Thomas Carlyle

“ Fuglemen the world and its Nations always have, when simultaneously bent any-whither, wisely or unwisely; and it is natural that the most adventurous spirit take that post. Friedrich has not sought the post; but following his own objects, has got it; and will be ignominiously lost, and trampled to annihilation under the hoofs of the world, if he do not mind! To keep well ahead;—to be rapid as possible; that were good:—to step aside were still better! And Friedrich we find is very anxious for that; "would be content with the Duchy of Glogau, and join Austria;" ”

“ BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION.
The Battle of Mollwitz went off like a signal-shot among the Nations; intimating that they were, one and all, to go battling. Which they did, with a witness; making a terrible thing of it, over all the world, for above seven years to come. Foolish Nations; doomed to settle their jarring accounts in that terrible manner! Nay, the fewest of them had any accounts, except imaginary ones, to settle there at all; and they went into the adventure GRATIS, spurred on by spectralities of the sick brain, by phantasms of hope, phantasms of terror ”

“ Friedrich himself writes long afterwards of the event; but, as usual, without precision, except in general effect. Now, or some time after, Friedrich says he found Belleisle, one morning, with brow clouded, knit into intense meditation: "Have you had bad news, M. le Marechal?" asks Friedrich. "No, oh no! I am considering what we shall make of that Moravia?"—"Moravia; Hm!" Friedrich suppresses the glance that is rising to his eyes: "Can't you give it to Saxony, then? Buy Saxony into the Plan with it!" "Excellent," answers Belleisle, and unpuckers his stern brow again. ”

“ Swift, ye Regiment's-carpenters; smite your best! Four cannon-shot do now boom out upon them; which go high over their heads, little dreaming how close at hand they are. The glacis is thirty feet high, of stiff slope, and slippery with frost: no matter, the avalanche, led on by Leopold in person, by Margraf Karl the King's Cousin, by Adjutant Goltz and the chief personages, rushes up with strange impetus; hews down a second palisade; surges in;—Wallis's sentries extinct, or driven to their main guards. There is a singular fire in the besieging party. ”

“ Your Treasury is empty (nothing in it but those foolish 200,000 English guineas, and the passionate cry for more) : and your Army is not trained as this Prussian one; cannot keep its ground against this one. Of all those long-headed Potentates, simple Friedrich Wilhelm, son of Nature, who had the honesty to do what Nature taught him, has come out, gainer. You all laughed at him as a fool: do you begin to see now who was wise, who fool? He has an Army that "advances on you with glittering musketry, steady as on the parade-ground, and pours out fire like one continuous thunder-peal;" ”

“ When the big steeple of Glogau peals Midnight,—Forward, with the first stroke; with the second, much more with the twelfth stroke, be one and all of you, in the utmost silence, advancing! And, under pain of death, two things: Not one shot till you are in; No plundering when you are.'—In this manner is the silent three-sided avalanche to be let go. Whereupon", says my Dryasdust, "the Generals retired; and had, for one item, their fire-arms all cleaned and new-loaded." ”

“ The truth is, Friedrich begins to see, more clearly than he did with GLOIRE dazzling him, that his position is an exceedingly grave one, full of risk, in the then mood and condition of the world; that he, in the whole world, has no sure friend but his Army; and that in regard to IT he cannot be too vigilant! The world is ominous to this youngest of the Kings more than to another. Sounds as of general Political Earthquake grumble audibly to him from the deeps: all Europe likely, in any event, to get to loggerheads on this Austrian Pragmatic matter ”

“ For my own share, being, as it were, forced accidentally to look at him again, I find in Belleisle a really notable man; far superior to the vulgar of noted men, in his time or ours. Sad destiny for such a man! But when the general Life-element becomes so unspeakably phantasmal as under Louis XV., it is difficult for any man to be real; to be other than a play-actor, more or less eminent, and artistically dressed. Sad enough, surely, when the truth of your relation to the Universe, and the tragically earnest meaning of your Life, is quite lied out of you, by a world sunk in lies ”

“ For, directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued, first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity such as was never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds taking wing towards Friedrich; and talking and insinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in that Silesian Camp of his, the centre being there. A universal rookery of Diplomatists;—whose loud cackle and cawing is now as if gone mad to us; their work wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all creatures. ”

“ At Two of the clock, being now fairly within distance, we salute Romer and the Austrian left, with all our sixty cannon; and the sound of drums and clarinets is drowned in universal artillery thunder. Incessant, for they take (by order) to "swift-shooting," which is almost of the swiftness of musketry in our Prussian practice; and from sixty cannon, going at that rate, we may fancy some effect. The Austrian Horse of the left wing do not like it; all the less as the Austrians, rather short of artillery, have nothing yet to reply with. ”

“ Breslau is a REICH-STADT; in theory, sovereign member of the Reich, and supreme over its own affairs, even as Austria itself:—and the truth is, old Theory and new Fact, resolved not to quarrel, have lapsed into one another's arms in a quite inextricable way, in Breslau as elsewhere! With a Head Government which can get no orders from Vienna, the very Town-Rath has little alacrity, inclines rather to passivity like Grunberg; and a silent population threatens to become vocal if you press upon it. ”

“ His Special Envoy to Vienna, Gotter, and along with him Borck the regular Minister, are come home; all negotiation hopeless at Vienna; and nothing but indignant war-preparation going on there, with the most animated diligence, and more success than had seemed possible. That is the law of Friedrich's Silesian Adventure: "Forward, therefore, on these terms; others there are not: waste no words!" Friedrich recognizes to himself what the law is; pushes stiffly forward, with a fine silence on all that is not practical, really with a fine steadiness of hope, and audacity against discouragements. ”

“ At Weichau, that same day, rain began,—the young Herr of Weichau, driving home to Papa from dinner with Majesty, would get his share of it;—and on Monday, 19th, there was such a pour of rain as kept most wayfarers, though it could not the Prussian Army, within doors. Rain in plunges, fallen and falling, through that blessed day; making roads into mere rivers of mud. The Prussian hosts marched on, all the same. Head-quarters, with the van of the wet Army, that night, were at Milkau;—from which place we have a Note of Friedrich's for Friend Jordan, perhaps producible by and by. ”

“ The King speeds silently to Oppeln on his excellent bay horse, the worse-mounted gradually giving in. At Oppeln is a Bridge over the Oder, a free Country beyond: Regiment La Motte lay, and as the King thinks, still lies in Oppeln;—but in that he is mistaken. Regiment La Motte is with the baggage at Pampitz, all this day; and a wandering Hussar Party, some sixty Austrians, have taken possession of Oppeln. The King, and the few who had not yet broken down, arrive at the Gate of Oppeln, late, under cloud of night: "Who goes?" cried the sentry from within. "Prussians! A Prussian Courier!" ”

“ As Winterfeld is an important man (nearly buried into darkness in the dull Prussian Books) , let us pause for a moment on this Negotiation of his;—and on the mad Russian vicissitudes which preceded and followed, so far as they concern us. Russia, a big demi-savage neighbor next door, with such caprices, such humors and interests, is always an important, rather delicate object to Friedrich; and Fortune's mad wheel is plunging and canting in a strange headlong way there, of late. ”

“ Men had noses, at one time; and smelt the horror of a deceased reality fallen putrid, of a once dear verity become mendacious, phantasmal; but they have, to an immense degree, lost that organ since, and are now living comfortably cheek-by-jowl with lies. Lies of that sad "conservative" kind,—and indeed of all kinds whatsoever: for that kind is a general mother; and BREEDS, with a fecundity that is appalling, did you heed it much!—
It was pity that the "Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch by Nation," had not got itself buried some ages before. ”

“ Goldlein, where he stands, has difficulty enough to hold his own. For the notable circumstance, miraculous to military men, still is, How the Prussian Foot (men who had never been in fire, but whom Friedrich Wilhelm had drilled for twenty years) stand their ground, in this distraction of the Horse. Not even the two outlying Grenadier Battalions will give way: those poor intercalated Grenadiers, when their Horse fled on the right and on the left, they stand there, like a fixed stone-dam in that wild whirlpool of ruin. ”

“ France little dreams how much better it perhaps were, had they also been kept safe in Pignerol!—
The Count, lean and growing old, is not healthy; is ever and anon tormented, and laid up for weeks, with rheumatisms, gouts and ailments: but otherwise he is still a swift ardent elastic spirit; with grand schemes, with fiery notions and convictions, which captivate and hurry off men's minds more than eloquence could, so intensely true are they to the Count himself;—and then his Brother the Chevalier is always there to put them into the due language and logic, where needed. ”

“ On the Russian side, General Keith, under Field-marshal Lacy as chief in command (the same Keith whom we saw at Oczakow under Munnich, some time ago) , had a great deal of the work and management; which was of a highly miscellaneous kind, commanding fleets of gunboats, and much else; and readers of MANNSTEIN can still judge,—much more could King Friedrich, earnestly watching the affair itself as it went on,—whether Keith did not do it in a solid and quietly eminent and valiant manner. Sagacious, skilful, imperturbable, without fear and without noise; a man quietly ever ready. ”

“ Greatly to the joy of Belleisle; infinitely to the chagrin of her Hungarian Majesty,—who declared it a crying injustice (though I believe legally done in every point) ; and by and by, even made it a plea of Nullity, destructive to the Election altogether, when her Hungarian Majesty's affairs looked up again, and the world would listen to Austrian sophistries and obstinacies. This was an essential service from Kur-Sachsen. ”

“ Thus is Liegnitz managed. A pleasant Town, amid pleasant hills on the rocky Katzbach; of which swift stream, and other towns and passes on it, we shall yet hear more. Population, silently industrious in weaving and otherwise, is now above 14,000; was then perhaps about half that number. Patiently inarticulate, by no means bright in speech or sentiment; a much-enduring, steady-going, frugal, pious and very desirable people.
The situation of Breslau, all this while, is very critical. Much bottled emotion in the place; no Austrian Garrison admissible ”

“ In fact, the Austrian Infantry too, all Austrians, hour after hour, are getting wearier of it: neither Infantry nor Cavalry can stand being riddled by swift shot in that manner. In spite of their knapsack walls, various regiments have shrunk out of ball-range; and several cannot, by any persuasion, be got to come into it again. Others, who do reluctantly advance,—see what a figure they make; man after man edging away as he can, so that the regiment "stands forty to eighty men deep, with lanes through it every two or three yards;" ”

“ All in march there; vanguard this side of Pampitz; killed forty of us!"—Quick, your Plan of Battle, then? Whitherward; How; What? answer or perish! Neipperg was infinitely struck; dropt knife and fork: "Send for Romer, General of the Horse!" Romer did the indispensable: a swift man, not apt to lose head. Romer's battle-plan, I should hope, is already made; or it will fare ill with Neipperg and him. But beat, ye drummers; gallop, ye aides-de-camp as for life! The first thing is to get our Force together; and it lies scattered about in three other Villages besides Mollwitz, miles apart. ”

“ That, in the mean while, and surely the sooner the better, he, Belleisle, Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary to the Reichstag coming,—do, in his most dazzling and persuasive manner, make a Tour among German Courts. Let us visit, in our highest and yet in our softest splendor, the accessible German Courts, especially the likely or well-disposed: Mainz, Koln, Trier, these, the three called Spiritual, lie on our very route; then Pfalz, Baiern, Sachsen:—we will tour diligently up and down; try whether, by optic machinery and art-magic of the mind, one cannot bring them round. ”