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




Austria offered a melancholy contrast to the magnificence of France.
Exhausted by her continual exertions for the maintenance of the war,
the state could no longer meet its obligations, and, on the 15th of
March, 1811, Count Wallis, the minister of finance, lowered the value
of one thousand and sixty millions of bank paper to two hundred and
twelve millions, and the interest upon the whole of the state debts to
half the new paper issue. This fearful state bankruptcy was
accompanied by the fall of innumerable private firms; trade was
completely at a standstill, and the contributions demanded by Napoleon
amounted to a sum almost impossible to realize. Prussia, especially,
suffered from the drain upon her resources. The beautiful and
high-souled queen, Louisa, destined not to see the day of vengeance
and of victory, died, in 1810, of a broken heart.[6]

While Germany lay thus exhausted and bleeding in her chains, Napoleon
and Alexander put the plans, agreed to between them at Erfurt, into
execution. Napoleon threw himself with redoubled violence on luckless
Spain, and the Russians invaded Sweden.

The Germans acted a prominent part in the bloody wars in the
Peninsula. Four Swiss regiments, that had at an earlier period been in
the Spanish service, and the German Legion, composed of Hanoverian
refugees to England, upheld the Spanish cause, while all sorts of
troops of the Rhenish confederation, those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg
excepted, several Dutch and four Swiss regiments, fought for Napoleon.

The troops of the Rhenish confederation formed two corps. The fate of
one of them has been described by Captain Rigel of Baden. The Baden
regiment was, in 1808, sent to Biscay and united under Lefebvre with
other contingents of the Rhenish confederation, for instance, with the
Nassauers under the gallant Von Schäfer, the Dutch under General
Chasse, the Hessians, the Primates (Frankforters), and Poles. As early
as October, they fought against the Spaniards at Zornoza, and at the
pillage of Portugalete first became acquainted with the barbarous
customs of this terrible civil war. The most implacable hatred,
merciless rage, the assassination of prisoners, plunder, destruction,
and incendiarism, equally distinguished both sides. The Germans
garrisoned Bilboa, gained some successes at Molinar and Valmaseda,
were afterward placed under the command of General Victor, who arrived
with a fresh army, were again victorious at Espinosa and Burgos,
formed a junction with Soult and finally with Napoleon, and, in
December, 1808, entered Madrid in triumph.--In January, 1809, the
German troops under Victor again advanced upon the Tagus, and, after a
desperate conflict, took the celebrated bridge of Almaraz by storm.
This was followed by the horrid sacking of the little town of Arenas,
during which a Nassauer named Hornung, not only, like a second Scipio,
generously released a beautiful girl who had fallen into his hands,
but sword in hand defended her from his fellow-soldiers. In the
following March, the Germans were again brought into action, at Mesa
de Ibor, where Schäfer's Nassauers drove the enemy from their
position, under a fearful fire, which cut down three hundred of their
number; and at Medelin, where they were again victorious and massacred
numbers of the armed Spanish peasantry. Four hundred prisoners were,
after the battle, shot by order of Marshal Victor. Among the wounded
on the field of battle there lay, side by side, Preusser, the
Nassauer, and a Spanish corporal, both of whom had severely suffered.
A dispute arose between them, in the midst of which they discovered
that they were brothers. One had entered the French, the other the
Spanish service.--A Dutch battalion under Storm de Grave, abandoned at
Merida to the vengeance of the enraged people, was furiously assailed,
but made a gallant defence and fought its way through the enemy.

In the commencement of 1809, Napoleon had again quitted Spain in order
to conduct the war on the Danube in person. His marshals, left by him
in different parts of the Peninsula, took Saragossa, drove the British
under Sir John Moore out of the country, and penetrated into Portugal,
but were ere long again attacked by a fresh English army under the
Duke of Wellington. This rendered the junction of the German troops
with the main body of the French army necessary, and they consequently
shared in the defeats of Talavera and Almoncid. Their losses, more
particularly in the latter engagement, were very considerable,
amounting in all to two thousand six hundred men; among others,
General Porbeck of Baden, an officer of noted talent, fell: five
hundred of their wounded were butchered after the battle by the
infuriated Spaniards. But Wellington suddenly stopped short in his
victorious career. It was in December, 1809, when the news of the
fresh peace concluded by Napoleon with Austria arrived. On the
Spaniards hazarding a fresh engagement, Wellington left them totally
unassisted, and, on the 19th of November, they suffered a dreadful
defeat at Ocasia, where they lost twenty-five thousand men. The
Rhenish confederated troops were, in reward for the gallantry
displayed by them on this occasion, charged with the transport of the
prisoners into France, and were exposed to the whole rigor of the
climate and to every sort of deprivation while the French withdrew
into winter quarters. The fatigues of this service greatly thinned
their ranks. The other German regiments were sent into the Sierra
Morena, where they were kept ever on the alert guarding that key to
Spain, while the French under Soult advanced as far as Cadiz, those
under Massena into Portugal; but Soult being unable to take Cadiz, and
Massena being forced by the Duke of Wellington to retire, the German
troops were also driven from their position, and, in 1812, withdrew to
Valencia, but, in the October of the same year, again advanced with
Soult upon Madrid.

The second corps of the Rhenish confederated troops was stationed in
Catalonia, where they were fully occupied. Their fate has been
described by two Saxon officers, Jacobs and Von Seebach. In the
commencement of 1809, Reding the Swiss, who had, in 1808, chiefly
contributed to the capture of the French army at Baylen, commanded the
whole of the Spanish forces in Catalonia, consisting of forty thousand
Spaniards and several thousand Swiss; but these guerilla troops,
almost invincible in petty warfare, were totally unable to stand in
open battle against the veterans of the French emperor, and Reding was
completely routed by St. Cyr at Taragona. In St. Cyr's army were eight
thousand Westphalians under General Morio, three thousand Berglanders,
fifteen hundred Wurzburgers, from eight to nine hundred men of
Schwarzburg, Lippe, Waldeck, and Reuss, all of whom were employed in
the wearisome siege of Gerona, which was defended by Don Alvarez, one
of Spain's greatest heroes. The popular enthusiasm was so intense that
even the women took up arms (in the company of St. Barbara) and aided
in the defence of the walls. The Germans, ever destined to head the
assault, suffered immense losses on each attempt to carry the place by
storm. In one attack alone, on the 3d of July, in which they met with
a severe repulse, they lost two thousand of their men. Their demand of
a truce for the purpose of carrying their wounded off the field of
battle was answered by a Spaniard, Colonel Blas das Furnas, "A quarter
of an hour hence not one of them will be alive!" and the whole of the
wounded men were, in fact, murdered in cold blood by the Spaniards.
During a second assault on the 19th of September, sixteen hundred of
their number and the gallant Colonel Neuff, an Alsatian, who had
served in Egypt, fell. Gerona was finally driven by famine to
capitulate, after a sacrifice of twelve thousand men, principally
Germans, before her walls. Of the eight thousand Westphalians but one
battalion remained. St. Cyr was, in 1810, replaced by Marshal
Augereau, but the troops were few in number and worn out with fatigue;
a large convoy was lost in an unlucky engagement, in which numbers of
the Germans deserted to the Spanish, and Augereau retired to
Barcelona, the metropolis of Catalonia, in order to await the arrival
of reinforcements, among which was a Nassau regiment, one of Anhalt,
and the identical Saxon corps that had so dreadfully suffered in the
Tyrol.[7] The Saxon and Nassau troops, two thousand two hundred
strong, under the command of General Schwarz, an Alsatian, advanced
from Barcelona toward the celebrated mountain of Montserrat, whose
hermitages, piled up one above another _en amphitheatre_, excite the
traveller's wonder. Close in its vicinity lay the city of Manresa, the
focus of the Catalonian insurrection. The German troops advanced in
close column, although surrounded by infuriated multitudes, by whom
every straggler was mercilessly butchered. The two regiments,
nevertheless, succeeded in making themselves masters of Manresa, where
they were instantly shut in, furiously assailed, and threatened with
momentary destruction. The Anhalt troops and a French corps,
despatched by Augereau to their relief, were repulsed with
considerable loss. Schwarz now boldly sallied forth, fought his way
through the Spaniards, and, after losing a thousand men, succeeded in
reaching Barcelona, but was shortly afterward, after assisting at the
taking of Hostalrich, surprised at La Bisbal and taken prisoner with
almost all the Saxon troops. The few that remained fell victims to
disease.[8] The fate of the prisoners was indeed melancholy. Several
thousand of them died on the Balearic Islands, chiefly on the island
of Cabrera, where, naked and houseless, they dug for themselves holes
in the sand and died in great numbers of starvation. They often also
fell victims to the fury of the inhabitants. The Swiss engaged in the
Spanish service, sometimes saved their lives at the hazard of their
own.

Opposed to them was the German Legion, composed of the brave
Hanoverians, who had preferred exile in Britain to submission to
Jerome, and had been sent in British men-of-war to Portugal, whence
they had, in conjunction with the troops of England and Spain,
penetrated, in 1808, into the interior of Spain.[9] At Benavente, they
made a furious charge upon the French and took their long-delayed
revenge. Linsingen's cavalry cut down all before them; arms were
severed at a blow, heads were split in two; one head was found cut in
two across from one ear to the other. A young Hanoverian soldier took
General Lefebvre prisoner, but allowed himself to be deprived of his
valuable captive by an Englishman.--The Hanoverians served first under
Sir John Moore. On the death of that commander at Corunna, the troops
under his command returned to England: a ship of the line, with two
Hanoverian battalions on board, was lost during the passage. The
German Legion afterward served under the Duke of Wellington, and
shared the dangers and the glory of the war in the Peninsula. "The
admirable accuracy and rapidity of the German artillery under Major
Hartmann greatly contributed to the victory of Talavera, and received
the personal encomiums of the Duke."

Langwerth's brigade gained equal glory. The German Legion was,
however, never in full force in Spain. A division was, in 1809, sent
to the island of Walcheren, but shared the ill-success attending all
the attempts made in the North Sea during Napoleon's reign. The
conquest and demolition of Vliessingen in August was the only result.
A pestilence broke out among the troops, and, on Napoleon's successes
in Austria, it was compelled to return to England. A third division,
consisting of several Hanoverian regiments, was sent to Sicily,
accompanied the expedition to Naples in 1809, and afterward guarded
the rocks of Sicily. The Hanoverians in Spain were also separated into
various divisions, each of which gained great distinction, more
particularly so, the corps of General Alten in the storming of
Ciudad-Rodrigo. In 1812, the Hanoverian cavalry broke three French
squares at Garcia Hernandez.

The Russians had, meanwhile, invaded Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus,
hitherto Russia's firmest ally, was suddenly and treacherously
attacked. General Buxhovden overran Finland, inciting the people, as
he advanced, to revolt against their lawful sovereign. But the brave
Finlanders stoutly resisted the attempted imposition of the yoke of
the barbarous Russ, and, although ill-supported by Sweden, performed
prodigies of valor. Gustavus Adolphus was devoid of military
knowledge, and watched, as if sunk in torpor, the ill-planned
operations of his generals. While the flower of the Swedish troops was
uselessly employed against Denmark and Norway, Finland was allowed to
fall into the grasp of Russia.[10] The Russians were already expected
to land in Sweden, when a conspiracy broke out among the nobility and
officers of the army, which terminated in the seizure of the king's
person and his deposition, March, 1809. His son, Gustavus Vasa, the
present ex-king of Sweden, was excluded from the succession, and his
uncle Charles, the imbecile and unworthy duke of Sudermania,[11] was
proclaimed king under the title of Charles XIII. He was put up as a
scarecrow by the conspirators. Gustavus Adolphus IV. had, at all
events, shown himself incapable of saving Sweden. But the conspirators
were no patriots, nor was their object the preservation of their
country; they were merely bribed traitors, weak and incapable as the
monarch they had dethroned. They were composed of a party among the
ancient nobility, impatient of the restrictions of a monarchy, and of
the younger officers in the army, who were filled with enthusiasm for
Napoleon. The rejoicings on the occasion of the abdication of Gustavus
Adolphus were heightened by the news of the victory gained by Napoleon
at Ratisbon, which, at the same time, reached Stockholm. The new and
wretched Swedish government instantly deferred everything to Napoleon
and humbly solicited his favor; but Napoleon, to whom the friendship
of Russia was, at that time, of higher importance than the submission
of a handful of intriguants in Sweden, received their homage with
marked coldness. Finland, shamefully abandoned in her hour of need,
was immediately ceded to Russia, in consideration of which, Napoleon
graciously restored Rugen and Swedish-Pomerania to Sweden. Charles
XIII. adopted, as his son and successor, Christian Augustus, prince of
Holstein-Augustenburg, who, falling dead off his horse at a
review,[12] the aged and childless monarch was compelled to make a
second choice, which fell upon the French general, Bernadotte, who
had, at one time, been a furious Jacobin and had afterward acted as
Napoleon's general and commandant in Swedish-Pomerania, where he had,
by his mildness, gained great popularity. The majority in Sweden
deemed him merely a creature of Napoleon, whose favor they hoped to
gain by this flattering choice; others, it may be, already beheld in
him Napoleon's future foe, and knew the value of the sagacity and
wisdom with which he was endowed, and of which the want was so deeply
felt in Sweden at a period when intrigue and cunning had succeeded to
violence. The Freemasons, with whom he had placed himself in close
communication, appear to have greatly influenced his election.[13] The
unfortunate king, Gustavus Adolphus, after being long kept a close
prisoner in the castle of Gripsholm, where his strong religious bias
had been strengthened by apparitions,[14] was permitted to retire into
Germany; he disdainfully refused to accept of a pension, separated
himself from his consort, a princess of Baden, and lived in proud
poverty, under the name of Colonel Gustavson, in Switzerland.--
Bernadotte, the newly adopted prince, took the title of Charles John,
crown prince of Sweden. Napoleon, who was in ignorance of this
intrigue, was taken by surprise, but, in the hope of Bernadotte's
continued fidelity, presented him with a million _en cadeau_;
Bernadotte had, however, been long jealous of Napoleon's fortune, and,
solely intent upon gaining the hearts of his future subjects, deceived
him and secretly permitted the British to trade with Sweden, although
publicly a party in the continental system.

This system was at this period enforced with exaggerated severity by
Napoleon. He not only prohibited the importation of all British goods,
but seized all already sent to the continent and condemned them to be
publicly burned. Millions evaporated in smoke, principally at
Amsterdam, Hamburg, Frankfort, and Leipzig. The wealthiest mercantile
establishments were made bankrupt.

In addition to the other blows at that time zealously bestowed upon
the dead German lion, the king of Denmark attempted to extirpate the
German language in Schleswig, but the edict to that effect, published
on the 19th of January, 1811, was frustrated by the courage of the
clergy, schoolmasters, and peasantry, who obstinately refused to learn
Danish.[15]


[Footnote 1: The pope, among other things, long refused his consent to
the second marriage of the king of Westphalia, although that prince's
first wife was merely a Protestant and an American citizen.]

[Footnote 2: Bilderdyk, whom the Dutch consider as their greatest
poet, was, nevertheless, at that time, Napoleon's basest flatterer,
and ever expressed a hypochondriacal and senseless antipathy to
Germany.]

[Footnote 3: At Amsterdam, in 1811; in the district around Leyden, in
1812. Insurrections of a similar character were suppressed in April,
1811, in the country around Liege; in December, 1812, at Aix-la-
Chapelle; the East Frieslanders also rebelled against the
conscription.]

[Footnote 4: It was during this year that Napoleon caused the seamless
coat of the Saviour, which had, during the Revolution, taken refuge at
Augsburg, to be borne in a magnificent procession to Treves and to be
exposed for eighteen days to public view. The pilgrims amounted to two
hundred and fifty thousand.--Hormayr, who had, during the foregoing
year, summoned the Tyrolese to arms against Napoleon, said in his
Annual for 1811, "By the marriage of the emperor Napoleon with Maria
Louisa, the Revolution may be considered as completely terminated and
peace durably settled throughout Europe."]

[Footnote 5: His birth was celebrated by numerous German poets and by
general public rejoicings, but with the basest adulation in
Switzerland. Meyer of Knonau relates, in his History of Switzerland,
that the king of Rome was at one of the festivals termed "the blessed
infant." Goethe's poem in praise of Napoleon appeared at this time.
The clergy also emulated each other in servility.]

[Footnote 6: At that time the noble-hearted poet, Seume, who had
formerly been a victim of native tyranny, died of sorrow and disgust
at the rule of the foreigner in Germany, at Toeplitz, 1810.]

[Footnote 7: This regiment was merely rewarded by Napoleon for its
gallantry with 15 gros (1s. 6-1/4d.) per man, in order to drink to his
health on his birthday.--_Von Seebach_.]

[Footnote 8: What the feeling among the Germans was is plainly shown
by the charge against General Beurmann for general ill-treatment of
his countrymen, whom he was accused of having allowed to perish in the
hospitals, in order to save the expense of their return home. Out of
seventy officers and two thousand four hundred and twenty-three
privates belonging to the Saxon regiment, but thirty-nine officers and
three hundred and nineteen privates returned to their native country.
Vide Jacob's Campaigns of the Gotha-Altenburgers and Von Seebach's
History of the Campaigns of the Saxony Infantry. Von Seebach, who was
taken prisoner on his return from Manresa, has given a particularly
detailed and graphic account of the campaign.]

[Footnote 9: Beamish has recounted their exploits in detail. The
"Recollections of a Legionary," Hanover, 1826, is also worthy of
perusal.]

[Footnote 10: The gallant acts of the Finlanders and the brutality of
the Russians are brought forward in Arndt's "Swedish Histories."]

[Footnote 11: When regent, on the death of Gustavus III., he had
spared his murderers and released those criminated in the conspiracy.
On the present occasion, he yielded in everything to the aristocracy,
and voted for the dethronement of his own house, which, as he had no
children, infallibly ensued on the exclusion of the youthful
Gustavus.]

[Footnote 12: An extremely suspicious accident, which gave rise to
many reports.]

[Footnote 13: Vide Posselt's Sixth Annual.]

[Footnote 14: This castle was haunted by the ghost of King Eric XIV.,
who had long pined here in close imprisonment, and who had once
before, during a sumptuous entertainment given by Gustavus Adolphus
IV. to his brother-in-law, the Margrave of Baden, struck the whole
court with terror by his shrieks and groans.]

[Footnote 15: Wimpfen, History of Schleswig.]



CCLIX. The Russian Campaign


An enormous comet that, during the whole of the hot summer of 1811,
hung threatening in the heavens, appeared as the harbinger of great
and important vicissitudes to the enslaved inhabitants of the earth,
and it was in truth by an act of Divine providence that a dispute
arose between the two giant powers intent upon the partition of
Europe.

Napoleon was over-reached by Russia, whose avarice, far from being
glutted by the possession of Finland, great part of Prussian and
Austrian Poland, Moldavia, and Wallachia, still craved for more, and
who built her hopes of Napoleon's compliance with her demands on his
value for her friendship. Belgrade was seized, Servia demanded, and
the whole of Turkey in Europe openly grasped at. Napoleon was,
however, little inclined to cede the Mediterranean to his Russian
ally, to whose empire he gave the Danube as a boundary. Russia next
demanded possession of the duchy of Warsaw, which was refused by
Napoleon. The Austrian marriage was meanwhile concluded. Napoleon,
prior to his demand for the hand of the archduchess Maria Louisa, had
sued for that of the grandduchess Anna, sister to the emperor
Alexander, who was then in her sixteenth year, but, being refused by
her mother, the empress Maria, a princess of Wurtemberg, and Alexander
delaying a decisive answer, he formed an alliance with the Habsburg.
This event naturally led Russia to conclude that she would no longer
be permitted to aggrandize herself at the expense of Austria, and
Alexander consequently assumed a threatening posture and condescended
to listen to the complaints, hitherto condemned to silence, of the
agricultural and mercantile classes. No Russian vessel durst venture
out to sea, and a Russian fleet had been seized by the British in the
harbors of Lisbon. At Riga lay immense stores of grain in want of a
foreign market. On the 31st of December, 1810, Alexander published a
fresh tariff permitting the importation of colonial products under a
neutral flag (several hundred English ships arrived under the American
flag), and prohibiting the importation of French manufactured goods.
Not many weeks previously, on the 13th of December, Napoleon had
annexed Oldenburg to France. The duke, Peter, was nearly related to
the emperor of Russia, and Napoleon, notwithstanding his declared
readiness to grant a compensation, refused to allow it to consist of
the grandduchy of Warsaw, and proposed a duchy of Erfurt, as yet
uncreated, which Russia scornfully rejected.

The alliance between Russia, Sweden, and England was now speedily
concluded. Sweden, who had vainly demanded from Napoleon the
possession of Norway and a large supply of money, assumed a tone of
indignation, threw open her harbors to the British merchantmen, and so
openly carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania that Napoleon, in
order to maintain the continental system, was constrained to garrison
Swedish-Pomerania and Rugen, and to disarm the Swedish inhabitants.
Bernadotte, upon this, ranged himself entirely on the side of his
opponents, without, however, coming to an open rupture, for which he
awaited a declaration on the part of Russia. The expressions made use
of by Napoleon on the birth of the king of Rome at length filled up
the measure of provocation. Intoxicated with success, he boasted, in
an address to the mercantile classes, that he would in despite of
Russia maintain the continental system, for he was lord over the whole
of continental Europe; that if Alexander had not concluded a treaty
with him at Tilsit he would have compelled him to do so at
Petersburg.--The pride of the haughty Russian was deeply wounded, and
a rupture was nigh at hand.

Two secret systems were at this period undermining each other in
Prussia, that of the _Tugendbund_ founded by Stein and Scharnhorst,
whose object being the liberation of Germany at all hazards from the
yoke of Napoleon, consequently, favored Russia, and that of
Hardenberg, which aimed at a close union with France. Hardenberg,
whose position as chancellor of state gave him the upper hand, had
compromised Prussia by the servility with which he sued for an
alliance long scornfully refused and at length conceded on the most
humiliating terms by Napoleon.[1]

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