Part 11

Consider: here is a young man, boyish of feature, elegantly built, if rather plump, “the nicest little creature in the kingdom,” a stranger said of him; fresh-coloured, chubby-cheeked, with large, short-sighted, sparkling blue eyes and a nose that made a straight line with his forehead and had a naïve little rosy tip. And this nice young man is a crown prince, with a perfectly well-known past that has been somewhat dissipated and by turns alarming and alarmed; by way of being a _libre-penseur_ too, a pert young philosopher and littérateur, author of the highly humanistic _Antimachiavelli_. He is totally unmilitary, so far as can be seen, a civilian of the civilians, even effeminate; runs up bills, and has his heart set on the pomps and vanities. And now this young man becomes king--having proved so devoid of honourable feeling as not to have been provoked by any cudgellings or neck-twistings on the part of his fearsome papa to put a bullet through his brain or even to resign in his brother’s favour. And as king so conducts himself that nobody knows what to think. The day that he ascended the throne went for ever after by the name “_La journée des dupes_.” Almost everything turned out contrary to expectations. Those who had trembled before the revenge of the new master were not punished, while those who dreamed that their day had come found themselves disillusioned. The poets and fortune-hunters who swarmed round the throne and could not huzza loud or long enough, visibly drew in their horns; and a jolly fellow from Rheinsberg, who knew no better than to strike up confidently in the key of former days, received a sparkling blue glance and the cutting words: “_Monsieur, à présent je suis roi._” In other words, the joke is played out. It is precisely the scene in Shakespeare, perhaps the finest in the whole of him, where somebody, with just such a look, says to somebody else: “I know thee not, old man.”

Some things which the youth does in his very first days of power have literary _habitus_, are rather high-handed and self-assertive. He abolishes the torture--so much the better for the thieves! He declares that the gazettes need not be afraid to be a little amusing, they will not be prosecuted; and annuls the censorship (and puts it back a year later). He proclaims religious toleration--that is his much-talked-of enlightenment, of course. But what has become of that dream of Parnassus, that court of the muses, where fashion and wit should reign and all be careless, voluptuous, and gallant? It is nowhere at all. The new lord turns out to be, of all things in the world, a rigid economist. No rise in the pay of officials. No reduction of the high tariffs, however much certain people may have counted on relief. The chancelleries of the kingdom are notified that the financial system of his dear departed Majesty will continue strictly in force. Finance-Minister Boden, a much-hated skinflint, remains in office. There is no such thing as trust, or easy-going, or _laissez-aller_. Everybody is watched as never before. And Baron von Pöllnitz actually said, with a sigh: “I’d give a hundred pistoles to have the old man back again!”

No revolutionary changes of system, then. No loosening of the reins of government, no new faces in the Ministry. But one thing, at least, will surely be different: this is a civilian of civilians who reigns, he stands for literature and silk dressing-gowns and a definite end to Potsdam militarism. Surely the corporal’s baton has gone out of fashion! Well, just here everybody gets the greatest surprise of all. The slack and rather sensual young philosopher comes out as an impassioned soldier: he has no thought of weakening the military basis of the State. Weaken it? He strengthens the army by fifteen battalions, five squadrons of hussars (introduced on the Austrian model), and a squadron of _gardes du corps_, bringing it up to a round ninety thousand men. The uniform once cursed and jeered at he is never seen out of. His conservatism extends to the retention of all the existing military ranks. “The army organization is a monument of His Majesty our dearly beloved father’s wisdom in government; it is, in essentials, not to be tampered with.” A few barbarities in the recruiting system are done away with: the flogging of cadets, maltreating the common man, have to be frowned on for his credit’s sake. But that is all. What seems to need change is the _meaning_ of the institution, the spirit in which it is employed--its political significance, in short. And just here is the suspicious thing.

The military had been something like a foible of the deceased sovereign, a barbaric and rather costly fad, a laughing-stock at all the courts of Europe, where it had never weighed in the scale of affairs. All at once it becomes “the power of the State”--Frederick’s phrase in one of his first letters as ruler--a curiously practical conception, further borne out by the way he sets to work to purge the establishment of the quaint flourishes it had as a fad of the deceased King. The regiment of giants, a sight worth looking at, but not good for much else, is done away with, appears for the last time at the funeral ceremonies of Frederick William. Only a battalion of grenadier guards is left, for the sake of filial piety. “The power of the State.” Prussia’s representatives at foreign courts begin suddenly to speak a language that makes one doubt one’s ears. Prussia takes the stage; Prussia unmistakably means to be treated as the not negligible entity she really is. Her astonishing young king behaves as though Prussia were not so much a state of the German empire as a European one. He lets it be known that he is not minded for ever to span the bow and never to let it go, as Europe has long mocked at Prussia for doing.

But what shall we make of all this? Had he been a comedian all this time? Count Seckendorff once wrote about him to Vienna when he was still crown prince: “His greatest fault is his dissimulation and falseness, which makes it necessary to exercise the very greatest caution in what one tells him.” Yes, that is evidently true. Seckendorff goes on: “He told me he was a poet, he could write a hundred lines in an hour. And a musician too, a moral philosopher, a physicist, a mechanic. What he never will be is a statesman or a commander-in-chief.” Looked at from this end, it seems as though the young man had deliberately dissimulated in this respect as well. For the last surprise is the greatest of all; for the first time it betrays what is actually to be expected of him.

Frederick has not been on the throne for half a year when Charles VI dies; and scarcely is the Emperor below ground when Frederick, to the great consternation of his own ministers, generals, and relatives and the rest of the world as well, lays some sort of claim to Silesia. By the letter of the law and by virtue of solemn compacts, the claim is wholly unfounded; or, if you like, founded on the divers acts of perfidy and presumption which Brandenburg has had from time immemorial to endure from Austria. In any case it is a claim which Frederick, unless Maria Theresa acquiesces, and that she cannot possibly do, is prepared to maintain with the sword. “Everything is in readiness,” he writes to Algarotti; “I have only to put into effect the plans I have had a long time in my head.” A long time? And everything in readiness? Without saying a word to a soul? Without betraying by the smallest sign that he had such ideas in his head? Well, he has certainly been a dissembling, reserved, solitary young man, all the conviviality on the Remusberg to the contrary notwithstanding! To Voltaire, on the other hand, he writes: “The Emperor’s death upset all my peaceful ideas.” This in order that Voltaire in France might not suppose that the attack had been a matter of long preparation. Oh, a young man both particularly solitary and particularly sly!

However, there it is: Frederick invades the imperial domains--he, Margrave of Brandenburg, who, as hereditary arch-chamberlain, has had to hand the wash-basin to Maria Theresa’s ancestors. “_C’est un fou, cet homme là est fol_,” said Louis XV, who after all must have known something about the game of politics. A piece of bravado, a perfectly reckless beginning, says all Europe. And the English Minister in Vienna is even then of the opinion that Frederick ought to be outlawed.

But bravado or no--Austria is in bad form, things turn out well for Frederick. There is the battle of Mollwitz, where he is beaten and takes to his heels for ten miles, while Schwerin comes up and wins the day for him. Not a glorious day for the King, but a victory none the less. Then Bavaria has hankerings after the imperial crown, France supports her, Austria is hard pressed. On top of that comes Chotusitz, where Buddenbrock throws the Austrians into the burning village; and Maria Theresa, who would rather lose a whole province to Bavaria than a single village to Prussia (she hates this Frederick with the whole strength of her femininity), must, anguish in her white bosom, tears in her blue eyes, sign a peace that assures to the King Upper and Lower Silesia and the Duchy of Gratz. He has them, they are his.

What else? A round two years have passed when Frederick makes war again--ostensibly as an elector of the realm to bring succour to the hard-pressed Bavarian emperor, but actually because Maria Theresa has meanwhile been rather too successful against France and Bavaria, and Frederick suspects that when she has finished with the others she will turn round and take Silesia away from him again: beautiful, never-to-be-forgotten Silesia--she bursts into tears whenever she hears it mentioned. And she is not without powerful friends: for instance, King George II of England, conqueror of the French and ally of the Empress-queen since Worms, 1734. King George wrote to her in these very words: “_Madame, ce qui est bon à prendre est bon à rendre_”--the letter fell into Frederick’s hands. England and Austria have helped each other defend the territories which each had possessed up to 1739. Up to 1739? That was, to be sure, before Frederick took Silesia. And there are similar pacts entered into between Austria and Saxony. The Austrian historians call heaven to witness that the Empress had not at that time planned any attack, but it was enough for Frederick. He stood very well with France: since June he had had with Richelieu a twelve-year offensive alliance; he is not without diplomatic safeguards. In these two years he has increased the “power of the State” by eighteen thousand “moustaches,” as Voltaire called them; greatly strengthened and rebuilt the Silesian fortresses; and in the middle of the summer of ’44 he strikes again, without even declaring war; falls upon Bohemia eighty thousand strong, marches through Saxony without even asking the Elector’s leave, marches toward Prague, marches actually against Vienna.

It is heavy going. Now and then things look desperate. Charles of Lorraine hurls himself from Alsace into Bohemia and threatens Frederick’s Silesian connexions; the Saxon army has the King in the rear--there is an awkward retreat, due to several foolish decisions on Frederick’s part, by his own later confession--he learned much from them. By the next year his generalship shows itself devilishly improved! Soor follows on Hohenfriedberg; after he has annihilated the Saxons at Kesselsdorf, Count Harrach comes as broker to Dresden, and Maria Theresa confirms the cession of Silesia, while Frederick recognizes her husband, the gallant Francis of Lorraine, as German emperor. Why not?--Charles VII is dead, and Frederick never set great store by him anyhow.

But why does he make peace with Habsburg? Because he sees that fortune has been with France in the Netherlands, and so, for the present, the Empress-queen’s preponderance is not very great. Also, to the huge dissatisfaction of France, he makes peace with England too, withdraws with his booty--Silesia--and sagely resists for the next three years--for so long does the War of the Pragmatic Sanction go on between France and Austria supported by the sea powers--all attempts to draw him out of his neutrality. By the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which finally brought the struggle to an end in favour of Maria Theresa, he gets his Silesian “acquisition” expressly guaranteed.

But one thing we must say: if the Silesian “acquisition” be considered robbery, a piece of property snatched in defiance of justice--and people did so consider it, and so it was--then they should not have solemnly guaranteed it to the robber. That they did so guarantee it meant that they left it to time to right the wrong (as time can do) and that Europe and Maria Theresa from then on renounced all machinations and conspiracies against the robber, and accepted the _fait accompli_. But this they did not do, Maria Theresa in particular did not do it. She did not abandon the hope that she might yet get Silesia back, despite the Peace of Aix; and that is a black mark against the name of that splendid, simple, high-hearted woman, who was otherwise so deserving of all the interest and sympathy she got from Europe. But why was it that Europe--or its courts and governments--never felt easy on the score of this king? Because of the great mistrust, with which our story began, and which the King repaid with interest. The mistrust was rooted in his fundamentally strange, enigmatic character. Europe knew it to be a danger; and its later manifestations kept her constantly holding her breath.

The fact was that of all the powers who had gone to war over the Pragmatic Sanction, Frederick alone had gained something, had even gained a great deal. That he kept the splendid province was the least of his gains. But this beggarly young Prussia, with its poor two million souls, had measured itself beside, or against, Austria, as an equal; it had squeezed in among the great powers of Europe, and claimed to speak in all their counsels as one of them; it had forced them to reckon with Prussia as a political factor not merely weighty, but even decisive--for Frederick had managed to stage himself in the popular imagination as the balance-wheel of European equilibrium, at least so far as the relations between France and Austria were concerned. Now, it is very hard on Europe to be forced to change its attitude like that. It takes her centuries. She struggles, she scolds, she sneers; she denies the new factor any political, cultural, above all any moral justification, she cannot utter enough spite and venom against the newcomer, she sees nothing but a speedy ruin in store for him; and, if her prophecies do not look like fulfilling themselves with measurable haste, then all the old-established society of states are ready to bury the hatchet of their private quarrels over prestige and interests, however vital, in order to fall on the kill-joy and crush him. She will do that, or try to, twice, if need be, within a hundred and fifty years. Simple people like Frederick’s philosopher friend Jordan, even in the second Silesian war, can never understand why it is that “the accounts in the newspapers are never favourable to us.” Yes, it was strange. But the newspaper accounts could not prevent Frederick from keeping Silesia. And now, at least, with the guarantee safe in his pocket, surely he is satiated and satisfied? Apart from measures taken against him--was he, on his side, well and peacefully minded?

He did not give the impression that he meant to disarm immediately. He kept his army, after the Peace at Dresden, on a footing of a hundred and forty thousand men; there were in addition the “supernumerary troops,” whose strength he doubled, so that he had at his disposition a trained reserve of sixteen thousand men. That made a hundred and fifty-six thousand “moustaches,” an absurd figure for a country of Prussia’s relative rank and economic resources. Louis XV had not so many soldiers, certainly not so many beastly good ones. For Frederick’s army, out of all compass as far as numbers went, was put through its paces in a way that was the talk of Europe.

He made demands, and insisted on performance, with respect to mobility and tactical precision, unheard of in his time. The foreign military gentry who were allowed now and then to look on were amazed--and, even so, they did not get to see the real thing. These masses of troops wheeled and deployed, they developed the famous oblique battle-order, invented by the King, in eight various formations, with a mathematical accuracy that would have made old Prince Eugene, who had once patronized the Prince at Philippsburg, doubt his own eyes. And there reigned throughout a practical spirit which was quite the opposite of amateurish enthusiasm. There were no splendid encampments and display manœuvres, as in other countries, where huge assemblages of troops came together in time of peace and went harmlessly through their exercises. Frederick held manœuvres on a large scale each year at Spandau or Potsdam; and these forced advances over heavy ground, these actions on the plain, these river crossings and assaults, these varied and whole-hearted attacks on the problem of how a superior enemy--it seemed one reckoned with a superior enemy, possibly with a combination of enemies?--can be rolled up on the flank and destroyed; they were all trials of war, in bitter earnest and quite undisguised, carried out with the sole end and aim of visualizing the actual conflict and familiarizing officers and troops with the details of the bloody business. And an aggressive spirit, a purpose of swift and lively action, was inoculated by every possible means into the blood of these troops--contrary to the fashion of the time and bordering on the uncivilized. Frederick had only contempt for the refined methods of making war as practised in his century--those “capital generals, who have spent whole campaigns in various manœuvres, without one being able to get the better of the other--which earned them high praise from the General Staff.” He despised too the entrenched position, which was held in such great regard. Battle, at all costs! Force the enemy to fight; battles must be decisive, that is what they are for. Attack, attack! _Attaquez donc toujours!_ A bayonet charge is his passion, he was the first to regulate the details of its execution. “Don’t shoot more than you need, and, above all, not too soon! At twenty, even ten paces from the enemy, let off a good stiff salvo under his nose and then give it him in the ribs with the bayonet.” Then the cavalry: “The King herewith forbids all officers of cavalry, on pain of disgrace and cassation, ever to let themselves be attacked in any action; for Prussians must always attack the enemy.” At a hand-gallop? No, in full career. “Then, in close formation, they must spur their horses on, at the top of their lungs, as they charge.” “At the top of their lungs.” “Under their noses.” “Give it them in the ribs.” It all sounds so savage, so reckless, so extreme, so inordinate, so violent! The man must be bent on a ruthless offensive and thinking of nothing else. Is it possible for anyone to trust him?

Alas, no, probably not. Probably it was not possible, even if anyone had wanted to--again, quite apart from any measures taken against him! This king was much too secretive and dissembling; reserved even with his intimates, or, rather, he had no intimates. Never to be communicative, never to let anyone guess his thoughts, such was his first principle as a ruler. He stated it quite frankly one day, himself: “If I thought,” he said, “that my shirt or my skin knew anything of my intentions, I would tear them off.” A savage way of putting it--and very expressive of his extreme and obstinate intention to keep his own counsel. What could be accomplished by diplomatic methods, with such a king? The foreign gentlemen found him inscrutable. His moderation, his neutrality, his good intentions--nobody believed in them, and he knew that they did not. He said: “In Vienna they take me for an irreconcilable enemy of the house of Austria; in London they think me far more restless, more ambitious, richer than I am. Bestuchev [the Russian imperial chancellor] believes that I am plotting mischief; in Versailles they say I am falling asleep over my interests. They are all mistaken. But what makes for trouble is that these misapprehensions may have evil consequences. What must be done is to anticipate [?] these consequences, and relieve Europe of her preconception.” _Pre_-conception? Why, it was a _post_-conception, a conception formed after the two Silesian wars. Again, perhaps he was speaking quite sincerely, and merely deceived himself on the score of the danger he himself was to Europe? A puzzle to everybody, was he perhaps one to himself as well?

He led a singular life--it contrasted with any and every monarchical habit of the time. In summer he got up at three o’clock. But three o’clock is the time to go to bed, when God has placed you in a position to enjoy life! Scarcely was his hair combed when he began to govern. Did he govern well? Certainly he governed with a suspiciousness, a self-will, a despotism which could only be called boundless and extravagant, and which entered into everything, the smallest as well as the greatest field, and deprived the work of others of all dignity. He so loved work that he took it all to himself, and left his servants not enough; or, rather, what remained was irksome and petty, and he spied on and scolded and humiliated them even at that. “_Cette race maudite_” (thus, rightly or wrongly, he called the whole of humanity) would, he was convinced, begin to deceive him and defraud the State if it got the least chance; and his complete lack of confidence had at least this much good about it, that his officials had to reckon with the fact that the King would see and examine everything, his subjects might be certain that their complaints and petitions did come before him instead of falling under the table. He never let anything be lost sight of, he gave himself pain over the smallest detail.