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




[Footnote 15: After an interview with his wife, Theresa (daughter to
the great philologist, Heyne of Grottingen), on the French frontier,
he returned to Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide
Crome's Autobiography. Theresa entered into association with Huber,
the journalist, whom she shortly afterward married. She gained great
celebrity by her numerous romances.]

[Footnote 16: The popular work "Huergelmer" relates, among other
things, the conduct of the Margrave of Baden toward Lauchsenring, his
private physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his
opinions, delivered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to
the bastinado.]

[Footnote 17: Schnelter says: "The first great conspiracy was formed
in the vicinity of the throne, A.D. 1793. The chief conspirator was
Hebenstreit, the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the
arsenal, and had every place of importance in his power. His fellow
conspirators were Prandstätter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his
superior talents, led the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great
influence in the metropolis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the
confidence of the court, which he frequented for the purpose of
instructing some of the principal personages, and Häckel, the
merchant, who had the management of its pecuniary affairs. The rest of
the conspirators belonged to every class of society and were spread
throughout every province of the empire. The plan consisted in the
establishment of a democratic constitution, the first step to which
appears to have been an attempt against the life of the imperial
family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the
immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the
destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made through
a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was seized and
sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where several
of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the
climate when their release was effected by Bonaparte by the peace of
Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit
conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins. The
second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot,
Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph,
Leopold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded
with favors. The plan was an _actionalis conspiratio_, for the purpose
of contriving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the
king, the destruction of the power of the privileged classes in
Hungary, the subversion of the administration, and the establishment
of a democracy. The means for the execution of this project were
furnished by two secret societies." Huergelmer relates: "A certain Dr.
Plank somewhat thoughtlessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee;
in order to convince him of its utility, he was sent as a recruit to
the Italian army, an act that was highly praised by the newspapers."
On the 22d of July, 1795, a Baron von Riedel was placed in the pillory
at Vienna for some political crime, and was afterward consigned to the
oblivion of a dungeon; the same fate, some days later, befell
Brand-Btetter, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski (Ephemeridae of 1796).
A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a traitor to his country (E.
of 1796).]

[Footnote 18: "The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of
the police, who thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial
statute, prohibitory of such measures, necessary in the new
legislature. Even the passing stranger perceived the disastrous effect
of their intrigues upon the open, honest character and the social
habits of the Viennese. The police began gradually to be considered as
a necessary part of the machine of government, a counterbalance to or
a remedy for the faults committed by other branches of the
administration. Large sums, the want of which was heavily felt in the
national education and in the army, were expended on this arsenal of
poisoned weapons."--_Hormayr's Pocket-Book_, 1832. Thugut is described
as a diminutive, hunchbacked old man, with a face resembling the mask
of a fawn and with an almost satanic expression.]



CCXLVIII. Loss of the Left Bank of the Rhine


The object of the Prussian king was either to extend his conquests
westward or, at all events, to prevent the advance of Austria. The war
with France claimed his utmost attention, and, in order to guard his
rear, he again attempted to convert Poland into a bulwark against
Russia.

His ambassador, Lucchesini, drove Stackelberg, the Russian envoy, out
of Warsaw, and promised mountains of gold to the Poles, who dissolved
the perpetual council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed
themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the
Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which
they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an
offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March,
1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new
constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the
emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, the
indivisibility of Poland was expressly mentioned. The constitution was
monarchical. Poland was, for the future, to be a hereditary instead of
an elective monarchy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was
to fall to Saxony. The modification of the peasants' dues and the
power conceded to the serf of making a private agreement with his lord
also gave the monarchy a support against the aristocracy.

Catherine of Russia, however, no sooner beheld Prussia and Austria
engaged in a war with France, than she commenced her operations
against Poland, declared the new Polish constitution French and
Jacobinical, notwithstanding its abolition of the _liberum veto_ and
its extension of the prerogatives of the crown, and, taking advantage
of the king's absence from Prussia, speedily regained possession of
the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He
was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at
the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to
the insolence of the autocrat; but--he feared, should he abandon the
Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and--
calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would
cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] unhesitatingly broke the faith
he had just plighted with the Poles, suddenly took up Catherine's
tone, declared the constitution he had so lately ratified Jacobinical,
and despatched a force under Mollendorf into Poland in order to secure
possession of his stipulated prey. By the second partition of Poland,
which took place as rapidly, as violently, and, on account of the
assurances of the Prussian monarch, far more unexpectedly than the
first, Russia received the whole of Lithuania, Podolia, and the
Ukraine, and Prussia, Thorn and Dantzig, besides Southern Prussia
(Posen and Calisch). Austria, at that time fully occupied with France,
had no participation in this robbery, which was, as it were, committed
behind her back.

Affairs had worn a remarkably worse aspect since the campaign of 1792.
The French had armed themselves with all the terrors of offended
nationalism and of unbounded, intoxicating liberty. All the enemies of
the Revolution within the French territory were mercilessly
exterminated, and hundreds of thousands were sacrificed by the
guillotine, a machine invented for the purpose of accelerating the
mode of execution. The king was beheaded in this manner in the January
of 1793, and the queen shared a similar fate in the ensuing
October.[2] While Robespierre directed the executions, Carnot
undertook to make preparations for war, and, in the very midst of this
immense fermentation, calmly converted France into an enormous camp,
and more than a million Frenchmen, as if summoned by magic from the
clod, were placed under arms.

The sovereigns of Europe also prepared for war, and, A.D. 1793, formed
the first great coalition, at whose head stood England, intent upon
the destruction of the French navy. The English, aided by a large
portion of the French population devoted to the ancient monarchy,
attacked France by sea, and made a simultaneous descent on the
northern and southern coasts. The Spanish and Portuguese troops
crossed the Pyrenees; the Italian princes invaded the Alpine boundary;
Austria, Prussia, Holland, and the German empire threatened the
Rhenish frontier, while Sweden and Russia stood frowning in the
background. The whole of Christian Europe took up arms against France,
and enormous armies hovered, like vultures, around their prey.

The duke of Coburg commanded the main body of the Austrians in the
Netherlands, where he was at first merely opposed by the old French
army, whose general, Dumouriez, after unsuccessfully grasping at the
supreme power, entered into a secret agreement with the coalition,
allowed himself to be defeated at Aldenhovenl[3] and Neerwinden, and
finally deserted to the Austrians. At this moment, when the French
army was dispirited by defeat and without a leader, Coburg, who had
been reinforced by the English and Dutch under the duke of York,
might, by a hasty advance, have taken Paris by surprise, but both the
English and Austrian generals solely owed the command, for which they
were totally unfit, to their high birth, and Colonel Mack, the most
prominent character among the officers of the staff, was a mere
theoretician, who could cleverly enough conduct a campaign--upon
paper. Clairfait, the Austrian general, beat the disbanded French army
under Dampiere at Famars, but temporized instead of following up his
victory. Coburg, in the hope of the triumph of the moderate party, the
Girondins, published an extremely mild and peaceable proclamation,
which, on the fall of the Gironde, was instantly succeeded by one of a
more threatening character, which his want of energy and decision in
action merely rendered ridiculous. No vigorous attack was made, nor
was even a vigorous defence calculated upon, not one of the frontier
forts in the Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been
rebuilt. The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be
annihilated by their inward convulsions, while they were in reality
seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes to levy
raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however,
lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England.
Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken
by Coburg, were compelled to take a formal oath of allegiance to
Austria, and England made, as the condition of her aid, that of the
Austrians for the conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which
was merely of importance to England in a mercantile point of view,
retained the armies of Coburg and York, and the French were
consequently enabled, in the meantime, to concentrate their scattered
forces and to act on the offensive. Ere long, Houchard and Jourdan
pushed forward with their wild masses, which, at first undisciplined
and unsteady, were merely able to screen themselves from the rapid and
sustained fire of the British by acting as tirailleurs (a mode of
warfare successfully practiced by the North Americans against the
serried ranks of the English), became gradually bolder, and finally,
by their numerical strength and republican fury, gained a complete
triumph. Houchard, in this manner, defeated the English at Hondscoten
(September 8th), and Jourdan drove the Austrians off the field at
Wattignies on the 16th of October, the day on which the French queen
was beheaded. Coburg, although the Austrians had maintained their
ground on every other point, resolved to retreat, notwithstanding the
urgent remonstrances of the youthful archduke, Charles, who had
greatly distinguished himself. During the retreat, an unimportant
victory was gained at Menin by Beaulieu, the imperial general.[4] His
colleague, Wurmser, nevertheless maintained with extreme difficulty
the line extending from Basel to Luxemburg, which formed the Prussian
outposts. A French troop under Delange advanced as far as
Aix-la-Chapelle, where they crowned the statue of Charlemagne with a
bonnet rouge.

Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, besieged by the
main body of the Prussian army under the command of Ferdinand, duke of
Brunswick. The Austrians, when on their way past Mayence to
Valenciennes with a quantity of heavy artillery destined for the
reduction of the latter place (which they afterward compelled to do
homage to the emperor), refusing the request of the king of Prussia
for its use _en passant_ for the reduction of Mayence, greatly
displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common intention of
England and Austria to conquer the north of France to the exclusion of
Prussia, and consequently revenged himself by privately partitioning
Poland with Russia, and refusing his assistance to General Wurmser in
the Vosges country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered
their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of Mayence,
A.D. 1793, advanced and beat the fresh masses led against them by
Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick William, disgusted with Austria and
secretly far from disinclined to peace with France, quitted the army
(which he maintained in the field, merely from motives of honor, but
allowed to remain in a state of inactivity), in order to visit his
newly acquired territory in Poland.

The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he had some
property, and fought meritoriously for the German cause, while so many
of his countrymen at that time ranged themselves on the side of the
French.[5] His position on the celebrated Weissenburg line was, owing
to the non-assistance of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he
consequently endeavored to supply his want of strength by striking his
opponents with terror. His Croats, the notorious _Rothmantler_, are
charged with the commission of fearful deeds of cruelty. Owing to his
system of paying a piece of gold for every Frenchman's head, they
would rush, when no legitimate enemy could be encountered, into the
first large village at hand, knock at the windows and strike off the
heads of the inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities
on the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment they
received from the Austrians. But how could it be otherwise? The empire
slothfully cast the whole burden of the war upon Austria. Many of the
princes were terror-stricken by the French, while others meditated an
alliance with that power, like that formerly concluded between them
and Louis XIV. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great
difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial free
towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the hands of Austria.
They were deprived of their artillery and treated with the utmost
contempt. It often happened that the aristocratic magistracy, as, for
instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The
slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand,
treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The
infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the
French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French
ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral
ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, created a far greater
sensation.

The duke of Brunswick, who had received no orders to retreat, was
compelled, _bongre-malgre_, to hazard another engagement with the
French, who rushed to the attack. He was once more victorious, at
Kaiserslautern, over Hoche, whose untrained masses were unable to
withstand the superior discipline of the Prussian troops. Wurmser took
advantage of the moment when success seemed to restore the good humor
of the allies to coalesce with the Prussians, dragging the unwilling
Bavarians in his train. This junction, however, merely had the effect
of disclosing the jealousy rankling on every side. The greatest
military blunders were committed and each blamed the other. Landau
ought to and might have been rescued from the French, but this step
was procrastinated until the convention had charged Generals Hoche and
Pichegru, "Landau or death." These two generals brought a fresh and
numerous army into the field, and, in the very first engagements, at
Worth and Froschweiler, the Bavarians ran away and the Austrians and
Prussians were signally defeated. The retreat of Wurmser, in high
displeasure, across the Rhine afforded a welcome pretext to the duke
of Brunswick to follow his example and even to resign the command of
the army to Mollendorf. In this shameful manner was the left bank of
the Rhine lost to Germany.

In the spring of the ensuing year, 1794, the emperor Francis II.
visited the Netherlands in person, with the intent of pushing straight
upon Paris. This project, practicable enough during the preceding
campaign, was, however, now utterly out of the question, the more so
on account of the retreat of the Prussians. The French observed on
this occasion with well-merited scorn: "The allies are ever an idea, a
year and an army behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked
the whole French line in March and were at first victorious on every
side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distinguished themselves, and
at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at
the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all.
Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of
York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at
Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg
fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay),
where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian artillery.
Twenty thousand dead strewed the field. The youthful emperor,
discouraged by the coldness displayed by the Dutch, whom he had
expected to rise _en masse_ in his cause, returned to Vienna. His
departure and the inactivity of the British commander completely
dispirited the Austrian troops, and on the 26th of June, 1794,[6] the
duke of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus by Jourdan, the general of the
republic. This success was immediately followed by that of Pichegru,
not far from Breda, over the inefficient English general,[7] who
consequently evacuated the Netherlands, which were instantly overrun
by the pillaging French. And thus had the German powers,
notwithstanding their well-disciplined armies and their great plans,
not only forfeited their military honor, but also drawn the enemy,
and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into the
empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves universally unpopular by
their arbitrary measures, and each province remained stupidly
indifferent to the threatened pillage of its neighbor by the
victorious French. Jourdan but slowly tracked the retreating forces of
Coburg, whom he again beat at Sprimont, where he drove him from the
Maese, and at Aldenhoven, where he drove him from the Roer. Frederick,
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with ten
thousand men, to Kleber; and the Austrians, with the exception of a
small corps under the Count von Erbach, stationed at Düsseldorf,
completely abandoned the Lower Rhine.

The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time to have
flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollendorf suddenly
recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage at Kaiserslautern, but
was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at Trippstadt, notwithstanding
which he once more crossed the Rhine in September, and a battle was
won by the Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the
junction of Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him,
Mollendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the Rhine.
The whole of the left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg and Mayence alone
excepted, were now in the hands of the French. Resius, the Hessian
general, abandoned the Rheinfels with the whole garrison, without
striking a blow in its defence. He was, in reward, condemned to
perpetual imprisonment.[8] Jourdan converted the fortress into a
ruined heap. The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded
for the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment.

In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had already been
abolished, and the whole country been transformed into a Belgian
republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the ancient evils, so vainly
attempted but a few years before by the noble-spirited emperor, Joseph
II., was successfully executed by this insolent Frenchman, who also
abolished with them all that was good in the ancient system. The city
deputies, it is true, made an energetic but futile resistance.[9]
After the flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every
fresh success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the most
deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty splendid
churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient enemies of the
bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked and converted into a French
fortress.


[Footnote 1: Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzig, which
the Poles refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he
could only seize by the aid of Russia.]

[Footnote 2: After having been long retained in prison, ill fed and
ill clothed, after supporting, with unbending dignity, the unmanly
insults of the republican mob before whose tribunal she was dragged.
The young dauphin expired under the ill-treatment he received from his
guardian, a shoemaker. His sister, the present Duchess d'Angouleme,
was spared.]

[Footnote 3: Where the peasantry, infuriated at the depredations of
the French, cast the wounded and the dead indiscriminately into a
trench.--_Benzenberg's Letters._ ]

[Footnote 4: The Hanoverian general, Hammerstein, and his adjutant
Scharnhorst, who afterward became so noted, made a gallant defence.
When the city became no longer tenable, they boldly sallied forth at
the head of the garrison and escaped.]

[Footnote 5: Rewbel, one of the five directors of the great French
republic, and several of the most celebrated French generals,
Germany's unwearied foes, were natives of Alsace, as, for instance,
the gallant Westermann, one of the first leaders of the republican
armies; the intrepid Kellermann, the soldiers' father; the immortal
Kleber, generalissimo of the French forces in Egypt, who fell by the
dagger of a fanatical Mussulman; and the undaunted Rapp, the hero of
Dantzig. The lion-hearted Ney, justly designated by the French as the
bravest of the brave, was a native of Lorraine. These were, one and
all, men of tried metal, but whose German names induce the demand,
"Why did they fight for France?" Wurmser belonged to the same old
Strasburg family which had given birth to Wurmser, the celebrated
court-painter of the emperor, Charles IV. ]

[Footnote 6: The Austrian generals Beaulieu, Quosdanowich, and the
Archduke Charles, who, at that period, laid the foundation to his
future fame, had pushed victoriously forward and taken Fleurus, when
the ill-tuned orders, as they are deemed, of the generalissimo Coburg
compelled them to retreat. Quosdanowich dashed his sabre furiously on
the ground and exclaimed, "The army is betrayed, the victory is ours,
and yet we must resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of
Europe, the house of Austria bids thee eternally adieu!" The French
had, before and during the action, made use of a balloon for the
purpose of watching the movements of the enemy.]

[Footnote 7: The worst spirit prevailed among the British troops; the
officers were wealthy young men, who had purchased their posts and
were, in the highest degree, licentious. Vide Dietfurth's Hessian
Campaigns.]

[Footnote 8: Peter Hammer, in his "Description of the Imperial Army,"
published, A.D. 1796, at Cologne, graphically depictures the sad state
of the empire. The imperial troops consisted of the dregs of the
populace, so variously arranged as to justify the remark of Colonel
Sandberg of Baden that the only thing wanting was their regular
equipment as jack-puddings. A monastery furnished two men; a petty
barony, the ensign; a city, the captain. The arms of each man differed
in calibre. No patriotic spirit animated these defenders of the
empire. An anonymous author remarks: "For love of one's country to be
felt, there must, first of all, be a country; but Germany is split
into petty useless monarchies, chiefly characterized by their
oppression of their subjects, by pride, slavery, and unutterable
weakness. Formerly, when Germany was attacked, each of her sons made
ready for battle, her princes were patriotic and brave. Now, may
Heaven have pity on the land; the princes, the counts, and nobles
march hence and leave their country to its fate. The Margrave of
Baden--I do not speak of the prince bishop of Spires and of other
spiritual lords whose profession forbids their laying hand to
sword--the Landgrave of Darmstadt and other nobles fled on the mere
report of an intended visit from the French, by which they plainly
intimated that they merely held sovereign rule for the purpose of
being fattened by their subjects in time of peace. Danger no sooner
appears than the miserable subject is left to his own resources.
_Germany is divided into too many petty states._ How can an elector of
the Pfalz, or indeed any of the still lesser nobility, protect the
country? Unity, moreover, is utterly wanting. The Bavarian regards the
Hessian as a stranger, not as his countryman. Each petty territory has
a different tariff, administration, and laws. The subject of one petty
state cannot travel half a mile into a neighboring one without leaving
behind him great part of his property. The bishop of Spires strictly
forbids his subjects to intermarry with those of any other state. And
patriotism is expected to result from these measures! The subject of a
despot, whose revenues exceed those of his neighbors by a few thousand
florins, looks down with contempt on the slave of a poorer prince.
Hence the boundless hatred between the German courts and their petty
brethren, hence the malicious joy caused by the mishaps of a
neighboring dynasty." Hence the wretchedness of the troops. "With the
exception of the troops belonging to the circle there were none to
defend the frontiers of the empire. Grandes battues, balls, operas,
and mistresses, swallowed up the revenue, not a farthing remained for
the erection of fortresses, the want of which was so deeply felt for
the defence of the frontiers."]

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.