Home > Authors Index > Thomas Carlyle > History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI] > This page
History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
||
Book 15. Second Silesian War, Important Episode In The General European One.--15th Aug. 1744-25th Dec. 1745 - __2. There Is A, "Union Of Warsaw" (8th Jan 1745); And Still More Specially A "Treaty Of Warsaw" (8th Jan-18th May 1745) |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE.--15th Aug. 1744-25th Dec. 1745 (Chapter VI cont.)
"But there was then proposed by the Polish and Hungarian Majesties, in the form of Secret Articles, an ulterior Project; with which the Sea-Powers, expressing mere disbelief and even abhorrence of it, refused to have any concern now or henceforth. Polish Majesty, in hopes it would have been better taken, had given his 30,000 soldiers at a rate of subsidy miraculously low, only 150,000 pounds for the whole: but the Sea-Powers were inexorable, perhaps almost repented of their 150,000 pounds; and would hear nothing farther of secret Articles and delirious Projects. "So that the 'Union of Warsaw' had to retire to its pigeon-hole, content with producing those 30,000 Saxons for the immediate occasion; and there had to be concocted between the Polish and Hungarian Majesties themselves what is now, in the modern Pamphlets, called a 'TREATY of Warsaw,'--much different from the innocent, 'UNION of Warsaw;' though it is merely the specifying and fixing down of what had been shadowed out as secret codicils in said 'Union,' when the Sea-Power parties obstinately recoiled. Treaty of Warsaw let us continue to call it; though its actual birth-place was Leipzig (in the profoundest secrecy, 18th May, 1745), above four months after it had tried to be born at Warsaw, and failed as aforesaid. Warsaw Union is not worth speaking of; but this other is a Treaty highly remarkable to the reader,--and to Friedrich was almost infinitely so, when he came to get wind of it long after. "Treaty which, though it proved abortional, and never came to fulfilment in any part of it, is at this day one of the remarkablest bits of sheepskin extant in the world. It was signed 18th May, 1745; [Scholl, ii. 350.] and had cost a great deal of painful contriving, capable still of new altering and retouching, to hit mutual views: Treaty not only for reconquering Silesia (which to the Two Majesties, though it did not to the Sea-Powers, seems infallible, in Friedrich's now ruined circumstances), but for cutting down that bad Neighbor to something like the dimensions proper for a Brandenburg Vassal;--in fact, quite the old 'Detestable Project' of Spring, 1741, only more elaborated into detail (in which Britannic George knows better than to meddle!)--Saxony to have share of the parings, when we get them. 'What share?' asked Saxony, and long keeps asking. 'A road to Warsaw; Strip of Country carrying us from the end of the Lausitz, which is ours, into Poland, which we trust will continue ours, would be very handy! Duchy of Glogau; some small paring of Silesia, won't your Majesty?' 'Of my Silesia not one hand-breadth,' answered the Queen impatiently (though she did at last concede some outlying hand-breadths, famed old 'Circle of Schwiebus,' if I recollect); and they have had to think of other equivalent parings for Saxony's behoof (Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Saale-Circle, or one knows not what); and have had, and will have, their adoes to get it fixed. Excellent bearskin to be slit into straps; only the bear is still on his feet!--Polish Majesty and Hungarian, Polish with especial vigor, Bruhl quite restless upon it, are--little as Valori or any mortal could dream of it--engaged in this partition of the bearskin, when Valori arrives. Of their innocent Union of Warsaw, there was, from the first, no secret made; but the Document now called 'TREATY of Warsaw' needs to lie secret and thrice-secret; and it was not till 1756 that Friedrich, having unearthed it by industries of his own, and studied it with great intensity for some years, made it known to the world." [Adelung, v. 308. 397; Ranke, iii. 231 (who, for some reason of his own, dates "3d May" instead of 18th]. Treaties, vaporous Foreshadows of Events, have oftenest something of the ghost in them; and are importune to human nature, longing for the Events themselves; all the more if they have proved abortional Treaties, and become doubly ghost-like or ghastly. Nevertheless the reader is to note well this Treaty of Warsaw, as important to Friedrich and him; and indeed it is perhaps the remarkablest Treaty, abortional or realized, which got to parchment in that Century. For though it proved abortional, and no part of it, now or afterwards, could be executed, and even the subsidy and 30,000 Saxons (stipulated in the "UNION of Warsaw") became crow's-meat in a manner,--this preternatural "Treaty of Warsaw," trodden down never so much by the heel of Destiny, and by the weight of new Treaties, superseding it or presupposing its impossibility or inconceivability, would by no means die (such the humor of Bruhl, of the Two Majesties and others); but lay alive under the ashes, carefully tended, for Ten or Twenty Years to come;--and had got all Europe kindled again, for destruction of that bad Neighbor, before it would itself consent to go out! And did succeed in getting Saxony's back broken, if not the bad Neighbor's,--in answer to the humor of little Bruhl; unfortunate Saxony to possess such a Bruhl! In those beautiful Saxon-Austrian developments of the Treaty of Warsaw, Czarina Elizabeth, bobbing about in that unlovely whirlpool of intrigues, amours, devotions and strong liquor, which her History is, took (ask not for what reason) a lively part:--and already in this Spring of 1745, they hope she could, by "a gift of two millions for her pleasures" (gift so easy to you Sea-Powers), be stirred up to anger against Friedrich. And she did, in effect, from this time, hover about in a manner questionable to Friedrich; though not yet in anger, but only with the wish to be important, and to make herself felt in Foreign affairs. Whether the Sea-Powers gave her that trifle of pocket-money ("for her pleasures"), I never knew; but it is certain they spent, first and last, very large amounts that way, upon her and hers; especially the English did, with what result may be considered questionable. As for Graf von Bruhl, most rising man of Saxony, once a page; now by industry King August III.'s first favorite and factotum; the fact that he cordially hates Friedrich is too evident; but the why is not known to me. Except indeed, That no man--especially no man with three hundred and sixty-five fashionable suits of clothes usually about him, different suit each day of the year--can be comfortable in the evident contempt of another man. Other man of sarcastic bantering turn, too; tongue sharp as needles; whose sayings many birds of the air are busy to carry about. Year after year, Bruhl (doubtless with help enough that way, if there had needed such) hates him more and more; as the too jovial Czarina herself comes to do, wounded by things that birds have carried. And now we will go with Valori,--seeing better into some things than Valori yet can. _ |
||