rendered still more popular by an engraving, had a powerful effect upon public opinion. Louisa, the beautiful queen of Prussia and princess of Mecklenburg, animated the people with her words and roused a spirit of chivalry in the army, which still deemed itself invincible. The younger officers were not sparing of their vaunts, and Prince Louis vented his pa.s.sion by breaking the windows of the minister Haugwitz.
John Muller, who, on the overthrow of Austria, had quitted Vienna and had been appointed Prussian historiographer at Berlin, called upon the people, in the preface to the ”Trumpet of the Holy War,” to take up arms against France.
War was indeed declared, but with too great precipitation. Instead of awaiting the arrival of the troops promised by Russia or until Austria had been gained, instead of manning the fortresses and taking precautionary measures, the Prussian army, in conjunction with that of Saxony, which lent but compulsory aid, and with those of Mecklenburg and Brunswick, its voluntary allies, took the field without any settled plan, and suddenly remained stationary in the Thuringian forest, like Mack two years earlier at Ulm, waiting for the appearance of Napoleon, 1806. The king and the queen accompanied the army, which was commanded by Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, a veteran of seventy- two, and by his subordinate in command, Frederick Louis, prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, who constantly opposed his measures. In the general staff the chief part was enacted by Colonel Ma.s.senbach, a second Mack, whose counsels were rarely followed. All the higher officers in the army were old men, promotion depending not upon merit but upon length of service. The younger officers were radically bad, owing to their airs of n.o.bility and licentious garrison life; their manners and principles were equally vulgar. Women, horses, dogs, and gambling formed the staple of their conversation; they despised all solid learning, and, when decorated on parade, in their enormous c.o.c.ked hats and plumes, powdered wigs and queues, tight leather breeches and great boots, they swore at and cudgelled the men, and strutted about with conscious heroism. The arms used by the soldiery were heavy and apt to hang fire, their tight uniform was inconvenient for action and useless as a protection against the weather, and their food, bad of its kind, was stinted by the avarice of the colonels, which was carried to such an extent that soldiers were to be seen, who, instead of a waistcoat, had a small bit of cloth sewn on to the lower part of the uniform where the waistcoat was usually visible.
Worst of all, however, was the bad spirit that pervaded the army, the enervation consequent upon immorality. Even before the opening of the war, Lieutenant Henry von Bulow, a retired officer, the greatest military genius at that period in Germany, and, on that account, misunderstood, foretold the inevitable defeat of Prussia, and, although far from being a devotee, declared, ”The cause of the national ignorance lies chiefly in the atheism and demoralization produced by the government of Frederick II. The enlightenment, so highly praised in the Prussian states, simply consists in a loss of energy and power.”
The main body of the Prussian army was stationed around Weimar and Jena, a small corps under General Tauenzien was pushed forward to cover the rich magazines at Hof, and a reserve of seventeen thousand men under Eugene, duke of Wurtemberg, lay to the rear at Halle. It was remarked that this position, in case of an attack being made by Napoleon, was extremely dangerous, the only alternatives left for the Prussian army being either to advance, form a junction with the gallant Hessians and render the Rhine the seat of war, or to fall back upon the reserve and hazard a decisive battle on the plains of Leipzig. That intriguing impostor, Lucchesini, the oracle of the camp, however, purposely declared that _he_ knew Napoleon, that Napoleon would most certainly not attempt to make an attack. A few days afterward Napoleon, nevertheless, appeared, found the pa.s.s at Kosen open, cut off the Prussian army from the right bank of the Saal, from its magazines at Hof and Naumburg, which he also seized, from the reserve corps stationed at Halle, and from Prussia. Utterly astounded at the negligence of the duke of Brunswick, he exclaimed, while comparing him with Mack, ”Les Prussiens sont encore plus stupides que les Autrichiens!” On being informed by some prisoners that the Prussians expected him from Erfurt when he was already at Naumburg, he said, ”Ils se tromperont furieus.e.m.e.nt, ces perruques.” He would, nevertheless, have been on his part exposed to great peril had the Prussians suddenly attacked him with their whole force from Weimar, Jena, and Halle, or had they instantly retired into Franconia and fallen upon his rear; but the idea never entered the heads of the Prussian generals, who tranquilly waited to be beaten by him one after the other.
After Tauenzien's repulse, a second corps under Prince Louis of Prussia, which had been pushed forward to Saalfeld, imprudently attempting to maintain its position in the narrow valley, was surrounded and cut to pieces. The prince refused to yield, and, after a furious defence, was killed by a French horse-soldier. The news of this disaster speedily reached the main body of the Prussians. The duke of Brunswick, at that time holding a military council in the castle of Weimar, so entirely lost his presence of mind as to ask in the hearing of several young officers, and with embarra.s.sment depicted on his countenance, ”What are we to do?” This veteran duke would with painful slowness write down in the neatest hand the names of the villages in which the various regiments were to be quartered, notwithstanding which, it sometimes happened that, owing to his topographical ignorance, several regiments belonging to different corps d'armee were billeted in the same village and had to dispute its possession. He would hesitate for an hour whether he ought to write the name of a village Munchenholzen or Munchholzen.
The Prussian army was compared to a s.h.i.+p with all sail spread lying at anchor. The duke was posted with the main body not far from Weimar, the Saxons at the Schnecke on the road between Weimar and Jena, the prince of Hohenlohe at Jena. Mack had isolated and exposed his different corps d'armee in an exactly similar manner at Ulm. Hohenlohe again subdivided his corps and scattered them in front of the concentrated forces of the enemy. Still, all was not yet lost, the Prussians being advantageously posted in the upper valley, while the French were advancing along the deep valleys of the Saal and its tributaries. But, on the 13th of October, Tauenzien retired from the vale, leaving the steeps of Jena, which a hundred students had been able to defend simply by rolling down the stones there piled in heaps, open, and, during the same night, Napoleon sent his artillery up and posted himself on the Landgrafenberg. There, nevertheless, still remained a chance; the Dornberg, by which the Landgrafenberg was commanded, was still occupied by Tauenzien, and the Windknollen, a still steeper ascent, whence Hohenlohe, had he not spent the night in undisturbed slumbers at Capellendorf, might utterly have annihilated the French army, remained unoccupied. The thunder of the French artillery first roused Hohenlohe from his couch, and, while he was still under the hands of his barber, Tauenzien was driven from the Dornberg. The duties of the toilet at length concluded, Hohenlohe led his troops up the hillside with a view of retaking the position he had so foolishly lost; but his serried columns were exposed to the destructive fire of a body of French tirailleurs posted above, and were repulsed with immense loss. General Ruchel arrived, with his corps that had been uselessly detached, too late to prevent the flight of the Hohenlohe corps, and, making a brave but senseless attack, was wounded and defeated. A similar fate befell the unfortunate Saxons at the Schnecke and the duke of Brunswick at Auerstadt. The latter, although at the head of the strongest division of the Prussian army, succ.u.mbed to the weakest division of the French army, that commanded by Davoust, who henceforward bore the t.i.tle of duke of Auerstadt, and was so suddenly put to the rout that a body of twenty thousand Prussians under Kalkreuth never came into action. The duke was shot in both eyes. This incident was, by his enemies, termed fortune's revenge, ”as he never would see when he had his eyes open.”[1]
Napoleon followed up his victory with consummate skill. The junction of the retreating corps d'armee and their flight by the shortest route into Prussia were equally prevented. The defeated Prussian army was in a state of indescribable confusion. An immensely circuitous march lay before it ere Prussia could be re-entered. A number of the regiments disbanded, particularly those whose officers had been the first to take to flight or had crept for shelter behind hedges and walls. An immense number of officers' equipages, provided with mistresses, articles belonging to the toilet, and epicurean delicacies, fell into Napoleon's hands. Wagons laden with poultry, complete kitchens on wheels, wine casks, etc., had followed this luxurious army. The scene presented by the battlefield of Jena widely contrasted with that of Rossbach, whose monument was sent by Napoleon to Paris as the most glorious part of the booty gained by his present easy victory.[2]
The fortified city of Erfurt was garrisoned with fourteen thousand Prussians under Mollendorf, who, on the first summons, capitulated to Murat, the general of the French cavalry. The hereditary Prince of Orange was also taken prisoner on this occasion. Von h.e.l.lwig, a lieutenant of the Prussian hussars, boldly charged the French guard escorting the fourteen thousand Prussian prisoners of war from Erfurt, at the head of his squadron, at Eichenrodt in the vicinity of Eisenach, and succeeded in restoring them to liberty. The liberated soldiers, however, instead of joining the main body, dispersed.
Eugene, duke of Wurtemberg, was also defeated at Halle, and, throwing up his command, withdrew to his states. History has, nevertheless, recorded one trait of magnanimity, that of a Prussian ensign fifteen years of age, who, being pursued by some French cavalry not far from Halle, sprang with the colors into the Saal and was crushed to death by a mill-wheel.