Stettin

“ Stettin, the capital of Pomerania, and the key of the Oder line, was occupied and converted into a first-class fortress. He then proceeded to clear Pomerania of the piebald imperial host composed of every nationality under heaven, and officered by Italians, Irishmen, Czechs, Croats, Danes, Spaniards and Walloons. ”

“ But they occur singly, in groups, and in rapid succession, when he penetrates to the less-peopled interior, or explores the primeval forests, or where railway cuttings dip deeply into the drift, or clay-beds are worked for economical purposes, as we see them in the vicinity of Berlin.
Stettin, well known to our Baltic merchants and shipowners, and famed among the fortresses of Germany, stands near the mouth of the Oder—where the river, escaping from the long flats through which it has wound its slow way, is about to expand into a broad lake. ”

“ One can be kissed and kicked in lots of ways besides actually, I think, and I felt as if I had been both on that dreadful platform at Stettin. So you can imagine how heavenly it was to get into this beautiful forest, away from all that, into the quiet, the holiness. Frau Bornsted, who learned English at school, told me all the farms, including hers, are worked by Russians and Poles who are fetched over every spring in thousands by German overseers. "It is a good arrangement," she said. "In case of war we would not permit their departure, and so would our fields continue to be tilled." ”

“ Stettin (116) , capital of Pomerania, and a flourishing river-port on both banks of the Oder, 30 m. from its entrance into the Baltic, and 60 m. NE. of Berlin; lies contiguous to, and is continuous with, the smaller towns of Bredow, Grabow, and Züllchow; principal buildings are the royal palace (16th century) , the Gothic church of St. Peter (12th century) , and St. James's (14th century) ; is a busy hive of industry, turning out ships, cement, sugar, spirits, &c., and carrying on a large export and import trade. ”

“ Hence they call the Governor, Herr von Bennigsen, “big fellow master cocoanut belong him no top grass,” in reference to His Excellency's baldness.
One of the Stettin officers they call “short man, big belly”! Of course every important man is “big fellow master,” and a woman is always, as in Australia, “Mary.” They speak of one of themselves when clothed as “white fellow black man.” But since they are all to learn and speak German, the poor things must no longer call the Stettin a “big war-canoe,” but a “Dreitausendtonnendampfer,” which will cure cannibalism, as their jaws will soon wear out. ”

“ From Stettin, which lies southwest, through Treptow Gollnow and other wild little Prussian Towns is about 100 miles; from Landsberg south, 150: Friedrich himself is well-nigh 300 miles away; in Stettin alone is succor, could we hold the intervening Country. But it is overrun with Russians, more and ever more. A Country of swamps and moors, winter darkness stealing over it,—illuminated by such a volcano as we see: a very gloomy waste scene; and traits of stubborn human valor and military virtue plentiful in it with utter hardship as a constant quantity ”

“ Stettin opened its gates to a division of cavalry, and the governor of Custrin sent boats across the Oder to fetch the French troops; who without this help would not have been able to take the place without several months of siege. Every day one heard of the surrender of some unit of the army or the capitulation of some fortress. The faulty organisation of the Prussian army became more evident than ever ”

“ Many folk after me, dazzled by my success, tried in their turn to become law writers, but they very soon succumbed to the monotony of the business, to the incessant labour, to the protracted vigils, to hunger, thirst, cares and dangers. Barely one in a hundred succeeds.
I reached Stettin on December 21, and, all things considered, there was nothing to grumble at in the welcome I received. The counsellors, among whom were Schwallenberg's confederates, heard my explanations at length as they said on behalf of the prince. ”

“ Better to increase our Prussian force, by degrees; and, in some good way, with a minimum of violence, get the Holsteiners squeezed out of Stettin: Friedrich Wilhelm has so ordered and contrived. The Prussian force having now gradually increased to double in this important garrison, the Holsteiners are quietly disarmed, one night, and ordered to depart, under penalties;—which was done. Holding such a pawn-ticket as Stettin, buttoned in our own pocket, we count now on being paid our 60,000 pounds before parting with it. ”

“ Our second objective was Schloss Tambach, a few kilometers from Coburg. Paintings stolen by Frank, the Nazi Governor of Poland, from the palace at Warsaw were stored there. Schloss Tambach also contained pictures from the Stettin Museum. Stettin was now in the Russian Zone of Occupied Germany.
On our arrival in Coburg, Lamont and I drove to the headquarters of the local MG Detachment, which were located in the Palais Edinburgh. This unpretentious building was once the residence of Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh. ”

“ On the 16th of October, shortly before 1 P.M., I started from Berlin, first to Stettin, and from there to the little town of Schlawe, in Further Pomerania, whence at that time one proceeded in the post cart or in a private conveyance, whereas later on a connection was established by railway viâ Stolp. ”

“ If a letter from the Stettin bank has arrived, send it to me immediately, please, marked, "To be delivered promptly." If I do not receive it before day after tomorrow, I shall return home, but must then go to Stettin at the beginning of next week. So let horses be sent for me on Saturday afternoon; this evening I unfortunately cannot go to Genthin, because I expect Manteuffel here. * * *
The democrats are working all their schemes in order to represent the opinion of the "people" as hostile to the King ”

“ Just here, at Nice, the line separating the élite from the world of adventurers is strangely lost sight of. One never rightly knows where the one ceases and the other begins, and there is some mystery about this Wildenrod. As to whether his claim to nobility is altogether genuine----"
"Undoubtedly genuine, I can certify as to that," said Stettin, who had hitherto been a silent listener, but now came forward and joined in the conversation. ”

“ Stettin, the capital, and Stralsund are important trading centres; a university is at Greifswald; the Slavic population embraced Christianity in the 12th century; shortly afterwards the duke joined the German Empire; after the Thirty Years' War much of the province fell to Sweden, and the whole was not finally ceded to Prussia till 1815.
Pomona, or Mainland, the largest island in the Orkneys, has a low treeless surface, many lakes, and extensive pasture-land; agriculture has of late improved, and, with stock-raising and fishing, is the chief industry; the only towns are Kirkwall and Stromness. ”

“ Notwithstanding my constant reminders to them of the mortal danger of delay, the Stettin authorities were terribly slow in sending me the most indispensable documents for the serious lawsuit against the town of Stolpe. As some people, moreover, were attempting to discredit me with Duke Barnim, I wrote to Chancellor Falck, who answered me: "You do not deserve the slightest reproach. ”

“ In 1124 the southern portions of the land were converted by St Otto, but it was only under the threat of extermination if they persisted in their evil ways that the people of Stettin accepted the faith in the following year. ”

“ In other villages round Stettin, when the last harvest-waggon is being loaded, there is a regular race amongst the women, each striving not to be last. For she who places the last sheaf on the waggon is called the Old Man, and is completely swathed in corn-stalks; she is also decked with flowers, and flowers and a helmet of straw are placed on her head. In solemn procession she carries the harvest-crown to the squire, over whose head she holds it while she utters a string of good wishes. At the dance which follows, the Old Man has the right to choose his, or rather her, partner ”

“ The color of the cottages and farm-houses harmonizes or contrasts beautifully with the landscape. Roofs of brown weather-beaten thatch or of dull red tiles, in the midst of embowering trees and shrubbery, formed for us pictures of beauty long to be remembered. Frienwalde, to the northeast, has mineral springs in the most attractive part of Brandenburg, and is growing as a place of summer resort. The fine old monastery, and the ruined early Gothic abbey-church of Chorin on the Stettin Railway, the burial-place of the Margraves of Brandenburg, are interesting to all students of architecture. ”

“ On the Rügen shore the King knelt with his men and thanked God for having brought them safe across the sea, then seized a spade, and himself turned the first sod in the making of a camp. “Who prays well, fights well,” he said.
He was not exactly hospitably received. The old Duke of Pommerania would have none of him, begged him to go away, and only when the King pointed to his guns and hinted that he had keys well able to open the gates of Stettin, his capital, did he give in and promise help. The other German princes, with one or two exceptions, were as cravenly short-sighted. ”

“ Every city on a trade route wanted to make itself a “staple,” i.e., have all goods passing the vicinity brought there for taxation and for sale. Frankfort on the Oder, for instance, demanded that all boats passing down the river Warthe should come up to Frankfort before they could continue their journey down the Oder to Stettin. The cities of Stettin, Frankfort, and Breslau, all situated on256 the Oder, instead of using that river for peaceable exchange, made bitter commercial war on each other with tolls and prohibitions. ”

“ How shall we get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? If we have to remain a night in Stettin it will be horrible. Last year I had to undergo all this with Marie and her screaming. Yesterday I got so despairing as to all these things that I positively determined to give the whole journey up, and so went to bed, determined at least to coach it right through or stop somewhere. But what do we not do for domestic peace? “The young cousins ought to know each other, and who can tell when Johanna will see you again?” ”

“ In 1550, however, Sastrow became aware that his position was being undermined by the councillors at Stettin. He accordingly gave up his ducal appointment, and determined to confine himself to private practice. He marries a wife (January 5, 1551) , settles at Greifswald, and builds up a prosperous business, and from this date his memoirs are mostly concerned with the cases in which he was engaged. ”

“ Three years later the same prince journeyed to Stettin for no other purpose than to have a drinking bout with some of the courtiers. At the news of his coming, Duke Barnim went away with everybody except the women. At his arrival the visitor found neither the duke nor any gentlemen of the least standing, and at the castle they sent him into the town to a house assigned to him as his quarters. An old man lay dying there, and they naturally expected that this would shorten Liegnitz's visit. ”

“ Oder, an important German river, rises in Moravia, and crossing the frontier flows NW. through Silesia, and N. through Brandenburg and Pomerania 550 m. into the Stettiner Haff and so to the Baltic. On its banks stand Ratibor, where navigation ends, Breslau, Frankfort, and Stettin; it receives its chief tributary, the navigable Warthe, on the right, and has canal communication with the Spree and the Elbe. ”

“ The revenues of Prussia, which were two and a half millions of thalers on his accession to the throne, had increased to seven and a half millions annually, and there were nine millions in the treasury. Berlin had a population of nearly 100,000, and Stettin, Magdeburg, Memel and other cities had been strongly fortified. An army of more than 80,000 men was perfectly organized and disciplined. ”

“ By the Treaties of Stockholm, made in 1719 and 1720, Prussia acquired Stettin and all of Pomerania except a strip of the coast with Wismar, Stralsund and the island of Rügen, paying 2,000,000 thalers to Sweden: Hannover acquired the territories of Bremen and Verden, paying 1,000,000 thalers: Denmark received Schleswig, and Russia all of her conquests except Finland. The power of Poland, already weakened by the corruptions and dissensions of her nobles, began steadily to decline after this long and exhausting war. ”

“ Stenzel (i. 233) calls the man "LORENZ Eikstetten, a resolute Gentleman."] —And sent they were, and accepted by his Grace. And perhaps half-a-score of bargains, with bloody crowns to some of them; and yet other chances, and centuries, with the extinction of new Lines,—had to supervene, before even Stettin-Pommern, and that in no complete state, could be got. [1648, by Treaty of Westphalia.] ”

“ When the time came for us to re-cross the Elbe and enter the territory of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Emperor, before removing his troops from Poland and Prussia, wanted to facilitate a return to the offensive by leaving strong garrisons in the fortresses which could assure the crossing of the Vistula, the Oder and the Elbe, such as Thorn, Stettin, Magdeberg, Danzig, Dresden, etc. ”

“ There is a slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major, pianissimo."
"What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?" asked the man, laughing.
"They make a great deal of it," replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing off on a new track. "I think it's affectation to compare the Oder to music, and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take beauty seriously, which we don't, and the average Englishman doesn't, and despises all who do. ”