Chapter II: Frederick the Great and the Grand Coalition (2)

I pass over the numerous provocations, intrigues, and crises of the second class, which occupied the political world during these years of peace, without lying on the direct line of the march of events. As early as the spring of ’49, the eager Bestuchev had come very near to springing the mine--on the score of the antagonism between France and England. The Duke of Newcastle, then the head of the English Foreign Office, was working for an alliance directed against France, which should include, besides the sea powers, Russia, Austria, Saxony, and a few other German states--all very much to Bestuchev’s mind, for here the prospect beckoned him of involving Sweden and Prussia in a general conflict. He set to work in Sweden, where he thought to bring about a change in the succession, and wean the country from French and Prussian influence, drawing it within the sphere of Russian control. He hoped in this way to force Prussia to act in a military sense. And when he demanded from England, Austria, and Saxony a declaration that he might count on their support in his Swedish undertakings, the whole world expected an immediate catastrophe. But Frederick maliciously drew his neck out of the noose. He invoked the French interest in behalf of Sweden, he mildly warned the London uncle; and as he gave emphasis to his diplomacy by calling up his reserves, England and Austria found it expedient to dissociate themselves from Russia. Moreover, Denmark was won over to the Prussian-Swedish-French _entente_; there was even talk that Turkey would come in. In short, the hostile combination was sprung, Bestuchev was isolated and obliged to put off the execution of his plans to a better time.

But the initiative now passed to an Austrian statesman, with a name famous in history, who at this stage of developments stepped full length into the picture: lean and stiff, in a peruke powdered with excessive care, the curls of which were arranged to hide the wrinkles on his forehead; with a long, calm, blue-eyed, almost English face, and a huge diamond order in his velvet coat. His name was Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Count Kaunitz; Maria Theresa, who early recognized his great talents, later made him a prince. He was an oddity, such as the eighteenth century brought forth in numbers. Excessively hypochondriac--another peculiarity fashionable in that time--he abominated fresh air, and never went out of doors, so that he was as white as a cellar plant. In his pocket he carried a whole little arsenal of dental instruments, which he brought out after a meal--even when he dined out--and began to rummage about in his mouth with a lot of rags and lancets and little mirrors. Until one time the French ambassador said: “_Levons-nous; le prince veut être seul._” After that Kaunitz left off going into society. Goodness knows how many other maggots he had in his brain; but as a politician he was shrewd, far-sighted, judicial, and with an enormous gift for sticking to a plan once formed. And he had just one thought in his head: Prussia must be thrown by the heels, if the illustrious house of Austria were to continue in existence. That was a good and right thought, from his point of view, but it had in itself nothing original about it. What was original, original and really magnificent, was the method which Kaunitz, and Kaunitz alone, evolved in order to put his thought into execution.

Kaunitz comprehended that to checkmate Prussia and crowd her to the wall it was necessary not only to break up the Franco-Prussian alliance, but actually to draw France over to the Austrian side. If genius consists in essential independence of thought, that was a conception worthy of the name. All the world over, it was an impossible idea that France and Austria should ever walk hand in hand. Sooner would fire and water mix. The mutual jealousy of the two houses had left its mark on the whole history of Europe--not merely since the days of the great Richelieu. But, granted that this was so, Kaunitz could not see why it should be so for ever. “Much is not dared”--so ran his device--“Much is not dared because it seems hard, much seems hard only because it is not dared.” He acted upon this motto. If France decided to join the Saint Petersburg offensive-and-defensive alliance, she brought Sweden over with her; Saxony too would not hesitate to turn on Frederick, so soon as she risked nothing by the act; and if the Versailles government no longer stirred up the German princes against the house of Austria, the German states were pretty certain to be loyal. By a general understanding such as that, everybody stood to win. If France were instrumental in the recovery of Silesia, she would be allowed as a reward some enlargement in Flanders. East Prussia would fall to Russia, Magdeburg to Saxon Poland; if Sweden cared in the least about Pomerania, she would be a fool to stand aside. Anyhow, Sweden had no choice, she was bound by French money. If hope and hatred once moved them all to strike this monstrous alliance, then Frederick was surrounded, hopelessly and helplessly, and a coalition formed such as the world had never seen before: a glorious coalition, which history could not but christen with the name of Wenzel Anton Kaunitz.

These ideas did not spring full-grown in one day from the head of their originator. Like all good things they had deep beginnings. Even at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which Kaunitz concluded for Austria, he offered Brabant and Flanders to Versailles, on condition that his country recovered Silesia by means of French assistance. But France declined. Considering her position with regard to England, she found the Prussian alliance too valuable to be weakened by such undertakings. Since that date Kaunitz had industriously fed and fostered the mistrust of the bad man at Potsdam in all the courts of Europe. From 1747 to 1748 he was consul in London, where he plied George II with intercepted Prussian dispatches and a thousand insinuations against his nephew. But in the year 1751 he came to Paris, and there began the golden age of his career as an intriguer.

He lived in the Palais Bourbon like a private gentleman of quality, with several women whom he gave entertainment; but he received very little. However, with the two important persons, the monarch and the Poisson person, he was on the best of terms; it was he who brought his liege lady in Vienna to the point of those _princesse et cousine_ letters which were probably the hardest sacrifice ever legitimacy laid upon the altar of politics. Kaunitz pursued his aims with a tact and persistence truly admirable. He knew that at bottom the Most Christian King, despite the alliance still in force, abominated Frederick. Louis was bigoted and lazy; coddled, self-indulgent, uxorious; naturally his active, soldierly, free-thinking, Protestant cousin of Brandenburg was an offence to him. The alliance existed for reasons of state, of course; it was directed against England, and threatened Hanover, the English possession on the continent. But as for personal or dynastic sympathies, they were nil, there was no basis for them; and setting the political aside, a friendship between two old, aristocratic houses like Bourbon and Habsburg was more humanly fitting than the one that obtained between Versailles and the upstart breed of the Potsdam drill-sergeant. And the creature had written scurrilous lampoons against our marquise, and government by mistresses, and our all-highest and laziest Majesty’s sacred person: Kaunitz hinted very skilfully, and now and then was in a position to produce a bit of new evidence. What audacity, what ingratitude this king displayed! What immemorial disloyalty! For never, unless with France’s help, could he have got Silesia for himself, and how had he shown his gratitude? By leaving her in the lurch and crawling off into the woods with his prey. But that is the way little states always behave when the big ones fall out among themselves. To whose use and behoof, when you think of it, had France and Austria been at each others’ throats all these centuries? _Cui bono?_--to speak Latin. Had either one of them gained anything? No, they had only weakened each other; the gainers had been the small and middle-sized states, who otherwise would have had to do as they were told, and who now were fishing in troubled waters. It was this Prussian land-grabber who had won; thanks to the discord between France and Austria, he had gained a position for which nature had not intended him. Kaunitz was not so radical as to assert that an understanding between his own country and France was conceivable, possible, perhaps even necessary. Only it was amusing to imagine how things would be if such an understanding were to come within the range of possibilities. It would be like heaven, that was all. Everybody’s cares and troubles would vanish, you would wish for a thing and it would fall into your lap. Poor Silesia--it would not take long to wrench it from the clutches of the bad man. And if France also dreamed dreams--Flemish dreams--be sure Austria would find an opportunity to show herself grateful. What else? Nothing else, probably--save that, yes, France and Austria united would simply be able to do anything they wanted to. Strengthened on both sides, in splendid equilibrium, without occasion for jealousy, they would hold sway in Europe, and every foreign will would have to bow the knee in face of their united front. So would it be if a concord between them were possible. But such was not the case; unfortunately, not at all. Tradition compelled them to work against each other, to the end that neither of them got anything; and so it must be, to all eternity. Habits were strong, bad habits were the strongest. Stronger than all else was prejudice, and reason must bow before it.--Or must it?

This was the sort of thing that Kaunitz dropped into every ear which stayed still long enough to listen. He trotted out his theory on every occasion, turned it this side and that, showed it in various lights. First people laughed, then they stopped to think. It was daring, it was amusing--after a while they wondered if perhaps it might not be more than a joke. Gradually it became the _dernier cri_, a political mode, _très chic_ as a topic of conversation in boudoirs and coffee-houses. The erstwhile Poisson was enchanted with it--and the Empress had written her such a charming letter! But there were sound ministerial reasons for not repudiating the alliance with Prussia; and Kaunitz’s paradoxes could not so soon have taken on even a half-way tangible form, had not the man against whom they were directed advantaged all his labours.

Frederick probably felt that a cooler breeze had begun to blow from Versailles; and the French attitude seemed the more foolish to him in that an English-French conflict was looming large and black on the horizon. They would surely come to blows on the subject of the French-Canadian border-line; the rivalry of the two maritime powers was pressing to a warlike issue; and as Frederick’s treaty with France could not possibly extend to a Prussian guarantee of the French possessions in America, he felt that France might reasonably be solicitous about his friendship. What was it Versailles wanted? If it was a land war, if it wanted to attack England in Hanover, then surely Prussia’s help was more important than this new flirtation with Vienna--a joke which would soon be played out when the war with England was once on. For ever since the days of Louis XIV Austria’s place, and Holland’s too, had been on the English side in a French and English war. And as for Russia, England did not spare her guineas when she set out to bribe the Muscovite navy “against the common foe.” And the common foe--Frederick might flatter himself that he was the man. England had in him a not quite comfortable neighbour on the continent, and she did well to take precautions against a Prussian attack on her electorate of Hanover. But while she set her diplomacy to work, what did France do? France did nothing at all, whereas there were three things at least which she should have done. She should have stirred up Turkey, to hold the two empires in check. She should have come to an understanding with Frederick on the subject of Hanover. And, lastly, she should have brought England to hear reason, by attacking Hanover. Frederick had been expecting for months that the Duke of Nivernais would come to Potsdam to negotiate. But he did not come. Obviously, Kaunitz was at the bottom of that. Frederick thought the petticoat government at Versailles was showing itself pitiably hare-brained and silly. England was sending a fleet to America; she was capturing French ships and King George was threatening in parliament; but Louis and his one-time Poisson seemed bent on repose. The only step Louis took was to instruct his foreign minister, Rouillé, to make the following proposal to the Prussian ambassador: “Write to your sovereign that he ought to assist us against Hanover. There will be a lot of plunder. The King of England’s treasury is well filled. The King need only help himself.” It was brazen. But it shows incidentally what sort of repute King Frederick enjoyed in Europe and particularly at the court of Versailles. He sent back the reply that if they had proposals like that to make they would do better to employ a Mandrin as go-between (Mandrin being a notorious highway robber). He hoped that in future M. Rouillé would make a distinction between the persons with whom he had to deal. A haughty, virtuous answer--and one that would certainly make a good impression in England.

Frederick had chosen between England and France. He saw the latter vacillating, feeble, lacking in confidence. And he felt that he was being undermined in Paris by Prince Kaunitz. He gave France up. He was convinced that if he attacked Hanover he would have England, Austria, and Russia against him. On the other hand, if he cast in his lot with England, in the first place the French would not come to Germany, and in the second he would have the money-bags on his side in all future contingencies. An understanding with Russia would thereby be achieved, and who knew if it might not in the future be possible to prize Russia loose from Austria, and by thus isolating Maria Theresa wean her from her hope of regaining Silesia? Here was the reasoning that underlay Frederick’s humourless retort to M. Rouillé. And England heard it. Could she win over Hanover’s dangerous neighbour, and thus secure her continental communications for her naval war with France? England took steps. And soon the _rapprochement_ came about. By the middle of January 1756 a convention was signed at Westminster, according to which Prussia and England vowed mutual peace and friendship, and, in particular, bound themselves to act to prevent any armed power from marching into or through Germany. That was all.

Really it was not much. England certainly had no intention of falling out with Russia and Austria on Frederick’s account. And, on his side, Frederick perhaps did not believe that an understanding with England must necessarily mean a break with France. But France was beside herself. Yes, Kaunitz was right. This man was an out and out wretch. He openly put himself on the side of France’s enemies. But they would show him.... They showed him. Kaunitz had meanwhile taken the helm of foreign affairs at Vienna and was represented at Paris through Count Starhemberg. He could at once report the most gratifying progress in his French enterprise. It was at this time that our marquise showed how well she could preside at a real council of state. In the boudoir of her château of Babiole there took place those very private negotiations between her, Count Starhemberg, and the Abbé Bernis, her protégé, which, on May the first, resulted in a contract of defence and neutrality between France and Austria: the Treaty of Versailles, which was the answer to the Convention of Westminster, and which, as a matter of fact, was so well seasoned that somebody called it a blank declaration of war for the Austrian chancellor. In it was the statement that France and Austria would stand together, that in case of need one of them would place twenty-four thousand men at the disposition of the other; and there were also included all sorts of things about subsidies to Austria. It was not set down that Austria would cede territory in the Netherlands to France as soon as Austria by France’s help had got back Silesia; but they continually treated of it, and the Marquise so understood it.

And if it were only France that was outraged! But Russia was outraged too. “What?” Elizabeth cried; “have we taken so much money from England only to have her patronize this man who has made a mock of me all over Europe for the sake of a few harmless little fancies?” Russia turned her back on England. With furious haste she set herself to get into touch once more with France. Furiously she proffered Austria a plain and blunt offensive alliance against Prussia. They could hardly hold her back. Kaunitz, who had not quite yet got France where he wanted her, had to preach patience to Saint Petersburg, and advise discretion, “lest the desperate King of Prussia fall on us prematurely.”

So Frederick, then, had missed his reckoning altogether--granted, of course, that he had reckoned as the writers of the period (among whom he was one) say that he did. And granting that he had not known all the time, in his heart of hearts, that in one way or another he would one day have to prove the strength of his budding greatness before the whole of Europe, and had been ready for many a day to do it. Today it looks as though both alternatives were true: that he had war in his blood, but that, more out of spite than love of peace, he played the diplomatic game of balancing powers--just for the fun of leading destiny by the nose. At all events, the Convention of Westminster caused an incredible political upheaval; and any critic of the time might have said that this royal statesman was such a bungler that he had managed to unite against him all the sworn hereditary enemies of Europe. A new system of understandings arose: Austria did not stick to England against France, and Bourbon and Habsburg joined hands. Russia disregarded the subsidies contracted for with England the previous year; mad with rage, she went over to France and Austria. And so they were united, they, the three greatest powers on the continent. And on the other side stood Frederick; with a single friend, not exaggeratedly loyal at that, who concealed from him that she was no longer friends with Russia, and who, moreover, had her hands full with the war overseas. However, the famous money-belt would be at his disposition, at least for the present and if things did not go too badly with him.

Such was the position; and it did not take Frederick long to grasp it. Not in vain did he keep spies at every court. He knew the secrets of Babiole. From The Hague came hints of the Franco-Russian _rapprochement_. “Are you sure of the Russians?” he continually asked Mitchell, the English ambassador. And Mitchell replied: “My government is sure of them.” Adding _sotto voce_ that he himself was not so sure, and that just lately a courier had told him that all the roads up to the Lithuanian frontier were full of marching Russians. For Mitchell the Scot was an honest man and he had great respect for Frederick. To make assurance doubly sure, word came from Dresden of Russia’s eager urging, and of her leaving England in the lurch. The Viennese ambassador gave further detail about the offensive Austro-French alliance, which was not signed yet, but was under constant discussion; comprehensively speaking, it was as follows; on the day when Austria, with the help of France, won back Silesia, it ceded to France a part of the Netherlands.--Take it all in all, the Kaunitz schemes, his coalition and his dreams of partition, were pretty plain.

It was a great deal that Frederick had in his hands; quite enough to afford him the moral possibility which he was supposed to give the good Maria Theresa by attacking. It is not hard to guess his state of mind--to presume to understand his feelings would be more daring. A bitter, angry, Mephistophelian laughter must have risen to his lips at the thought of that clique over there striving so hard to preserve their innocence, to put on him the odium of the offensive--on him, who was above either the simplicity or the hypocrisy of such clear psychological distinctions between offensive and defensive; and who had no fear of either praise or blame. And again, he felt that Prussia would have in the end to assert herself and show what she could do; he had war in his blood, he meant war--whereas the others only meant, in the first instance, diplomatic chicanery. The draft of that Franco-Austrian alliance, whose aim was the recovery of Silesia, presupposed an offensive taken by Frederick--and even so it remained a draft. The whole Kaunitz scheme of a coalition for the destruction of Prussia was in the first place no more than that, and very little of it had been put on paper. There is no document in existence from which Maria Theresa’s intention to attack Prussia can be proved; nor any showing that Russia’s and Saxony’s part in her plans was either a neutral or a hostile one. No human being, learned or unlearned, will ever be able to decide whether these plans would ever have become more than plans if it had not been that.... One thing more: a contemporary, who must have known, Count Hertzberg, who at the King’s request prepared a paper upon the events of the year 1756 and preceding, declared, thirty years later: “It is, to be sure, a fact that plans were in existence for the partition of Frederick’s territories; but they were only provisional, and presupposed the condition that he would give occasion to carry them out; so it will always remain unsettled whether or no those plans would have been executed.” If it had not been that--what? That Frederick himself began.

If one turns to the historians to try to discover whether the frightful war which thus began was really an offensive or a defensive war on Frederick’s part, one finds that the historians contradict themselves to the point of absurdity. All those whose breasts are covered with orders have one song to sing; everything, they say, is against the libellous hypothesis of a long-prepared war of attack and conquest: the bearing of the King, his utterances, public and private, during the ten years of peace and the last summer months before the catastrophe. Those whose breasts are not covered with orders (which of course is only the result and not the cause of the views they hold), who have a grudge against genius, holding it to be incompatible with virtue, in the nature of things: these sing a different song: positively everything, they say, that is known to us of the villain speaks for the interpretation of an offensive war. His utterances, forsooth! They are just so many subterfuges, just so much dust in people’s eyes. “If I thought my shirt or my skin knew anything of my intentions ...” Yes, we remember. Had he not also said that he had no desire to be like those princes who become famous by reason of one brilliant operation and afterwards enjoy peace and quiet? His plans date from far back. He wanted to conquer Saxony and West Prussia, that was all, and he spied out the diplomacy of the other powers in order to get pretexts for attack.--Yes, the historians are a mass of contradictions. For my part, if anybody asks me, I prefer to say nothing. For it seems to me that when the various opinions on his life and deeds cancel each other out, silence is what is left. That Frederick began the war is no evidence that it was not defensive; for he was encircled, and might quite possibly have been attacked the following spring. But did he will the war? The question leads us into the slough of unsolved problems concerning the freedom of the will. He probably understood quite early that he would be forced to will it; and after he had led destiny awhile by the nose, he had enough human pride and human spite to will it voluntarily.

So much is true: that the others, no matter how much they may have plotted, began their actual warlike preparations only when those of Prussia had turned to certainty the great and general mistrust. As early as the spring of this year 1756 Frederick had sent a corps to Stolp under Field-marshal Lehwald; and further, ostensibly to safe-guard Hanover, he took measures to bring up the Westphalian troops and strongly provisioned the Silesian fortresses. His own officers had shaken their heads. After the middle of June, “_Alarmzustand_” was declared in East Prussia as well as Silesia, all leaves were cancelled, the reserves called in before the end of the regular manœuvres. One army was by then completely mobilized; it stood in Farther Pomerania ready to act as reserve in East Prussia. The plan of campaign, drawn up by the King together with General von Winterfeld, had long been ready, save for details. Winterfeld, a sort of general chief of staff, sat bent over route plans and lists. Everywhere horses were being bought. General von Retzov was intendant in the field. The files were formed, the marching order of the army in three great divisions was settled upon. The machine was working smoothly. And Kaunitz smiled and compressed his lips. “His Majesty of Prussia,” he said, “is already making the second great mistake in state policy. First Westminster, and now these preparations. It is good we have not armed up to now, it might have spoilt everything. Now we and Russia have all the provocation in the world to hurl our troops against the boundary.” And Austria set up an extraordinary armament commission; it brought its regiments on a war footing and concentrated them in Bohemia and Moravia.

On the tenth of July, Frederick ordered his generals to Potsdam; appeared among them and without more ado declared that the war must begin. “That it must,” Winterfeld supported him. “Impossible!” said all the rest; and advised strongly against it. They were Prussian generals: Haudegen, Schwerin, Keith, Retzov, Schmettau, Ferdinand von Braunschweig; but they all most strenuously advised against it. The King’s brother could not trust his ears. “Are we to understand,” cried Prince Wilhelm, “that Your Majesty hopes to conquer this overwhelming strength? The greatest powers in Europe, the public opinion of the continent, are against us. And justice--ah, Sire, it is not on our side!” “To want to wrest victory from superior power like that is to court defeat at the hands of Providence!” So cried the princes Henry and Ferdinand. Frederick pished and pshawed, and jeered at them and said they might stop at home if they were afraid. At which they naturally fired up and said that obedience was higher than personal opinions.

In the whole world he had not one moral support. England never ceased to warn him not to invoke certain destruction--against which she would be powerless to save him. But when in the middle of July he learned that Austria was mobilizing all along the line, he had the question put in Vienna, which sounded dangerously like an ultimatum: was the mobilization directed against him? Probably he had in mind to spring the combination by showing a brusque deportment. If they came to blows in midsummer, he reckoned, then Russia was not likely to march that year. Perhaps, even, English gold would keep her still, or there would be a change of thrones--for the Little Mother was not in the best of health, her love-affairs were bad for her. And France: she had signed the Treaty of Versailles, but nothing is easier than to deny the _casus fœderis_ if you do not want it and cannot have it. And it seemed to the King like a case of cannot.

But if France and Russia did fall away, would Austria stand up to him alone? Frederick did not think it, he did not hope for it. But if, said he, they were really with child by war, he was ready to play the midwife. A detestable figure! And another allusion to the sex of his opponent.

They were not ready yet, in Vienna. So they delayed for two weeks with their answer. Then it came. Maria Theresa explained that in the universal crisis she had taken steps to secure herself and her allies, which were not intended to injure anybody. Kaunitz told her what to say--disingenuous, time-taking rubbish. Frederick still pressed. He sent word that he could not remain in ignorance of Austria’s agreement with Russia. If Her Majesty could not give him, in good set terms, without employing any of the usual Austrian evasions, the assurance that she would not attack him within the next two years, then she would have her own exalted self to thank for whatever consequences might ensue upon her silence. That this demand did not admit of any discussion was obvious. Frederick’s own ambassador hardly found the courage to transmit it. But simultaneously with his ultimatum Frederick in quick succession mobilized first the Pomeranias, then the Westphalias, Silesia, Brandenburg, and lastly the Berlin garrison. In six days the troops were in fighting trim and only needed a few days to reach their rendezvous. Schwerin with thirty thousand men was in Silesia. The three columns, commanded by the King in person, pushed toward a certain frontier.... Everything was buried in the profoundest mystery; not even the divisional commanders were informed. But there was still a delay.... What was Vienna’s answer? After full three weeks she haughtily replied: the first steps toward mobilization had been Prussia’s. Further, the alliance with Russia had existed for a decade, and was not offensive in its character--from which it followed that Prussia’s anxiety was groundless.--Kaunitz again. Between the lines could be read: “If you swallow that, then you are a fool, and we shall brush you aside. If you don’t, then you are a criminal disturber of the peace. Take your choice.”--Frederick gave the order to cross the Saxon frontier.

The Saxon frontier! Why, but Saxony was neutral, wasn’t she? Saxony was not playing!--That was all one; on the twenty-ninth of August Frederick, with sixty thousand moustaches, invaded Saxony.

What a hubbub arose in Europe at this unheard-of breach of the peace, this attack on the rights of nations! We have no idea--or, rather, yes, perhaps just lately we have had an idea. But let us listen to Frederick before we listen to Europe: according to him his breach of the law was due to the following reflections and considerations. He had to be absolutely certain of Saxony, in order that she might not fight on the wrong side when she had the chance. Things must not go as they had in ’44, when Saxony had stuck a dagger in his back. By occupying the country and disbanding the army or incorporating it in his own, he should have a secure base for his operations against Bohemia. As for neutrality, there was none, in any true sense of the word. In her heart, and with all her evil-disposed intentions, Saxony was with the coalition, though cowardice prevented her from admitting where she stood. Frederick, in breaking the letter of the law, in violating a neutrality that stood on paper, whereas its own betrayal did not so stand, was actuated by the sternest necessity. He had to take the guilt upon his own shoulders in order to bring it home to his enemies; he had to get hold of the archives of the state of Dresden, that nest of treachery, in order to be able to prove to all the world how Saxony had manœuvred. If Saxony were wise, she would offer no opposition; she would let him get across the mountains without delay. But let her persist in carrying her skin to market for Austria, and he would crush her once for all. When Schwerin repulsed an invasion into Silesia, and Frederick surprised them by appearing in Bohemia, then Maria Theresa might perhaps think better of it? With just one slash, perhaps, he would have cut the web that bound him, so that the severed pieces floated harmless away? Of course, the opposite result was conceivable: the various combinations still in a fluid state about him might crystallize at his touch, just as ice-cold water in a basin will begin to freeze when shaken. But one way or the other, things must be brought to a head.

Thus Frederick. But Europe had no mind at all for such balancings and experimentations. Europe shrieked as with one voice. It was terrific to hear her. The public, of course, had no “_Kujons_” in its pay; it was not posted as to preliminaries, and in its eyes the march into Saxony had taken place in the middle of the profoundest peace and was a shameless breach of international law, an attack so wanton and unprovoked that it put one quite beside oneself. To fall in force upon a neutral country, a good, innocent country which was not at all expecting such a barbarous onset and had only lately placed its army on a pathetically small peace footing, twenty-two thousand men, in order to enable Brühl to buy more wigs and coaches and scent-bottles! It was insufferable, it rent the heart, it could not and must not be that this snuff-taking Satan should tread under the heels of his top-boots all morality, all justice, all humanity, all that ennobled life, all that the upright must needs believe in. So Europe shrieked and continued to shriek; and loudest of all shrieked Austria, pointing her finger at Frederick and crying over and over again: “Now you see, don’t you? There you are!”

And, as a matter of fact, Saxony was not in the least resolved on fight. She had plotted, but she was not in the least resolved. However, she was carried away by the general indignation, which confirmed her in a false and sentimental conviction of her own innocence and the justice of her cause; and she elected to perform the rôle of martyr in the cause of Austria and the rights of nations--a choice which could not save her from imminent destruction. It was impossible to withstand the masterly entry of the Prussian troops, carried out as it was with the utmost order and discipline. The defence hastily fell back on the Bohemian frontier, and let Wittenberg, Torgau, Leipsic, let Dresden, let the whole electorate fall without a blow into Frederick’s hands, into the power of Prussia. The Saxon army stopped at Pirna, in a fortified position, and thither came Augustus, in flight from Dresden.

This prince, otherwise rather slack, now displayed an astonishing obstinacy, backed up by the moral support of all Europe. What Frederick demanded of him was pretty thick, after all: it was no more, and no less, than an offensive alliance against Austria, and the oath of fealty of the Saxon troops. In other words, Saxony was to link her fate, for better or worse, with Prussia’s; since, as Frederick said, Saxony and Prussia were indispensable to each other and it was to their mutual advantage to stick together. We have learned since then that mutual advantage counsels a permanent alliance not only to Prussia and Saxony, but to Prussia and Austria as well. But they had not got so far on in those days; and Frederick’s theory, in the circumstances under which it was set up, must have sounded Satanic indeed. “How should I,” asked Augustus in numerous letters, “turn my sword against a princess who has never given me any ground for doing so? It is my intention not to take any part in this war ... my integrity, which I have preserved up to my sixtieth year, encourages me to reply to Your Majesty that you have possessed yourself of my territory without any justification. Europe will be the judge of my cause, and of the genuineness of the schemes you lay at my door, of the non-existence of which all the courts of Europe are convinced.... It seems Your Majesty can secure himself in no way save through the destruction of my army, either by the sword or by famine. Until the second happens it still lacks much; and with regard to the first, I have hopes that in the divine protection and in the constancy and loyalty of my troops I shall rest secure from the ultimate event.” They were good, moving letters that poor King Augustus wrote, prompted by his consciousness that he had Europe with him. He addressed his army just as touchingly. They would, he said, thrust toward Bohemia together--which was sheerly impossible--despite the strength of the enemy. He was resolved to sacrifice his life in the attempt; it belonged to his subjects; it was for them to save the honour of their king, and to defend him to the last drop of their blood.

The camp at Pirna was surrounded, and the pinch was soon felt. But until hunger enforced surrender (for Frederick wished to shed no blood, he wanted to amalgamate the Saxon troops with his own), much precious time was lost, time of which Austria made good use. Frederick stopped in Dresden, where he sought by means of ingratiating forms to make his Draconian regulations more palatable; his purpose being to win over public opinion by proving from the Saxon archives the necessity he had been under. But here too he encountered resistance so embittered that in breaking it down he brought the world, if that were possible, even more than ever about his ears. The state papers were in the castle, in the custody of the Queen of Poland, who was living there with her children. Frederick she loathed; and she stoutly resisted all his efforts to get hold of the documents. Frederick, however, was not the man to shrink from using force against a lady. He sent a general to the Queen, with definite instructions to procure the casket in which the documents were, using force if necessary. The scene in the Queen’s apartments is variously depicted. In any case it must have been extremely humiliating to Augustus’s wife. She fought with all her strength and with all her pride against surrendering the papers. We are told that she defended with her own body the door to the cabinet; other accounts say that she sat on the chest where they were kept; others, again, that the casket was in her bed, and that Frederick’s general, after prostrating himself, did not hesitate to violate this place too. In the end the Queen had to comply, and Frederick got the papers. He speedily had them published. But the advantage of publication was outweighed by the harm done by this fresh evidence of his brutality. The Queen called the foreign ambassadors together, gave them a vivid account of what had happened, and declared that all the rulers of Europe had been insulted in her person. Her daughter, who was dauphine in France, threw herself publicly at the feet of Louis XV and implored him, with sobs, to avenge her mother’s sufferings--a scene which moved all Europe to tears of sympathy and righteous anger. The French envoy in Berlin received orders to break off relations peremptorily. The Prussian ambassador was forbidden the court at Versailles. Add to all this that the Queen of Poland died soon after, killed, so everybody said, by the ignominy she had suffered. For Frederick retorted upon her conspiracies and agitations by having her closely watched, and she was not spared further affronts. The King of Prussia, so we are told by Count Vitzthum, treated the Queen not like a person of royal blood, but like a canteen woman imprisoned in the middle of a hostile army. And it killed her. The indignation against Frederick was boundless.

It was, in fact, so deep and general that a heart less stout, a temper less sardonic than his might have quailed before it--yes, perhaps even this heart did sometimes quail. In France, a country where he had close intellectual ties, he passed for a savage, simply; they called him nothing but the barbarian, the “monster of the north.” Indeed, he might have searched the whole globe over for a sign of sympathy and understanding and found none--no spot on earth where he did not pass for the enemy of mankind, a ravening beast, to draw whose fangs would be a moral act and a safe-guard to the public. He must be struck down, must be rendered for ever powerless. Not only must Silesia be taken from him; Prussia must be reduced to the position which was hers before the Thirty Years’ War, the king of it once more a petty marquis, powerless for harm. Yes, the hour had struck when the civilized states must root out the Prussian spirit and rid the planet from this poisonous growth. Even those who could still think objectively had to admit that there was nothing left for Prussia but to sink under the scorn and hatred heaped upon her by the world.

Quite aside from the material resources which such hatred had at its disposition, the hatred remains in and for itself a thing to shudder at. To fear that which is of the spirit is no disgrace; it involves less cowardice than does fear of physical force. It is upon the imponderables that the best hopes of victory are based; thus there is nothing weak or foolish about taking cognizance of the imponderable and the irrational where it sides against you. The hatred and revulsion which Prussia roused might be as uninstructed and misguided as ever; but the question which had to be raised was this: was it conceivable, or humanly possible, that one man could bear up against the weight of so general a feeling and carry off the victory? It takes more constancy of spirit to confront a preponderance of moral feeling than to defy a superior body of troops. Frederick had to admit to himself that in case of his defeat the world’s rejoicing and the world’s scorn would alike be unbounded; that he should get no justice, and not only that, but that he should actually have been in the wrong. Even on this ground, it was bitterly necessary for him to conquer. He was not in the right, in so far as right is a convention, the voice of the majority, the judgment of humanity. His right was the right of the rising power, a problematical, still illegitimate, untested right, which had first to be fought for and won. Defeated, he was the most wretched of adventurers--_un fou_, as Louis of France called him. Only when success had shown him to be the agent of destiny, only then would he be in the right, and proved to have been always in the right. For every deed that deserves the name is in truth a trial of fate, an effort to create a right, to guide destiny and realize the course of development. And the hatred felt against the doer of the deed is, psychologically speaking, nothing else than an effort to influence the verdict of fate against him--a naïve and irrational effort, because the verdict is settled beforehand, but still a spiritual weight and pressure which might well frighten the bravest. King Frederick is called the Great, not only because of the audacity with which he laid siege to destiny, but also and especially because he had the strength to bear up--alone, with almost superhuman nervous strength--under so heavy a burden of hate. But all the bitterness of soul, all the cynic disbelief in justice, which characterizes him who thus tempts fate, speaks in those words he uttered: “Poor mortals that we are! The world judges our acts not according to our motives, but according to their success. There is nothing left for us but to achieve it.”

So now they got their forces together, bodies of troops, armies, in almost ridiculous superfluity, to overcome him and carve him up in the shortest possible time at the least expense to each of them. Each one looked forward to his share. Elizabeth of Russia displayed great tenacity, she was far from dead yet, she hastened to join the Versailles concordat and signed a special understanding with Austria, by virtue of which she was to send eighty thousand men against Frederick and harry the Prussian coast with her fleet. France, which up to now had let herself be entreated, showed suddenly a hysterical zeal. By the invasion of Saxony, she shrieked, the Peace of Westphalia had been violated, shamefully violated, and the honour of all the guarantors of that peace demanded that they speedily unite to execute the evil-doer. A second Versailles Treaty arose, stating that France would contribute a hundred thousand men and pay twelve million gulden of yearly subsidy to Austria, until such time as the latter was once more secure in the possession of Silesia, and Prussia reduced to the dimensions she had before the Thirty Years’ War (according to which contract France ought still to be paying to this day). The war against Prussia, the alliance with Austria, was now so popular in Paris that the French Academy offered a prize for the best verses in praise of it; but the French government found the idea silly and suppressed the offer. And that was not all. Frederick found that he had fallen foul of the “Empire.” His act, they said, was a breach of peace of the “_Reich_.” The Emperor commanded him to cease his unheard-of and wicked sedition, to indemnify King Augustus and withdraw from Saxony. He ordered all Frederick’s generals to leave their godless lord, and not to partake in his hideous crime. And as all that did not in the slightest avail, the whole of Germany (that blind Germany!) rose against Frederick, sixty princes declared that his proceedings constituted a predatory attack, and an imperial punitive campaign was solemnly resolved upon. Sweden, one of the signatories to the Westphalian Peace, and in leading-strings to France, had perforce to resign herself to the conquest of Pomerania. And thus populations to the tune of a hundred million rose against some five; fourteen princes against one; seven hundred thousand of troops against two hundred and sixty thousand. Frederick was putting it mildly when he said he was risking his skin. Nobody had any doubt it would be all up with him in the shortest possible time.

It will give me the very greatest pleasure to cite from his letters of the period. They have a way of making one’s memory act in a contrary direction--namely, forward and not back, a distinctly thrilling kind of memory.

To the Marquis d’Argens in Berlin: “The French have gone mad. You cannot imagine the disgraceful things they are saying about me. You would think that the whole salvation of France depended on the house of Austria; and the Dauphine’s dreams have made much more impression than my manifesto against Saxony and the Austrians. In short, my dear friend, I deplore the consequences of the earthquake that has addled the brains of all the statesmen in Europe, and I wish them peace, health, and contentment.”

To Privy Counsellor von Knyphausen of the Paris legation: “It is due to the Austrian intrigues that I am obliged to recall you. When you will have left Paris, nothing will stem the tide of slander against me. My enemies will invent so many stories that the French will only see with their eyes and hear with their ears. Well, if they want to be my enemies, very well; it is their own choice.”

To his sister of Bayreuth: “But since things have been pushed to this point, we must hope now that Providence, if it deigns to mix in poor human affairs, will not permit the arrogance and malice of my enemies to triumph over my just cause.”

To Schwerin: “We shall have, my dear Marshal, to confront many foes--but I am not afraid. I have capital generals, admirable troops, and if heaven preserve my understanding I hope also to give a good account of myself.... But we must exert ourselves to the uttermost, we must crush our enemies, we must fear no numbers, but rather count it an honour that such a difficult task is ours to perform. We pay rope-dancers, but not men who merely walk on solid ground; so in this world all the glory is for those who triumph over difficulties. Farewell, my dear Marshal, I embrace you.”

To his sister Amalie: “The coming campaign is to me what Pharsalus was to the Romans, or Leuctra to the Greeks, or Denain to the French, or the siege of Vienna to the Austrians. Such epochs are decisive, they change the face of Europe. Before the decision one must endure fearful hazards; but afterwards the sky is again clear and bright. Our duty is now not to despair, but to foresee each event, and bear with quiet countenance what Providence vouchsafes us, without arrogance at good fortune, or depression at bad.”

To his sister of Bayreuth: “Germany is facing a severe crisis. I must defend her freedom, her privileges, and her religion. If I am defeated this time, it will be in this cause. But I am of good cheer; and however great the number of my foes, I have faith in the goodness of my cause, the admirable courage of my troops, and their steadfast will, from the commanding officer down to the lowest soldier.”

To the same: “I am in the position of a traveller surrounded by a band of rascals and about to be murdered in order that the murderers may divide their booty among themselves. Since the League of Cambrai there has been no instance of a conspiracy such as this villainous triumvirate has forged against me. The thing is contemptible, a disgrace to humanity and human morals. Has the world ever seen such a spectacle as three powerful princes banding themselves together to destroy a fourth who has never done them any harm? I have never had any differences either with France or with Russia, and certainly not with Sweden.... _O tempora, O mores!_ One might as well be living among tigers, leopards, and lynxes as in this supposedly so civilized century, contemporary of the murderers, thieves, and perjurers who govern this poor world. Happy is he, my dear sister, who lives unknown, and has been wise enough from his youth up to abjure any kind of fame! Since no one knows him, none can envy, and his happiness cannot make him the prey of every sharper.... They have laid a plot against me, and the court of Vienna has been pleased to insult me; this was more than my honour could endure. So the struggle begins and the band of rascals fling themselves upon me; such is my fate.”

To Minister von Finckenstein: “Be not so fearful. Nothing is lost as yet and nothing desperate. So long as I am alive I will stand firm and defend myself like a lion.”

To his sister of Bayreuth: “We must all console ourselves with the thought that our century is an epoch in the history of the world, and that we have witnessed events so extraordinary that the course of things has not for long brought forth their like. That means much for our curious minds, but little for our happiness. Well, these villains of emperors, empresses, and kings are forcing me this coming year to dance upon a tight-rope. I console myself with the hope of giving one or another of them a good crack over the nose with the balance-pole. But when that is done, then peace must finally ensue. What a sacrifice of men! What horrible butchery! I shudder to think of it. But I must steel my heart and arm myself for murder and massacre; I must face the odds heroically; though they are always frightful when you see them close at hand.”

To Earl Marischal Keith: “You say my enemies malign me, even in the far-away Escorial. I am used to that. I hear nothing but untruths about myself. I have had more than my fill of the vulgar lies and contemptible libels spread by hatred and venom all over Europe. But one can get used to anything. Louis XIV must get just as sick of the flatteries that are poured into his ears as I am of the shameful things they say about me. These are unworthy weapons, which a great prince ought never to employ against his peers; for he inevitably lowers himself at the same time and exposes to the scorn of the vulgar things which it is to the common interest of princes to hold in honour.”