William Fiddian Reddaway

“ THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR TO THE BATTLE OF LEUTHEN All the world knows that in 1756 the King of Prussia embarked upon a struggle in comparison with which his previous wars might almost be called sham-fights. This was the Third Silesian War, commonly known as the Seven Years’ War, which Macaulay’s lurid prose depicts as setting almost the whole globe on fire. The true cause of Austria’s new struggle, not merely to regain Silesia, but also to curb the dangerous power of Prussia, will be patent to all who have followed the story of Frederick’s life. ”

“ In weighing Frederick’s wisdom we must not forget that the share of Poland which he might expect that Prussia was destined to acquire, and which did, in fact, fall to her during his own lifetime, would change Ost-Preussen from an isolated province into a strong limb of a well-knit State. It gave her the lower waters of a third great arterial river—the Vistula. But it came to her in 1774 shorn of its chief glory, the old portal of the Vistula and strong tower of Poland, the matchless town of Danzig. ”

“ That literary creation is the highest achievement of man, and that next to creation stand patronage and culture; that religion is superstition; that the enlightened man is he who views with calm not only the rubs of fortune but also the frailties of mankind—such were the abiding traces of Frederick’s education. The King, as may readily be believed, did not fail to remark something of this and to loathe it. He leaped to the conclusion that a boy who preferred French to German, and flute-playing to parades, was a monster who would ruin Prussia. ”

“ A Hohenzollern was the last man in the world to undervalue what he might wish to sell. Frederick strove to persuade Europe that in him a new and greater Gustavus had appeared. He increased his army ostentatiously and bade his representative at Versailles speak of his active and impetuous way of thinking.
“You can say,” he continues, “that it is to be feared that this increase kindles a fire which may set all Europe in a blaze; that it is the way of youth to be adventurous, and that the alluring visions of heroic fame may disturb and have disturbed the peace of countless nations in the world.” ”

“ But his power, though irresistible in Brandenburg, was made respectable in Europe only by years of toil. Hence the home policy of the Great Elector was as straightforward as his foreign policy was tortuous. To beat down all competing authority, to establish an armed autocracy, to develop to the utmost all the resources of the State—such was the plan which the Great Elector designed, which his son and grandson perfected, and the fruits of which Frederick the Great enjoyed. ”

“ Thereupon Gotter and Borcke joined their voices to the loud and unceasing chorus of remonstrance with which Prussia and Europe assailed the ears of Frederick in vain.
The young King’s firmness may be ascribed in part to an overweening confidence in his own talents and in part to the favourable progress of his enterprise. He knew himself to be a cleverer man than his father and he had boundless faith in prompt and decided action. His success in the affairs of Mainz and Herstal could not but have augmented his self-esteem. ”

“ Men abhor the thought of a vacuum created by their own disappearance. The self-abnegation of a Washington is as much rarer as it is wiser than the augmented industry of an aged Louis XIV. Yet the sketch that has been given in this book of the all-embracing activity of the King, who nominated even the sergeants and corporals in an army of 200,000 men, and allowed no branch of his civil hierarchy the least real independence, suffices to show how improbable it was that an ordinary prince could put himself in Frederick’s place, and how fatal it would be to the Government if he did not. ”

“ Thrice had Frederick lunged at the heart of his enemies and each time they had parried the thrust. At Vienna alone could the coalition receive a mortal wound. St. Petersburg, Stockholm, and Paris were equally out of reach, and the States of the Empire might be squeezed and harried for ever without terminating the war. If the Prussians failed to dictate peace at Vienna, their one hope must be that they might defend themselves until some of the hostile Powers should change their minds. ”

“ The student who reviews the life-work of Frederick without either the sympathy or the bias of German patriotism may return a calmer answer to the question,—Is Frederick rightly termed “The Great”? Having followed the main steps in his long career, we may at its close sift out and set down those qualities and achievements, if such exist, which entitle him not merely to a place among the great, but to a place in that small circle of the world’s heroes whose memory is so illustrious that greatness is always coupled with their names. ”

“ If we are compelled to be content with a swift review of these final phases of the struggle, we must by no means lose from sight the tenacity and adroitness of the hero upon whom every campaign laid a heavier burden than the last, and to whom every year seemed endless. After Kunersdorf and Maxen, we, who know that Frederick and Prussia did not perish, may be impatient to have done with their long agony. ”

“ If Frederick feared not God, neither did he regard man. Far from being dazzled by the array of sceptres marshalled against him, he determined to strike before his foes could form.
With the first breath of spring he despatched three royal princes and the Duke of Bevern against four several points in Bohemia. “If those false attacks have so far succeeded as to cover the King of Prussia’s real intention,” writes Mitchell on April 18th, “I may venture to say that His Prussian Majesty is upon the point of executing one of the boldest and one of the greatest designs that ever was attempted by man.” ”

“ When in 1866 she worked her will with Austria, and when in 1871 the Imperial crown was handed to her over the body of prostrate France, the Hohenzollern legend grew. Results so glorious, men thought, could have been achieved only because a long series of national heroes had worked towards a common goal. The Hohenzollerns, and Frederick chief among them, were extolled by a thousand pens as the pioneers of a solid and triumphant Germany. ”

“ They barred Frederick’s path both to Breslau and to Schweidnitz, and brought his force to the verge of starvation. Across the Oder the Russians were masters of the land, waiting only for the tidings of victory to pour a new host over bridges which they had already built. To retreat was to abandon Silesia, to stand still was to be starved or crushed, to attack was beyond the imagination even of a Frederick. Prussian officers talked of a new and greater Maxen, and the British ambassador, Mitchell, burned his papers. ”

“ The Muscovite tide rolled slowly across Poland into Frederick’s dominions east of the Oder. Europe now had an opportunity of learning something of the nature of the society which Peter the Great had brought within her pale. In the Russian army, as in the nation, the highest classes were men of honour when not too sorely tried, but the lowest were filthy savages, who made the country a desert and tortured and burned men and women alike. ”

“ FREDERICK AND PRUSSIA AFTER THE WAR The monarch who had borne the burden of seven campaigns—a burden of which his ten great battles formed but a trifling fraction—might well have been pardoned for appropriating to himself some share in the repose which his labours had won for Prussia. Even if it is difficult to couple the thought of Frederick with that of repose, it might at least be expected that after a triumph of defence hardly surpassed in human history he would delight his army by praising their achievements and his people by accepting their plaudits. ”

“ For Frederick had done what he had perhaps never yet deigned to do, save when he quitted his capital in 1740 to grasp Silesia. He had called his officers together and appealed in impassioned phrases to their honour, their loyalty, and their patriotism. “Gentlemen,” he cried, “the enemy stand in their entrenchments armed to the teeth. We must attack them there, and conquer, or remain every one of us on the field. If any of you is unwilling, he may have his discharge at once and go home.” ”

“ Frederick’s task of holding what he had so lightly seized in 1740 therefore grew no less difficult as time went on. He had good reason for remaining constant to the principle which he professed at Dresden: “I would not henceforth attack a cat, except to defend myself.” His policy, as he wrote in his Testament of 1752, was to maintain peace as long as might be possible without lowering the dignity of Prussia. “We have drawn upon ourselves the envy of Europe by the acquisition of Silesia,” he confessed. “It has put all our neighbours on the alert; there is none who does not distrust us.” ”

“ Walpole’s famous boast, “There are fifty thousand men slain in Europe this year and not one Englishman,” was called forth by his triumph in keeping clear of the War of the Polish Succession, which was not too remote to embroil every other Great Power.
While there was then a tendency for every Power to share in every war as an auxiliary if not as a principal, two alliances had become traditional. Ever since the undue predominance of France first imperilled the liberties of Europe, England had steadily supported Austria against her. ”

“ Why did not he at the very outset of his reign hasten to employ the power of the Crown, which Frederick William had raised so high, to equip a Prussian Baltic Company, a Prussian West Africa Company, even a Prussian East India Company?
Never was the political situation more favourable to such an enterprise than when Frederick grasped the reins. No neighbour could enforce a veto upon Prussian maritime enterprise. Poland was in the last stage of impotence and decay. Russia, who might form a good customer, was not yet equipped for conquest. Austria could not afford to offend a German ally. ”

“ Frederick was burning to attack the enemy. He had staked the success of the campaign on the chance of a pitched battle, and the timid tactics of Prince Charles filled him with impatience. At his back was the finest army in the world. He was opposed by cavalry who had never beaten their Prussian opponents since Mollwitz, by infantry who had never beaten them at all, and by a general whom he despised. Preferring, as usual, the boldest course, he crossed to the eastern side of the river Moldau, which runs through Prague, and signalled to Schwerin to join him. ”

“ A huge crescent of foes, French, Imperialists, Austrians, Russians,295 Swedes, was at last enfolding Prussia. When spring came would they not surely stifle her?
Frederick, moping through the winter at Breslau, declared once more that Fortune alone could save him. He likened himself to a fiddler from whose instrument men tore away the strings one by one till all were gone and still demanded music. Once more he declared that philosophy alone could console him in his “pilgrimage through this hell called the world.” “I save myself,” he wrote, “by viewing the world as though from a distant planet. ”

“ In the sunshine of Kolin the crop sown by Kaunitz was ripening fast. Before July was half over Frederick learned that the French had seized East Frisia and were striking east, that the Swedes were sending 17,000 men into Pomerania, and that the Russians were likely to destroy Lehwaldt in Ost-Preussen. Thus all his northern frontier was on fire and the army of the Empire was about to join the Austrians in kindling new conflagrations in the south. Bohemia, of course, must soon be abandoned, and how would it be possible to hold Saxony, Silesia, or even Brandenburg against such a host of foes? ”

“ The lord of Brandenburg now became a condottiere of ever-increasing reputation. His regiments brought security to his dominions and gold to his exchequer. In every European struggle their aid was welcome. On the frozen lagoons by the Baltic and on the shores of Torbay, on the torrid plain of Warsaw, and in the vine-clad valley of the Rhine—everywhere the men of the Mark approved themselves good soldiers and punctual allies. In 1660 the Great Elector netted his profit from the Northern war by receiving Ost-Preussen free from Polish suzerainty. ”

“ In Berlin the superb monument of the Great Frederick is instinct with a different spirit. Raised high above the throng, the King seems to gaze with his inscrutable mask-face at the astounding works of his successors. At the base of his lofty pedestal are stationed generals and civilians of renown, numerous enough almost to confute the Cassius who should infer of Frederick’s Prussia that there was in it but one2 only man. The statue none the less suggests the truth. Between monarch and people there was ever a great gulf fixed. ”

“ No lands outside Ost-Preussen were as yet conquered by foreign kings, but many had been wasted by foreign armies, and some, at the dictate of urgent need, by their own defenders. These losses weighed upon Frederick, whose task it was to gather men and money for next year. But as a man he had cause for more poignant grief, for Death had knocked hard at the door of his own household. The loss of his heir, Augustus William, once his father’s favourite, now the victim of Frederick’s cruelty, probably afflicted him only because Prince Henry avenged it by refusing to see him except on business. ”

“ From the hour of Frederick’s birth the dearest wish of the Hanoverian House, and of Sophia Dorothea most of all, had been to unite more closely the royal lines of England and Prussia. At length a double marriage was proposed. The Prince of Wales was to marry Wilhelmina, and Frederick his cousin Amelia, daughter of George II. In 1730, however, England and Prussia were estranged, yet Frederick William knew that his household had not given up their darling project. Flouted as a father and as a statesman, he treated his son so ill as to lend colour to the suspicion that he wished him dead. ”

“ That part of the Hohenzollern legend which portrays Frederick as the conscious or semi-conscious architect of the modern German Empire finds little support in the record of his life. Sometimes, it is true, he used the language of Teutonic patriotism and posed as the indignant defender of German liberties against the Hapsburg. But he posed with equal indignation as the protector of Polish or Swedish “liberties” against a reforming king or as the champion of Protestantism against Powers who might be represented as its foes. ”

“ And, as the road from Dresden to Warsaw passed through the Hapsburg province of Silesia, Augustus had good reason to be faithful to the daughter of Charles VI.
Poland none the less promised much to a king of Prussia who could wait. Her artificial connexion with Saxony, established by foreign Powers against the will of a majority of the Poles, could only weaken the frail bonds which bound the State together. Poland, all the world had long known, would one day fall in pieces, and who should hinder Prussia from gathering some of them? ”

“ Even Cocceji appeared to the people merely as a royal commissioner appointed to accomplish a definite mission.
Corruption on any great scale was impossible. The public accounts passed under so many eyes that the King of Prussia could never, like Charles VI., be deprived of three-fourths of his revenue before it reached the exchequer. It was useless to bribe Frederick’s ministers to betray him, for they had not the power. They were there to give him information and to obey his behests. He seldom asked them for advice. “Good counsel does not come from a great number,” was his maxim. ”