Coburg

“ Yet, why should I perplex myself about this? Soon, too soon, death will come, and consecrate the virtues of our generation to our children, and throw a softening veil over our mistakes.
Even now that Dr. Luther is absent from us at Coburg, in the castle there, how precious his letters are; and how doubly sacred the words he preached to us last Sunday from the pulpit, now that to-morrow we are not to hear him.
He is placed in the castle at Coburg, in order to be nearer the Diet at Augsburg, so as to aid Dr. Melancthon, who is there, with his counsel. ”

“ Coburg, the cradle of a family which has given to Europe so many kings and queens, princes and princesses, Royal and Imperial, has witnessed numerous gatherings of the present generation. A marriage, an engagement, or a holiday invariably brought the members of the Coburg family to their native country. Young and old were happy to return and forget some of the duties which their position demanded; others were glad to forget the burden of their studies. Each tried to be himself and to behave as an ordinary human being. ”

“ The emperor slept at Coburg, in Franconia. The German horsemen took up their quarters in the adjacent villages. Every house was deserted, the dwellings of the nobility as well as the peasant's farms; nowhere was there a soul to be seen, for, having been sorely tried the previous day by the passage of the Spaniards, the population dreaded renewed scenes of horror. ”

“ And when he has so availed himself of it, it means the indefinite survival of an armed organisation in the rear of the advancing invaders. We must conclude, if we are to understand this critical campaign which changed the history of the world, that Coburg did perfectly right in laying siege to one fortress after another before he began what every one expected to be the necessarily successful advance on Paris. The French despair, as one town after another surrendered, is an amply sufficient proof of the excellence of his judgment. ”

“ After this he was seen at the Olympic, again with Dibdin at the Surrey, at the Coburg, the Royalty, the West London where he opened as Œdipus to the Jocasta of Mrs. Julia Glover [q.v.] at Astley's, and then again at the Coburg and the Surrey. In his later years he was known as the 'Roscius of the Coburg,' at which house he was principally seen. He was a well-built man, about 5 ft. 10 in. in height, dark, with an expressive face, great command of feature, and a clear and powerful voice, the undertones of which had much sweetness. ”

“ At this moment, when Coburg found himself in increasing strength, a tentative French attack upon him was delivered and failed. Dampierre, who was in command of all this French “Army of the North,” was killed, and Custine was sent to replace him. The Army of the North did not, as perhaps it should have done, concentrate into one body to meet Coburg’s threatened advance; it was perpetually attempting diversions which were useless because its strength was insufficient. ”

“ Their arrival heartened the defenders of the Hollandsdiep, and held the French at bay. Meanwhile Coburg had bestirred himself, and, marching on Miranda's vanguard on the River Roer, threw it back in utter rout. Dumouriez, falling back hastily to succour his lieutenant, encountered the Austrian force at Neerwinden, where the unsteadiness of the Republican levies enabled Coburg and his brilliant lieutenant, the Archduke Charles, to win a decisive triumph (18th March) . A great part of the French levies melted away. The Belgians rose against the retreating bands ”

“ The study of history, geography, mathematics, philosophy, religion, Latin, and the modern European languages was relieved by practice in music and drawing, for both of which the prince showed a decided talent He was an eager and exact observer of natural objects, for which the country round Coburg presented a rich field, and together with his brother he formed a collection of birds, butterflies, stones, and shells, which subsequently formed the nucleus of the 'Albert-Ernest Museum,' now deposited in the Festung at Coburg. ”

“ But everything is a lottery, and universal suffrage and the elections of Parliaments are no less blind than fate.
At Coburg I was brought into close association with the Empress Frederick, who died with her ambitions unfulfilled, great in her isolation. She saw with an eye which knew no illusions the Royal and Imperial crown of Prussia and Germany pass swiftly from her husband to her son. The egotism and the vanity of the "Personage" aroused in her more fear than hope. ”

“ Prince Coburg is before it.
22nd.—Quitted Valenciennes at 3 o’clock. All the villages partake of the ruinous ravage of war. About a league is the superb ci-devant Abbaye de Vicoing, which alternately belonged to the allies and the French; there are breastworks and embrasures in many parts round it. It serves now as a garnison for Austrian hussars. Very near it are the Baths of St. Amand, near which the English were unwarily surprised and beat unmercifully from a masked battery. Every cottage that fronts the road has its walls perforated for muskets. Poor wretched people! ”

“ WATTIGNIES Monday, the 14th of October:—
Oct. 14, 1793. 6 a.m. The fate of the Queen and of the Republic had each come to a final and critical issue when the light broke, dully in either place, over Paris and over the pastures of the frontier. There the army lay to arms in the valley, with Coburg entrenched upon the ridge above them, and beyond him the last famine of Maubeuge: from dawn the French lines could hear, half a day’s march to the northward, the regular boom of the bombardment. But Carnot was now come. ”

“ When I first visited Coburg, in October, 1852, I was very anxious to make Rückert's acquaintance. My interest in Oriental literature had been refreshed, at that time, by nearly ten months of travel in Eastern lands, and some knowledge of modern colloquial Arabic. I had read his wonderful translation of the Makamât of Hariri, and felt sure that he would share in my enthusiasm for the people to whose treasures of song he had given so many years of his life. ”

“ And their subjugation was becoming less and less possible as the days went on and men talked of the partition of France as a question of the moment like the partition of Poland—a pretension that even the émigrés resented.
Coburg’s plan of campaign was limited to the objects acceptable to all the Allies alike. He aimed at the conquest of a first-class fortress—Lille or Valenciennes—and chiefly for this reason. War meant to the burgher of Germany and the Netherlands a special form of haute politique with which it was neither his business nor his inclination to meddle. ”

“ Mons has been in Austrian hands since Dumouriez’ retreat; Condé is just cut off from Valenciennes by Coburg’s advance, but has not fallen; Valenciennes and the neighbouring Lequesnoy are still intact, and so is Maubeuge. All must be reduced before the advance on Paris can begin. Behind these fortresses is a French army incapable as yet of attacking Coburg’s command with any hope of success. Such is the position in the last fortnight of April.
2. Meanwhile, on the Rhine the French garrison in Mayence is besieged ”

“ It fortunately happened that one of my friends knew a student of the Oriental languages, then residing in Coburg. The latter, who was in the habit of consulting Rückert in regard to his Sanskrit studies, offered at once to conduct me to Neuses. A walk of twenty minutes across the meadows of the Itz, along the base of the wooded hills which terminate, just beyond, in the castled Kallenberg (the summer residence of Duke Ernest II.) , brought us to the little village, which lies so snugly hidden in its own orchards that one might almost pass without discovering it. ”

“ In 1821 he had given a constitution to Coburg, but he did not interfere with the traditional system of estates at Gotha. He died on the 29th of January 1844.
Duke Ernest, who was not only a good soldier and keen sportsman, but an enlightened patron of the arts and sciences, did much for the economic, educational and constitutional development of his territories; and his advice always carried great weight in the councils of the other German sovereigns. It was, however, for the splendid international position attained by the house of Coburg under him that his reign is chiefly distinguished. ”

“ The forces of the Allies continually increased. The number at Coburg’s disposal free from the business of besieging Valenciennes was already larger than the force required for that purpose. And yet another fifteen thousand Hessian troops marched in while the issue of that siege was in doubt. This great advantage in numbers permitted him to get rid of the main French force that was still present in front of him, though not seriously annoying him. ”

“ There were still long leagues to drive, posting, before Coburg could be reached, and the party started from Mayence in two travelling carriages as early as seven o'clock next morning. They went by Frankfort to Aschaffenburg, where they were met by Bavarian troops and a representative of the King on their entrance into Bavaria. Through woodland scenery, and fields full of the stir of harvest, where a queenly woman did not relish the spectacle of her sister-women treated as beasts of burden, the travellers journeyed to Wurzburg. ”

“ The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly abutting upon the Neuthor, was another Protestant institution—the Lutheran school—which, some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the Küster's—that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's—remarkably handsome daughters. ”

“ It is probable that had he exerted himself to that end he might have filled the highest positions in his service, but in 1893 he accepted the office of chargé d'affaires at Coburg, and in 1897 was appointed minister resident both to Saxony and Coburg, his services being acknowledged by his creation in 1894 as K.C.M.G., and in 1900 as K.C.V.O. The discharge of his duties at Coburg involved close and constant personal relations with King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, and various members of the English and the related royal families. ”

“ In one letter of Luther’s, which speaks of the time he passed in the Castle of Coburg, we hear more of the disagreeable than of the cheering effects of wine.
“I have brought on headache by drinking old wine in the Coburg,” he complains to his friend Wenceslaus Link, “and this our Wittenberg beer has not yet cured. I work little and am forced to be idle against my will because my head must have a rest.” [1042] In the Electoral accounts 25 Eimer of wine are set down for the period of Luther’s stay at the Coburg ”

“ 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. ”

“ Prince Albert believed, as he had said to his son-in-law, that his daughter possessed “a man’s head and a child’s heart,” an allusion to the poet’s words, “In wit a man, simplicity a child.” But Prussia was not Coburg, and even from Coburg Prince Albert had now been away for nearly twenty years. He does not appear at all to have appreciated either the situation which now confronted the Princess Royal, or how little adapted she was by her temperament and her training to meet it. ”

“ The Allied army, chiefly Austrians, under Coburg, was besieging Maubeuge, and the Revolutionary army, preparing to relieve it, gathered behind Avesnes. Coburg disposed a covering force of 21,000 astride the Avesnes-Maubeuge road, 5000 on the right with their flank on the Sambre, 9000 in the centre, on a ridge in an amphitheatre of woods, and 6000 on the left, chiefly on the plateau of Wattignies. ”

“ GOTHA, a town of Germany, alternately with Coburg the residence of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in a pleasant situation on the Leine canal, 6 m. N. of the slope of the Thuringian forest, 17 m. W. from Erfurt, on the railway to Bebra-Cassel. Pop. (1905) 36,906. It consists of an old inner town and encircling suburbs, and is dominated by the castle of Friedenstein, lying on the Schlossberg at an elevation of 1100 ft. ”

“ Coburg followed without reserve the strategy of the day, which was to put an opposing body of men opposite each body of the enemy, and to defend every locality which had once been occupied. The idea of gaining victory by bringing an overpowering force to bear upon a weak point of the enemy’s line did not suggest itself to him or his staff, and his plan of operations was confined to maintaining his positions and capturing French fortresses. ”

“ The English commander could easily have been present at Wattignies, and would probably or certainly have prevented that miracle. But no one foresaw the miracle. Coburg did not ask York to come till the 7th of October. York did not march till the 10th, and even then he thought he had the leisure to waste a week in covering forty miles!
The combined forces spent the close of the week after Valenciennes had fallen in driving off such of the French as were still in the open under Kilmain. ”

“ From Coburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, after pause again unknown, rushed on to Bamberg; new scenes and ever new opening on the eyes of our young Hero and his Papa. The course is down the valley of the Itz, one of the many little valleys in the big slope of the Rodach; for the waters are now turned, and all streams and brooks are gurgling incessantly towards the Mayn. Towards Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine,—far enough from the Saale, Mulde, or the Old Dessauer's Bridge to-day; towards Rotterdam and the uttermost Dutch swamps today. Near upon Bamberg we cross the Mayn itself ”