A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4




The Prussian fortresses fell, meanwhile, one after the other, during
the end of autumn and during the winter, some from utter inability, on
account of their neglected state, to maintain themselves, but the
greater part owing to their being commanded by old villains,
treacherous and cowardly as the commandant of Magdeburg. The strong
fortress of Hameln was in this manner yielded by a Baron von Schöler,
Plassenburg by a Baron von Becker, Nimburg on the Weser by a Baron von
Dresser, Spandau by a Count von Benkendorf. The citadel of Berlin
capitulated without a blow, and Stettin, although well provided with
all the _materiel_ of war, was delivered up by a Baron von Romberg.
Custrin, one of the strongest fortified places, was commanded by a
Count von Ingersleben. The king visited the place during his flight
and earnestly recommended him to defend it to the last. This place,
sooner than yield, had, during the seven years' war, allowed itself to
be reduced to a heap of ruins. When standing on one of the bastions,
the king inquired its name. The commandant was ignorant of it.
Scarcely had the king quitted the place, than a body of French huzzars
appeared before the gates, and Ingersleben instantly capitulated.

Silesia, although less demoralized than Berlin, viewed these political
changes with even greater apathy. This fine province had, during the
reign of Frederick the Great, been placed under the government of the
minister, Count Hoym, whose easy disposition had, like insidious
poison, utterly enervated the people. The government officers, as if
persuaded of the reality of the antiquarian whim which deduced the
name of Silesia from Elysium, dwelt in placid self-content, unmoved by
the catastrophes of Austerlitz or Jena. No measures were,
consequently, taken for the defence of the country, and a flying corps
of Bavarians, Wurtembergers, and some French under Vandamme, speedily
overran the whole province, notwithstanding the number of its
fortresses. At Glogau, the commandant, Von Reinhardt, unhesitatingly
declared his readiness to capitulate and excluded the gallant Major
von Putlitz, who insisted upon making an obstinate defence, "as a
revolutionist," from the military council. Being advised by one of the
citizens to fire upon the enemy, he rudely replied, "Sir, you do not
know what one shot costs the king." In Breslau, the Counts von Thiele
and Lindner made a terrible fracas, burned down the fine faubourgs,
and blew up the powder-magazine, merely in order to veil the disgrace
of a hasty capitulation, which enraged the soldiery to such a pitch
that, shattering their muskets, they heaped imprecations on their
dastard commanders, and, in revenge, plundered the royal stores. Brieg
was ceded after a two days' siege, by the Baron von Cornerut. The
defence of the strong fortress of Schweidnitz, of such celebrated
importance during the seven years' war, had been intrusted to Count
von Haath, a man whose countenance even betokened imbecility. He
yielded the fortress without a blow, and, on the windows of the
apartment in which he lodged in the neighboring town of Jauer being
broken by the patriotic citizens, he went down to the landlord, to
whom he said, "My good sir, you must have some enemies!" The remaining
fortresses made a better defence. Glatz was taken by surprise, the
city by storm. The fortress was defended by the commandant, Count
Gotzen, until ammunition sufficient for twelve days longer alone
remained. Neisse capitulated from famine; Kosel was gallantly defended
by the commandant, Neumann; and Silberberg, situated on an impregnable
rock, refused to surrender.

The troops of the Rhenish confederation, encouraged by the bad example
set by Vandamme and by several of the superior officers, committed
dreadful havoc, plundered the country, robbed and barbarously treated
the inhabitants. It was quite a common custom among the officers, on
the conclusion of a meal, to carry away with them the whole of their
host's table-service. The filthy habits of the French officers were
notorious. Their conduct is said to have been not only countenanced
but commanded by Napoleon, as a sure means of striking the enervated
population with the profoundest terror; and the panic in fact almost
amounted to absurdity, the inhabitants of this thickly-populated
province nowhere venturing to rise against the handful of robbers by
whom they were so cruelly persecuted. A Baron von Puckler offered an
individual exception: his endeavors to rouse the inert masses met with
no success, and, rendered desperate by his failure, he blew out his
brains. When too late a prince of Anhalt-Pless assembled an armed
force in Upper Silesia and attempted to relieve Breslau, but Thiele
neglecting to make a sally at the decisive moment, the Poles in Prince
of Pless's small army took to flight, and the whole plan miscarried. A
small Prussian corps, amounting to about five hundred men, commanded
by Losthin, afterward infested Silesia, surprised the French under
Lefebvre at Kanth and put them to the rout, but were a few days after
this exploit taken prisoners by a superior French force.

Attempts at reforms suited to the spirit of the age had, even before
the outbreak of war, been made in Prussia by men of higher
intelligence; Menken, for instance, had labored to effect the
emancipation of the peasantry, but had been removed from office by the
aristocratic party. During the war, the corruption pervading every
department of the government, whether civil or military, was fully
exposed, and Frederick William III. was taught by bitter experience to
pursue a better system, to act with decision and patient
determination. The Baron von Stein, a man of undoubted talent, a
native of Nassau, was placed at the head of the government; two of the
most able commanders of the day, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, undertook
the reorganization of the army. On the 1st of December, 1806, the king
cashiered every commandant who had neglected to defend the fortress
intrusted to his care and every officer guilty of desertion or
cowardly flight, and the long list of names gave disgraceful proof of
the extent to which the nobility were compromised. One of the first
measures taken by the king was, consequently, to throw open every post
of distinction in the army to the citizens. The old inconvenient
uniform and firearms were at the same time improved, the queue was cut
off, the cane abandoned. The royal army was indeed scanty in number,
but it contained within itself germs of honor and patriotism that gave
promise of future glory.

The reform, however, but slowly progressed. Ferdinand von Schill, a
Prussian lieutenant, who had been wounded at Jena, formed, in
Pomerania, a guerilla troop of disbanded soldiery and young men, who,
although indifferently provided with arms, stopped the French convoys
and couriers. His success was so extraordinary that he was sometimes
enabled to send sums of money, taken from the enemy, to the king.
Among other exploits, he took prisoner Marshal Victor, who was
exchanged for Blucher. Blucher assembled a fresh body of troops on the
island of Rugen. Schill, being afterward compelled to take refuge from
the pursuit of the French in the fortress of Colberg, the commandant,
Loucadou, placed him under arrest for venturing to criticise the bad
defence of the place.

The king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus IV., might with perfect justice
have bitterly reproached Prussia and Austria for the folly with which
they had, by their disunion, contributed to the aggrandizement of the
power of France. He acted nobly by affording a place of refuge to the
Prussians at Stralsund and Rugen.

Colberg was, on Loucadou's dismissal, gloriously defended by Gneisenau
and by the resolute citizens, among whom Nettelbek, a man seventy
years of age, chiefly distinguished himself. Courbiere acted with
equal gallantry at Graudena. On being told by the French that Prussia
was in their hands and that no king of Prussia was any longer in
existence, he replied, "Well, be it so! but I am king at Graudenz."
Pillau was also successfully defended by Herrmann.[9] Polish Prussia
naturally fell off on the advance of the French. Calisch rose in open
insurrection; the Prussian authorities were everywhere compelled to
save themselves by flight from the vengeance of the people. Poland had
been termed the Botany Bay of Prussia, government officers in disgrace
for bad conduct being generally sent there by way of punishment. No
one voluntarily accepted an appointment condemning him to dwell amid a
population inspired by the most ineradicable national hatred, glowing
with revenge, and unable to appreciate the benefits bestowed upon them
in their ignorance and poverty by the wealthier and more civilized
Prussians.

The king had withdrawn with the remainder of his troops, which were
commanded by the gallant L'Estoc, to Koenigsberg, where he formed a
junction with the Russian army, which was led by a Hanoverian, the
cautious Bennigsen, and accompanied by the emperor Alexander in
person. Napoleon expected that an opportunity would be afforded for
the repetition of his old manoeuvre of separating and falling singly
upon his opponents, but Bennigsen kept his forces together and offered
him battle at Eylau, in the neighborhood of Koenigsberg; victory still
wavered, when the Prussian troops under L'Estoc fell furiously upon
Marshal Ney's flank, while that general was endeavoring to surround
the Russians, and decided the day. It was the 8th of February, and the
snow-clad ground was stained with gore. Napoleon, after this
catastrophe, remained inactive, awaiting the opening of spring and the
arrival of reinforcements. Dantzig, exposed by the desertion of the
Poles, fell, although defended by Kalkreuth, into his hands, and, on
the 14th of June, 1807, the anniversary, so pregnant with important
events, of the battle of Marengo, he gained a brilliant victory at
Friedland, which was followed by General Ruchel's abandonment of
Koenigsberg with all its stores.

The road to Lithuania now lay open to the French, and the emperor
Alexander deemed it advisable to conclude peace. A conference was held
at Tilsit on the Riemen between the sovereigns of France, Russia, and
Prussia, and a peace, highly detrimental to Germany, was concluded on
the 9th of July, 1807. Prussia lost half of her territory, was
restricted to the maintenance of an army merely amounting to forty-two
thousand men, was compelled to pay a contribution of one hundred and
forty millions of francs to France, and to leave her most important
fortresses as security for payment in the hands of the French. These
grievous terms were merely acceded to by Napoleon "out of esteem for
his Majesty the emperor of Russia," who, on his part, deprived his
late ally of a piece of Prussian-Poland (Bialystock) and divided the
spoil of Prussia with Napoleon.[10] Nay, he went, some months later,
so far in his generosity, as, on an understanding with Napoleon and
without deigning any explanation to Prussia, arbitrarily to cancel an
article of the peace of Tilsit, by which Prussia was indemnified for
the loss of Hanover with a territory containing four hundred thousand
souls.

The Prussian possessions on the left bank of the Elbe, Hanover,
Brunswick, and Hesse-Cassel,[11] were converted by Napoleon into the
new kingdom of Westphalia, which he bestowed upon his brother Jerome
and included in the Rhenish confederation. East Friesland was annexed
to Holland. Poland was not restored, but a petty grandduchy of Warsaw
was erected, which Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, received,
together with the royal dignity. Prussia, already greatly diminished
in extent, was to be still further encroached upon and watched by
these new states. The example of electoral Saxony was imitated by the
petty Saxon princes, and Anhalt, Lippe, Schwarzburg, Reuss,
Mecklenburg and Aldenburg joined the Rhenish confederation. Dantzig
became a nominal free town with a French garrison.[12]

The brave Hessians resisted this fresh act of despotism. The Hessian
troops revolted, but were put down by force, and their leader, a
sergeant, rushed frantically into the enemy's fire. The Hessian
peasantry also rose in several places. The Hanse towns, on the
contrary, meekly allowed themselves to be pillaged and to be robbed of
their stores of English goods.

Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had neglected to send troops at
an earlier period to the aid of Prussia, now offered the sturdiest
resistance and steadily refused to negotiate terms of peace or to
recognize Napoleon as emperor. His generals, Armfeldt[13] and Essen,
made some successful inroads from Stralsund, and, in unison with the
English, might have effected a strong diversion to Napoleon's rear,
had their movements been more rapid and combined. On the conclusion of
the peace of Tilsit, a French force under Mortier appeared, drove the
Swedes back upon Stralsund, and compelled the king, in the August of
1807, to abandon that city, which the new system of warfare rendered
no longer tenable.


[Footnote 1: On the 14th of October. On this unlucky day, Frederick
the Great had, in 1758, been surprised at Hochkirch, and Mack, in
1805, at Ulm. On this day, the peace of Westphalia was, A.D. 1648,
concluded at Osnabrück, and, in 1809, that of Vienna. It was, however,
on this day that the siege of Vienna was, in 1529, raised, and that,
in 1813, Napoleon was shut up at Leipzig.]

[Footnote 2: The whole of these disasters had been predicted by Henry
von Bülow, whose prophecies had brought him into a prison. On learning
the catastrophe of Jena, he exclaimed, "That is the consequence of
throwing generals into prison and of placing idiots at the head of the
army!"]

[Footnote 3: The young "vons," on the contrary, capitulated with
extreme readiness, in order to return to their pleasurable habits.
Several of them set a great shield over their doors, with the
inscription, "Herr von N. or M., prisoner of war on parole." In all
the capitulations, the commandants and officers merely took care of
their own persons and equipages and sacrificed the soldiery. Napoleon,
who was well aware of this little weakness, always offered them the
most flattering personal terms.]

[Footnote 4: The same man who had been imposed upon by a similar ruse
at Ulm by the Archduke Ferdinand. Napoleon dismissed him the service.]

[Footnote 5: Massenbach published an anonymous charge against Blücher,
which that general publicly refuted.]

[Footnote 6: While the unfortunate Henry von Bülow, whose wise
counsels had been despised, was torn from his prison to be delivered
to the Russians, whose behavior at Austerlitz he had blamed. On his
route he was maliciously represented as a friend to the French and
exposed to the insults of the rabble, who bespattered him with mud,
and to such brutal treatment from the Cossacks that he died of his
wounds at Riga. Never had a prophet a more ungrateful country. He was
delivered by his fellow-citizens to an ignominious death for
attempting their salvation, for pointing out the means by which alone
their safety could be insured, and for exposing the wretches by whom
they were betrayed.]

[Footnote 7: In the "Trumpet of the Holy War," he had summoned the
nation to take up arms against the heathens (the French). He breathed
war and flames. In his address to the king, he said, "The idle parade
of the ruler during a long peace has never maintained a state!" He
excited the hatred of the people against the French, telling them to
harbor "such hatred against the enemy, like men who knew how to hate!"
After thus aiding to kindle the flames of war, he went over to the
French and wrote the letter to Bignon which that author has inserted
in his History of France: "Like Ganymede to the seat of the gods, have
I been borne by the eagle to Fontainebleau, there to serve a god."]

[Footnote 8: The conduct of these deserters, how, decorated with the
French cockade, they treated the German population with unheard-of
insolence, is given in detail by Seume.]

[Footnote 9: Courbiere, Herrmann, and Neumann of Cosel were bourgeois:
the commandants of the other fortresses, so disgracefully ceded, were,
without exception, nobles.]

[Footnote 10: Bignon remarks that the queen, Louisa, who left no means
untried in order to save as much as possible of Prussia, came somewhat
too late, when Napoleon had already entered into an agreement with
Russia. Hence Napoleon's inflexibility, which was the more insulting
owing to the apparently yielding silence with which, from a feeling of
politeness, he sometimes received the personal petitions of the queen,
to which he would afterward send a written refusal. The part played in
this affair by Alexander was far from honorable, and Bignon says with
great justice, "The emperor of Russia must at that time have had but
little judgement, if he imagined that taking Prussia in such a manner
under his protection would be honorable to the protector." With a view
of appeasing public opinion in Germany and influencing it in favor of
the alliance between France and Russia, Zschokke, who was at that time
in Napoleon's pay, published a mean-spirited pamphlet, entitled, "Will
the human race gain by the present political changes?"]

[Footnote 11: The elector, William, who had solicited permission to
remain neutral, having made great military preparations and received
the Prussians with open arms, was, in Napoleon's twenty-seventh
bulletin, deposed with expressions of the deepest contempt. "The house
of Hesse-Cassel has for many years past sold its subjects to England,
and by this means has the elector collected his immense wealth. May
this mean and avaricious conduct prove the ruin of his house."--Louis,
Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, was threatened with similar danger for
inclining on the side of Prussia, but perceived his peril in time to
save himself from destruction.]

[Footnote 12: Marshal Lefebvre, who had taken the city, was created
duke of Dantzig. The city, however, did not belong to him, but became
a republic; notwithstanding which it was at first compelled to pay a
contribution, amounting to twenty million francs, to Napoleon, to
maintain a strong French garrison at its expense, and was fleeced in
every imaginable way. A stop was consequently put to trade, the
wealthiest merchants became bankrupt, and Napoleon's satraps
established their harems and celebrated their orgies in their
magnificent houses and gardens, and, by their unbridled license,
demoralized to an almost incredible degree the staid manners of the
quondam pious Lutheran citizens. Vide Blech, The Miseries of Dantzig,
1815.]

[Footnote 13: One of the handsomest men of his time and the Adonis of
many a princely dame.]



CCLV. The Rhenish Confederation


The whole of western Europe bent in lowly submission before the genius
of Napoleon; Russia was bound by the silken chains of flattery;
England, Turkey, Sweden, and Portugal, alone bade him defiance.
England, whose fleets ruled the European seas, who lent her aid to his
enemies, and instigated their opposition, was his most dangerous foe.
By a gigantic measure, known as the continental system, he sought to
undermine her power. The whole of the continent of Europe, as far as
his influence was felt, was, by an edict, published at Berlin on the
21st of November, 1806, closed against British trade; nay, he went so
far as to lay an embargo on all English goods lying in store and to
make prisoners of war of all the English at that time on the
continent. All intercourse between England and the rest of Europe was
prohibited. But Napoleon's attempt to ruin the commerce of England was
merely productive of injury to himself; the promotion of every branch
of industry on the continent could not replace the loss of its foreign
trade; the products of Europe no longer found their way to the more
distant parts of the globe, to be exchanged for colonial luxuries,
which, with the great majority of the people, more particularly with
the better classes, had become necessaries, and numbers who had but
lately lauded Napoleon to the skies regarded him with bitter rage on
being compelled to relinquish their wonted coffee and sugar.

Napoleon, meanwhile, undeterred by opposition, enforced his
continental system. Russia, actuated by jealousy of England and
flattered by the idea, with which Napoleon had, at Tilsit, inspired
the emperor Alexander, of sharing with him the empire of a world,
aided his projects. The first step was to secure to themselves
possession of the Baltic; the king of Sweden, Napoleon's most
implacable foe, was to be dethroned, and Sweden to be promised to
Frederick, prince-regent of Denmark, in order to draw him into the
interests of the allied powers of France and Russia. The scheme,
however, transpired in time to be frustrated. An English fleet, with
an army, among which was the German Legion, composed of Hanoverian
refugees, on board, attacked, and, after a fearful bombardment, took
Copenhagen, and either destroyed or carried off the whole of the
Danish fleet, September, 1807.[1] The British fleet, on its triumphant
return through the Sound, was saluted at Helsingfors by the king of
Sweden, who invited the admirals to breakfast. The island of
Heligoland, which belonged to Holstein and consequently formed part of
the possessions of Denmark, and which carried on a great smuggling
trade between that country and the continent, was at that time also
seized by the British.

Napoleon revenged himself by a bold stroke in Spain. He proposed the
partition of Portugal to that power, and, under that pretext, sent
troops across the Pyrenees. The licentious queen of Spain, Maria
Louisa Theresa of Parma, and her paramour, Godoy, who had, on account
of the treaty between France and Spain, received the title of Prince
of Peace, reigned at that time in the name of the imbecile king,
Charles IV. His son, Ferdinand, placed himself at the head of the
democratic faction, by which Godoy was regarded with the most deadly
hatred. Both parties, however, conscious of their want of power,
sought aid from Napoleon, who flattered each in turn, with a view of
rendering the one a tool for the destruction of the other. The Prince
of Peace was overthrown by a popular tumult; Ferdinand VII. was
proclaimed king, and his father, Charles IV., was compelled to
abdicate. These events were apparently countenanced by Napoleon, who
invited the youthful sovereign to an interview; Ferdinand,
accordingly, went to Bayonne and was--taken prisoner. The Prince of
Peace, on the eve of flying from Spain, where his life was no longer
safe, with his treasures and with the queen, persuaded the old king,
Charles, also to go to Bayonne, where his person was instantly seized.
Both he and his son were compelled to renounce their right to the
throne of Spain and to abdicate in favor of Joseph, Napoleon's
brother, the 5th of May, 1808. The elevation of Joseph to the Spanish
throne was followed by that of Murat to the throne of Naples. The
haughty Spaniard, however, refused to be trampled under foot, and his
proud spirit disdained to accept a king imposed upon him by such
unparalleled treachery. Napoleon's victorious troops were, for the
first time, routed by peasants, an entire army was taken prisoner at
Baylen, and another, in Portugal, was compelled to retreat. Napoleon's
veterans were scattered by monks and peasants, a proof, to the eternal
disgrace of every subject people, that the invincibility of a nation
depends but upon its will.

Napoleon did not conduct the war in Spain in person during the first
campaign; the tranquillity of the North had first to be secured. For
this purpose, he held a personal conference, in October, 1808, with
the emperor Alexander at Erfurt, whither the princes of Germany
hastened to pay their devoirs, humbly as their ancestors of yore to
conquering Attila. The company of actors brought in Napoleon's train
from Paris boasted of gaining the plaudits of a royal parterre, and a
French sentinel happening to call to the watch to present arms to one
of the kings there dancing attendance was reproved by his officer with
the observation, "Ce n'est qu un roi."[2] Both emperors, for the
purpose of offering a marked insult to Prussia, attended a great
harehunt on the battlefield of Jena. It was during this conference
that Napoleon and Alexander divided between themselves the sovereignty
of Europe, Russia undertaking the subjugation of Sweden and the
seizure of Finland, France the conquest of Spain and Portugal.

The period immediately subsequent to the fall of the ancient empire
forms the blackest page in the history of Germany. The whole of the
left bank of the Rhine was annexed to France. The people,
notwithstanding the improvement that took place in the administration
under Bon Jean St. André, groaned beneath the exorbitant taxes and the
conscription. The commerce on the Rhine had almost entirely
ceased.[3]--The grandduchy of Berg was, until 1808, governed with
great mildness by Avar, the French minister.--Holland had, since 1801,
remained under the administration of her benevolent governor,
Schimmelpenninck, but had been continually drained by the imposition
of additional income taxes, which, in 1804, amounted to six per cent
on the capital in the country. Commerce had entirely ceased, smuggling
alone excepted. In 1806, the Dutch were commanded to entreat Napoleon
to grant them a king in the person of his brother Louis, who fixed his
residence in the venerable council-house at Amsterdam, and, it must be
confessed, endeavored to promote the real interests of his new
subjects.[4]

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