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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books I - XIV], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 12. First Silesian War, Awakening A General European One, Begins. December, 1740-May, 1741 - __ Austria Is Standing To Arms |
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_ BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740-May, 1741 (Chapter IX cont.)
How she has got the funds is, to this day, a mystery;--unless George and Walpole, from their Secret-Service Moneys, have smuggled her somewhat? For the Parliament is not sitting, and there will be such jargonings, such delays: a preliminary 100,000 pounds, say by degrees 200,000 pounds,--we should not miss it, and in her Majesty's hands it would go far! Hints in the English Dryasdust we have; but nothing definite; and we are left to our guesses. [Tindal (XX. 497) says expressly 200,000 pounds, but gives no date or other particular.] A romantic story, first set current by Voltaire, has gone the round of the world, and still appears in all Histories: How in England there was a Subscription set on foot for her Hungarian Majesty; outcome of the enthusiasm of English Ladies of quality,--old Sarah Duchess of Marlborough putting down her name for 40,000 pounds, or indeed putting down the ready sum itself; magnanimous veteran that she was. Voltaire says, omitting date and circumstance, but speaking as if it were indubitable, and a thing you could see with eyes: "The Duchess of Marlborough, widow of him who had fought for Karl VI. [and with such signal returns of gratitude from the said Karl VI.], assembled the principal Ladies of London; who engaged to furnish 100,000 pounds among them; the Duchess herself putting down [EN DEPOSA, tabling IN CORPORE] 40,000 pounds of it. The Queen of Hungary had the greatness of soul to refuse this money;--needing only, as she intimated, what the Nation in Parliament assembled might please to offer her." [Voltaire, OEuvres (Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6), xxviii. 79.] One is sorry to run athwart such a piece of mutual magnanimity; but the fact is, on considering a little and asking evidence, it turns out to be mythical. One Dilworth, an innocent English soul (from whom our grandfathers used to learn ARITHMETIC, I think), writing on the spot some years after Voltaire, has this useful passage: "It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders. Voltaire was misinformed; and would perhaps learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing. A Contribution was, by News-writers upon their own authority, fruitlessly proposed. It ended in nothing: the Parliament voted a supply;"--that did it, Mr. Dilworth; supplies enough, and many of them! "Fruitlessly, by News-writers on their own authority;" that is the sad fact. [The Life and Heroick Actions of Frederick III. (SIC, a common blunder), by W. H. Dilworth, M.A. (London, 1758), p. 25. A poor little Book, one of many coming out on that subject just then (for a reason we shall see on getting thither); which contains, of available now, the above sentence and no more. Indeed its brethren, one of them by Samnel Johnson (IMPRANSUS, the imprisoned giant), do not even contain that, and have gone wholly to zero.--Neither little Dilworth nor big Voltaire give the least shadow of specific date; but both evidently mean Spring, 1742 (not 1741).] It is certain, little George, who considers Pragmatic Sanction as the Keystone of Nature in a manner, has been venturing far deeper than purse for that adorable object; and indeed has been diving, secretly, in muddier waters than we expected, to a dangerous extent, on behalf of it, at this very time. In the first days of March, Friedrich has heard from his Minister at Petersburg of a DETESTABLE PROJECT, [Orlich, i. 83 (scrap of Note to Old Dessauer; no date allowed us; "early in March").]--project for "Partitioning the Prussian Kingdom," no less; for fairly cutting into Friedrich, and paring him down to the safe pitch, as an enemy to Pragmatic and mankind. They say, a Treaty, Draught of a Treaty, for that express object, is now ready; and lies at Petersburg, only waiting signature. Here is a Project! Contracting parties (Russian signature still wanting) are: Kur-Sachsen; her Hungarian Majesty; King George; and that Regent Anne (MRS. Anton Ulrich, so to speak), who sits in a huddle of undress, impatient of Political objects, but sensible to the charms of handsome men. To the charms of Count Lynar, especially: the handsomest of Danish noblemen (more an ancient Roman than a Dane), whom the Polish Majesty, calculating cause and effect, had despatched to her, with that view, in the dead of winter lately. To whom she has given ear;--dismissing her Munnich, as we saw above;--and is ready for signing, or perhaps has signed! [OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 68.] Friedrich's astonishment, on hearing of this "detestable Project," was great. However, he takes his measures on it;--right lucky that he has the Old Dessauer, and machinery for acting on Kur-Sachsen and the Britannic Majesty. "Get your machinery in gear!" is naturally his first order. And the Old Dessauer does it, with effect: of which by and by. Never did I hear, before or since, of such a plunge into the muddy unfathomable, on the part of little George, who was an honorable creature, and dubitative to excess: and truly this rash plunge might have cost him dear, had not he directly scrambled out again. Or did Friedrich exaggerate to himself his Uncle's real share in the matter? I always guess, there had been more of loose talk, of hypothesis and fond hope, in regard to George's share, than of determinate fact or procedure on his own part. The transaction, having had to be dropped on the sudden, remains somewhat dark; but, in substance, it is not doubtful; [Tindal, xx. 497.] and Parliament itself took afterwards to poking into it, though with little effect. Kur-Sachsen's objects in the adventure were of the earth, earthy; but on George's part it was pure adoration of Pragmatic Sanction, anxiety for the Keystone of Nature, and lest Chaos come again. In comparison with such transcendent divings, what is a little Secret-Service money!-- The Count Lynar of this adventure, who had well-nigh done such a feat in Diplomacy, may turn up transiently again. A conspicuous, more or less ridiculous person of those times. Busching (our Geographical friend) had gone with him, as Excellency's Chaplain, in this Russian Journey; which is a memorable one to Busching; and still presents vividly, through his Book, those haggard Baltic Coasts in midwinter, to readers who have business there. Such a journey for grimness of outlook, upon pine-tufts and frozen sand; for cold (the Count's very tobacco-pipe freezing in his mouth), for hardship, for bad lodging, and extremity of dirt in the unfreezable kinds, as seldom was. They met, one day on the road, a Lord Hyndford, English Ambassador just returning from Petersburg, with his fourgons and vehicles, and arrangements for sleep and victual, in an enviably luxurious condition,--whom we shall meet, to our cost. They saw, in the body, old Field-marshal Lacy, and dined with him, at Riga; who advised brandy schnapps; a recipe rejected by Busching. And other memorabilia, which by accident hang about this Lynar. [Busching, Beitrage, vi. 132-164.]--All through Regent Anne's time he continued a dangerous object to Friedrich; and it was a relief when Elizabeth CATIN became Autocrat, instead of Deshabille Anne and her Lynar. Adieu to him, for fifteen years or more. Of Friedrich's military operations, of his magazines, posts, diligent plannings and gallopings about, in those weeks; of all this the reader can form some notion by looking on the map and remembering what has gone before: but that subterranean growling which attended him, prophetic of Earthquake, that universal breaking forth of Bedlams, now fallen so extinct, no reader can imagine. Bedlams totally extinct to everybody; but which were then very real, and raged wide as the world, high as the stars, to a hideous degree among the then sons of men;--unimaginable now by any mortal. And, alas, this is one of the grand difficulties for my readers and me; Friedrich's Life-element having fallen into such a dismal condition. Most dismal, dark, ugly, that Austrian-Succession Business, and its world-wide battlings, throttlings and intriguings: not Dismal Swamp, under a coverlid of London Fog, could be uglier! A Section of "History" so called, which human nature shrinks from; of which the extant generation already knows nothing, and is impatient of hearing anything! Truly, Oblivion is very due to such an Epoch: and from me far be it to awaken, beyond need, its sordid Bedlams, happily extinct. But without Life-element, no Life can be intelligible; and till Friedrich and one or two others are extricated from it, Dismal Swamp cannot be quite filled in. Courage, reader!--Our Constitutional Historian makes this farther reflection:-- "English moneys, desperate Russian intrigues, Treaties made and Treaties broken--If instead of Pragmatic Sanction with eleven Potentates guaranteeing, Maria Theresa had at this time had 200,000 soldiers and a full treasury (as Prince Eugene used to advise the late Kaiser), how different might it have been with her, and with the whole world that fell upon one another's throats in her quarrel! Some eight years of the most disastrous War; and except the falling of Silesia to its new place, no result gained by it. War at any rate inevitable, you object? English-Spanish War having been obliged to kindle itself; French sure to fall in, on the Spanish side; sure to fall upon Hanover, so soon as beaten at sea, and thus to involve all Europe? Well, it is too likely. But, even in that case, the poor English would have gone upon their necessary Spanish War, by the direct road and with their eyes open, instead of somnambulating and stumbling over the chimney-tops; and the settlement might have come far sooner, and far cheaper to mankind.--Nay, we are to admit that the new place for Silesia was, likewise, the place appointed it by just Heaven; and Friedrich's too was a necessary War. Heaven makes use of Shadow-hunting Kaisers too; and its ways in this mad world are through the great Deep." _ |
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