IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)
V
A
V
i^ .-..V^^,
^^
f/.
1.0
I.I
1.25
lis m
^ Ilia
*-" III ^'^
ill 1.8
i-4 mil 1.6
V]
<^
/^
#
O
/,.
/;
/
-(S^
Photographic
Sciences
Corporation
23 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, NY )4S80
(716)872-4503
^Q^"
'^
\
\
^9)
V
6^
:\
4
♦^
CIHM/ICMH
Microfiche
Series.
CIHM/ICMH
Collection de
microfiches.
Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions
Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques
1980
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques
The Institute has attempted to obtain the best
original copy available for filming. Features of this
copy which may be bibliographically unique,
which may alter any of the images in the
reproduction, or which may significantly change
the usual method of filming, are checked below.
L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire
qu'il lui a 6ti possible de se procurer. Les details
de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du
point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier
une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une
modification dans la m6thode normale de filmage
sont indiqu^s ci-dessous.
D
Coloured covers/
Couverture de couleur
I I Coloured pages/
I I Covers damaged/
D
D
D
D
D
n
Couverture endommagie
Covers restored and/or laminated/
Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculie
□ Cover title missing/
Le titre de couverture manque
I I Coloured maps/
Cartes g6ographiques en couleur
Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/
Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)
Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur
Bound with other material/
Reli6 avec d'autres documents
Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion
along interior margin/
La reliure serr^e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la
distortion le long de la marge int^rieure
Blank leaves added during restoration may
appear within the text. Whenever possible, these
have been omitted from filming/
II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties
lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte,
mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont
pas 6ti filmies.
□
n
□
D
D
n
V'
Pages de couleur
Pages damaged/
Pages endommagdes
Pages restored and/or laminated/
Pages restaur6es et/ou pellicul6es
Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/
Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piqudes
Pages detached/
Pages ddtach6es
Showthrough/
Transparence
Quality of print varies/
Gualitd indgale de rimpression
Includes supplementary material/
Comprend du materiel supplementaire
Only edition available/
Seule Edition disponible
Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image/
Les pages totalement ou partiellement
obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure,
etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de fapon d
obtenir la meilleure image possible.
D
Additional comments:/
Commentaires suppldmentaires;
This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/
Ce document est U\m6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous.
10X
14X
18X
22X
26X
aox
^
12X
16X
20X
24X
28X
32X
The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks
to the generosity of:
L'exemplaire iWm^ fut reprodult grice A la
ginirositA de:
Library.
Department of National Defence
The images appearing here are the best quality
possible considering the condition and legibility
of the original copy and in keeping with the
filming contract specifications.
Biblioth^que,
Ministire de la Defence Nationale
Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et
de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en
conformity avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.
Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed
beginning with the front cover and ending on
the lajt page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All
other original copies are filmed beginning on the
first page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, and ending on the last page with a printed
or illustrated impression.
Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en
papier est imprim^e sont film6s en commenpant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
dernidre page qui compo.ta une empreinte
d'impression ou d'HIusti-ation, soit par le second
plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont filmAs en commenpant par la
premidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d 'illustration et en terminant par
la derniire page qui comporte une telle
empreinte.
The last recorded frame on each microfiche
shall contain the symbol ^^ (meaning "CON-
TINUED "), or the symbol y (meaning 'END "),
whichever applies.
Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la
dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbols -^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le
symbols V signifie "FIN".
Maps, plates, charts, etc., may oe filmed at
different reduction ratios. Those too large to be
entirely included in one exposure are filmed
beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to
right and top to bottom, as many frames as
required. The following diagrams illustrate the
method:
Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre
film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents.
Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre
reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 A partir
de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite,
et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre
d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants
illustrent la mdthode.
1
2
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
(
!
THE ROMANCE
OF A REGIMENT
¥ ;
A GREAT GRENADIER.
O*'**
,<.
v ■ r •",' '"1 a ■'•'. "< »^
^<fct,*^ii^ ■««■>. '..%^^trt.tmm-mh,.'-^.-
r.i: KOMANCK
OK \ REGIMENT
LEY WEUR CAU'
HELD '■
CHINhUN, B.A.
LONDO>T
MARSTON AND COMPANY
•{?
?v,
3378
THE ROMANCE
OF A REGIMENT
BRING THE TRUF AND DIVERTING STORY OF
THE GIANT GRENADIERS OF POTSDAM,
HOW THEY WERE CAUGHT AND
HELD IN CAPTIVITY
I7I3— 1740
BY
J. R. HUTCHINSON, B.A.
"That unique giant regiment, of which the world has
heard so much in a vague, half-mythical way."—
Carlyle.
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND COMPANY
LIMITED
5t. Clunsfaa's jljoast
1S9S ,
CONTENTS
DS^^O
I HAP.
I. THE MASTER AND HIS MANIA
II. "the means of c.race"
III. THE ROYAL SPORT OF MAN-HUNTINC.
iV. THE king's OWN
V. ONCE A GRENADIER, ALWAYS A
GRENADIER
VI. THE PRUSSIAN MAN - HUNTER IN
ENGLAND
VII. BAD WEATHER AT VVUSTERHAUSEN
VIII. AMENITIES OF THE RECRUITER'S
LIFE
IX. THE RULING PASSION STRONG IN
DEATH
I'ACE
I
25
56
87
118
142
165
198
224
('
i
AUTHORITIES QUOTED OR CITED
Record Office, State Papers, Pyussia.
" >> >> ,, A'ltssi'a.
•> W >f ), Germany.
,»» »» >j J, Holland.
" " >> M Doviestic.
British Museum, Newcastle Papers.
TUTTLE, /r/V^;j of Prussia.
Lavisse, Youth of Frederick the Great.
Stephen's History of the Criminal Laxo of England.
Mhnoires de la Margrave de Baireth.
The Margravine of Baireuih and Voltaire,
PoLLN'iTZ, Mhnoires de Brandcbourg,
De Mauvillox, Histoire de Frid^ric Guillaume /.
BiELFELD, Lettres Familibres.
FoRSTER, Pretusens Helden im Krieg und Frieden.
,, Friedrich IVilhelm I.
Von Weber, Aus Vier Jahrhunderten.
NicOLAl, Aneckdoten von Konig Friedrich II.
Ledebur, Tonkunstlcr Lexicon.
>''J«' «" 'iiiiNiPiii^n^vipppHiippimiiipi
I
THE
ROMANCE OF A REGIMENT
CHAPTER I
THE MASTER AND HIS MANIA
Scarcely had English Anne ceased to touch
for the old King's-evil at the Court of St. James,
when a King's-evil of a more virulent type began
to show itself at the Court of Berlin.
It was the spring of 17 13, and King Frederick
William, the first of that name, had but just
ascended the throne of Prussia. Reared in the
lap of a Court as pusillanimous as it was ex-
travagant, he already, although only five-and-
twenty years of age, enjoyed a well-established
home reputation for that love of fat money-bags
and strapping soldiers which was yet to make
him the by-word and jest of the civilized world ;
B
ii:
'The Romance of a Regiment
I' !
!
and no sooner did he taste the sweets of power
than, giving free rein to his bent, he proceeded
to cut down Court expenses with unsparing hand,
in order to have the more to spend upon the
gratification of his military whim.
It was highly characteristic of the man, as of
his later reign, that his stepmother, the fanatical
Queen- Dowager, should have been the first to
feel the pinch of his miserly fingers. "We
poor beggars must cut our coat according to
our cloth," said the King, with a covert quip
at the good woman's ostentatious piety ; and
although his coffers contained 230,000 ducats in
gold, and upwards of 100,000 dollars in silver,
he forthwith dismissed her maids of honour,
sent her domestics packing, and bundled her
plate off to the Mint.
This, however, was but the preliminary dust
raised by the new broom. The prodigality of
the late King, under whose regime a French
laundryman drew higher pay than an am-
bassador, and a dancing-master as much as a
general, afforded admirable scope for sweeping.
The Court poet, making use for once of feet
that did not halt, sought another market for his
rhymes. Army officers no more battened on
The Master and his Mania
stolen forage allowances. Salaries, pensions,
perquisites, all alike suffered merciless curtail-
ment. Courtiers were in dismay. " Our good
master is dead," they cried, " and the new one
sends us to the devil ! "
The royal cellars, the stables, the kennels —
each of its kind the admiration and envy of
Europe — were next subjected to the searching
processes of the new economy. Of his father's
rare vintages the King retained only the Rhine
and Moselle ; of his magnificent stud, only
twelve pairs of carriage and twenty saddle
horses. The late King's four hundred dogs,
together with his menagerie of wild beasts, were
sold for what they would fetch. The Jewish
vultures had fine pickings.
One of their number, an adventuress of the
name of Lippmann, who hailed from Halberstadt,
did not fare so well, however. Having by some
means obtained the entree at Court, she had
succeeded in amassing a fortune by trading on
the old King's credulity and inordinate love of
jewels ; and when he died she quietly and ex-
peditiously loaded two waggons with as much
money as she could get together in the hurry of
the moment, and set the heads of the horses
3
(.1 .1 1, III in« lu. Ill wwnp«'^fy»— nypiwpi
I !'
The Romance of a Regiment
towards the nearest frontier. The new broom
overtook them, and the money, some 60,000
dollars in all, rattled merrily back into the royal
treasury. An ignoble contingent of cooks,
stewards, butlers, pages, ushers, players and
musicians, was swept by the same besom of
reform into the army, there to fill a more
laborious rok than that of dancing attendance
upon a dotard King.
By such drastic measures as these — speedily
extended far beyond the precincts of Palace or
Court — did Frederick William pave the way for
the inception of that grand military system to
which it may be said he was already in honour
pledged. Years before, whilst learning pro-
fanity and the art of war in Flanders, he had
been taunted, by certain officers of the allied
armies, with the fact that his fatherland could
not, as they alleged, maintain a paltry 15,000
men without the aid of foreign subsidies.
" Can it not ? " retorted the angry Prince. " I
will yet show you that Prussia can support
double the number unaided." The time was
now come to prove the boast no idle one ; to
prove, indeed, that the resources of the despised
kingdom were equal to the maintenance, not
'The Master and his Mania
of 30,000 soldiers alone, but of thrice that
number.
For in the intervening years his ambition had
soared to greater heights than he foresaw when
the boast was uttered. The Prussian army, it
is true, had grown in the interim, but not so
rapidly as to keep pace with his dreams of
military grandeur. Thirty thousand, the osten-
sible fighting force bequeathed him by his father,
was to his ambitious mind a mere bagatelle.
How defend his " long and disjointed posses-
sions " with so insignificant a handful of men ?
Had not his " beloved brother the jack-pudding,"
whom he had thrashed as a boy, whom he might
have occasion to thrash again, become Heir
Apparent to the throne of England ? Had he
not those enterprising "Dutch devils" to cir-
cumvent on the one hand, his pretensions to
Jiilich-Berg to uphold on the other ? Above all,
because including all, had not the time come
when a King of Prussia should " make a figure
in the world," and command respect for the
crown which the first Frederick had placed upon
his own head amid the jeers of Europe ? Thirty
thousand men ? He must have eighty ! Pride,
self-interest, pique counselled the augmentation,
s
9 J»L\ i " liiii
)
r
5S
I '
i \
I ^
TTt^ Romance of a Regiment
and to effect it Frederick William, having first
put his finances in the way of order after the
despotic fashion of which we have had a glimpse,
set himself roundly to work. Now that his
time was come, he should not prove false to the
" warlike appearance " which fondly astute eyes
had, it is said, perceived in him as an infant.
In Prussian dominions it had long been cus-
tomary to assign each regiment a district in
which to recruit, and to this system the King
now had recourse for the raising of his new
levies. But the plan did not work well.
Regiment constantly clashed with regiment,
rival recruiting parties fought each other into
the surgeon's hands for possession of eligible
men. This wab its chief drawback from a
military point of view. From the point of view
of the people, there was another, yet more serious.
Burghers, artisans, apprentices, students, were
violently torn from home and occupation with-
out respect of person. Here and there one
resisted, hundreds fied, thousands went into
hiding. An edict calling upon the recalcitrants
to submit, on pain of having their property
confiscated and their names posted on the
gallows, served only to fan the flames. Every-
6
'The Master and his Mania
where the malcontents fomented disturbance;
the entire kingdom broke into tumultuous pro-
test against the violent proceedings of King and
recruiter. To such a pitch did the opposition
swell that the old recruiting system practically
went to pieces. The King was obliged to
yield, and it was decreed that for the future
no man should be forced into the service.
This seeming concession made, Frederick
William began to cast about for other means
of violating the liberty of the subject. The
idea of remodelling the old system occurred to
him, and without loss of time he proceeded to
carry it into execution on lines worthy of the
greatest recruiter of modern times.
His entire kingdom he divided into circles,
according to the number of hearths. Five
thousand hearths were allotted to a foot regi-
ment, fifteen hundred to a regiment of horse.
Each district was subdivided into as many
cantons as there were companies in the regi-
ment to which it was allotted, and each and
every canton was given to understand exactly
what it had to expect from the royal clemency.
Was it the sudden springing of the impress
upon a man, to the present dismay and future
7
'The Romance of a Regiment
grief of his wife and children? No more of
that, my lieges ! Was it voluntary enlistment,
eloquent of a freedom of will totally at variance
with the prerogative of a despot ? No more of
that either ! The last state of the malcontents
was destined to be worse than the first. Every
uble-bodied male, excepting only certain classes
necessary for purposes of education, trade,
manufacture, and tillage, being predestined
from his birth to bear arms, was thenceforth to
be held in daily remembrance of it either at
home or in barracks. Learning the name of
his future regiment with that of his native
village, every boy, who was not a cripple or
dwarfed, was to wear a perpetual reminder of
that name, and of the servitude in store for
him, in the shape of a regimental stock. Even
children of five years and under were enrolled
as future food for powder, and their parents
obliged to give security for their appearance
when called for.
The rigorous enforcement of this system of
legalized kidnapping quickly drained the country
of able-bodied males. The army throve upon
it, it is true, but not in strict proportion to the
drain upon the country. Only men of a certain
8
The Master and his Mania
height could be enlisted, and death, term of
service, and desertion had to be reckoned with.
Scarcely a year passed but the streets of Amster-
dam were filled with hundreds of deserters, fine
strapping fellows all, wearing the Prussian
uniform. Nor was the case of the Dutch
capital by any means unique. Every foreign
town within easy reach of Prussian soil had its
steady influx of runaways, and to offset this, the
most serious counterdrain upon his ranks, the
King, whose promises were fast becoming noto-
rious for "ending in smoke," again and again
did extra violence upon his subjects. " Take
up everybody fit to carry arms. Let none
escape except those belonging to foreign
ministers," were the orders from Potsdam on
these occasions, and many a hot press, following
hard upon the orders, spread terror through
town and country-side. " Better be a eunuch
in a Turkish harem," cried the harassed people,
" than a Prussian subject."
Having thus riddled out of his own dominions
every available man capable of shouldering a
musket, the insatiable King turned his gaze
abroad. The Empire, Holland, P>ance, Eng-
land had men and to spare. To hire them
9
'The Romance of a Regiment
!!■ 1
would be a good stroke of policy; to steal them,
a better. East, west, north and south his
emissaries went forth, disguised as farmers, as
parsons, as servants, as anything, in short, that
would serve to satisfy their master's greed for
recruits. Even women played the role of
recruiter, and more than one fine fellow,
seduced in a double sense, awoke from the
witchery of a pair of sparkling eyes only when
the cruel bastinado compelled him to abjure a
relentless mistress for a still more relentless
master.
By such means as these — fair or foul, no
matter — Frederick William impressed or en-
rolled, outside his dominions, more than 40,000
men in the space of twenty-eight years. At the
cost of infinite pains, fabulous sum.s, and
innumerable squabbles — through the assiduous
prosecution of the most unscrupulous, dare-
devil system of man-stealing the world has ever
seen, the strength of the Prussian army finally
touched, and went beyond, the 80,000 his
ambition had fixed.
With the making of such an army at his back
— for its maximum strength of 89,000 was not
reached until 1 740, the year of his death — the
10
I
The Master and his Mania
King tiiought himself very formidable, little
suspecting that the sole reasons for his never
becoming so were ingrained in his very nature.
His ministers and flatterers took infinite pains
to foster this opinion. They drew frequent
parallels between the ancient Macedonian troops
and theirs, and hinted that, if Alexander the
Great could do such wonderful things with a
comparative handful of well-disciplined men,
there was nothing his Majesty of Prussia might
not achieve, with troops uncjuestionably the
finest in Europe. In most matters the King
thought his ministers fools, and told them so to
their teeth ; but here he was at one with them.
He was "as intoxicated as he could be " with
the notion of his power, and had his policy kept
pace with, or his courage equalled, the strength
of his illusion, the peace of Europe must inevit-
ably have suffered serious disturbance. But
that method of employing the magnificent
military resources at his command was left to
his successor, who fought many a battle, and
won many a victory, with the veteran material
collected and moulded by the master hand of
the Recruiter King.
Drawing mazes with his finger on the misty
,11
"ii
1
1i
The Romance of a Regiment
window-panes at Wusterhausen, he once enun-
ciated his policy, in characteristic terms, and
perhaps for the only time in his life, to the
British Envoy Whitworth. The topic was the
affairs of the North, in which the King imagined
himself to have been over-reached by British
diplomacy. " He went roundly to work," he
declared, " and allowed no little arts or fetches
to be practised upon him with impunity. The
Dutch proverb, ' A man a man, a word a word,'
was the footing on which he desired to live.
No two-faced diplomatists, no double-tongued
politicians for him ! If they sacrificed his
interests, if they embroiled him, let them have
a care ! He should not scruple to defend
himself."
This was in 17 17. By the year 1739 he had
apparently made up his mind that " the best
system is to have no system at all," and his
conduct fully bore out his conviction. Angry
with George H. for making so formidable a
figure, he was also angry with France because
she did not join with Spain and declare war on
England, angry with the Dutch because they
seemed disposed to augment their forces by sea
and land, angry with the Emperor and Russia
12
■\
The Master and his Mania
for having made their peace with the Turk, and,
lastly, angry with himself because he lacked
courage to put his mischievous designs in execu-
tion. He was " frightened at his own shadow."
His army, though always ready to take the field
at eight days' warning, was never used. Often
he took up arms, never once, after the third
year of his reign, when ended his brush with
Sweden, did he go to war. The yearly visitation
of Hanover by the Georges filled him with
apprehension and rage. When his recruiters
were put out of the way, as they too often richly
deserved to be, he threatened condign venge-
ance. Pot-valiant to the point of drawing his
sword, he flashed it furiously in the eyes of his
temporary enemy, and, sobered by the demon-
stration, returned the blade to its scabbard
unbaptized. An open niggard and a covert
coward, he blustered in his own dominions,
teased, scolded, and bullied his neighbours
about matters too trivial to involve him in
consequences, but could never be persuaded,
either by his impetuous temper, his inordinate
pride, or his most cherished interests, to make
any attempt likely to be attended with danger or
expense.
13
'The Romance of a Regiment
Lacking the courage of his ambitions, and
fearing to employ his forces for purposes of
revenge, the King, since so fine an army must
be put to some use, now and then doffed the
recruiter's sash and assumed the role of show-
man. Once a year — in the month of May,
unless gout or apprehension of his detested
English rival's coming to Hanover occasioned
delay — the troops were paraded in grand review.
The Great Grenadiers, his pet regiment, first
underwent the ordeal of the fifty-four move-
ments which were de rigueur on such occasions.
Then came the "small men," as the rank and
file were called. No detail of condition, equip-
ment, or adornment escaped the lynx-eyed King.
He knew exactly how many soldiers had died,
how many recruits had been enrolled in each
regiment, battalion and company since the last
review. The length of the men's cuffs, the
height of their collars, the number of buttons
on their boots, the very cockades of the horses
— tin, japanned black, an invention of his
Majesty's — all came in for silent approval or
open disapprobation. Himself a rigid sub-
mitter to all rules and regulations, he was an
uncompromising stickler for their observance by
14
r
I
The Master and his Mania
others. What was good enough for his soldiers
was good enough for him ; what was good for
him could not be bad for them. Bleeding
relieved him when over-heated, as he too often
was, with passion or drink. Bleeding must
have a like beneficial effect upon the rest-
less or insubordinate soldier. " Bleed the regi-
ment, every man ! " was his command at one of
the Spring reviews, in bitterly cold weather.
He himself was first operated upon ; the unlucky
regiment next, company by company, as they
stood under arms. Never before or after did
Frederick Will .\m cause so much blood to be
spilt.
In this month of May, in this grand function
of the grand review, all the petty spites, jea-
lousies, and resentments which the irascible
King had conceived or cherished during the
preceding twelvemonth, reached their culmina-
tion. Happy the man, be he foreign minister
or prince, who was bidden to the show. Than
this no more signal mark of the royal favour
could be conferred upon him ; nor, in its ab-
sence, of the royal displeasure. (juy-Dickens,
appointed English Resident at Berlin in 1730,
saw the King for the first time in that capacity
I
:« '
The Romance of a Regiment
1
at the review in May 1732. Enraged against
England by the abrupt rupture of the double-
marriage negotiation, the King had deprived
him of that privilege for two whole years. "Such
a thing would appear incredible," says Guy-
Dickens, " was I placed under any other meri-
dian but that of Berlin." There it was not only
credible, it was notorious. He who incurred
the King's ill-will was always liable, be his rank
or station what it might, to be unceremoniously
hustled from the royal presence, or threatened
with a cut of the royal cane ; but the unkindest
cut of all was the cut inflicted by ignoring the
offender when the annual review came round,
and the Recruiter King, chuckling with gratified
spite and pride, flaunted his useless prowess in
the face of an amused continent.
At these reviews "the whole talk ran upon
nothing else but who had the best regiment,
which performed most to the King's satisfaction,
and " — this the foremost topic — " who had
made the finest recruits since last year." For if
there was anything the King dearly loved, it
was a fine recruit. Given to blushing if a lady
kissed his hand as Crown Prince, manhood
found him grown so callous to the charms of
16
The Master and his Mania
women, that when, in the course of a visit to
the Hcentious Court of Dresden, retiring early
that he might not retire drunk, he charged his
son "to have a care of the ladies," the circum-
stance was considered sufificiently noteworthy to
call for mention in the official despatches of the
day; while a report, current in April of the
same year, to the effect that he had written to
the King of Poland, pressing him to include
some ladies in his retinue on his return visit,
set all Berlin agape with astonishment and
incredulity.
These were concessions to the fair sex which
"did not easily obtain belief," so wide-spread
and well-founded was the popular conception of
his supercilious and unimpassioned regard for
them. Who had not heard tell of how, when
he instituted the famous tabagie or tobacco par-
liament in 1 7 13, by presenting the Belvidere
Garden to General Gersdorff of the Great
Grenadiers, he had expressly stipulated that,
while pipes and tobacco should always be kept
there, no women should on any account be
allowed to enter ? — or how, when slapped on the
face by the presumably virtuous Pannewitz, one
of the Queen's maids-of-honour, whom he acci-
17 C
^ii
1
'■^
I'he Romance of a Regiment
dentally embraced on an ill-lighted staircase,
the inamative King could think of nothing more
suitable to the exigencies or opportunities of
the moment than to exclaim, " Oh, the naughty
she-devil"? Who, moreover, was ignorant of
that mad, malicious prank played upon him by
the dissolute King of Poland, which had sent
him flying, hot with indignation and shame,
from the presence of a ravishingly beautiful but
nude female? These things were known to all
the world and his wife, and when talked over
with many a shrug and wink, as no doubt they
often were, we may be sure a certain stock
saying of the purist King was not forgotten :
" The most beautiful girl or woman in the world
would be a matter of indifference to me; but
soldiers, they are my weakness ! "
They were by no means his only weakness.
A character poorer in strength, or richer in
weaknesses, was seldom or never seen. A good
dinner pleased him almost as much as a fine
recruit, especially if served at another's expense.
He had a most embarrassing habit of inviting
himself to the table of any minister, ofificer, or
official whom he had reason to suspect of being
unusually "flush" of pocket. One of his
i8
The Master and his Mania
Generals, who enjoyed almost as great a noto-
riety for "nearness" in money matters as his
royal master, once sought to excuse himself
from this compulsory hospitality on the score
of having no establishment suitable for his
Majesty's entertainment. "Oh, Herr So-and-
So's will do very well," said the King, naming
one of the most expensive hostelries in Berlin ;
and there, in due course, he put in an appear-
ance with a numerous company. The dinner
was all that the veriest gourmand could desire —
numerous courses, costly dishes, rare wines; to
all of which the guests did ample justice. In
rising from table the General, who was resolved
that he should not be "let in" for so loyal a
spread, called for the landlord and asked :
" How much a head ? "
"One florin," replied Boniface, "without the
wine."
"Then here's a florin for myself," said the
General, "and another for his Majesty. As
for the rest of these people, I did not desire
their company, and they can pay for themselves."
The King settled the score, but it may be
doubted whether he ever forgave it, since his
stinginess was so excessive as to be proverbial.
19
The Romance of a Regiment
t
II
*' I have no gold," was his stereotyped response
to calls for money. Nor was ever Jew more
avaricious. Some workmen once came upon
a hidden treasure, and a dispute arising as to
how it should be divided, the matter was referred
to the King. His decision removed every
ground of difference. " wSend it to me," said he.
His fondness for oysters knew no bounds
save repletion. To gulp down a hundred or so
at a time was a common feat with him. He
once, in the depth of a most severe winter,
made a journey to Hamburg in an open post-
waggon, to enjoy the succulent bivalves — fresh !
Equally fond of his pipe, he smoked incessantly.
Every one who took a seat in the tabagie, or
tobacco-council, had to make at least a pretence
of sucking at a pipe. Nothing pleased him
more than to compel the Prince Royal, who
detested the fragrant weed as heartily as his
father detested him, to smoke himself ill. When
King Stanislaus was at Berlin, their Majesties
uFed to smoke from seven p.m. until two o'clock
in the morning, consuming in that time upwards
of thirty-two pipes of tobacco each. Count
Seckendorf himself braved the pangs of nausea
to please the King in this particular. Many
The Master and his Mania
and various were the tributes of amused recog-
nition paid to a habit which was regarded at
that time as highly eccentric in one so eminent.
At Prague, in 1732, to cite a single instance,
the Emperor and Empress, who were adepts at
*' taking people as they found them," won his
heart and continued allegiance by a gift *' the
peculiarity of which was much talked of" at
the time. " It is, my Lord," writes simple-
hearted Thomas Robinson, British Resident at
Vienna, to his Secretary for Foreign Affairs, " a
Great Golden Case, containing all manner of
Utencils necessary for Smoaking. There are six
different Painted China Pipes with Gold-worked
Joints ; Tobacco Stoppers, fusils for striking fire,
and two knives, with China handles set in Gold,
the one in the nature of a pruning knife for
cutting the Tobacco : the whole distributed into
their proper divisions, besides a great compart-
ment left for a large quantity of Smoaking
Tobacco."
To his habit of excessive smoking the King's
extreme irritability of temper was perhaps due.
Or it may have been " an effect of wine," for
the consumption of which he was said to be
*' the best German imaginable."
21
l!
The Romance of a Regiment
"Yesterday evening," writes Guy-Dickens,
" the King dined one German mile hence with
one of his chamberlains. Several other persons
of distinction were also invited, and they all
returned to town, the King not excepted, most
immoderately drunk." The following day, after
standing godfather to the child of one of his
Generals, he was visibly "in the same cue."
Indeed, he " had not gone to bed sober for a
month." At most times, in most places, he
" drank excessive hard."
In circumstances such as these it is scarcely
matter for wonder that his periodical "fits of
fondness " for this, that, or the other person
should have been succeeded by fits of uncon-
trollable anger, or that he should have earned
for himself the sobriquet of "The Wrathful
Monarch." While yet a youth he had given
his attendants a taste of his quality by throwing
one of them over the banisters, and as he
advanced in years his temper went from bad to
worse. So violent were his paroxysms of passion,
they not infrequently made him ill, and when
this was the case no one could go near him
" without being ill-used in words or blows." In
sickness as in health his favourite implement of
i''-.
The Master and his Mania
wrath was the stick which he invariably carried
or kept by him ready for instant use. He is
said to have furnished a room with these ready-
reckoners, A characteristic story is told of him
in this connection. One day a Jew, seeing the
burly royal figure and its attendant stick coming
down the street, took to his heels and fled. The
King caught sight of him.
" Hi ! you there, stop ! "
The runaway Hebrew pulled up.
*' What are you running for ? " demanded the
King.
"I — I vas a leetle afraid," stammered the
trembling Jew.
" Afraid, eh ? " cried the King, upon whom
the point of the other's remark was by no
means lost. "You have no business to be
afraid. You ought to love me ! " and to inculcate
the needful lesson he forthwith proceeded to
conjugate the verb "to love" upon the poor
fellow's jacket.
To this turbulent and irascible nature the
gaining of a fine recruit was as oil upon troubled
waters. The news of such an acquisition pro-
duced an immediate and visible effect upon his
countenance and temper, and all was then sun-
23
The Romance of a Regiment
shine and peace at Potsdam, or ^Vusterhause^,
or Berlin, or wheresoever the otherwise wrathful
monarch chanced to be. For in this lay his
weakness of weaknesses, his love of loves, from
which all his pleasures were derived, and to
which all his passions were tributary, all his
troubles due. It dominated his entire life, it
was strong upon him in death ; and in it the
student of Frederick William's little part upon
the stage of Kings may find the true and only
key to his character, policy and career.
24
CHAPTER II
"the mp:ans of crack"
Fredkrick William's passion for soldiers of
extraordinary stature "passed all imagination."
Report gave hut an inadeijuate notion of it, and
the lengths to which it was carried had to be
witnessed in all their absurd actuality in order
to be rightly appreciated. For this was the
acute phase of his military mania, a new form
of madness which, baffling alike the gaping
world at large and the ablest chirurgeons of
his day, tailed loudly for " further anatomical
research."
The outward and visible sign of this singular
form of dementia was a regiment styled variously
the Great Grenadiers, the Big Prussian Blues,
the Potsdam Giants — or, to omit half-a-score of
equally apt appellatives — the Means of Grace.
Composed of the tallest men to be found in
all Europe, it was the centre from which all
Frederick William's military splendour radiated,
25
I
I
IH:
Ik I
'The Romance of a Regiment
the model on which all his other regiments
were moulded, the axis on which all the interests
of his little world revolved; and in the porten-
tous ranks and unparalleled discipline of its three
battalions lay hidden, as in a germ, the greatness
of the second Frederick, the destinies of the
two Silesias, the foundations of an empire. The
story of its growth is one of the most curious in
history.
" He who sends me tall soldiers," Frederick
William was wont to avow, "can do with me
whatever he likes." So universally did this
candid confession become circulated, and so
unanimously was it accepted at its face value,
that emperors, kings, queens, princes, home and
foreign ministers of every state or diplomatic
degree, lick-spittles of every shade of rank and
servility, recognizing in it the only effective
recipe for favour or preferment, hastened, in
face of present or in view of future need, to pay
their court through the medium of giant recruits
for the eccentric King's body-guard. The warm-
est protestations of brotherly or cousinly regard
were so much waste of breath at the Prussian
Court unless thus backed up. The highest in
the land might sue in vain who sued through
26
I ^
C(
The Means of Grace "
i
any channel but that of nature's extra cubit ;
and thus it was that the regiment came to be
known, through the ironical wit of Wilhelmine,
own daughter to the exacting gigantomaniac, as
the "Means of Grace."
Peter the Great, Czar of all the Russias and
Protector of the Northern Coasts, with politic
eye to assistance in his designs on Sweden, and
to the future training of Russian military cadets,
led the van of illustrious panderers. His first
contribution to the ranks of the giant regiment
was made as early as the year 17 14, when he
forwarded to Berlin a contingent of "eighty
Muscovites notable for their tallness." The
year 1717 saw the half-savage Czar himself in-
stalled at Berlin, in the Queen's palace of Mon-
Bijou, asking without ceremony for whatever
tickled his fancy, drawing blood from that
stoniest of stones, his royal host's miserly heart.
A quantity of rare statuary, a priceless cabinet of
amber curios, and a Dutch pleasure-yacht said
to have -been worth ^50,000 of present-day
money, followed him, on this or other occasions,
to his marshy capital amid the fens of Neva.
An outlay so phenomenally lavish, under a
regime which made the ordering of a new suit
27
'' i
T
The Romance of a Regiment
l^:
ft'i
of clothes an epoch in Court annals, must have
cost the parsimonious King of Prussia many
bitter and lasting regrets but for the sequel.
This more than reco^iciled him to his prodigality,
for the Czar had promised to send him, in com-
pensation, an annual batch of tall northerners,
and ere many months had passed there arrived,
as an earnest of his good faith, 150 of the
tallest to be found in Russian dominions.
Year in, year out, from that time onward until
the death of the great Czar closed the account,
a squad of sheepskin-clad Muscovite giants,
footsore and weary from, it too often happened,
a terrible mid-winter march, filed sullenly into
the palace yard at Potsdam, where no emotions
were wasted upon them save those of wonder
and delight. The Czar's minister, who was
"much caress'd" on such occasions, reaped
the reward of their sufferings. Upon the whole,
the Czar's covetous pickings at Mon-Bijou proved
anything but a bad investment for Frederick
William. The latter possessed a pretty sense of
humour, and he must often, when asked whence
he had obtained a certain son of Anak, have
echoed with twinkling eyes the naive words
uttered at Berlin, in 17 17, by one of Catherine
28
ft
T
** The Means of Grace "
the Brown's serving women, apropos of the child
she carried in her arms : "The Czar did me the
honour."
The colossal Russian seems to have stood
high in Frederick \Villiam's esteem until an
officer, whom he had sent to Petersburg on a
man-hunting expedition, returned, after a whole
year's dissipation in the northern capital, with
some specimens who came up to the King's
expectations neither in point of number nor of
size, and this, together with other disappoint-
ments from the same quarter, began " to alter his
opinion of 'em." Still, he was not at all averse to
taking what he could get, and when, shortly
after Peter's death, the Czarina ordered her
provincial governors to send forthwith to Pots-
dam "all the tall men that could be found in
their respective districts, of six foot four inches
high and upwards," the gift, which netted twenty
men, was hailed with liveliest satisfaction.
Succeeding years doubtless brought other con-
tingents from the northern steppes, but concern-
ing these the records are silent. Not until 1739
do we read of the advent at Berlin of "eighteen
Turks, taken at the siege of Oczakow, of which
the Czarina has made a present to the King of
29
I
:;J/
■7.
*
27z<? Romance of a Regiment
Prussia." Being all very tall, the janizaries, for
such they were, were sent to serve in his
Majesty's own regiment of Grenadiers at Pots-
dam ; where, owing to the King's speedy demise,
they did not long have to sigh for the dearest
privilege of the Turkish soldier of the time —
that, namely, of returning home after a battle,
if he could not succeed in running away
before it.
A flatterer of the King's gigantomania even
more assiduous for a time than Peter the Great,
was the Emperor Charles VI. Head of a loose
federation of mutually suspicious and unfriendly
States already beginning to totter towards the
verge of dissolution, he lost no opportunity of
conciliating this the most powerful and erratic
of his lieges. As for Frederick William him-
self, placed as he was between many fires, and
destitute of a single ally to whom he could look
in time of trouble, there was no dread so strong
upon him as that of being abandoned by the
Emperor. In these circumstances gifts of tall
men, judiciously timed, told with double effect.
They assured him of the Emperor's continued
friendship ; they fed his master passion. Little
tiffs on the score of violent or excessive recruit-
" T//^ Means of Grace
ing might now and then produce temporary cold-
ness — might even be carried by his thin-skinned
Majesty to the point of refusing to drink the
customary deckel-glass to the Emperor's con-
tinued health and prosperity ; but the supply of
tall men in the imperial dominions was practically
inexhaustible, and Count Seckendorf, that capti-
vator of princes, was ever at hand to pour oil
of colossus on the troubled waters.
Seckendorf put in an appearance at Berlin,
quite casually as it were, a few days before the
review of 1726. His hon ami Grumkow alone
knew of his coming, and the King, seeing him
for the first time on the parade-ground, asked
Grumkow who he was.
"An Austrian noble," replied that tactful
minister, " who has come to see the finest troops
in the world."
" Ha ! his name ? "
"Count Seckendorf, your Majesty."
The King's face lit up with pleasure. Per-
sonally, the Count was a stranger to him, but
between the two there had been dealings of
which the King doubtless retained a lively
recollection. So far back as the spring of 1723
he had forwarded to the Count, under cover of
31
^fsmi
wmmmmm
?/
m
,v(
T'he Romance of a Regiment
a highly fulsome autograph letter, certain
measurements " from which," said he, '* you
will see the size of the men of my regiment ; "
and by a judicious application of these measure-
ments to the commodity so dear to his Majesty's
heart, Seckendor! had already paved the way
for his reception.
This unfailing means of credit, together with
Grumkow's happy introduction, now stood him
in good stead, ' ' ^ '^oon he was high in favour.
Little by 'little, wit' "mite cunning and dex-
terity, he entangi>„d lie King in his meshes.
The pleasing duty of bestowing the Emperor's
living largesse de\oive^i ripon him as a matter
of course, and clothed him with posver. What
obstinacy could withstand the agreeable news
that Hungary was thrown open to the Prussian
recruiter, or that every colonel in the Emperor's
dominions had orders to pick out the tallest
and handsomest man in his regiment and send
him to Potsdam ? What ill-humour could refuse
to yield to a sumptuous repast washed down with
the choicest of wines, and followed by the pre-
sentation of a herculean Tyrolese who had cost
upwards of 5000 dollars to procure ? — or what
intrigue shake the credit of a minister whose
((
The Means of Grace "
secret instructions directed him to ply the King
with great men, and more great men, until he
gained his point?
To so beneficent a being the King could
refuse nothing, and ably abetted by his bosom
friend Grumkow — another unscrupulous fisher
in troubled waters — the wily Count cast his
tempting bait in every social, domestic, or
political eddy, and added to his own or his
imperial master's catch at the expense of any
against whom he bore a grudge.
The Treaty of Hanover, by virtue of which
Frederick William had become an ally of England
and the Dutch, was his first and main object of
attack. A curious light is thrown upon his
aggressive tactics by a letter which he indited,
in October of 1726, to Prince Eugene. "Send
me twenty-four of the finest, tallest, and youngest
men in Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia," he
wrote. " I should be able to do more with this
present here in the matter of the treaty, than
with the most powerful arguments." The Prince
promptly complied with his request, and the
secret treaty of Wusterhausen, binding — if so
unstable an ally could be bound — Frederick
William to the Emperor, demonstrated beyond
JO
D
yyi"
^wp
^t^m mmmmmmmmmmmmmKmm
<p<
I. i
I \ !
J
1 ''
, I
T"/!^ Romance of a Regiment
question the efficacy of such arguments at
Berlin.
One Gundling, a clergyman's son who did
little credit to his godly training, was the Count's
only formidable rival in his management of the
King. Unable to get on in the world in a
sensible way because of a befuddling weakness
for the bottle, Gundling turned fool, and in that
capacity did more mischief at the Prussian
Court, where the King's whim installed him as
chief jester, "than the wisest man there could
boast to have done good." It was perhaps not
altogether inconsistent with the King's mania
for " great " men that he should have suffered
his judgment to be so often warped by these
two persons, one of whom was reputed to be
the greatest knave, the other the greatest fool of
his time.
While Seckendorf was thus adroitly severing
an obnoxious alliance, Queen Sophie, the simple-
minded but ambitious consort of Frederick
William, was no less busily engaged behind the
scenes in fostering another as little to the liking
of the Count and the Court he represented.
The story of the double marriage, by which it
was proposed to forge a still stronger link between
34
l^ "
" 'The Means of Grace
the Houses of Hanover and Brandenburg, has
often enough been told ; but due prominence
has never yet been given to the part played in
that amusing family drama by the gigantomania
of the Prussian King.
Than the consummation of this marriage
scheme Queen Sophie had no dearer wish. If
she could only see her beloved P'ritz husband of
Amelia of England, her darling \Vilhelmine wife
of the Prince of Wales, she would die content.
But alas ! the auguries were so inauspicious. A
Swedish officer, a prisoner of war at Berlin,
beguiling the tedium of his parole by the practice
of astrology, averred that the life of Wilhelmine
should be "one tissue of fatalities." She, who
was to be sought in marriage by four crowned
heads, should be espoused by none of them ;
while Fritz should make, not a great marriage
alliance, but great acquisitions, and die Emperor.
So said M. Cron, the Swedish astrologer, who
had miraculously foretold the Queen's accouche-
ment of a princess.
The King, her husband, too, was so hard to
lead! Unless one plied him with big men, or with
a big bumper, one could do absolutely nothing
with him. To Wilhelmine's becoming Princess
m
'''^'^NHIPMBflBIIVSf^' ''"'^'itiiMIMV*^"
/
' hi
(1
i
■ (
•t ,
The Romance of a Regiment
of Wales he had no rooted objection except the
fear of having to find her a dowry ; but Fritz —
the young scoundrel was already too proud to
eat with a German fork, or to express himself
in honest German gutturals ! What he would
become if he married a Princess of England —
Herr Gott ! it was too much to think of ! Be-
sides, there was the expense, the expense, the
expense to be considered ! What were they to
do with an extravagant English Princess at the
poverty-stricken Court of Berlin ? Would she
not require an establishment, and pin-money, and
God alone knew what, worthy of her upstart
pretensions ? Who was to pay for all that ? Did
her Majesty say it was to come out of his pocket ?
Thousand devils ! he had no gold, absolutely
none ! Why all this fuss, moreover, while the
children were yet so young? There was abund-
ance of time in which to get them settled,
surely ; and if the King of England came down
with his ducats handsomely, as he could well
afford to do, there was no telling what might not,
through the goodness of Providence, happen in
years to come.
On this precarious foundation, and in defiance
of auguries, Queen Sophie hastened to build.
36
tri
i
*' The Means of Grace "
Her father, the first George, was no less eager
for the match than she. The young people were
taught to regard the matter as settled. They
exchanged letters and rings, and were much in
love with each other in a juvenile way. Frederick
William looked cynically on, calculating his own
chances rather than those of his children ; and
to win him over, George I., at the instigation of
Queen Sophie, began to feed his passion for tall
recruits.
In March 1720, some two or three years after
the double marriage was first mooted, Whit-
worth, the British Minister at Berlin, forwarded
to the Earl of Stanhope, by the Queen of
Prussia's orders, the measure of the tallest man
then in the Great Grenadiers — a pack-thread
seven feet in length. "If it be possible," he
wrote, "to find any Men near that Size, I am
sure it would be the most valuable Present His
Majesty could make." His Majesty was evi-
dently of the same opinion, for as soon as might
be there reached Berlin, under suitable military
escort, a squad of fifteen strapping Irishmen.
The reception they met with apparently justified
Whitworth's prediction, for they were "very
agreeably receiv'd," and the King devoted the
37
V
; !
i.
Si
■.• ii
!
Ml
The Romance of a Regiment
greater part of a week to teaching them who was
master.
How many Irishmen found an asykim at
Potsdam between that time and 1724 is matter
of conjecture ; but in the latter year there
occurred an incident which goes to show that
" His no less Blessed than Britannic Majesty "
— as one of his Jacobite detractors, with nice
equivocation, once styled him — was still alive
to the necessity of currying favour with his
inconstant son-in-law. In June he wrote an
autograph letter to his daughter, expressly to
inform her that he was sending over, by Colonel
DuBourgay, "a young Irishman of an extra-
ordinary height," who, it was hoped, would
prove both an acceptable present, and a favour-
able introduction for that newly-appointed
minister. Mon- Bijou rejoiced at the tidings.
The Queen could not refrain from speaking of
her father's condescension with visible delight
and pride. The tall Hibernian won the admir-
ation of every beholder, the King included ; and
DuBourgay, after hoAng feted and made much of
at Berlin, was carried to Brandenburg, in defi-
ance of his gout, to witness the manoeuvres of
the giant guards who were quartered there. For
38
** The Means of Grace
a time the King had one of his '* fits of fond-
ness" for England strong upon him, and the
hopes of the match-making Queen rose to the
highest pitch.
Rose, only to fall again to the lowest depths
of despair within a twelvemonth. Four tall
soldiers in one of the Hanoverian regiments
were the innocent cause of this contretemps.
Rumour of their fine stature reaching Frederick
William, he set his heart upon having them for
his own. The men themselves were willing
enough to enter his service, and their Colonel,
for reasons unknown, was not averse from the
transfer. The Queen had long before obtained
her father's permission to draw a certain number
of recruits from Hanover every year, but Milady
Arlington, who cherished strong anti-Prussian
sympathies in the matter of the double match,
had tampered with the arrangement, and of late
the returns from that quarter had been few and
far between. Nettled by this neglect, and in-
stigated by Grumkow, who was perhaps a better
Anglophobe than statesman, Frederick William
set his enroUers to work in Hanover with more
than neighbourly zeal. This being the case, the
Queen thought it prudent to disabuse her father's
39
f..^=
The Romance of a Regiment
i' 1
U 'r
mind of any prejudices with which Milady
Arlington and the playful recruiter might have
inspired it. She accordingly wrote a letter to
that end, and persuaded docile old DuBourgay
to do the same. To her dismay the overture
was met with stolid silence.
She then changed her tactics and began to
complain. " Where was her beloved father's
former tendresse for her? where his little mcn-
agements for her husband ? Enemies laid hold
with eagerness upon trifles such as these to
confirm the King of Prussia in opinions which
already had too much weight with him. They
hinted, and hinted with seeming truth, that the
King of England had no regard for him or any-
thing he desired. He was so easily won over, too,
if only one studied his foibles a little. There was
Count Rothenburg, now ; he got whatever he
wanted, in return merely for a few tall fellows
from France ! If his Majesty could spare the
big Germans, or get half-a-dozen giants raised in
his British dominions, it would have incalculable
influence on whatever he had to propose at Berlin.
She need say nothing of the reasons which in-
duced her to make this request, since they were
already very well known to his Majesty."
40
I
" 'The Means of Grace "
'
But Milady and the Prussian recruiter had
played their part only too well, and upon his
Majesty the pertinacious pleading of the sorely
harassed Queen was thrown away. He pre-
served his stolid silence, the tall Germans re-
mained in Hanover, no giants were forthcoming
from England, and Holtzendorf, whom, as
surgeon to the Tall Cirenadiers, it was proposed
that his Britannic Majesty should bribe because
of his alleged influence with the Prussian King,
was made the richer by never a penny. Dis-
gusted beyond measure by Frederick William's
vacillating policy, and smarting under the vio-
lences committed by Prussian recruiters in his
Electoral dominions, (ieorge I. would court no
longer the petty kingling who was never in the
same mind two days together, pander no more
to a passion which knew neither bounds nor
boundaries.
The Queen's pertinacity, however, equalled
her solicitude for the double match, and some
two years later she reiterated her recjucst for
the tall Hanoverians — this time with better
success. Her brother, the second ('eorge, re-
luctantly yielded, and the big (lermans event-
ually filled the places which had so long awaited
41
\A
■El
f
(
\.
fl
1 i
The Romance of a Regiment
them in the majestic ranks of the Potsdam
Guard. But Count Seckendorf and his gigantic
heydukes were now at the height of their in-
fluence with the Prussian King, and the grudg-
ing favour came too late to retrieve the situation.
In response to the Queen's piteous pleadings,
one other heroic attempt was indeed made to
resurrect the double marriage from the grave to
which the silent contempt of George I. had
consigned it, but the attempt proved futile.
Frederick William could never forgive the slight
put upon his darling hobby.
To the foreign ministers at Berlin, each of
them with his political axe to grind, there was
absolutely no handle available save that of play-
ing the pimp to a passion which a King of Eng-
land could afford to scout. Once upon a time
his Majesty of Prussia had been accessible to
all, without fear or favour. Meeting a poor
woman on the parade-ground, the first year of
his reign, he not only lent a sympathetic ear to
her tale of woe, but established an evanescent
reputation for generosity by handing one of his
lackeys four florins to give to her. The money
cost the lackey a severe beating, for he pocketed
the greater part of it, and the King, observing
42
I
I »
■W K i mn I II
" The Means of Grace "
the dishonest act, drove him off the ground with
his stick. Now, barring only the stick, all was
changed. Illustrious personages had established
a precedent, the precedent had created a neces-
sity, and unless approached with his favourite
toy in hand, the King fumed or sulked like a
spoilt child. Hence the foreign ephemera of
the Court — the Rothenburgs and DuBourgays,
the Golovkins and Flemmings, the Whitworths,
the Manteuffels, and the Meyers — taking each a
leaf out of Seckendorf's book, adopted this
ready and only means of obtaining audience of
the King, of appeasing his resentments, of worm-
ing themselves into his confidence, or of wheed-
ling out of him the favours they desired.
Outside this cringing company of diplomats
there circled about the Recruiter King a swarm
of home and foreign sycophants eager to extract
the sweets of favour from attenuated flesh and
bones. Foremost amongst these, in point of time
if not of eminence, may be mentioned the Saxon
Cabinet Minister Wackerbarth, who, foreseeing
the possible advantages of standing well with so
near a neighbour, in 1 7 1 5 despatched to Berlin
a recognition of his Prussian Majesty's birth-
day, August 14, no less flattering than unique,
43
jn
I'he Romance of a Regiment
since it consisted of a large bundle of tobacco
leaves, two handsome Turkish pipes, and a
bagful of fragrant Latakia, all committed to the
hands of a seven-foot messenger, with a missive
imploring the King's gracious acceptance of
these trifles and "the Cupid who bore them."
An assiduous follower in Wackerbarth's foot-
steps was the well-known Saxon Field-Marshal
and State Minister, Count von Flemming, who —
to reserve his more mercenary dealings for a
future chapter — in the year following the advent
at Berlin of the above-mentioned " Cupid," re-
solved to make the King a present of six tall
fellows, and directed Manteuffel, the Saxon
Resident at Frederick William's Court, to tel!
him so. The audience in which that gentleman
announced the gift was amusing.
Approaching his agreeable task with all the
hyperbolic politeness of one well used to con-
verse with kings, and, it may be suspected, not
without an eye to the humour of his mission,
he informed his Majesty that Count Flemming
craved permission to lay himself at the royal feet
and to solicit a favour.
"What is it now?" demanded the
suspiciously.
44
King
■"<d„Ji<.;'
" The Means of Grace "
"Your Majesty has several very tall fel-
lows "
" Blood and wounds ! " cried the King, with
every manifestation of alarm, " I knew he wanted
to get one off ! "
" No, no, your Majesty," said the Envoy
hastily, "the Count merely wishes to offer three
or four more."
The King on hearing this was delighted
beyond expression, and embraced Manteuffcl
repeatedly in the most effusive and affectionate
manner, little suspecting that the astute Envoy,
resolved to be less prodigal than the Count, was
holding in reserve against future emergencies
two of the tallest men in his gift.
The reserve, it is to be feared, was speedily
exhausted, for when, a few years later. Count
Flemming wished to " pave the way for his recep-
iktion" at the Prussian Court, he was obliged to
V send thither >hree tall men," and to promise
" ten more."
On the outern'ost edge of this outer circle of
sycophants, looking Potsdam-wards with long-
ing eyes, hovered another Field-Marshal, Count
Miinnich of the Russian service. Being anxious
to come from Dt.ntzic, where he held the far
45
The Romance of a Regiment
'
'
n
'\ \
from desirable post of commandant, to win the
King's favour by a personal interview, he wrote
asking Count Seckendorf how he could best
succeed in achieving his end. " To make your
Excellency's arrival pleasing to the King," the
Count replied with that engaging frankness of
which he was sometimes guilty, "it is abso-
lutely necessary that you come not alone, but
with at least four tall men as a present for the
King's Majesty. You can obtain them either
where you are, or in Poland, where they are to
be had in plenty, and may easily be got away.
It is all one to the King of what nationality these
creatures may be, so long as they are tall and
well set-up."
With so many notable instances of the value
of " these creatures " before their eyes, the King's
own ministers had no option but to sail with
the only favourable wind that blew. Degenfeld,
returning from a political mission, " paid his
court that way " through a couple of tall m.en
whom he had inveigled over from England.
So, too, did Borcke the younger, who in his
high capacity of Prussian Minister at the Court
of King George, achieved notoriety — as we shall
have more than one occasion to remember in
46
" 'The Means of Grace "
the course of this narrative — by the "unworthy
trade of debauching and seducing " his Britannic
Majesty's subjects for similar ends ; while Chan-
cellor Grumkow himself, first Minister of State
though he was, owned with shame that " he was
obliged to play the Pyrate as well as others,
insomuch that was the Emperor's first Kettle-
Drummer a jMan fit for his purpose, he would
steal him away if he was within his reach."
Than the lot of the Prussian army officers in
this respect nothing could well have been more
pitiable. Let the difficulty and expense of
gratifying the King's whim be what it might,
they " could not be sure of their bread " unless
able to show a goodly number of tall recruits
at every review. " The King has declared,"
General Forcade once wrote, in imploring
Count Flemming to help him make up his tale of
tall men, " that the officer who has none shall
be broken like glass ! " Nay, an even severer
punishment than cashiering awaited him who
was guilty of this heinous sin of omission ; for if
the King did not find the requisite ornaments of
the right wing in sufficient numbers, or of a size
to please his fastidious taste, immurement in
Spandau was the possible fate of the defaulter.
47
"The Romance of a Regiment
^\
Such was the Nemesis that in 1739 overtook a
major, whose glaring remissness in this respect
singled him out for the King's displeasure. He
was committed to the dread fortress for six
years.
To escape such disgrace and the consequent
ruin it entailed upon them, ofificers were not
only obliged, like greater men, to have recourse
to practices utterly inconsistent with every dic-
tate of honour and self-respect, but also to make
pecuniary sacrifices which only too often brought
them to the very brink of the ruin they sought
to avoid. In a sense, it is true, they cast their
bread upon the waters, for sooner or later, after
few days or many, a run of recruiting luck would
surely put them in pocket again ; but tall men
did not grow like mushrooms, and for the time
being the pinch of the shoe was excruciating.
One captain at Magdeburg was obliged to give
4000 dollars and a substantial monthly pension
in exchange for the only make-shift upon whom
he could lay hands — the seventeen-year old,
abnormally overgrown son of an Austrian gen-
tleman, who was not above selling the youthful
prodigy into a state worse than slavery for such
a consideration.
48
:L,
I'
''^ 'The Means of Grace
The loss of one of these expensive parade
ornaments was a serious blow to the purveyor.
A tall fugleman once got drunk at an inn, and
in this state staggered into the Spree through
the defective railings of a bridge. He was
drowned, and as he was a foreigner, who repre-
sented an outlay of 1500 dollars, his captain,
well aware that a king who was so fond of live
giants would give not a stiver for a dead one,
however tall, hit upon an ingenious method of
getting his money back. Appealing to his
Majesty, he enlarged in pathetic terms upon the
deceased's phenomenal inches, and prayed that
the official responsible for the care of the bridge,
and hence for the loss of the giant, should be
made to suffer for his negligence. The King's
heart was touched. Tears of regret for the dead
" long fellow " mingled with the ink of the
marginal in which he summarily ordered the
official to make good the captain's loss, and to
have a corporal and six privates quartered on
him until he paid up. But this, alas for the
humour of our story ! was an exceptional case.
Seldom indeed were the recruiting burdens of
officers thus lightened ; and so heavily did those
burdens tell upon their pockeis, so bitterly upon
49 B
lU
h
'J >
I
The Romance of a Regiment
their spirits, they were fain to cry, both great and
small : " Oh for a war, to cure our cruel task-
master of his fatal passion for tall men ! "
But if the situation of officers in general was
bad, that of the Prince Royal, first as Colonel
of the Brandenburg section of Great Grenadiers,
next as commander of the regiment stationed at
Ruppin, V as infinitely worse. Thanking his
father, as a lad, for an addition to his cadet
corps, he expressed a hope that the new recruit
might grow sufficiently to allow of his admission,
at some future day, to that famous regiment in
which only giants were enrolled. How fervently
in after years, when "recruiting was the burthen he
groaned under," must he have echoed that wish !
"The practice," he declared to Guy-Dickens
in 1739, "pressed upon him with intolerable
weight. It was all very well to expostulate with
him about the money he threw away on it, all
very well to say there was no reason why he
should be at greater expense on that account
than any other colonel in the service. Reason-
ing must cease when recruits were concerned.
He had begun to pay his court that way after
his disgrace, and it was the only way he had to
procure him a quiet life."
50
((
'The Means of Grace "
The calm of the Prince's existence, however,
during the period to which he was wont to refer
in after and more stormy years as the " time of
his tranquillity," was not wholly undisturbed.
Fine recruits might appease an irascible king
and prevent ugly scenes at inspection, but mean-
time that commonplace arbiter of peaceful
domesticity, the creditor, had by some means
or other to be staved off. There was little to
choose, perhaps, between his father'c anger and
an avalanche of bills which an allowance truly
Frederician in its meagreness rendered it im-
possible to meet. But a golden day was com-
ing, when the beggar should be master of the
miser's hoard, and on this the Prince traded,
living largely on credit, and spending nearly
every penny of his slender income, of the
Emperor's equally slender advances — 2500
crowns, as near as may be estimated, freely
given and "not to be required again " — and of
the loans obtained from Biron, Duke of Cour-
land, on the procuration or purchase of tall
men. Once he succeeded in touching the royal
heart and pocket by his show of fine recruits.
' ' I love thee, Fritz/' hiccoughed his father,
after the generous dinner which followed, " for
51
■
'The Romance of a Regiment
I
f
ii)
I perceive a Frederick William in thee after all.
Ask of me what thou wilt "
" I desire nothing of my Most All-Gracious
Lord-Father," interrupted the I'rince, who knew
how to appraise such protestations, " but his
continued love and favour."
"Good!" said the King. " I will give thee
100,000 crowns as an earnest of it."
But in his sober moments he first forgot and
then regretted the promise, payment was long
deferred, the gift finally dwindled to 70,000
crowns. Harassed beyond endurance by the
demands of petty tradesmen, and driven to the
utmost straits for a tittle of the treasure with
which his father's coffers threatened to burst
but did not, the Prince demeaned himself by
an act for which he afterwards had reason
to blush with shame. He helped himself to
the contents of the regimental recruiting chest.
The recruiting chest — or, more comprehen-
sively, the recruiting fund — was an institution
of Frederick William's own. Frederick I. had
had a marine fund ; Frederick William, diverting
it into the insatiable channel of his mania,
applied it chiefly to the maintenance of his so-
called body-guard, though in a secondary sense
52
W!«wpji;wii^»wrrn<trBg>r««PitWM«iP'<i
" The Means of Grace
n
it met general deficiencies in the ranks at large
when conscription, gift and theft failed to make
them good. He sold his African colonics to
the Dutch for looo ducats, and gave the pro-
ceeds to the recruiting fund. No Jew could
marry unless able to show a receipt for money
paid into the recruiting fund. After the reviews
it was customary to grant leave to forty men or
more of each company, whose pay while absent
went into the recruiting fund. Most offices
under the crown were sold to the highest bidder,
the fees being allotted to the recruiting fund.
Before receiving a title one was obliged to say
how much he would contribute to the recruiting
fund. Concerning ofticials guilty of irregular
practices the King's common dictum was : " He
must come to terms with the recruiting fund."
The "Order of Generosity" itself was sold —
the transaction being duly chronicled in the
royal diary, "Caught another hare to-day" —
and the proceeds handed over to the recruiting
fund. Ladies suspected of marriage infidelity
found costly absolution in the recruiting fund.
One Colonel Wreech, who swore with uplifted
hand to the Councillors of Custrin that they
were all blackguards, remembered the recruiting
53
I
^
The Romance of a Regiment
fund and suffered no other unpleasantness from
his plain speaking. Every regiment had its
quota of the recruiting fund, deposited in its
own recruiting chest, and no commanding officer
knew at what moment he might be called upon by
the King to produce that chest for examination.
It was of the money thus entrusted to his
keeping that the Prince Royal, in an evil
moment, was driven to make personal use, and
— he could not repay the loan. In this serious
prediciment, when his dearly purchased credit
with the King seemed hopelessly at stake, and
disgrace inevitable, there came a timely and
secret offer of assistance from George II. Of
this the Prince gladly availed himself, and until
his father's death made him master of his
hoarded riches, the demands of the Ruppin
" student " upon his royal cousin's " books " —
as the money and its borrower were termed in
despatches — continued to be both frequent and
heavy. By this indirect means alone, with the
single exception already noticed, did George II.
contribute to the supply of tall men at Potsdam,
Like M. de la Ch^tardie, he deemed it better
policy to minister to the wants of a coming,
than to the mania of a departing, king.
54
*' 'The Means of Grace "
For la Chdtardie put perhaps the most
extreme interpretation upon a precedent to
which, as we have seen, all his diplomatic
brethren at Berlin conformed in a greater or
less degree — that is to say, he extended it to
the Prince Royal, in a manner peculiarly French.
When Frederick William lay sick unto death,
as it was believed, in the autumn of 1734, the
minister of his Most Christian Majesty, antici-
pating Prince Frederick's speedy accession to
power, obtained from Paris a " fine " recruit of
a description well known at the Court of Madame
the Pompadour, but alarmingly new to the
prudish Court of Berlin — a recruit who boasted
"a little round face, a pair of black eyes, a
rosy cheek, and ' teeth like a young flock from
the clear brook recent.'"
" La Chetardie," says Thomas Robinson of
Vienna, who is responsible for the story, " has
her in his hands, ready primed and cocked,
and God knows but she may have already
given fire ! "
55
■^•'wwBRaiBe*
'V
4
■i
I
'-' !}
I' J.
m
lii
ti f-
I
ft
:S' ?
CHAPTER III
THE ROYAL SPORT OF MAN-HUNTING
The offerings with which it was sought to
appease the " Crowned Ogre " — to give F: ::derick
WilHam the posthumous title conferred upon
him by Voltaire — served only to create an ap-
petite for victims of larger growth. In lands
that apparently teemed with men of mighty
stature, what acquisitions might not yet be
possible ! Somewhere, whether hidden away
in some remote corner of Europe or near at
hand, there surely existed the Ideal Giant, who
should overtop the colossal specimens he al-
ready had, by who could say how many spans ?
and in furtherance of his quest for this Brob-
dingnagian recruit, whose breath he already felt
in fancy upon his very cheek, Frederick William
did not scruple to beg like a mendicant, to
barter like a huckster, to rob like a brigand,
and to exact his meed of flesh, from whom-
soever he could, with all the merciless insist-
I
^1
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
ence, and infinitely less than the justice, of a
.Shylock.
The most amusing instance — apart from its
distressing sequel — of his importunity, as of his
success in begging, is that related in connection
with his visit to the King of Poland in 1730,
when a grand review was held at Dresden in
honour of the event. The Saxon army was at
that time scarcely in a condition to acquit itself
to the satisfaction of " the first drill-sergeant in
Europe," for its ranks were filled with raw
recruits and untrained horses, got together for
the occasion — defects to which h's Polish
Majesty, being temporarily in pocket, sought
to blind his exacting guest by a display so
lavish as almost to transform the scene into a
second Field of the Cloth of Gold. But there
was one feature of the show to which no
glamour could render the argus-eyed monarch
oblivious, and that was the presence in the
ranks of some superb specimens of the gigant-
esque.
For King August, it must here be premised,
had been amongst the first of many to catch the
complaint of his Prussian neighbour, and from
the hamlets of Poland and Saxony, from garri-
57
;;■ /
'The Romance of a Regiment
sons and the retinues of the nobility, there had
been gathered in, some years previous to this
review, a little harvest of big men who were
formed into a regiment — the celebrated Ru-
towski Grenadiers — which was considered at
Dresden to be a worthy rival of the King of
Prussia's own. In order to obtain something
extra good against the forthcoming visit, how-
ever, his Polish Majesty had despatched a
couple of officers to Venice, early in 1730,
with instructions to see what materials could
be found in the Dalmatian provinces, which,
he fancied, might not yet have been gleaned
of all their tall men by the busy Prussian re-
cruiter. But that ubiquitous traveller — in this
respect the Yankee of his time — was already in
the field, and sought by every possible means
to foil the dangerous competition of the Saxons,
who nevertheless succeeded in securing twenty-
five Morlachs of the tallest breed, at the ridicu-
lously low figure of thirty zecchins a head. To
get these gentry away, however, was another
matter, for the farther they travelled from home
the more they desired to return to it. At
Trieste their aversion to deportation took a
new and unlooked-for turn. The giants were
58
I'
I
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
a half-naked lot, resembling desperadoes more
than soldiers, and the Saxon officers, being
ashamed to pass through Germany with them
in charge, bought a quantity of cheap cloth and
clad the tatterdemalion band — in yellow ! The
galley-slave colour was little to the taste of the
beggarly Morlachs, who not only clamoured
loudly for blue and red, but swore they would
not budge a step until they got it ; and not
until they were thus gaily tricked out did they
continue their journey to Dresden, where they
arrived just in time to join the Rutowski ranks
against the review.
The 'sight of the Dalmatian giants inspired
the Potsdam ogre with keen avidity. So, too,
did a gigantic northerner — an eight-footer —
whom the King of Sweden had presented to
his Polish Majesty, and [who, in company with
a tiny Moorish dwarf, drove the four-horse
chariot which carried the monster regimental
drum. He began to pester the King of Poland
for them. His determination to have them
passed unscathed through a week's excruciating
gout, survived the deadly round of eating, drink-
ing and hunting with which his visit was
rounded out, and turned up, triumphant and a
59
1
h
V 1
■ '
f'
i
it I ^^
ii V
}
«' .
the Romance of a Regiment
thousand-fold more insistent, in the very moment
of the parting embrace. His Polish Majesty's
repeated refusal to enter into closer relations
with the Emperor and himself, he acquiesced
in with scarce a murmur — it was but an in-
significant political detail ; but in the vital
matter of the tall men he would take absolutely
no denial. Unable to withstand his importunity,
the King of Poland, sorely against his will,
presented him with twenty-four of the tallest,
to the inexpressible grief of the poor fellows
themselves, who had already heard much more
than they desired to know of the cruel lot in
store for them.
Amongst the number thus summarily handed
over to the dreaded taskmaster there was one
man who towered head and shoulders above his
giant fellows. It was the Swedish waggoner.
The King not unreasonably expected great things
of so great a man, but in this he was sorely dis-
appointed. Drill and bully and beat as he
might, he could make no impression on the big
Swede, and in a paroxysm of rage he drove him
out of the Potsdam gates. The poor fellow's
after fate was deplorable. Too tall to make a
living by ordinary means, and too stupid to
60
{i
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
make a Grenadier, he died of poverty in the
streets of Berlin.
The review of 1730 was by no means the first
or only occasion on which the King's superb
mendicity made itself felt beyond the Saxon
border. Lonjj; before that event his spies had
furnished him with a complete "List of the
great men to be found in Saxony," and at fre-
quent intervals Count Flemming was surprised —
for he had comparatively little idea how rich a
vein of giants Saxony could boast — by a fulsome
letter begging a parcel of these highly desirable
chattels.
To these appeals the Count did not always
respond with that openness of hand so gratifying
to the kingly suppliant when it was not expected
of himself. He could, in fact, drive as hard a
bargain as the King, and hence there grew up
between the two a regular system of human
barter, in which the Count greedily took all
he could get, and the King grudgingly parted
with as little as he could help. At one time it
was a cash transaction — a batch of four long
men for 5000 dollars ; at another, an even
swap — that "handsome tall fellow, Andreas
Hessen of Krieger's regiment," who "did not
61
E Sr- ' g»
l^^^ia
■M
■"I
!••
«>•■
'I
\'i
1}
' h *
;[
VV ffi
A ^
) I
f I
The Romance of a Regiment
cost much," for a famous bassoonist whom the
Count coveted for his private band, and with
whom his Majesty parted the more willingly be-
cause he was a prime favourite with Queen
Sophie. The Count's sharpness, however, was
not always a match for the King's. On one
occasion he collected a dozen men suitable for
the third grade of Tall Grenadiers, and in accord-
ance with the prescribed, though by no means
generally observed, etiquette of such trans-
actions, forwarded them to Potsdam fully armed
and equipped, at the same time letting fall a
hint of the most pointed kind, to the effect that
a suitable return, in the shape of statuary or
some such unconsidered trifles from the Berlin
Museum, would not be unacceptable at Dresden,
provided that no publicity was given to this
bartering of still life for real. The King snapped
at the men, but, having got them, he declined
to take the hint.
Still, it was not wholly thrown away upon
him, for some time after, accidentally meeting
Suhm, the Saxon Resident, in the street, his
Majesty button-holed him and graciously inti-
mated his willingness to swap his museum, his
cabinet of medals, and possibly his library of
62
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
rare books to boot, for stalwart Saxons. Suhm,
being well aware that certain objets de vertu in
the King's possession were much coveted at
Dresden, jumped at the chance of thus acquiring
them. Deceived by the apparent straight-
forwardness of the offer, he went through the
entire collection seriatim^ with never a suspicion
that the King was playing the Jew until it came
to appraising his selection, when the scales were
rudely torn from his eyes. For some fifteen
a 'tides de luxe his Majesty, while offering the
merest trifle per head for the tallest recruits,
asked the modest sum of half-a-million of dollars !
The whites of Suhm's eyes went up in horror
of such extortionate demands, and no business
was done in long Saxons on that occasion.
A story of how the King once swapped a
horse for tall recruits is too circumstantial and
characteristic to be other than true. The horse
was a Spanish stallion of purest breed, for which
Frederick I. had paid a large sum, but which
did not reach Berlin until after his death. The
splendid animal excited the admiration and envy
of all who were privileged to behold it, and
amongst those whose fancy was thus smitten
was the von Wackerbarth of seven-foot *' Cupid"
63
I
'The Romance of a Regiment
fame, who at that time represented Saxony at
the Prussian Court. Love of a horse, like a
cough, cannot be hid, and the King, seeing how
the case stood with the Saxon Envoy, exjiressed
his readiness to let him have the stallion at a
bargain — for the trifling consideration of twenty-
four tall fellows, in fact ; whereupon Wacker-
barth offered half the number, which the King
refused. After the deal had been going on for
some time with but little prospect of a bargain
being struck, the King, at a dinner where all
had imbibed pretty freely, brought the matter
up in the presence of the Duke of Wiirtemburg,
the Prince of Anhalt, and other distinguished
guests, by turning to the envoy and hiccoughing
gravely :
" Come ! to oblige you, Wackerbarth, I'll
knock off four tall fellows ; but you shan't have
the horse a head cheaper."
" Well, I don't know," replied Wackerbarth
dubiously. "Second thoughts are best, and
your Majesty has given me so much time for
reflection, I am more inclined to back down
altogether than to climb to your figure. The
fact of the matter is, my conscience is rather
uneasy."
64
■H|KttnMit(MB»ilHw>*r<i
■***"," ■'■" """*'=**3gif***'''
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
"•How's that?" said the King.
" Why, you see, these slalUons of mine are
baptized, and your Majesty's isn't."
"But he ought to be all right in that respect,"
said the King, with a twinkle of malice for
Wackerbarth in his eye. " He comes from a
country where good (Catholics are easily made,
they say."
" Ah ! So he does," replied the Envoy dryly.
" Perhaps we may be able to get over the diffi-
culty after all — if your Majesty will take the
twelve grenadiers."
" What the devil, your Majesty ! " cried
Anhalt, striking into the conversation at this
point, " you are never going to swap the Spaniard
for twelve beggarly grenadiers ! Why, I'll give
you thirty out of hand, and all of the top height
at that."
The King looked hard at \V'ackcrbarth. " If
he does not make up his mind pretty soon,"
said he, " I shall accept your offer. Prince."
" Well, as for that," replied Wackerbarth, who
suspected Anhalt of "standing in" with the
King, " I should be sorry to disoblige two such
illustrious personages as your Majesty and the
Prince, so we'll say nothing more about it."
6^ F
.
1 >'
':i''»«!^!iXti'Jif<. :-.-.'•.'■ ■:;
W'f;^^-^.
iUi'
ii
! f
i;i
\r '
The Romance of a Regiment
** Then I take you, Anhalt," said the King,
amid the laughter of the table.
But sizable recruits were not always to be so
easily come at as in this instance, and when
this was the case the King resorted to more
questionable means of procuring them. In his
own dominions — as he once bluntly told Count
Seckendorf when that minister, of all men, had
been saddled by his Court with the hopeless
task of " curing his Prussian Majesty of his
madness in enlisting " — " he could do as he
liked." The light in which he regarded home
cases of "lifting" is admirably brought out by
a retort he once made, when some members
of the University of Halle complained of the
treatment received by a tall law student, who
had been set upon one evening in the open
street of that town, thrown into a cart, and
trundled away to barracks. *' No fuss ! " said
the despot, " he is my subject."
So little did " fuss " avail in cases of this
description, and of such common occurrence
were the cases themselves, that it became
practically impossible for any but students of
the lowest stature — dwarfs, in short — to com-
plete the University course j and the fate of
66
}'i
The Royal Spori of Man-hunting
these unfortunates was, as we have already seen,
meted out in even sterner measure to most
other classes. A letter once reached the King,
in which the writer, appealing to his Majesty's
religious sentiments, attempted, by quoting
Exodus xxi. 1 6 and Deuteronomy xxiv. 7,
to prove that he had no right to steal his own
subjects. The King sought refuge in i Samuel
viii. 16, which, he declared, empowered him to
take "the goodliest young men, a?id asses."
Had he been content to press his prerogative
no further than this within his dominions,
abundant excuse could perhaps be found for
its arbitrary exercise ; but unfortunately for his
memory, he pushed it to far more serious lengths.
Not only did he claim conscriptive rights over
his own subjects, he extended that claim,
contrary to principles of international law even
then very generally acknowledged, to such of
his neighbours' subjects as happened to cross
his borders. " If they don't want to be exposed
to accidents," he observed to Seckendorf, with
significant tartness, on the occasion abovealluded
to, " let them keep out of my country."
It was doubtless on such grounds as these
that certain of the King's officers, in the course
67
1/
I*.'-
1 1
V
The Romance of a Regiment
of their daily task of verifying the old saw,
" Like master, like man," once sought to make
a Great Grenadier of that gigantic Austrian
nobleman. Baron von Bentenrieder. Journey-
ing by easy stages to the Court of George I.,
with his credentials as Emperor's Ambassador
tucked snugly away in his pocket, the Baron,
who was considered to be the tallest of men,
certainly merited the distinction of tallest of
diplomatists. Tallest, but not wisest. Near
Halberstadt — a region of ill repute for rough
roads and rougher recruiters- iiis coach broke
down, and his Excellency, wishing to stretch his
long legs, left the carriage to be brought forward
by his servants and proceeded on foot. At the
town gate he was challenged by a sentry.
" Halt 1 Who goes there ? ='
" The Emperor's Botschafter," replied the
tall stranger.
The officer of the guard happened to be a
Pomeranian, and in his mother tongue the big
word meant merely a courier, not an ambas-
sador. " Courier, eh ? " thought he. " Not too
great a dandy to make a Prussian soldier, an) -
how." So he turned out the guard and arrested
him.
68
I
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
Entering into the humour of the thing, the
Baron allowed himself to be led away to the
house of the commandant, who, at sight of so
promising a recruit, went into ecstasies.
"A perfect god-send! How high does he
stand ? Ha ! so much ? Not higher, though,
than I shall stand with the King ! "
In the midst of these self-gratulations up
came one of Bentenrieder's servants.
" Vour Excellency," he began, when the
commandant, suddenly perceiving that he had
put his foot in it, interrupted him with an ex-
clamation of alarm.
" What ! " cried he. " It is surely not the
Ambassador of whose coming "
"It is," said the Baron; "and when next he
comes this way, see that you are not in such a
hurry lo press your acquaintance upon him."
With that he walked away, laughing heartily
at the escapade — as well he might, since it was
not given to every mm to escape so easily from
the toils. Baron Demerath, sometime Imperial
Resident at Berlin, once had in his employ a
tall Viennese cook, whom he discharged at his
own request. Aware of the risk the man ran on
account of his inches, the Baron not only [)ro-
#9
The Romance of a Regiment
^^
\>^
\i
\ I
Ijr
•■
if '
i
jl, ■ .
\
si ■'
A
if '
31
il
vided him with the Imperial passport, but placed
his own horses at his 'disposal, and delegated
one of his servants to see him safely over the
Saxon frontier. But the unfortunate chef was
not destined to set foot on Saxon soil for many
a year. The Nemesis which sooner or later
overtook all tall men in Prussia, was on his
track. Before he had proceeded many miles,
he was pounced upon by a party of recruiters,
who, making light of his treble safe-conduct,
^whisked him off to Potsdam.
Against this gross violation of the law of
nations the Baron immediately entered a
spirited protest. The Prussian Ministers listened
with uplifted brows, the King scowled. They
were very sorry for the "accident," but release
the cook they could not ; and they only hoped
that Monsieur le Baron "would not make any
difference between the two Courts for so trifling
a matter ! " The cook remained at Potsdam,
a notorious addition to an already notorious
regiment.
Nor was this all. If a person was tall, he
had to take equal care how he travelled in those
days, whether in Prussian dominions, or out of
them, for in quest of his Ideal Giant Frederick
70
.' \
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
William stopped at nothing. Boundaries: van-
ished before him, Europe became his private
hunting-ground. A lawless grotesque of a king
at his best, in no respect did he believe himself
to be so superior to all law, whether human or
divine, as in this ; and right roundly did he act
up to his belief. Expense itself could not deter
him, greatest miser of his time though he Vyas,
from his darling pursuit ; while considerations
of international right, of individual liberty,: of
personal honour, weighed light as air when
placed in the balance over against his ideal,
iic "had a mortgage on all the tall fellows; in
li.'.rope," and whensoever, or wheresoever, t«he
opportunity presented itself, he promptly fo>e-
closcd the mortgage and took the man.
Instances of his summary enforcement of 'so
audacious a conception of the divine right of
kings are almost numberless. The musty cor-
respondence of our contemporaneous national
representatives at Berlin, \'ienna, and elsewhere,
may fairly be said to abound in them. So, tOQ),
do those an; using if not wholly trustworthy
anecdotists aad annalists who wrote during, cr
shortly after, the reign of this most eccentric of
kings. A few of the more characteristic C'f
71 \
!
Mi
T^he Romance of a Regiment
these may hce be given, because of the curious
Hght they shed on our royal Man-hunter's mania
and methods.
His utter unscrupulousness when tall men
were concerned; is well illustrated by an order
which he sent in 173 1 to a lieutenant who was
in his service at the Hague. It was couched in
the following precise terms : " I have promised
the Russian Empress to send her, i >r six years'
service, one master swordsmith with a ham-
merer, one master hardener with a labourer, one
polisher with a labourer, and one scythesmith
with a labourer. These people you must do
your best to procure at the Hague. Persuade
them with gifts if possible ; but if they will not
engage themselves, you must carry them off by
force, and send them from garrison to garrison
under military escort." There was at the Hague,
it should be explained, a cutlery factory manned
with first-rate English operatives, and it was
on these the King had his eye. As he had
foreseen, no offers of money could induce them
to exchange the certain competence they en-
joyed, for the uncertainty attending tiie long
journey to Russia and their subsecjuent treat-
ment there. They were accordingly abducted,
72
>
'T/ie Royal Sport of Man-hunting
and with them the Empress Anne founded her
celebrated sword factory at Tula. It may
indeed be urged that they were not kidnapped
because of their height, or with a view to mak-
ing grenadiers. But wait ! The Empress had
solicited this favour of the King, holding out as
a bait the tempting offer of an equal number of
tall Russians ; and, the coveted workmen once
secured, she fulfilled her promise to the letter,
to the unbounded delight of the royal trepanner.
In the course of the following year he received
an offer of a somewhat less tempting nature,
but with which he nevertheless closed as greedily.
" I have seen in the recruiting regulations,"' the
l^rince Royal wrote from Ruppin, "that when
officers know of tall fellows above six feet, who
are not to be had by fair means, they are to give
information as to whether, and how, they may
be secured. Not far from I'erlberg, in Meck-
lenburg, there is a shepherd who is said to be
c[uite six feet four. He is not to be had by fair
means, but when herd'ng his sheep he is alone
in the field, and could be got. He is the man
the Hussars were once sent after, I wish there-
fore to inquire whether my Most All-Oracious
Lord- Father comn.ands that he shall be taken.
^
'11
T/ie Romance of a Regiment
I will see that it is done without any fuss." The
King issued orders for the shepherd's immediate
apprehension.
Slinking about under cover of the dykes of
Holland, the King's recruiting emissaries once
espied a mountainous Dutch carrier, jogging stol-
idly on in his lumbering waggon. 'I'hey pounced
down upon him, and leaving the waggon and
horses to take care of themselves, marched him
off in their midst to the nearest inn, where, find-
ing that he stubbornly resisted all their induce-
ments to swear allegiance to their master, they
" roasted him behind a hot, burning stove," at
the point of the bayoiiet, until he consented to
become a grenadier.
A thread of fine pathos frecjuently weaves
itself into the texture of these coarse outrages.
On one occasion a detachment of mounted
troops made a raid into the Bishop of Osna
briick's country, and forciloly carried off a tall
man who lived ihere. The poor fellow's father
tried to resc liim, and was left dead on the
scene of his ill-advised attempt. At another
time they were " lifting " a tall shepherd across
the Anhalt-Cothen border, when he gave his
captors tile slip, and made a desperate spurt for
74
/
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
liberty. The cornet in command rode after
him, and shot him dead in his tracks.
But the story of the Jiilich carpenter far sur-
passes these in pathetic interest. The King at
one time had in his service a certain Hompesch
who, as a reward for playing the recruiter with
energy and success, was created a lieutenant -
colonel. One day, in the town of Jiilich, lie
came across a carpenter of commanding figure.
To secure so desirable a prize, Hompesch
favoured him with an order for a chest, which
should be exactly as long as its builder— sa)-
eight feet. When it was finished the customer
began to quibble about its length, and the
carpenter, to set all doubts at rest, unsuspiciously
stepped into the box and stretched himself oui
on the bottom. "Ah! it's all right, I sec," said
Hompesch ; and clapping down the lid, he
secured it with a piece of rope. With the
assistance of a brace of Prussian recruiters in
disguise, the chest was that night carried out of
the town ; but when the lid was raised, the poor
carpenter was discovered as stiff and lifeless a->
the boards which enchased him.
It mattered as little to these ruftians as Ic
their master who or what their victim mighl
n
'The Romance of a Regiment
-i ' -
I.
{.
%'
y
I*
be, provided only, to repeat the words of
Seckendorf, he was " tall and well set-up."
"They enrolled whom they could," declares
Pollnitz, " without regard to rank or birth," now
condescending to men of low degree, again
aspiring to the rich and great. There was, for
instance, that young Courlander of affluent and
influential family, who in his nineteenth year set
out for Germany to complete his studies. Be-
fore he had proceeded many stages on his
journey, however, his great height — for they
grew many a Colossus up Courland way —
attracted the notice of a Prussian officer, on
whom the King had bestowed " a pass to go
a-hunting." This individual joined the young
man in his travels, and by pretending great
interest in him, induced him to make a detour
to Berlin, with the avowed object of seeing the
sights. On their arrival there they entered a
tavern to drink the King's health, when up came
a picket and took the tall recruit, as his com-
pagnon de voyage swore he was, in charge, and
in a few hours' time he found himself attired
the uniform of a (Ireat Grenadier. The
in
King was so captivated by his height and good
looks, that he made him a
76
" non-com." within
The Royal Sport of Man- hunting
a year, and an ensign in three. 'I'he (A)urlan(ler
thought himself a lucky man.
Another recruit, who came from the south,
and who could boast of rank as well as inches,
was less lucky, as luck went at Potsdam, since
he attained to the uniform but fell short of the
commission. HLs story is rather a curious one.
A member of the Prussian recruiting fraternity,
temporarily domiciled at Tn noa, obtained an
introduction to the Mar(,uiN de IJre/x', and so
got to be on intimate terms with his son, the
Chevalier d'Argentera, who was exceptionall)
tall. The officer could talk of nothing but the
grand Prussian army, and the young n(jl)le,
thinking to see for himself what inducements it
offered in the way of a military career, finall)
accomi)anied him to Berlin. l<or months his
family heard no news of him, and in their
anxiety they wrote to Wackerbarth, who, after
prolonged search, discovered the missing man —
in the Berlin guard-house ! He had been locked
up all this time, it appeared, because of a refusal
to enter the King's body-guard, and in order
" to break his temper." Wackerbarth was able
to offer the unhappy parents but sorry consola-
tion. " It seems to me,' said he, " that he
77
t'
w
f
t'l
If,
ft'
if I
m
I! fi
'The Romance of a Regiment
will have about as much chance of escape as the
other foreign Marcjuises, Counts and Barons
who have been coaxed hither by great promises,
and were after all put in the ranks."
There can be no cjuestion but that Wacker-
barth, in his solicitude for the feelinjfs of the
Chevalier's people, was guilty of a delicate
exaggeration. Had he insinuated, however,
that the ranks of the (ireat (irenadiers could
show a plentiful sprinkling of privates who had
(jnce been cowled, or worn the cloth, he would
have been well within the truth, since the King's
lack of respect for sectaries, monks and other cus-
todians of the priestly office with whom he did
not agree, was even more notorious than his
disregard of rank and birth. The tenets of the
Mennonites, who held the shedding of human
blood to bo a deadly sin, and preached the
eternal damnation of all who followed that
sanguinary calling, gave him mortal offence. It
was not so much that they conflicted with his
theology — they tended, rather, to thwart his
ruling passion. He therefore fulminated an edict
against the objectionable sect, straitly charg-
ing every member of it to quit his dominions,
bag and baggage, within three months.
78
I]
i-
,
'The Royal Spori of Man-Jiunting
It
was with no view to the conversion of these
black sheep, therefore, that he sent for Pastor
Haumgarten from Halle. Haunigarten was
reported to be a Socinian, denying the Divinity
and Atonement of Christ, " Aha ! " argued the
orthodox King, "here's a daring fellow for you.
A man bold enough to attack the very founda-
tions of Christianity must surely be of heroic
ijuild." He accordingly summoned the preacher
into his presence, confident of finding in him
the promise of a Creat (irenadier; but when,
mstead of the giant he ex[)ecled to see, there
appeared a frail, undersized man, he was amazed,
"do back!" he cried. "In Clod's name go
back and keep up your preaching. Vou will
never do any harm."
Like Pastor Paumgarten, the unfortunate
Mennonites were probably not of a stature to
excite the King's cupidity, else would they hardly
have escaped as lightly as they did. Or it may
be that he had already converted the tallest
members of the Anabaptist flock to his views of
election. But with the Catholics of Poland the
case was different. They had plenty of men
amongst them as great in obnoxious theology as
in stature, and since the King bore them a
79
L'si .
IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)
1.0
I.I
1.25
1118
1112
m
Z2
12.0
i-4 ill 1.6
V]
<^
/}
a
PTH.
'^.
i9j
A
//
V
/A
Photographic
Sciences
Corporation
V
4v
%^
^^
o
#>
23 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80
(716)877-4503
o^
The Romance of a Regiment
standing grudge for their relentless persecution
of the Lutherans, he stole away their tonsured
shepherds whenever he could do it with impu-
nity, and forced them to exchange the monkish
cowl for the grenadier's chapcau. There were
many Polish priests in the regiment at Potsdam,
and at least two others hailed from Roman
monasteries. But perhaps the most noteworthy
representative of the " divinity " that did hedge
the King, was a tall priest belonging to the
Italian Tyrol, and kidnapped, so it is said, whilst
in the very act of reading mass. According to
Thidbault he was none other than the celebrated
Abbd Bastiani, whom Frederick the (ireat after-
wards created a Canon.
Turning now from B'rederick William's begging,
baiiering and stealing proclivities, there remains
only to be considered that phase of his assiduous
hunt for the Ideal Giant which presents him in
the character of a Shylock-like exactor who,
demurring at the pound of flesh accorded him
of grace, clamoured loudly for the whole carcase.
At home he could of course "do as he liked"
— as the King of Denmark learnt, when obliged
to purchase the extradition of a murderer who
had sought refuge in Prussia, with twelve tall
80
T"/'^ Royal Sport of Man-hunting
grenadiers ; as Ferrari, an official at Cottbus,
learnt when the King adorned his report on the
hardness of the times and the consequent suffer-
ings of the peasantry, with the cold-blooded
comment : " Ferrari is a rogue. Remind him
that he owes me a six-footer for my regiment j "
or as the ill-advised supporters of King Stanislaus
learnt, when, wishing to return to their native
land after having found a grudging a -ylum in
Prussia, they were met with the stern mandate :
" No ! They shall not budge until they furnish,
every mother's son of them, two tall substitutes,
or undeniable Prussian security for the same, in
the sum of 2000 dollars each. This was the
condition on which they were granted a refuge
in my dominions."
Of the number who had entered into this
singular compact, was no less a dignitary than
the Bishop of W'ilna. Unable to discharge his
bond, he attempted flight, but was stopped
ere he could get away. Manteuffel was asked
to intercede on his behalf. ** I would wilungly
try to help the Bishop," replied the Envoy,
"were he accused, say, of plotting to dethrone
the King of Prussia, or of attempting to take his
life ; but to intercede for one who has promised
Si
'The Romance of a Regiment
tall men and failed to supply them, would be
to expose myself to the most unpleasant conse-
quences without the slightest hope of success."
Ay, at home the despot could do as he liked.
But abroad it was otherwise. Though not at
first. So long as his mania was a topic of
amusement rather than a bugbear to his neigh-
bours, man-hunting concessions poured in from
every quarter. His emissaries had the free run
of the Czar's vast dominions, where a few tall
serfs more or less mattered little. The deputies
of the free city of Hamburg, seeking assistance
against the Danes, brought to Berlin an offer of
perpetual liberty to raise recruits within their
precincts. France had huge peasants to spare,
and transferred her claim upon them to officers
of the King's own. Little Hanover, following
suit, granted the right to take big game within
her borders; whilst a permit to do the like in
Hungary opened the King's arms, tabagie, and
heart to Count Seckendorf. Little did the
conceders of these hunting rights guess what
wolves in sheep's clothing they were harbouring,
or how sore a rod they were preparing for their
own backs.
For so far, as between ruler and ruler, all was
82
I
The Royal Sport of Man-hunting
fair and above-board. It was only when the
coveted privilege was denied him that the King's
amazing pretensions thereto, conceived of the
too great concessions he had enjoyed, were
foisted upon his startled neighbours. To hunt
big men where he pleased, to *' lift " them
whence he could, was no more a privilege, but a
lawful due which he would have, and enjoy,
whether or no.
His officers once pressed some men at
Dantzic, whereupon the magistrates of that town,
finding protest to be an utter waste of breath,
tried the effect of a proclamation constituting the
practice a capital offence. This enraged the
King beyond measure, and having the whole
inland trade of the town under his thumb owing
to the fact that it had to pass through his terri-
tory, he forthwith seized every Dantzic cart he
could lay hands on, and only released them
when the offensive decree was revoked and his
privileges were established on what he considered
to be a neighbourly basis.
But the affair of Cothen perhaps best illus-
trates the audacity of his exactions and the
lengths to which he was capable of carrying
them. The Prince of Anhalt-Cothen, it would
83
The Romance of a Regiment
appear, had raised an independent company for
the King of Poland, on condition that it should
remain in his own country unless required
for active service ; and certain of his petty
brother Princes, taking umbrage at this ominous
disturbance of the local balance of power, called
upon his Prussian Majesty to restore it to its
former equilibrium. Frederick William desired
nothing more. Such splits afforded a ready
opening for the thin end of the recruiting
wedge, and on this occasion, as on many others,
he drov'j it home to the very butt.
An officer was immediately despatched to
Cothen with a letter for the Prince, *' simply
desiring leave to recruit in his country." The
Prince was rather taken aback by the unexpected
request, and while he was considering whether
he might with safety dare the rod which he was
quick to perceive lay in pickle for him, the officer,
without so much as saying "By your leave,"
directed the troopers who were with him to raid
the objectionable company :ind to take their
pick of it.
" Stop ! •' cried the Prince, when he saw what
was intended.
"Why so?" asked the officer.
84
The Royal Spori of Man-hunting
'•Because if you do not," said the Prince,
" I will have the town gates closed upon
you."
" Your Highness may do as you please,"
was the cool rejoinder. " I have my orders,
and — there's a whole regiment of us not far
off!"
The King sometimes did a little hunting on
his own account, though not with a regiment at
his back. If he happened to meet a tall, fine-
looking citizen or peasant in the course of his
walks abroad, he stopped and had a friendly
chat with him on the benefits of voluntary
enlistment. The views of sovereign and subject
did not always run exactly parallel on these
occasions, and when this was the case they
were made to coincide by a demonstration
beautiful in its simplicity. His Majesty hooked
the crook of his stick into the collar of the
dissentient's jacket, and so hauled him off to
the guard-house.
After such lawless fashion as this did
Frederick William prosecute his search for the
elusive Goliath of his imagination, and though
many a man of preternatural inches, trapped
by methods worthier of the bandit than of the
85
The Romance of a Regimeni
King, fell into his widespread toils, each in
turn served only to stimulate his fancy to loftier
flights, and to lure him on in his Tantalus quest
for the Higher Ideal of perfervid dreams. To
that ideal he never attained. Like many of
commoner mould, he aimed too high.
86
CHAPTER IV
THE KINC'S OWN
Never did there march to tuck of drum a
more unique body of soldiers than Frederick
William's own regiment of Great Grenadiers.
The King's extraordinary mania for tall men
began to show itself while he was yet Crown
Prince. At the hunting seat of Wusterhausen,
some twenty miles south-east of Berlin, he
secretly collected a squad of stalwart rustics,
and neglected his games and lessons in order
to drill them. His father lent him an infantry
regiment, of which the staff-company was
stationed there as his body-guard. Gradually
the Prince weeded out all the small men from
its ranks, and filled their places with giant
peasants of his own selection. In this way
most of his pocket-money was spent. His early
recruiting got him into many a sad scrape,
prophetic of sadder ones to come ; and as his
father refused to indulge his whim, the tall
87
The Romance of a Regiment
soldiers thus obtained had often to be hidden
away in stables and haylofts when the old King
came to Wusterhausen. His mother showed
him more indulgence, and nothing delighted
the Prince so much as to parade his big men
for her inspection.
It was not, however, until March 1713 that
the Guards took on the personnel which after-
wards rendered them so celebrated. Frederick
William was now King ; 30,000 men were his to
choose from. With the Spring Review he
proceeded to carry out his long-cherished dream
of a picked regiment, the living units of which
should eclipse, in size and perfection of dis-
cipline, the finest soldiers in the world. To
this end he selected the tallest of his entire
rank and file, grafted them upon the old
Wusterhausen nucleus, and so launched his
regiment of giants upon its short but chequered
career.
Composed at the outset of but two battalions
of 600 men each, the regiment grew, in a
measure, with the growth of the King's mania.
In a measure only, for the most diligent recruit-
ing failed to keep pace with "a fancy which
increased daily beyond anything it was possible
88
i
til
1
^
t
M
The King's Own
to imagine." His tall men were dearer to him
than the apple of his eye. The more he got,
ihe more he wanted. The taller they were, the
taller he wished them. A giant abroad was
worth two at Potsdam : he might liave a few
more inches than the tallest there. When
secured, he was valued only as an ajiproximation
to the next. From the point of view of what
the King desired it to be, the regiment was
never complete. \'et when disbanded in 1 740,
its original strength had swollen to three
battalions — each consisting of one grenadier and
six musketeer companies — comprising 60 com-
missioned and 165 non-commissioned officers,
53 drums, r5 surgeons, 15 fifes, 2 almoners or
chaplains, 195 grenadiers and 1965 musketeers;
together with four companies of so-called *'un-
ranked," including 4 commissioned and 26 non-
commissioned officers, 8 fifes, 12 drums, and
509 privates — or 3030 men in all.
No man in the regiment measured less than
six feet without his boots. This was the
minimum. Those who fell below it were
"small men," fit only for the common ranks;
those who exceeded it stood proportionately
high in the estimation of the King. A seven
89
1
I
.f
The Romance of a Regiment
or eight-footer, such as he who answered to the
length of Whitworth's pack-thread, was "more
esteemed than so many first-rate men of war."
Jonas, the Norwegian hiacksmitli, fell into this
category. When he died, his grief-stricken
master had him reproduced in marble for the
fa(;ade of one of his public buildings. One
Hoffman, a born Prussian, stood so high that
King August of I'oland, who was no dwarf,
could not reach the crown of his head with his
finger-tips. He was made a fugleman, or leader
of a file. Some of these front-rankers were
nearly nine feet high, and a mitre-shaped
chapeau added some twelve or fifteen inches to
this tremendous stature.
Conspicuous amongst them was one Miiller,
known throughout England, France and the
Low Countries as "the (lerman giant." By
profession an itinerant showman, Miiller's whole
stock-in-trade consisted of himself and his little
(lerman wife, who barely came up to his middle.
His exact height is unrecorded, but the annalist
Fassmann, who had theretofore regarded Baron
Bentenrieder as the tallest of men, readily
yielded the palm to him when, in 17 13, he
" discovered " the gigantic showman in his
90
>«
'■'
i
I
The Kings Own
« '
f H
booth at the fair of St. (Icrmain. 'I'hirtccii
years later Kussmann again encountered the
giant, still on show, but this time in the ranks
of the (Ireat Grenadiers at Potsdam. How he
came there is best known to his captors. His
little ( lerman frau was dead, and the English
one whom he had installed in her place, a
shrewish creature little bigger than the former,
led him a j.Tetty dance of it. Owing to this
or some other cause, the giant's legs swelled
to an elephantine size, and he was discharged
as unserviceable. When last heard of, he
was coining money in the county fairs of
England.
Looks was another critical point with the
King. He liked his giants handsome, and
generally thought them so in proportion to
their height, though probably his love was
blind. A leading member of the Academy of
Arts was employed to paint their portraits, which
afterwards adorned the walls of the royal salons.
The King himself was a persistent dauber in
oils, and when gout confined him to the house,
he would amuse himself for days by doing
violence to the features of his tall (Irenadiers.
Each picture bore the date of painting and the
» c
'The Romance of a Regiment
I-
I
words : *' Fredericus Wilhelmus in tormentis
pinxit.^*
The procuration of these giants cost fabulous
sums. The King never stole men from officers,
whether of his own or other Prussian regiments,
but paid for them with a capricious liberality
that made many a penniless soldier of fortune
independent for life. The royal bounty, accord-
ing to a popular fiction, was expended only in
replacing tall men thus drawn from the- ranks ;
but as a matter of fact a heavy percentage
nearly always went into the private purse of the
recipient. At the review of 1 731, for instance,
the King bought 60 men for 145,100 dollars, of
officers who had paid not more than 97,380
dollars for them. His liberality, as doubtless
the gain it entailed, was equally great on other
occasions. An account of July 4, 1735, shows
that the Treasury was drawn upon by officers to
the extent of 43,000 dollars for 46 recruits.
The same year Count Dohna received 12,664
dollars for 18 men, and the year following
General Marwitz drew 13,987 dollars for eight.
The average price paid for home recruits was
about 1000 dollars per head, as a tall brewer,
who was once recruited out of his bed, and
r
'The King's Own
only allowed to return to it on payment of that
sum for a substitute, learned to his cost ; but
as the King frequently gave from .^oo to 300
dollars for a man who had cost only one dollar
" hand-money," or the trouble of "lifting," the
profits of the purveyors must have been
enormous.
The sums spent in foreign recruiting were far
in excess of the home expenditure. Between
1713 and 1735 a grand total of 12,000,000
dollars, or, reckoning seven dollars to the
pound, nearly ;^i, 750,000 sterling, was sent
abroad for recruits. The cost of exceptionally
tall individuals throws a curious explanatory
light upon these figures ; for, dear as the home
article was, the prices of imported flesh and
blood necessarily ruled much higher. James
Kirkland, a colossal Irishman whom Borckc
recruited, ran his captors into the tidy sum of
^1260 before he was safely lodged at Potsdam.
Sockendorf gave more than ^1100 for a tall
Austrian. A recruit of the appropriate name
of (irosse, cost in various payments jQtk), of
which ^214 went to the monks whose tenant
he was. General Schmettau pocketed a like
sum in 1732 for a gigantic fugleman of foreign
93
r M
>'< ,
T/ie Romance of a Regiment
i\ , '■'
.1 !
hi
breed ; and the recruit Andrea Capra cost
In truth, no expenditure was too great to
secure a notable addition to the King's body-
guard. He lavished millions upon his " beloved
children in blue," while his own children
starved for bread. In dishonour, misery, and
blood, their cost was incalculable. Their
maintenance alone equalled that of eight
ordinary regiments of the line. In the matter
of rations they were treated better than princes
of the blood.
What increased the expense of the regiment
enormously was that earlier recruits were
generally enrolled only for a term of years,
after which they received permission to return
home if they had not previously died or deserted.
But the proverb, *' To have served three poten-
tates on one pair of soles," did not long apply
to the Great Grenadier, as we shall presently
see.
The King was a colonel of the regiment, and
stood only in that relation to the other officers.
He once wrote to Colonel Marwitz : " Have
iMassow fetched, and give him a sound rating for
want of due respect to me as his superior. As
'
The King's Own
he was very drunk, I forgive him ; but he must
know that he is major and I colonel."
Although the staff pay of the regiment was
small, the perquisites of officers — as we have
seen — were so many and tempting that com-
missions were eagerly sought after. 'I'o obtain
them no great or conspicuous action need be
performed. Whim was everything with a master
who could elevate a Creutz to the dignity of
chief minister simply because he happened to
be tall. In the gratification of some one of the
King's innumerable caprices lay the whole secret.
Thus the Prince Royal's excellent discipline of
his cadet corps earned him the post of captain
at a tender age ; when he first led out his troop
for muster — a useless Lilliputian among useless
giants — he was barely thirteen ; whilst Holtzen-
dorf, a medical man, was created a surgeon-
major for nothing more meritorious than the
relieving his royal patron's colic by a mighty
dose of ipecacuanha.
In order to reside comfortably at the Prussian
Court, the providing a weekly treat for the
officers of the King's Own was looked upon as
indispensable. All the generals and chief
ministers, as well as many of the foreign ones,
95
;i
h i
Iv
1 1
The Romance of a Regiment
conformed to a usage which it would have been
unwise to ignore. As the officers were mostly
hearty young giants, in the enjoyment of pay
out of all proportion to their appetites, the ex-
pense of such entertainments ran into a goodly
sum. Not less than forty or fifty bottles of wine
were cracked of an evening, and nothing but
the best of everything would do, especially when
the royal "colonel," who loved good feeding
scarcely less than he loved tall soldiers, made
one of the company. Seckendorf had a special
allowance for such treats, and generally found
it inadecjuate ; while the British Envoy Du-
Pourgay, who had none, contracted " a thou-
sand pounds of debts " in less than two years.
One of these singular feasts is described by
Baron Bielfeld, in his long forgotten Lettres
Familieres, with great verve and humour. Says
the Baron : —
'* At the colonel's house we found a score of
the principal officers. We had a very good
dinner, and they who loved the old nectar of
the Rhine were plentifully imbrued. All these
corpulent machines are great wine-bibbers.
They pour down the bumpers with a facility and
good-will truly Germanic. It is part of the
96
The King's Own
etiquette at Potsdam to place, at the beginning
of the feast, a number of bottles on the side-
board. When the butler brings them in, the
faces of the guests begin to brighten ; and as
they become empty they are ranged upon the
floor in the form of a battalion. The longer
the file of these dead men, the gayer the dinner.
At about the sixth large bumper, that surly air,
which had at first almost frightened me, began
to disappear.
" After dinner they sent for the hautbois of
the regiment and began to dance. I looked this
way and that, expecting to see some ladies
enter ; and I was stupefied when one of these
descendants of Anak, a giant of ruby and
weather-beaten countenance, proffered me his
hand to open the ball. I could not but be
greatly embarrassed when the proposition was
made to me to dance with a man ! But they
gave me little time for reflection, for dance 1
must. The commanders of the regiment danced,
all the officers danced ; and towards the end
this masculine ball became very animated, thanks
to the repeated bumpers of champagne which
they made us drink by way of refreshment.
About eight in the evening most of these
U I
t^i '
The Romance of a Regiment
terrible warriors declined the combat, their huge
limbs being no longer able to encounter Bacchus
and Terpsichore, and they went staggering off."
And this upon a Sunday, too !
The regimental band, which vied with the
" old nectar of the Rhine " in giving zest to
these orgies, deserves more than passing mention.
Its leader was one Godfrey Pepusch, a relative
of the Dr. Pepusch of Beggar's Opera fame, and
a bassoonist, according to all accounts, of no
mean distinction. Travelling extensively in his
palmier days, he visited most of the Courts of
Europe, and tickled the ears of many a crowned
head with his skilful renderings and clever im-
provisations. His wanderings, after a time,
brought him to Berlin, where, on the principle
that a bird in the hand was worth two in the
continental bush, he gracefully succumbed to
the pecuniary inducements held out by Frederick
I., and took up his abode at Court in the
character of chief bassoonist to his most ex-
travagant Majesty. The general riddance of
hangers-on which followed hard upon the ac-
cession of Frederick William, transferred him
from the palace to the barracks ; for Pepusch
was not only a musician, but a man of stature,
98
The King's Own
and on the strength of this double quaHfication
his new master found a place for him in the
budding regiment of giants. Here, as permanent
conductor of the hautbois band, and as some-
time director of that pretentious institution for
the training of regimental fifers, tho Potsdam
"Academy of Music," he served out his full
term of twenty-eight years, survived the ordeal
and his regiment by a decade, and died, at a
good old age, in enjoyment of a pension from
Frederick the Great.
In the long winter evenings at Potsdam the
King would often command the attendance of
his Grenadier band, under the leadership of
Pepusch, and while away the weary hours in
calmly listening to, or fiercely criticizing, their
more or less brilliant performances. On these
occasions he sat by himself, save for his pipe
and pot, in solitary grandeur at one end of the
great hall, while Pepusch and his underlings took
their stand at the other. If his master was in
an exceptionally good humour, he was perhaps
allowed to make the selection for the evening,
and the big bassoonist, taking advantage of this
indulgence, occasionally chose a piece of his
own composing. A story told in tabagie once
99
II
■' : 'I
i
T'he Romance of a Regiment
supplied him with a mofif, and he composed a
movement of six pigs on as many bassoons,
heading the parts forco />rimo, Porco secundo^
etc. This, on the first available opportunity,
he rendered before his Majesty, who held his
sides with laughter, and continued to call for
the performance, evening after evening, with un-
abated zest. Sometimes he fell asleep under
the combined influences of pipe, pot and music,
and the bassoonists, to lighten their task, took
the wink from their conductor and boldly skipped
an aria or two. But the royal listener was not
thus to be caught napping. His eyes opened
on the instant wide with anger and astonishment,
his purple face assumed a deeper hue, and
rapping out a good round German oath to lend
emphasis to the command, he bade the trick-
sters cease their fooling and render the piece
again from start to finish, on pain of having their
pay, if not their wind, stopped indefinitely.
The King had at first intended to quarter his
regiment at Berlin, but people looked askance
at the giants and refused to lodge them.
Brandenburg, his next preference, was some
distance from town, and though distance went
for little with a King who frequently travelled
100
1-',^ **
li
The King's Own
forty French leagues in a day, he finally fixed
on Potsdam as their place of abode. Here
he built extensive barracks, converted the mag-
nificent gardens into a barren Ltist Garten or
place d'armes for exercising his soldiers, and
encircled the whole by a moat which in time
became as malodorous as the reputation of its
digger. Although the King obstinately held the
contrary to be the case, the spot was fatally un-
healthy. Fever dogged the steps of all who
inhabited there, claiming many a victim. The
cemetery just without the gates underwent
a gruesome process of " betterment " owing to
the proximity of the giant regiment. It came to
be known, in course of years, as " the costliest
plot of ground in the kingdom." Within its
walls scores upon scores of tall men, in graves
of portentous length, slept the sleep that knows
no reveille.
The duties of the Great Grenadiers who
escaped the cemetery were far from onerous.
They turned out at cockcrow every morning for
inspection aud drill ; they kept their arms and
accoutrements in condition ; they mounted
guard at the palace and in the town ; they
figured at State functions. At the annual reviews
lOI
r~4
V
The Romance of a Regiment
i,\
they took precedence of other regiments, and
were then dismissed to quarters with a hand-
some gratuity. Once they were under canvas
for a week ; once they marched in expectation
of seeing active service. Ere they could get a
shot at the enemy or at Hberty, their marching
orders were countermanded. Beyond this they
had Httle to do, except to plot mischief and
provide matter of wonder and amusement for
illustrious visitors, who were routed out of their
beds at unearthly hours of the morning, and in
all weathers, to see the drowsy, shivering giants
put through their paces. A more ludicrous
sight than the lank monstrosities at drill was
probably never seen.
Visitors at Potsdam suffered more serious
inconveniences than that of early rising. The
ceaseless tramp and the sharp challenge of
sentries, varied by the noise of guard reliev-
ing guard, drove sleep from their pillows. A
princess of the blood was once nearly fright-
ened out of her wits by a terrific uproar in
her ante-chamber. On opening her door she
found the outer room full of Tall Grenadiers,
their black moustachios bristling, their arms
flashing in the torchlight. She thought the
102
The King's Own
King had sent to arrest her; but it was only
the house on fire.
The mustering of the giants for church parade
formed an impressive and never-to-be-forgotten
scene. Baron Bielfeld, who visited Potsdam in
1739, when the regiment was at its best, thus
describes the function : —
*' On Sunday morning we were awakened by
the roll of a hundred drums. The military
music made us hasten our toilet : we slipped on
our clothes and hurried to the parade, where we
saw the whole grand regiment defile, dressed in
their best, but bearing no arms except swords.
They are here led to the temple of the God of
Battles as to the field of Mars, and attendance
on the sermon or mass forms a part of military
discipline.
" The sight of this grand regiment struck me
exceedingly. The hautbois, very richly be-
daubed, began the march, followed by the fifes
and drums. All the fifes are handsome negroes,
very finely dressed, having turbans ornamented
with plumes, and very elegant chains and ear-
rings of solid silver. Each company was pre-
ceded by fifes and drums, and led by its captain
and other officers.
103
The Romance of a Regiment
\%i
\\\
" After the two battalions had filed past,
came the ' unraiiked ' as they are called, 'I'hese
are men selected from the whole regiment on
account of their stature, who receive extraordin-
ary pay, are regarded as supernumeraries, and
do scarcely any duty. The sight of this troop
more astonished than pleased me. They ap-
pear to me like so many walking Colosses ; hut
nature seems to have been entirely occupied
with giving them an uncommon stature, for they
have little proportion of figure, being for the
most part either ugly, bow-legged, or ill-made in
some part of their bodies, so that the regiment
in general is more marvellous than fine.
" Never did I find myself so diminutive as in
the midst of these devout giants I AVhenever
they stood up for prayer I thought myself a
pigmy ! I was obliged to hold my head back
to see their faces. Both soldiers and officers
attended the service with great decency and
devotion ; but as for myself, I was distracted by
the novelty of the sight, and by the reflections
which I could not help making. To me the
church was a grand cabinet, where some famous
monarch had brought together a most extra-
ordinary collection of men of the tallest stature
104
The Kind's Own
h
from the; four corners of the earth. N<ver
since the deluge has there beeti a troop of
warriors so marvellous in appearance, of so
extraordinary a stature, or who performed their
exercise with so much dexterity."
Passing his days chiefly at Potsdam after the
manner of a country scjuire, the King had ample
leisure to devote to the training of his favourites.
King (ie(jrge II. sarcastically ternied him *' his
brother the sergeant." And certainly no drill-
master in the kingdom approached him in
proficiency and exactitude. lie examined in
person every new recruit, assigned him a [jlace
in the ranks exactly suited to his inches, sujjcr-
intended with the interest of a father and the
eye of a martinet his initiation into the mysteries
of bearing, step, evolution and manual exercise.
His severity held the men to their duty like so
many automatons. His sight was so keen he
could instantly detect the slightest irregularity
in the swing of the longest line. IJoth officers
and privates went in mortal fear of his merciless
cane. If it made their backs sore, it also made
their discipline perfect. They moved as if
actuated by a common spring. The very bear
attached to the regiment knew the regulation
105
■B
■H
'The Romance of a Regiment
|!'l,!
■♦ 'i
," J
Step, movements, and words of command. No
manoeuvring pleased the King so much as the
mancBUvring of his Great Grenadiers. Officers
from other regiments were drilled with them in
order to spread their discipline throughout the
army. Cadets from the foremost armies of
Europe joined their ranks. Those from Russia
were the most numerous. They were drilled in
return for periodical presents of tall men from
the reigning Czar or Czarina. When they
completed the course of instruction the King
harangued them, exhorting them to fear God,
honour the Czar, and send him big recruits
when they became Generals.
Every year the Great Grenadier was new-clad.
One always saw him curled and powdered, his
arms bright, his ungainly boots shining like
mirrors. For the time, his uniform was unique.
It consisted of a blue jacket embroidered with
small gold Brandenburgs or frogs, lined with red,
and having scarlet cuffs ; waistcoat and breeches
of straw-coloured cloth ; and white spatterdashes.
However proud he may have felt in this costume,
happy he could hardly have been. His garments,
cut with a Frederician eye to economy of cloth,
fitted with absolute, unbearable perfection. To
106
1
The King's Own
bid him " stand at ease " was to mock at his
discomfort. If he stooped, he courted certain
and appalling disaster. So excessive was the
tightness of his uniform, it was said, in all seri-
ousness, to cause spitting of blood ! The
jacket, moreover, was the jest of Europe, it was
so ridiculously abbreviated. The harlequin of
a French comedy troupe, bouncing on to the
stage in the meagre coat of a Prussian (irenadier,
shouted to the grinning pit : " Here we are
again — in a clout ! "
The King himself wore always the uniform of
the regiment — a coat of coarse blue cloth with
gilt copper buttons, a straw-coloured waistcoat
edged with thin gold lace, and straw-coloured
breeches, replaced in summer by white linen.
His hat was trimmed with narrow gold lace,
a little button without a loop, and a band
of gold twist, from which depended on either
side a small gold tassel. At his thigh hung u
plain sword, secured to an elk-skin belt whitened
with the conventional pipe-clay. White spatter-
dashes, fastened over heavy, square-toed boots
by means of immaculate copper buttons, com-
pleted his costume.
A French gatro/i, who had been driven from
107
^
\''\
i;
' i
'The Romance of a Regiment
his native land by religious persecution, once
came to Berlin to look for work. Wandering
out to Potsdam one day, he stood to watch the
Tall Grenadiers perform ; and the King, at-
tracted by his simple wonderment, approached
and Vjegan to ply him with questions, forgetting,
for once, "to spit when he saw a Frenchman."
' ' Out, monsienr ; ?ion, tnonsieur" said the
gaping gar^oti.
" Say ' Your Majesty,' " whispered one of the
officers behind his hand ; "'tis the King."
" The King ! " cried the Frenchman ; " who
ever saw a king wear spatterdashes ! "
His Majesty retreated, convulsed with
laughter.
The Great Grenadiers had "pay in propor-
tion to their bulk." The common foot-soldier
received three-halfpence a day and ordinary
rations ; the Great Grenadier drew eighteenpence
and fared sumptuously at his master's expense.
If exceptionally tall he received a bounty — or
at least the promise — of perhaps thousands of
pounds on entering, and as much as one or two
florins a day while he remained in the service.
Nor were these his only privileges. When
unable to read and write he was put to school.
io8
,
J I
■. J
The King's Own
i
A hymn-book taught him to praise God ; the
articles of war to honour the King. His tem-
poral health was watched over by a surgeon, his
spiritual by a chaplain. He had sinecures
given him, which he sold to the highest bidder.
He trafficked in goods like a merchant ; he had
his pick of the best lands in the kingdom. A
hautbois band enlivened his drill ; a wife his
leisure. He occupied a snug cottage if married,
drank good beer, smoked sound tobacco, and
enjoyed the love of his master. One day, when
Glasenapp, one of the tallest of the tall men,
lay ill, the King's lackeys rushed into his
presence and announced the occurrence of some
grave calamity. The King sank into a chair
pale and trembling.
" What is it ? " he gasped.
" The tower of St. Peter's has fallen, your
Majesty ! "
" Oh ! is that all ? " said he, vastly relieved ;
" I was afraid my grenadier might be dead ! "
So great was the King's partiality for his big
men, indeed, that when pleased with them he
could refuse them nothing short of their dis-
charge. This fact was taken advantage of b)
all sorts and conditions of men, but by none
109
{
I !
''U
'The Romance of a Regiment
J,A
hi? s
U
more than by the limbs of the law. The King
hated lawyers, and they, unable to obtain de-
cisions on their clients' cases by fair means, used
to bribe his favourite grenadiers to present their
petitions, the prayer of which his Majesty
would grant on the spot, with supreme disregard
for the merits of the case. The abuse gradu-
ally assumed alarming proportions. All justice
was in a fair way to be subverted. The King's
ministers, recognizing the magnitude and con-
sequent seriousness of the evil, demanded a
remedy, whereon his Majesty, with a malicious
smile, seized a piece of chalk and executed a
lightning sketch of a gallows on which there
dangled a lawyer side by side with a dog. It
was a happy illustration of his favourite say-
ing, "A pound of mother-wit is worth a ton
of university wisdom " ; and when, in due
course, the symbolical answer was incorporated
in an edict, the terrified advocates won no
more cases through the intercession of Great
Grenadiers.
And yet, notwithstanding all the favours that
were showered upon him, the Great Grenadier
was the most discontented of soldiers. P'or
there was another side to the picture. The
no
'The King's Own
King did not nourish his chers en/ants entirely
with the milk of human kindness. Though he
loved them much, he forgave them little. His
affection for them was of the sternest type, the
hard practical side of his nature being ev'^r
uppermost. When they were good, he loved
them to death ; when they were bad, he reduced
them to the same extremity by the cruellest
forms of punishment an essentially cruel nature
could devise. Expediency came before justice,
justice before mercy. A mutinous company
he would forgive with a magnanimity that de-
ceived nobody. " I forgive the man, but let
him be hanged," was the treatment commonly
meted out to the mutinous individual.
Following their master's cue, or acting on his
orders, officers suppressed the slightest irregu-
larities by methods indescribably inhuman. A
Great Grenadier who attempted to avenge him-
self upon his brutal superior, unfortunately mis-
took his man and shot a comrade. He was
broken on the wheel. Minor offences were
generally visited with the bastinado. Making
a man run the gauntlet a score or more times,
nipping the naked flesh with red-hot pincers,
and slitting or slicing off nose and ears, were
I T 1
\i
:\ I
I <
The Romance of a Regiment
I
m
w
likewise included in the barbarous repertory of
pains and penalties.
However amply justified the King may have
thought himself in correcting the shortcomings
of his long men with such severity, there can
be little doubt that he was guilty of an indis-
cretion in teaching them to write. *' I should
be in Paradise now," an apocryphal French
writer' represents his shade as saying to that
of the Emperor on the banks of Styx, " but
for my treatment of my great men." It was
certainly they who, turning his Majesty's com-
pulsory pot-hooks and hangers against himself,
painted his character in the blackest colours,
and furnished the most damning evidence of
his cruelties. The post, it is true, was closely
watched. Woe betide the Great Grenadier who
was caught airing his grievances through that
channel ! But whenever a chance of forwarding
a letter or petition by private hand fell in his
way, he made the most of his opportunity.
Although what he did was attended "with a
torrent of dangers," in spite of every risk he
again "trusted the flattering gipsy" Hope, and
^ Diahgitcs eutre Charles VI., Empemir (fAtitriche,
et F/\'(/<!n'c Guillamiie, Roi dc Fntssc.
112
Cologne, 1742.
V 'I
The King's Own
poured forth his heart in appeals for help that
never came.
There may be seen amongst the Newcastle
papers at the British Museum a unique speci-
men of the Great Grenadier's calligraphic art.
It is a petition, bearing date March i6, 1739,
and addressed to Viscount Torrington, father
of Admiral Byng, to which are appended the
signatures of twenty Englishmen who had been
enticed into the P*. tsdam Guard. The picture
the poor fellows draw of their barrack life is
piteous to a degree. Independent and un-
biassed evidence fully bears out their statements,
which maybe summed up, in their own pathetic
language, as follows : —
" Neither humanity nor reason could conceive
the unnatural actions there in force. The dia-
bolical methods used to divest them of their
tranquillity must grate all honest ears, harrow
all honest hearts. What man could bear, and
especially he who had once been free, the cruel
inhuman strokes of brutal sway, the insulting
insolence of knavish office, and that, too, im-
posed upon him for life ? Unrestrained power
was there joined to a malicious will and brutal
disposition. Ruminating upon their never-to-
11^ I
I
,-!; I,
JH
l«
R
\ ■
I Hit!
li.'
I
I; '
' ' •'
k
',!
; ''i
I
IK i
77;^ Romance of a Regiment
be-forgotten liberty alone was sufificient to force
them to shorten their days. This had been the
fate of numbers unwilling longer to bear the
oppressor's wrongs. Whether to sit down
tamely under their cruel bondage, and dwindle
their lives away in despair, or boldly to risk all
in the pursuit of liberty, was the question for
those who remained. The former seemed too
timid and mean a course for English souls ; the
latter had its train of dangers. Yet they re-
tained still some tincture of their native bravery,
and if those to whom they appealed remained
unmoved by their innumerable stripes, or suf-
fered their calamity to be longer lived, they would
make one other glorious struggle for liberty, let
the consequences be what they might. Death
for the unhappy had in it nothing frightful."
Into this — the main stream of the Great
Grenadier's woes — there flowed many minor
rivulets of discontent. Nine times out of ten
he had been forced or inveigled into the service
of a master whom he hated. Unless death put
an end to his bondage he had absolutely no
hope of escape. The King's presence at Pots-
dam kept him in continual awe. His prison
was unhealthy, malignant fever not the most
1 114
i \
The King's Own
desirable means of release. No spirits were
allowed within the gates, and a consuming thirst
for liquor aggravated his thirst for liberty.
Why should not the Great Grenadier enjoy his
glass now and then, when his master got
rolling drunk nearly every night in the week ?
A man might love freedom, too, better than a
shrew who was consigned to his embrace against
his will.
For it was not solely with a view to the con-
tentment of his Great Grenadiers that the King
provided them with wives. He thought to
breed big men at home by the compulsory
union of giant with giantess. The former he
had in plenty; to obtain the latter he did
violence to the virtuous wives and daughters
of his peasantry. No consent was sought, no
inquiries were made as to previous marriage
relations. Every rule of decency and morality
was ruthlessly violated, in face of the most
stringent laws to the contrary. Where "great"
men and women were concerned the King rose
above all law. Stature alone was taken into
account. Just as every man over six feet high
was a predestined Grenadier, so every marriage-
able woman who exceeded that height was the
"5
)■•
The Romance of a Regiment
I :f , ■
IP
f
predestined wife of a Grenadier. Here was a
unique application of the divine right of kings,
and in the exercise of his assumed prerogative
the King was "as solid as a rock of bronze."
Riding one day in the neighbourhood of
Potsdam, he met a well-grown peasant girl.
" Where are you going, my dear ? "
"To the town, please your Majesty."
" Ah ! Perhaps then you would deliver a
message to the commandant?"
Pencil and paper are produced by General
Derschau, who rides with him, and the King
writes : —
"The bearer is to be given without delay to
Macdoll, the big Irishman. Don't listen to
objections."
The girl, suspecting a trick, waited until the
King rode off, and then gave the note to an
old woman, who, on delivering it to the com-
mandant, was wedded out of hand to the dis-
gusted Hibernian. When the truth came to
the King's cars, he declared the marriage null
and void.
The authorities had standing orders to report
the birth of fine children, and good news once
came from Cleves. The wife of one Heinrich
ii6
iVl
The King's Own
Richter, a Great (Irenadier, whilst visiting re-
latives there, bore a son who was reported to
be one and a quarter Flemish ells long, and to
have abnormally large hands and feet. The
overjoyed King ordered the woman to rejoin
her husband immediately at Potsdam ; but as
it was then midwinter, he consented to a post-
ponement of his further hopes on account of the
weather. In March, however, his impatience
could no longer be restrained, and a rise in
temperature called forth this urgent summons :
" Hurry up ! The weather is all right now."
117
1
CHAPTER V
ONCE A GRENADIKR, ALWAYS A GRENADIKU
Had the (ireat Grenadiers been blessed with
courage as they were blessed with wives — that is
to say, in proportion to their height — they might
perhaps, in some one of their many attempts,
have succeeded in hewing their way to freedom.
But the tallest man is not necessarily the
bravest, and successful conspiracy was handi-
capped by well-nigh insuperable obstacles.
Could the regiment have broken loose as a
body, it would have had the army to contend
with. As it grew in numbers, too, it was split
in half, one section being quartered at Potsdam,
the other at Brandenburg. This precaution
rendered united action next to impossible. But
there existed an even greater bar to unity in
mischief. Almost every European language
was spoken in the ranks. Consequently, when-
ever the spirit of mutiny — the sole esprit dc
corps — reached its periodical crisis, the men
acted only in parties. The English were the
ii8
3-
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
most restless spirits ; but as the years of cap-
tivity dragged out their hopeless length, nearly
every nationality represented in the ranks struck
its blow or made its dash for liberty.
The first disagreeable incident of this kind
occurred in the second year of Frederick
^Villiam's reign. A fire broke out in I'otsdam,
and as matches and other combustibles were
found in many houses, the Cireat (Grenadiers,
whether rightly or wrongly, were suspected of
having plotted the destruction of the town,
which they had already come to look upon us
a prison. A number of the men were placed
under arrest, but no direct evidence being found
against them they were soon released.
Six years later the King narrowly escaped
death at the hands of one of his big men. He-
was exercising a battalion of them, when a shot,
fired from the ranks, drew blood from his
shoulder. The man who fired the shot was
never discovered. During the Review of 1739,
again, a soldier discharged his ramrod at the
King, but as the firing was very rapid he could
not take steady aim, and the iron, instead of
piercing the "colonel," hit an under-officer m
the ribs.
119
w
n
''.'■!>.
I
The Romance of a Regiment
One evening in September 1724, as the King
was smoking a meditative pipe in the Palace
square, a tall drummer approached and inti-
mated that he had something of importance to
communicate to his Majesty. They accord-
ingly withdrew to a secluded spot, where the
drummer, after many fearsome glances this way
and that, disclosed the existence of a horrible
plot. Some twenty tj.ll fellows, mostly French-
men, had sworn a solemn oath to escape or die
in the attempt. By some means they had
secured a quantity of powder and ball, and as
they were all desperate characters the situation
wore a very serious look. The King never
minced matters on such occasions. Within
half-an-hour thirteen of the conspirators lay in
irons. Brought before his Majesty for examin-
ation, the ringleader insolently "stuck his hat
on his head a la morbleu, stemmed his fist into
his side, and swore that he could stand it no
longer. He was heartily tired of his life, and
the sooner the King had him hanged the better."
As there was every reason to fear that similar
dangerous opinions were abroad, the King
thought it advisable to treat the mutineers with
clemency. The plain-spoken giant lost his
120
Once a Grenadier, always a Grenadier
'}
nose and ears, but was allowed to hide his
hideous deformity within the walls of Spandau
for the remainder of his days. A second was
put to hard labour on the fortifications — " con-
demned to the wheelbarrow," as they phrased
it at that time. The rest escaped with penal
servitude, after running the gauntlet at the
buckle-end of their comrades' belts.
In 1730 the Grenadiers made a second un-
successful attempt to burn their detested place
of imprisonment. PYom seventy to eighty men
were this time concerned in the plot, which
must have been attended with the gravest con-
setiuences but for the treachery of one of the
conspirators. A number of gigantic Austrian
heydukes, whom Count Seckendorf had enticed
to Berlin as a ready passport to the King's
favour, were at the bottom of the mischief, their
design being to fire the town, cut the throats of
their guards, and effect their escape in the con-
fusion which must inevitably ensue. The King
instituted a rigid inquiry into the circumstances,
but the widespread nature of the conspiracy
again frightened him into the adoption of
lenient measures. Some lost nose and ears,
others purchased free pardon by running the
121
'The Romance of a Regiment
gauntlet thirty-six times. The ringleader was
pinched all over with red-hot pincers, and
hanged as an example.
The example, it would appear, failed to have
the effect desired, for a week later fresh dis-
turbances broke out. The severity with which
these were repressed drove one poor fellow to
desperation. He threw himself into the moat
and was drowned.
Suicides were by no means uncommon
amongst the big men. "This has been the
fate of numbers," declare the English petitioners
of 1739. Captivity and brutality often turned
the Grenadier's brain, and he then either ended
his misery by suicide, or courted death by
running amok. A young Courlander of noble
birth was one of those who adopted this last
resort. After bearing his unhappy lot stoically
for a year, he implored his discharge. It was
refused. In desperation he rushed into the
street, and fatally stabbed the first person he
met, an innocent child. In 1738, another
Grenadier, a fugleman who had quarters in the
town, murdered his landlord in cold blood.
Upon examination he declared that he had
committed the crime simply because he was
J -> T
u
V
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
weary of life, and wished to be put out of his
misery. He was told that his wish would be
gratified; but the King was little disposed to
make a tall guardsman a head shorter, and the
poor wretch would probably have been pardoned
had not a serious complication rendered an
example absolutely necessary. Notices were
found posted in the streets, warning citizens
that the Grenadiers who could not obtain their
legal discharge had sworn to fire the town and
desert en masse. This sealed the murderer's
fate.
The King's leniency, such as it was, seldom
extended itself to defaulting officers of the
regiment. Potsdam was once thrown into the
wildest excitement by the arrest of two lieu-
tenants of Grenadiers and a school-master's
daughter — the beautiful Doris Ritter. All sorts
of rumours filled the air, but in the end it was
learned that the girl was suspected of an in-
trigue with the Prince Royal; the officers, of
having acted as his go-betweens. The King
ordered the girl to be visited by a midwife
and a surgeon, both of whom assured him that
his suspicions were unfounded. In defiance
of this evidence, however — solely because the
123
li
;i
if'
h '
m
The Romance of a Regiment
Prince, who admired the girl's skill in music,
had sent her parents fifty crowns to buy her a
gown — the unfortunate creature was whipped
through the town by the common hangman,
and incarcerated for life. On the accession of
the Prince Royal, however, she was set at
liberty, and shortly afterwards married Schoner,
proprietor of the Berlin hackney coaches.
Against the officers nothing was shown except
the fact of their having assisted at a concert
where the Prince Royal played the flute and
the girl the harpsichord. They were nevertheless
cashiered and banished.
The philosopher Wolf receivedUess considera-
tion at the King's hands. A disciple of Leibnitz,
Herr Wolf was teaching his master's doctrines
at Halle, when his University rivals plotted his
ruin. They told the King that Wolf held it to
be no sin for a Potsdam Grenadier to run away,
since in the existing order of things he was
predestined to desert from all eternity ! The
King already had an invincible repugnance to
the doctrine of predestination, but here was a
version of it dangerously hyper-Calvinistic. He
accordingly ordered the philosopher to quit the
kingdom within forty-eight hours, on pain of
124
Once a Grenadier, always a Grenadier
being regarded as a person predestined to the
gallows. The perusal of his works was made
punishable, for a time, with penal servitude for
life.
When the very mention of desertion from
the famous regiment was thus suppressed so
rigorously, it will readily be understood that the
would-be runaway enjoyed but a slender chance
of eluding the vigilance of his guards. " Every
precaution humanly possible," to use the King's
own words, was taken against desertion. The
rolls were called at stated intervals with the
regularity of the clock; no stranger or loaded
cart passed the gates, either in or out, without
undergoing thorough examination. As soon as a
desertion became known the alarm-bell clanged
out its note of warning, the military occupied
the streets, the burghers and neighbouring
peasants joined the hue and cry. Few escaped
the Man-Hunter's toils who once fell into them.
The chances were too few, the risks too many.
In his pursuit of those who, in spite of these
vigorous measures, did succeed in making good
their escape, no sleuth-hound was ever more
keen and ruthless than the King. To put the
frontier between himself and his quondam
12-
11 <
U '
The Romance of a Regiment
master afforded the fugitive scant security, since
a cartel for the capture and exchange of de-
serters existed with almost every adjoining State.
When tall men were concerned the King, it is
true, never observed the cartel himself, but that
did not prevent his exacting its rigid observance
from his neighbours. No sooner did the de-
serter's flight become known than the Prussian
ho. ;, of':':n to the number of several hundreds,
gallop^. :.' J • . vvay and that in hot pursuit. Where
the cartel existed, foreign soil was the same to
them "'. Prussian. Where it did not exist, they
drew rein only to [ ; -pnre for the bloody work
which in all probability lay before them over
the border. No leave was asked, none desired.
Might was right, the trooper's | sabre his best
passport. Sooner or later the wretched human
(juarry was run to earth in defiance of every
inhibition or danger, and literally hacked out
of the arms of his protectors, if haply he had
found any such, by the free use of cold steel.
A stirring episode which, although it does
not directly concern the Great Grenadiers, yet
serves to throw a lurid light on the subject of
desertion, may here find a place. Nine English
soldiers belonging to General Schwerin's regi-
126
•■ i?'
t
Once a Grenadier, always a Grenadier
ment, who had been enticed from their native
land by the lying artifices of Prussian recruiters,
and were quartered at Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
once effected their escape, and paid the penalty,
in a manner that for cool daring is perhaps
unparalleled. Choosing for the execution of
their design an hour when the streets were
deserted, they attacked the guard at one of the
gates and forced an exit at the point of the
bayonet. The commandant, suspecting the
regiment to contain other disaffected spirits,
and deeming it imprudent on that account to
order out a detachment, despatched two mounted
officers in pursuit of the runaways, with instruc-
tions to induce them to surrender, if possible,
by gentle means and promises of pardon. Haif-
a-mile from the town they overtook the deserters,
and spoke them fair. Finding, however, that
no persuasions could shake the determination
of the culprits, they wheeled about and rode off,
when the deserters, knowing only too well the
nature of their errand, chose an advantageous
position and entrenched themselves against
attack. Scarcely had they done so ere the
officers returned at the head of a mob of armed
peasants commandoed from the neighbouring
127
The Romance of a Regiment
m
\^:
villages. A determined and sanguinary conflict
ensued. Pitted against overwhelming odds, the
deserters fought like fiends, and only when they
had accounted for a round dozen of their
assailants, and mortally wounded an officer, did
the survivors, four in number, sue for quarter.
It was granted them, but three of the four were
afterwards executed by order of the King.
It will thus be seen that the fate of deserters,
whether overtaken or taken in flight, was prac-
tically a foregone conclusion. Unless the culprit
was a man of exceptional inches, the King
showed no mercy. Of the Prince Royal himself,
when caught in the act of quitting the country,
and charged with desertion, he said : " He is
no longer my son, but a dastardly deserter who
merits death."
An incident which goes to show the utter
implacability of the King's nature when deserters
were concerned, and at the same time throws a
curious side-light on powers of memory said to
have been at their best in such cases, once
occurred during a review of Saxon troops at
Liibben, whither he had gone on a flying visit.
While the manoeuvres were in progress he
caught sight of a tallish drummer, whose face
128
J
Once a Grenadier, always a Grenadier
he thought he knew. Said he to his Polish
Majesty : —
" I'll lay you a wager that yonder," pointing
to the drummer, " is a man who has served with
me."
'' Impossible ! " said Poland. *' I've had that
man six years."
"It is six years since he deserted," said
Prussia.
But Poland was still incredulous. He could
not conceive how Prussia, who at that time had
80,000 troops on foot, could recall the face of
a mere drummer after the lapse of so many
years. The man, however, was ordered to fall
out.
"Is not your name so-and-so?" demanded
Prussia.
" No, your Majesty."
" What ! did you not serve in such-and-such
a regiment ? "
" Never, your Majesty."
" You lie ! " roared the King, and named the
drummer's very company.
The wretched man went down on his knees
and prayed for mercy; but his Majesty was
deaf in that ear, and the drummer was accord-
129 K
'The Romance of a Regiment
i f ,''J
If-"'
ml
ingly sent back to Berlin, where he paid the
prescribed penalty of his offence. He was too
short to live longer.
But it was not always the deserter who got the
bullets in his heart, or had his neck stretched,
in expiation of his so-called crime. To aid a
deserter in getting away, or to harbour him
after he had effected his escape, was as heinous
an offence as desertion itself, and whoever was
found guilty of either was hanged or shot off-
hand, without awaiting the royal sanction. If
a deserter could not be caught, moreover, his
commander was at liberty to indemnify himself
in any way he pleased out of his or his relatives'
property. A flock of sheep was once so taken
in compensation, and the shepherd owner,
whose son was the prime cause of the seizure,
appealed to his Bishop, The Bishop in his
turn appealed to the King, who both applauded
the conduct of the soldiers, and forbade the
release of the sheep until the runaway was
securely tethered at the loop end of a halter.
On another occasion the King's emissaries
were guilty of an act of sacrilege in this con-
nection that threw all Poland into fierce com-
motion. Throughout Catholic Europe it was
130
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
customary to hold inviolate the sanctity of
religious houses, as of churches, in behoof of
deserters. Some fugitives from the Prussian
service, availing themselves of the well-known
privilege, claimed and were granted sanctuary
at a monastery in Ermeland. The monks
sturdily refusing to give them up, a detachment
of Prussian troops surrounded the retreat and
forced an entrance. Not a single deserter,
however, could they find ; so they contented
themselves with an equal number of monks,
who were carried off and forced to exchange
the cowl for the Prussian uniform.
In spite of the almost certain prospect of re-
capture ; in spite, too, of the terrible retribution
which generally followed that event, desertions
from the ranks of the Great Grenadiers were by
no means infrequent. As a rule they ended in
disaster ; but now and then some exceptionally
lucky or clever individual, aided by some happy
freak of circumstance, succeeded in shaking off
the yoke for ever and aye. Such was the
fortunate lot of a young Bohemian, one of the
tallest and handsomest men in the ranks. True
soldier of fortune that he was, this fine fellow
sought to combine the sister arts of love and
131
'The Romance of a Regiment
war by laying siege, in his off-duty moments, to
the heart of a buxom widow who possessed the
two-fold charm of wealth and beauty. In due
time she capitulated, and the happy lover
applied to the King for permission to make her
his own.
" Want to marry, eh ? " said his Majesty,
looking the long guardsman admiringly up and
down. " How high does she stand?"
" Five feet four, your Majesty."
"Too short, too short, you can't have her ! "
" But, please your Majesty "
" Buts do not please his Majesty. You can't
have her, I say ! March ! "
The guardsman saluted and sorrowfully with-
drew. Seizing the first available opportunity,
he communicated the King's decision to the
expectant widow, who, wasting no time in use-
less lamentations over the cruel baji thus placed
upon their budding hopes and happiness, coolly
proposed that they should take the future into
their own hands and elope.
" But you know what it means if I am caught,"
demurred her lover.
"And you know what it means if I am lost,"
replied the widow tragically.
132
I
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
"Then I'll go," said the guardsman.
So with all possible secrecy the needful pre-
parations were made, and one fine morning,
just at break of day, the birds took flight.
How so tall a man as the Bohemian could
have been other than conspicuous by his absence
is a marvel ; yet strange to relate, he was not
missed till eight o'clock that evening, when the
rolls were called. The King was in taba^ie^
calmly smoking his pipe over a pot of beer,
when an orderly entered and (luietly whispered
a few words in his c^ar. A look oi" absolute
terror leapt into his face. He turned as pale
as death, heaved a mighty sigh, and let his pipe
fall to the floor. Then, without a word, he rose
and strode out of the room. After giving an
officer secret orders, he returned to the ta/>agie,
and sat the evening out in profound silence, his
countenance a picture of gloomy despair ; his
guests, meanwhile, racking their brains in vain
speculation as to what terrible misfortune had
befallen the monarch or monarchy. In the
interim, detachments of Hussars were scouring
all roads leading to the frontier, in search of
the deserter and his fair inamorata. But all
was in vain. No trace of them could be found,
li
I
Is 1)1
it
I f':
H V \'
The Romance of a Regiment
and the couple was never again seen in Potsdam.
As to whether the Bohemian found the new
yoke preferable to the old, history is silent.
The question of the voluntary surrender of
his big men was the King's bete Jioire. It was
for ever vaulting upon his shoulders, for ever
refusing to be shaken off. It dogged his steps
by day, haunted his dreams by night. His
ministers hardly dared approach him on the
subject. The foreign minister who did so be-
came odious to him. The only hope of moving
his Majesty, lay in the offer of a man who could
boast handsomer features and goodlier inches
than the captive whom it was sought to release.
Even then there was danger of his keeping the
old Colossus when he had got the new. The
King never trifled in these matters to the detri-
ment of his regiment. Keefe, lying under sentence
of death, would be graciously released if his
brother in Ireland provided a taller and hand-
somer substitute. If the substitute proved one
inch shorter, Keefe should hang like a dog.
Except as a synonym for substitute there was
absolutely no such word as release in the King's
mongrel vocabulary. Merely to utter it was to
touch his " tendcrest point," to rouse his worst
'34
Erj(vi'ni*j;i»i#**«iUi>ij- .-
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
passions, to elicit all his imperious obstinacy.
Neither prayers nor menaces availed to shake
his resolution. The discharge of the carrier
whom his recruiters trussed with their bayonets
and roasted behind a Dutch oven, was solicited
by the States Minister for upwards of five weeks
in vain. " No ! " said the King, " once a
Grenadier, always a Grenadier."
The case of Willis and Evans, two English-
men trepanned through the instrumentality of
Borcke, the Prussian Minister in England, shows
up the character of this determined captor of
giants in still harsher colours.
Among Borcke's agents was a certain Hugh
Montgomery, who, after serving as a trooper in
a regiment of English horse, had somehow
drifted into the pay of the Prussian Minister
and became one of his most daring man-hunters.
It was amongst unsophisticated provincials that
he plied his trade to the best advantage, for he
had correspondents all over England, who kept
him informed as to the whereabouts of tall men.
Once in possession of the desired information,
Montgomery would journey to the place indicated
and take his prey by stratagem.
On one of these expeditions, in March 1735,
135
h.
.,;
I.
f
'The Romance of a Regiment
he came to the town of Barford, in Bedford-
shire, where, sauntering through the market-
place, he fell in with a strapping youth named
William Willis, a "hopeful and industrious
young man" some twenty-three years of age.
Striking up an acquaintance with his intended
victim, the artful recruiter plied the unsuspect-
ing youth with drink, and then, in a burst of
confidence, produced a letter from his master,
whom he described as an Irish lord, wherein he
was directed to procure, as second porter to
his lordship, a good-looking young fellow who
should be six feet four inches high without his
shoes. Oddly enough, this height tallied exactly
with Willis's, and as a pecuniary inducement of
;;^2o a year standing and 145'. a week board
wages was held out, the young farmer closed
with the offer on the spot and accompanied
Montgomery to London.
Arrived there, they learnt that his lordship
had gone abroad — to Holland, in fact — and
that the new servant must follow him at once
if he wished to secure the place. His lordship
had very thoughtfully left money with his friend,
Monsieur Borcke, to defray the expense of the
journey ; and, as Willis was all unused to travel,
136
\
•I
Once a Grenadier ^ always a Grenadier
M. Borcke very obligingly permitted his valet,
Kriiger, to accompany the new man as far as
the Hague. There they discovered that his
lordship had again flitted — this time into Prussia.
WMUis was now for turning back, but Kriiger
said no : it was a pity to throw away so fine a
situation ; he would himself see his bon ami
Villis safely to Berlin. He did so, and there
handed him over to the guard, who straightway
sent him to Potsdam.
At Potsdam Willis fell in with a second
Englishman as tall of stature and as little versed
in Prussian ways as himself. This man, whose
name was Evans, had been victimized by the
same ruse to which Willis owed his captivity.
They made common cause in their misfortune,
and refused to take the oath of allegiance. " Eet
them have the bastinado, then," said the King.
They had it, and were unable to leave their
beds for a week.
Some time after this, when the new recruits
were at drill, Kriiger put in an appearance on
the parade-ground. In defiance of discipline
Willis sprang out of the ranks and thrashed him
for his treachery. Another dose of the bastinado
was administered to him for this misdemeanour.
137
I :
IN
w
h
The Romance of a Regiment
.„ ■>,
I
I
'1
&
■I
■if
^- :
p.
He fell under it, but two Grenadiers hoisted
him to his feet, and the cruel punishment pro-
ceeded as though nothing had happened, until
the tale of lashes was complete.
The wife of Evans had accompanied her
husband to Potsdam with a view to entering his
" lordship's " service as cook. On pretence of
fetching her children she now obtained per-
mission to return to England, where, with the
assistance of Willis's father, a substantial farmer,
she succeeded in bringing Montgomery to
justice and in moving the Government on be-
half of his wretched victims. In July 1737,
Captain Ciuy - Dickens, who then represented
England at Frederick William's court, received
instructions to demand their immediate release.
As it was impossible to have too many helps in
a commission of such grave importance, he was
provided with a copy of the evidence against
Montgomery.
Thus armed, he got his batteries in train upon
the Prussian Ministers. They met the attack
with great good-nature and politeness, but held
out no false hopes of capitulation. " Monsieur,"
said they, "had surely not lived so many years
at Berlin without being sensible of the great
138
4<
Once a Grenadier, always a Grenadier
trouble and vexation this sort of affair gave
them. Their master was deaf to all representa-
tions which tended to deprive him of any of his
tall recruits. As for the evidence, they dared
not lay it before him."
Undaunted by this reception, Dickens returned
again and again to the assault. He could not
come at the King, but ministers were always
accessible, and whenever they came in his way
he opened fire ; when they avoided him, he ran
them down. At length, patience giving out,
they suddenly changed front, and carried the
war into the enemy's camp. The pitiful case
of one Barbut enabled them to do this with
plausibility and effect.
This Barbut was a petty merchant who, many
years before, had obtained an appointment as
Prussian Consul at London in return for some
service as petty as himself. The office entailed
so little correspondence with Berlin, that in
course of time the insignificant official came to
be forgotten. By dint of trading on his con-
sular dignity, Barbut had meanwhile succeeded
in running heavily in debt, and eventually
found himself an inmate of a debtors' prison.
From this unofficial address — the Fleet — he
139
. w
V
:
Mi
'The Romance of a Regiment
■V
t >
\
ft
i \
%
I-
I V
Ivf
i
appealed to his Prussian Majesty and his minis-
ters, who, after vainly rummaging their brains
and papers for some memorial of such a man,
roundly declared that they had never before
heard of him ! The disavowal would probably
have been final, had it not now occurred to
ingenious ministers to utilize the captive at Lon-
don as a buffer against the annoying attacks to
which they were subjected on behalf of the
captives at Potsdam.
"What," they demanded, "had become of
their Barbut? Did Monsieur say that they
knew ? AchHimmel! they knew he languished
in the depths of a dungeon. It was a shame, a
crying shame ! and until their poor ill-used
Barbut was set at liberty, Monsieur need expect
no answer to his application about the two
soldiers."
In December, after five months of ineffectual
endeavour, Dickens ventured one last effort.
Ministers, elated by his previous ill-success, now
assumed a defiant tone.
" They had a mortgage there on all the tall
men in Europe. If the Emperor's first kettle-
drummer, even, was a man fit for their purpose,
they would steal him away. Release ! They
140
^|;
Once a Grenadier^ always a Grenadier
had no such word in their dictionary, and it was
to be wished that the English would strike it
out of theirs. They might hang as many Prus-
sian recruiters as they could ketch, but as for
the tall men in question, the only way to get
them off was to come and fetch them with one
hundred thousand men ! "
" I shall speak no more about our tall Grena-
diers," Dickens writes mournfully, " for I do not
see any the least probability of getting them out
of jeopardy. They laugh at me when I mention
the thing, and ask me, half in jest, half in earnest,
how I can urge such a matter seriously, or think
it possible they can part with a man who has six-
feet four inches, I should be thought less un-
reasonable if I demanded a province or two ! "
Among the signatures appended to the touch-
ing petition of 1739, appear the names of Willis
and Evans. It was " Hope abandon " for all
tall men who entered the Potsdam gates.
141
k
l! i* ■.
9;
4i'. ■ A /C:^ ^i-t. As /:.-\. .n >. J
tTTr-^^ Th -r'^ Tic-' i i<i l u rm o-ihk iih>i i M ■■ i l t uh lUlifUM
CHAPTER VI
THE PRUSSIAN MAN-HUNTER IN ENGLAND
Although, as Seckendorf once remarked with
biting sarcasm, " length of body counted for
more at Potsdam than length of service," the
capricious King was by no means blind to those
intrinsic qualities which go to form the con-
tented and soldierly soldier. Of all recruits he
perhaps preferred the tall Irishman, whose
happy-go-lucky disposition and pliancy of metal
he was quick to detect and appreciate. The
lusty Englishman, too, was made of sterling
stuff. It was a bit stiff, perhaps, and required
kneading into shape by rough discipline; but
when judiciously moulded it could with difficulty
be matched for quality in continental hunting-
grounds.
This partiality for the stalwart sons of Albion
and her sister isle was far from being a thing of
spontaneous growth. King George I. un-
wittingly fathered it. His donations of tall
142
'The Prussian Man-hunter in England
men begot at Potsdam a relish for English and
Irish recruits that long survived the generosity
of their donor, and acquired piquancy from the
very obstacles afterwards thrown in the way of
its gratification. The gifts of the English King
did not lead to marriage, as he had hoped ; they
only led to "seduction." Loving the first
George occasionally as a father, and hating the
second invariably with the cordial hatred of
a brother, Frederick William found himself
possessed of a motive for enrolling their subjects
which held good alike in times of friendship and
in times of enmity. When recruits were denied
him as love-tokens, or peace-offerings, he grati-
fied his spite against the sovereign at the ex-
pense of the subject by stealing him away, bo?t
gre, mal gn\ whenever he could kidnap him with
any degree of safety.
In course of time there thus grew up a con-
traband trade in recruits which cost the English
hamlet and the Irish cabin many a brawny
breadwinner, and its royal promoter enormous
sums. Conducted with every precaution befit-
ting its illegality, it continued for years to meet
with great success and little opposition. In
Ireland it was carried on with absolute impunity,
143
I
The Romance of a Regiment
M
'i
n
w
unmenaced by even so much as a shillelah, for
service "over beyant " had in it just the spice
of romantic adventure the Irish heart lusted
after. The stay-at-home Enghshman was more
reluctant to go beyond seas, and with him
deception or coercion had to be used. In
English country districts the practice of "seduc-
ing and enticing " had become notoriously
common long before AVhitehall officialdom took
cognizance of it ; and even when it did, the
earlier efforts made to check it were too spas-
modic and feeble to eradicate the evil, or to
drive the Prussian recruiter out of the land.
The pioneer of the trade was one Thomas
FitzGerald, a lieutenant in the King of Prussia's
(Ireat Clrenadiers, who owed his commission, as
he afterwards owed his fortune, to his signal
success in foreign man-hunting. Cloaking his
real business under a pretence of visiting rela-
tives and attending to private affairs, in the late
twenties and early thirties he paid England and
Ireland frequent visits on an errand the nature
of which should easily have been guessed, but
which appears to have long remained unsuspected
by those whom it most intimately concerned.
An Irishman by birth, his plausible tongue and
144
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
Prussian training rendered him an adept at
putting "the comether " on the country bumpkin,
whose dull wits had not been sharpened by
travel into foreign parts. He appears to have
had influential friends at the English Court, and
so far as concerned his Prussian master, un-
limited credit and reward were his, if he could
but obtain tall men.
As his coadjutors, Fit/,(lerald employed three
Englishmen, no less cunning and unscrupulous
than himself. The names of the precious trio
were Taylor, Thatcher, and Musgrave. Mus-
grave acted as EitzOerald's valet when not
otherwise engaged. Taylor had already been
" under trouble " in England for roguery of one
kind or another, and with his companions he
was again running up a heavy score against the
coming day of account. When in London these
rascals harboured with one Spendlow, who hung
out an engraver's sign in Silver Street, White
Friars, but was underhand an active abettor of
his lodgers' frauds.
How many sub-agents they employed it is
impossible to determine, but, judging by their
intimate knowledge of the whereabouts, occupa-
tions and inches of eligible recruits, the number
145 h
'The Romance of a Regimen/
i
i* V
.1' ;
must have been both considerable and widely
and judiciously distributed. In the art of
assuming disguises, and of playing the gentle-
man's gentleman, the trio were experts.
Originally a weaver by trade, Thatcher soon
threw aside his shuttle for a more lucrative
means of livelihood. The British workman
was in those days forbidden to go abroad, for
the purpose of plying his trade, without special
licence ; and as the foreign demand for his
labour grew in proportion to the stringency with
which the law against his exodus was enforced,
the foreign capitalist — generally a royal one —
readily paid a handsome bonus in order to
obtain him. Thatcher accordingly turned
" enticer." His special line was that of smug-
gling "artificers in wool" into the Emperor's
dominions, where they commanded a high
premium.
After serving a lucrative apprenticeship at in-
veigling the British workman in defiance of the
law, in the course of one of his home or conti-
nental trips he fell in with FitzGerald, who put
him up to a new thing in the way of man-steal-
ing. Respecting the tricks of the trade he had
little to learn from the artful lieutenant ; but the
146
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
pecuniary inducements of the new enterprise
being greater than those of the old, he left the
skilled artificer to his loom, and tried his hand
at entrapi)ing the simple man of inches.
His wife lent him signal assistance. One of
the first tall men recruited l)y means of her
blandishments was a susceptible Irishman named
Doyle. The national weakness proved the
j)Oor fellow's bane, for the woman delivered him
into the hands of her husband, who conveyed
him to Berlin and there sold him to the King
of Prussia for 600 crowns.
Musgrave, meanwhile, was earning as good
money and a worse reputation. In a few
months' time he achieved notoriety by seducing
three of the finest soldiers to be found in his
Majesty's Guards. FitzGerald, who was in
London at the time, then judiciously changed
the venue to Bristol, where, in order to keep his
daring assistant out of the clutches of the law,
he was obliged to " transmogrify the valet into
the master."
Dressed as a gentleman of fortune, and pro-
vided with an abundance of pocket-money,
Musgrave " played the man of quality to a
marvel," inducing tall men to enter his service
147
V
r
I j
/'
iin
I;
I
i .
I' i
! •'■'
i I'inl
I.
The Romance of a Regiment
i
with the ease and effrontery of one who had
been accustomed to hiring servants all his life.
One of his victims was John Massendine, a tall
Grimsby man. John's geography was not what
it might have been had he lived in an age of
compulsory education, and when he set out
with his new master in expectation of doing the
Continent, it was without a suspicion that it was
he himself who was being " done." Mistaking
J'otsdam for Rome, be donned the Prussian
uniform, on the principle that when at Rome
one must do as Rome does, without suspicion
or demur.
The transformation of the valet into the
master cost Fit/Xierald a pretty j)enny, but as
his Prussian banker was good fo. any amount
so long as results justified expense, he left iiis
fictitious man of quality at Bristol and repaired
into Ireland, where he hoped to do another
good stroke of business. The English were
" too well-off to go a-soldiering " unless de-
ported by strategy or force, but in Ireland
there were " plenty of big lads who only awaited
an opportunity of (juitting the country." His
friends there had engaged some against his
arrival.
148
) .;
I
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
The consummate impudence and duplicity
of the man are well educed by his proceedings
in London in 1733. The Duke of Newcastle
was then at the helm of affairs, steering the
ship of state by taking the mean of his
colleagues' opinions and skilfully making the
course seem his own. With his versatile Grace
Fitz(ierald dined, as he also did with Milord
Harrington, Horace Walpole, and other big-
wigs of the day. His effrontery went even
further. Through some means he got himself
presented at Court, where, as he afterwards
bragged, he "kissed the hands of his Britannic
Majesty, the Queen, and the whole royal family"
— an achievement indeed worthy of boast in
one who was stealing his Majesty's subjects
out of hand. Returning to Prussia, he carried
with him four tall recruits, over and above those
already smuggled, or about to be smuggled, out
of the country by his accomplices.
While FitzCierald visited England only when
his company or his finances needed recruiting,
his Prussian Majesty had there a permanent
agent in the person of his regularly accredited
Envoy Borcke. As a for„'ign minister Borcke
enjoyed high privileges. He might import, duty
M9
I
F'l
il I'
t\
h
1
1.
; 1
!
If
In -f
r a
u
\ ?
!77/(? Komance of a Ke^irnenT
free, a tun of wine yearly for his private consump-
tion ; he had the entree at Court ; and last, though
by no means least, he was exempt from ordinary
process at law. Taking advantage of this privi-
lege, and of that other which entitled him "to
he for the good of his country," he added to
his lying theft, and to his theft forgery, thus
qualifying himself, according^ to Potsdam vogue,
for the important position to which his diplo-
matic appointment was merely subsidiary — that,
namely, of managing director of the syndicate
for the enlistment of British subjects without
leave or licence.
In general his methods corresponded with
those of Fitz(jerald, except that he operated on
a scale and with a continuity of effort which
produced correspondingly large results. He
had his numerous agents, who went about the
country bargaining for horses which they seldom
bought, and hiring grooms, porters, valets and
cooks in the name of an Irish lord whom none
of them ever saw. On more than one occasion
he carried his audacity so far as to forge the
name of Lord Falconbridge to the letters with
which his emissaries went armed.
Like PltzGerald, too, he made use of his
ISO
\
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
valet for trapping his victims and convoying
them beyond seas. Willis was among those
who owed their captivity to the services of this
active courier, whose name was Kriiger or
" Creaker." One Katowski, a Polish musician,
was another of his myrmidons. The Pole
passed for Lord Falconbridge's steward, and in
that capacity achieved fame by trepanning a
huge Irishman named Cutler, who, being as
little of a geographer as the Grimsby man,
innocently travelled with the steward to Potsdam
on the supposition that he was all the while in
Hanover. When he learnt the fatal nature of
his mistake, Cutler swore he would "write to
the English Parliament ; " but the awful threat
had no terrors for Katowski or the King.
Oddly enough, the first effective blow at these
obnoxious gentry was dealt from Berlin. To
Ouy-Dickens belongs the credit of bringing to
book the Prussian man-hunter in England.
His fine nature and manly heart had long been
moved to compassion by the melancholy com-
plaints of his captive countrymen at Potsdam.
With the ready assistance of the States Minister,
(linkel, who was perhaps better versed in the
tricks of the recruiting trade than any other man
151
*l
'4
i
h '<
<!
■■11
W.I
rli
The Romance of a Regiment
then living, he worked up a mass of evidence
against FitzGerald and Borcke such as no
ministry, however purblind, could ignore.
The most damning proof against FitzGerald
consisted of a letter of his, written from Bristol
to the colonel of his regiment. It fell into
Dickens's hands, and supplied a complete expose.
of the lieutenant's motives in visiting England,
of his modus operandi when there, and of the
doubtful esteem in which he held the privilege
of kissing royal hands. The letter, together
with other documentary evidence of his guilt,
was sent over to England, where the crime of
turning the King's favour into ridicule told
against him infinitely more, perhaps, than that
of turning the King's subjects into Potsdam
Grenadiers ; and from that time he was a marked
man.
Meanwhile, relatives and friends of the poor
fellows seduced from their native land by " arts
and tricks " and carried into cruel bondage in
Prussia, had not been idle. Their complaints,
indeed, had long poured in upon ministers at
Whitehall, where, if they received scant attention,
they were at least pigeon-holed for possible
reference at some future date. The Dickens
152
'The Prussian Man-hunter in England
report, coming opportunely on top of these,
opened the eyes of King and Cabinet to the
serious proportions of a trade that had become
notorious not only throughout the length and
breadth of the kingdom, but abroad as well.
Effective measures were at once adopted for its
suppression. The long-neglected petitions were
unearthed, afifidavits were taken, spies were set
to watch the rascally man-hunters ; whilst an
old Act of Parliament, expressly aimed at the
enticing of British subjects into foreign parts,
was raked out of the dustbin to which time had
consigned it, and refurbished to meet the
exigencies of the present evil.
The instrument chosen for the punishment
of the offenders was necessarily one of rather
ancient date, since the first and only occasion
on which Parliament had ever recognized or
interfered with the enlistment of British sub-
jects into foreign service, was in the year 1605,
when there was passed — 3 James I. c. 4 —
"An Act for the better discovering and repress-
ing of Popish recusants," which, proceeding on
the assumption that " such as go voluntarily out
of this realm of England to serve foreign Princes
are for the most part perverted in their religion
OJ
)
'The Romance of a Regiment
-Vi
v,n^
Is < ?
and loyalty," enacted that every one who should
so go out of the realm should be a felon, unless
he had first taken the oath of obedience. This
piece of musty legislation, it will readily be seen,
covered the case of FitzGerald and his coad-
jutors only in part. It admitted, indeed, of
their trial and punishment as British subjects
unlawfully in the service of a foreign prince ;
but it was of no force whatever in the far
weightier matter of their special role as pro-
curers. Neither did it apply in any sense to
Prussian subjects, of whom there were several
engaged in the same disreputable calling. It
was therefore extended, during the session of
1736 — 9 Geo. II. c. 30 — on lines which made
it felony without benefit of clergy for any person
to enlist or procure any other to go abroad for
the purpose of enlisting as a soldier. This Act
once passed, ministers were ready to take the
offensive recruiters in hand.
Two of Borcke's agents, Blume and Gingling
by name, first tasted the fruit of their misdeeds.
Montgomery, the trepanner of Willis, was the
next to suffer. Already he had lain in Bedford
gaol for many months, awaiting trial. Found
guilty of the offence with which he was charged,
154
;
■? <i
K1
I
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
he was sent back to his cell for a further term
of three months, fined jQe^, and obliged to
furnish sureties in the sum of ;£^o for his
future good behaviour. One Stromblo, caught
in the act of embarking two tall men at Graves-
end, next paid due forfeit. FitzCierald wisely-
kept out of the way. But his aged parents in
Ireland were accessible, and upon them the
arm of the law fell heavily. Convicted of har-
bouring Prussian recruits, they were sentenced
to imprisonment which had not reached its
term in 1740, when, on the death of Frederick
William, the Queen-mother interceded for them
in vain.
The old Act of Parliament against trepanning
visited the offence with death, and English
Ministers, recalling the frank permission ac-
corded them by Cirumkow, were at first strongly
inclined to act upon it and "hang as many
Prussian recruiters as they could ketch." Bui
stretching the necks of a few rascally agents
could have little deterrent effect upon a rascally
principal who was not to be got at by any
ordinary process of law. To strike directly at
Borcke himself, in his capacity of Prussian
Minister, seemed the wiser and more effectual
155
S
'»*
4^
'The Romance of a Regiment
means of dealing the practice its death-blow.
An opportune visit which he paid to his native
country gave them the very opening of which
they were in search, and without loss of time
they intimated at Berlin that Monsieur Borcke's
room would thenceforth be infinitely more ac-
ceptable to them than his company.
The significant hint thus conveyed by the
pen of Mr. Secretary Walpole, accompanied as
it was by an unvarnished statement of the cause
of odium against Borcke, caused an unparalleled
sensation in the Prussian Chancellery, where,
as at Potsdam, the eternal affair of foreign en-
rolments was "the tenderest point." To convey
to the King such an intimation as this was
practically as much as a minister's place was
worth. Grumkow, who did not often lose coun-
tenance even when confronted with proofs of
his own roguery, was on this occasion " not a
little embarrassed" how to make known the
disconcerting news to the King his master, and
gave Dickens plainly to understand that he
durst not ; whilst his colleague, Borcke the
elder, brother to him inculpated, owned with
unwonted sincerity that he was "almost afraid
to do it." The envoy's return to England being
156
'The Prussian Man-hunter in England
-'^\
imminent, however, it was absolutely necessary
that some one should dare the King's anger,
and as Borcke and Grumkow each considered
the other best fitted to execute so pleasing a
commission, and neither would consent to do
so alone, it was finally resolved that they should
face the tyrant together.
Contrary to all apprehensions and precedent,
his Majesty took the matter very quietly so far
as his own ministers were concerned. Against
the English, however, his fury was excessive,
and he swore roundly that Borcke should return
to his post in spite of Cabinet, King, and the
very nation itself. Let them insult his minister
if they dare ! That was a game at which two
could play, and if anything happened to Borcke
in London, he would "take it out of" the
English Envoy at lierlin. If Borcke was in-
sulted, Dickens .should be insulted; if Borcke
was driven out of England, Dickens should
have instant orders to march.
To the charges brought against him Borcke
opposed a public denial worthy of the master he
served. He had been traduced ; he had had
absolutely no hand in the practices he was ac-
cused of. Before the revival of the late Act,
J57
lit
,1.
il'
m
m
I i
m
I''
I
r
T*/?!? Romance of a Regiment
indeed, he had engaged a few men who were
now at Potsdam ; but he boldly defied them —
as he could safely do — to say that they had not
come over of their own free-will. To this he
swore "with the greatest oaths." The King
patted him on the back — such an apt pupil ! —
and made himself doubly privy to his villainy by
showering favours upon him. Borcke got a
thousand crowns in hand, and returned to Eng-
land a privy councillor. Kriiger he wisely left
behind. An envoy's immunity from arrest did
not extend to his valet.
At the Court of King George his reception
was iciness itself, and he soon discovered that
for once German bluff would not go down
with the English. The King declined to grant
him audience ; ministers refused to receive his
letters of credence ; every door was shut in his
face. For a while he lingered on, the black
sheep of the diplomatic corps, without character
either official or private. The haughty English
refusing to relent, or to regard his offence in
any but a felonious light, he finally handed in
his letters of recall — which ministers accepted
in order to be rid of him — and returned to
Berlin, there to enjoy the councillorship he had
158
ki )
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
won as the reward of his ** disservice in
England."
While Borcke thus knocked in vain at the
closed doors of the English Court, Dickens was
realizing at Berlin the truth of the saying that
whoso provoketh a King to anger sinneth against
his own soul. Frederick William, as we have
seen, seldom descended to honourable means of
visiting his resentment upon those who were so
unlucky as to incur it. Any dirty little trick by
which things might be made generally uncom-
fortable for the offender, best served his turn ;
so instead of sending his Britannic Majesty's
Minister packing, as he had threatened to do,
he hurled a dead dog at his head. Better a
dead dog than a foolish King.
" The important affair of the dog " first
cropped up at a ministerial conference early
in February 1737. Only a few days before,
Grumkow, dining with Dickens at General
Bracket's, had " whispered him in the ear that
they should not lose him just yet, as the sentence
of banishment pronounced against him had been
softened." Dickens flattered himself that the
King's resentment was beginning to feel the
mellowing effects of time, and carried a light
159
The Romance of a Regiment
vj'
f-i
heart until, at the conference aforesaid, the
brief illusion was rudely dispelled ; for ministers
then suddenly rounded on him, and with awful
solemnity demanded : " What had he done
with his neighbour's dog?"
To appreciate thistjuestion in all its moment-
ous bearings upon the point at issue — the dis-
grace of M. IJorcke — it is necessary to turn
back a few pages in the chapter of accidents to
which it forms the fitting sequel. At the time
it was first propounded, Dickens had occupied
for about three years the house in which he
then lived. Unfortunately, his next door
neighbour was a testy Irenchman, one Monsieur
Mauclerc, who, some thirty years prior to this
date, had held a captain's commission in the
service of his country. The commission he
had since lost, but he still retained many of the
characteristics peculiar to the swashbuckler of
his earlier days. As it happened, he also kept
a dog, which he let loose at night in a little
yard just under his neighbour's windows, where
the animal amused himself from dark till dawn
after the vociferous manner of his kind. Sleep
being impossible to such an accompaniment,
Dickens begged his neighbour, in the civilest
; 60
The Prussian Man-hunter in England
terms, to lock up his dog at niglits. The
Frenchman's reply added insult to injury. " Ho
was obliged to keep that dog," he said, "to
prevent his neighbours stealing his hens and
eggs ! "
As the nuisance was intolerable, Dickens
pocketed the affront, and intimated his willing-
ness to hire a watchman, or to pay for whatever
should be stolen during the dog's nocturnal
incarceration. To none of these friendly pro-
posals would Monsieur listen, and so the case
stood when Dickens was bitlden to the marriage
of his Prussian Majesty's fourth daughter with
the Margrave of Schwedt. During his absence
the dog found its way into his stables, where-
upon his coachman tied a rope about its neck
and led it away to the public executioner, whose
duty it was, in addition to clearing the town of
criminals, to clear it also of troublesome curs.
Quietness now reigned in the Frenchman's
backyard for the space of two years. He
neither complained nor replaced the missing
guardian of his fowls. Of a sudden, however,
just when all Berlin resounded with his Prussian
Majesty's threats against Dickens, there ap-
peared on the scene a second dog, more dis-
i6i M
11
PS; X
if,
The Romance of a Regiment
tracting, if that were possible, than the first.
Not knowing at what hour he might have
orders to leave the country, Dickens heroically
bore with the nuisance until one of his children
fell ill for want of rest. In these circumstances
he implored his neighbour to concede to
humanity what he would not concede to
good manners. The Frenchman replied that
he could live without humanity, but he could
not live without his dog.
Compassion for the sick child now impelled
Dickens's maidservants to take the tormentor
in hand. Some broke ii palings in the backyard
facilitated their design ; a piece of broiled meat
and a length of rope did the rest. The second
dog vanished from the scene.
When this unwarrantable action came to the
knowledge of Monsie ir the Captain, he peaked
his nioustachios fiercely, and straightway carried
his grievance to the council board. Dickens,
suspecting that one or other of the dogs, or
both, might be resuscitated for diplomatic ends,
interviewed Borcke the elder. That astute
councillor dissembled. " Pooh ! " said he, " a
dog ! A fine affair truly, to bother us ministers
about. ^Vhen we receive your
163
neighbour's
The Prussian Man-hunter in Endand
complaint, we'll send it to you, and you may do
with it as you did with the dog— what vou
like." ^
For a fortnight Dickens congratulated him-
self on having laid the disquieting spectre. But
he little knew the rare diplomatic skill of which
they Avere capable at Berlin. In ministerial
hands the dead dog was rapidly assuming
political life and importance, though which dog
it^ was does not appear. At the end of the fort"^
night came a message, through no less a person
Uian Baron Demerath, the Emperor's Resident,
intimating that ministers should " be glad if ls\.
Gidikins would make a few apologies to his
neighbour for what had happened." B\-
^Vednesday of the following week, the date of
the conference already mentioned, the dog had
attained his full diplomatic growth and vigour,
and ministers now espoused his cause in down-
right earnest.
"They told me in a very rough manner,"
says poor bewildered Dickens, " that they were
surprised I Had not yet made my excuses to m\
neighbour for what had happened to his dos,
which one called a crime, another an extra-
ordinary violence, a third by some other Ir^rd
1^3
il
^\
'I I
1/
! V;
V ;-
The Romance of a Regiment
denomination. Three weeks ago M. JNIauclerc
was told it was not permitted here for one
neighbour to have anything in his house that
was troublesome to another. Now / was told
that every one was master in his own house to
do as he pleased, and that if I did not like the
barking of a dog, why did I not leave my house ?
I expected every moment they would tell me
that the stealing away of a Prussian dog was a
matter of much greater importance than the
stealing away several score English subjects ! "
Here was the real root of the matter, and
ministers unblushingly made the most of the
ludicrous pretension. The dog once resur-
rected and habilitated in diplomatic garb, they
kept him snarling and snapping at Dickens's
heels until, in sheer desperation, he consented
to make an equivocal apology. The surly
Frenchman, on his part, agreed to refrain from
further cause of annoyance, and so ended " the
important affair of the dog.'' But thenceforward
it remained an established fundamental of Pots-
dam ethics, that to entice a Prussian cur was a
more heinous crime than to kidnap any number
of his Britannic Majesty's lieges by force or
fraud.
164
fl \
I
CHAPTER VII
BAD WEATHER AT WUSTERHAUSEN
"Look. ! There goes Saint Recruit."
Such was the remark commonly heard in the
streets of Berhn whenever Councillor von
Marschall appeared in public, for Councillor
von Marschall had charge of the recruiting
fund, and the nickname was a humorous
tribute to the high esteem in which his Majesty
held all things connected with that important
trust.
All things ; but above all else the man-hunting
fraternity of v.'hosc restless energies it was the
fountain-head. The person, liberty and life of
the recruiter were things inviolable in the eyes
of his master, and he who dared to lay a finger
on him, be the provocation never so great,
incurred that master's inveterate hatred and
implacable resentment. ^Vith the master what
he was, the case could hardly have been other-
wise, for the recruiter was but the rampant
165
'^^""
hiii
I
''■II
^] i\\
n
U
1
II
i
The Romance of a Regiment
symptom of a recruit-maddened brain, and to
strike at him was to strike at a caprice superior
to reason, ".t a whim dearer than hfe. Coined
in the mint of this whim, and issued thence for
universal circulation, to deface him or debase
him was a crime unpardonable. Hence it came
about that while the abduction of the tall
foreigner furnished the King and his ministers
with matter of ironical _' st, or afforded them
scope for the exercise of petty diplomatic
ingenuity, the maltreatment of the abductor
" occasioned a deal of bad weather at Wus v ■
hausen," where his Maje^ y passed most of the
stormy years of his later life.
]^ut actual molestation of the recruiter was by
no means necessary to excite the King's extreme
touchiness concerning him, Merely to speak
of him with disrespect was quite enough, since,
in his fc'.natic master's opinion, lack of respect
for so sacred a personage was all one with fcse
majestc itself. Two clergymen of Cleves, whose
righteous souls had long been vexed by repeated
outrages upon their flocks, were once guilty of
this shocking crime. Their gross disloyalty
was reported to the King. " Hale them before
the Consistory Court," said he. It was done,
166
■>\
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
and that tribunal, acting on the King's initiative,
first deprived them of their livings and then
sentenced them to the cat. His Majesty, to
his credit be it said, annulled the finding of the
Court, though not before he had taught the
culprits the meaning of the proverb, " Love me,
love my dog."
Love me, love my dog ! To teach his own
subjects their duty was easy for one who had
the tawse of the despot in his hand ; but when
it came to inculcating the lesson upon neigh-
bours who were such only in a territorial sense,
and testy withal, the task assumed more heroic
proportions. Now it was AL de la Cht'tardie,
impudently asserting that the zeal of the Prus-
sian recruiter in France outran his discretion.
Out of the room with him, his fine feathers all
crushed and limp from the angry grip of the
royal hands! Again it was "those blasted
Dutch." Would they never learn to leave his
recruiters alone? AVhat right had they to lay
a pair of them by the heels simply because a
miserable burgher hod been "lifted" out of the
mire of his native town and set down, as with
his feet upon a rock, amongst the first rank of
Great Grenadiers? Send for Herr Ginkel !
167
w
4''
''•!
H
The Romance of a Regiment
Ginkel posts off to Wuslcrhausen, scenting
thunder in the air. " Herr Ginkel, what's the
meaning of this? Your people have thrown
two of my recruiters into prison ! " *' Perhaps
they deserved it, your Majesty," says sturdy
Ginkel. "You should keep your recruiters in
order." "What ! when they belong to the best-
ordered army in Europe ? " splutters the King.
" By this and by that, if you don't retract your
calumnious words, I'll " At this point his
wrath boils over, and with uplifted stick he
rushes upon the Envoy. Ginkel's hand glides
to the hilt of his sword, and his Majesty,
brought to his senses by the significant act,
falls back cowed, but still fuming. " Had he
struck me," swears the Envoy later to his bosom
friend Pollnitz, " I should have run him through
without a qualm." Oh " those blasted Dutch ! "
The death of the old King of Poland supplies
a new lever with which to force the recruiter's
cell. One of the most industrious Prussian
man-hi; liters is a certain fanatic priest, Liberda
by . line, who r.irribles through the Empire
converting the Emperor's Catholic subjects to
his heretical notions, and persuading or roercing
them to change their allegiance as well as their
i68
>(
Bad Weather at Wuster/iausen
religion. Many a Hungarian and Bohemian of
goodly inches finds his way into the Circat
Grenadiers through this canting enthusiast's
trickery — until the Emperor gets wind of his
doings, and decrees that he shall rest from his
labours for a season. \\'andering into Saxony,
the crazy evangelist-recruiter is there thrown
into prison. A little later Frederick William is
asked to recognize the new King of Poland,
who is also Elector of Saxony. " Never ! "
cries he, " until I get my Liberda back."
Again, Hesse Cassel is the offender. No
less a man than Quade, Major von Quade of
the Prince Royal's regiment, is in hot water
there, and all for what? Merely for a trifling
excess of zeal in recruiting ! Will they give him
up ? Not they ! " Very good ! " roars the
King. "Seize all the Hessian officers you can
catch, and Quade them. Never mind their
rank — the higher the better." Two are accord-
ingly run to earth and thrown into a dungeoii
whose foulness they would " be ashamed to
describe."
And yet again it is the Saxons, who have now
had the temerity to arrest a Prussian subaltern,
and court-martial him merely for seducing tall
169
:i
•JI
i U
i
T
The Romance of a Regiment
I)
(■■ '
fellows out of their wretched garrisons. The
poor fellow actually lies at Dresden under sen-
tence of death. " Katsch ! ^\'here's Minister
Katsch ? Ha ! here you are at last. Is Saxon
Envoy Suhm in town ? " "He is, your ^lajesty."
"Then go to him," thunders liis Majesty, "and
tell him from me that if my officer is hanged at
Dresden, M. Suhm shall hang at Derlin."
Away goes Katsch, gloating over "the rough
compliment" of which he is the bearer, and
which, when it is duly conveyed to poor
Suhm, so terrifies him that he throws his belong-
ings together and incontinently flees the town.
Bad weather indeed at Wusterhausen !
Ay ! bad weather — especially if the neighbour
whose rashness caused it was weak as well as
fractious, for the King, finding himself then in
his true element, carried matters with a high
hand. Instead of apologizing for his recruiter's
transgression, how glaring soever it might be, he
fell back on the threadbare plea of deserter-
catching, raised a terrific hullabaloo, appealed
to his cartel rights or the law of nations with all
the confidence and indignation of one who had
never violated either, threatened retaliatory
measures too awful for words, and in the end
170
Bad IVeather at IVusterhausen
'1
generally succeeded in hectoring his puny defier
into the unconditional surrender of both recruiter
and recruit. To his honour or to his dishonour,
he never disavo'ved an agent who was in trouble,
nor abandoned him to liis just deserts.
In course of time the royal chateau at Wuster-
hausen thus came to be looked upon as a sort
of international barometer whose warnings were
not liglitly to br ,,:nored. Tiie English, it is
true, rid thems- Ivcs of the wrathful monarch's
director-in-chief with perfect im[)unity Ijecauseof
their insular position. Confident in her superior
strength, France put his officers to the rack, or
condemned them to the galleys, witli supreme
disregard of his blusterings. But the smaller
fry of States, who could arrive at no mutual
cohesive understanding, and were, moreover,
hopelessly overawed by the unparalleled growth
of his army, thought twice before going to such
lengths as these. Emj)ty threats, with now and
then a full cell, were as much as they durst
venture. The Elector Palatine himself judged
it inexpedient to hang Hompesch for the unfor-
tunate accident which befel the tall carpenter of
Jiilich through his maladroitness. His master's
stormy representations snatched him from the
171
: ,y
4
'The Romance of a Regiment
\¥
very foot of the gallows, though for the term of
his natural life he occupied a portion of the
Palatinate little longer than the famous chest
which cost him his liberty and came so near to
costing him his life.
While the state of the weather at Wuster-
hausen in this way exercised a generally benefi-
cent influence on the welfare of the Prussian
recruiter, it now and then happened that some
one or other of the lesser States or Principalities,
lashed into fury by oft-repeated outrages for
which they could obtain no redress, threw
discretion to the winds, and by some overt act
of reprisal boldly defied the blustering demi-god
to do his worst ; and no stronger proof of the
capricious value which Frederick William set
upon his recruiter need, nor indeed can be,
adduced, than the fact that, miser and craven
though he was, he twice accepted the challenge
and vrent to the very verge of war in defence of
him.
The first occasion was in 1729, when there
occurred a sudden crisis in the standing quarrel
with Hanover. For five years, ever since
Frederick William and his bemi-pcre first fell out
about recruiters, the tall Hanoverian had been a
172
1;!
2I
Bad IVeather at Wusterhausen
bone of contention between the two Courts. A
natural antipathy between Frederick William and
the second George infused new life into the
quarrel, and very nearly drew new blood from
it. King George complained of the Prussian
hospitality forcibly extended to his German
subjects ; Frederick William returned one of his
ironically vague answers and extended his
hospitality still further. King George thereupon
had a number of Prussian recruiters seized and
condemned to hard labour ; whereat Frederick
William flew into a towering passion, stole all
the tall men he could from the Electorate, and,
in the felicitous phrase of Grumkow, prepared
to " make a breakfast of Hanover."
He approached the leonine repast in truly
characteristic fashion, " breathing blood and
slaughter." First of all he attacked poor
palpitating Queen Sophie, and commanded her
to write no more letters to her royal brother or
any of his tribe. Next he snapped up, by way
of relish, an inoffensive English sailor-man,^
who happened to be strolling through the streets
of Konigsberg at high noon, unsuspicious of
^ Belonging, oddly enough, to " the good A\\\i Hanover
of Hull."
IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-S)
1.0
I.I
1.25
■.'■Ilia iM
■ m III 22
*" ii^ IIIM
1-4 IIIIII.6
<^
%
/}
A
/A
7
Photographic
Sciences
Corporation
iV
s
,V
^^
k
^
N>
^9>
V
o^
%
23 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, NY 14580
(716) 872-4503
)
I ■■■*'
■V
<^ 4^.
i/x
.*S
i
The Romance of a Regiment
kingly crimps. Nineteen regiments, of infantry
and cavalry were then mobilized, regardless of
outlay, and marched in all haste to the Elbe.
The Great Grenadiers quartered at Brandenburg
shouldered their muskets and went to the front
with the rest, the Crown Prince, now " Colonel
Fritz," at their head. Fritz did not at all
approve of his father's hot-headedness, though
he durst not say so. He was in love with
English Amelia, and to set him to fight her
countrymen was a thing highly gratifying to his
father's spite. There was every prospect of the
Anglo-Prussian " match " blazing into war.
Trembling Hanover, involved by her absentee
ruler in a quarrel for which she had little inclin-
ation, bestirred herself to make what show of
resistanc;^ she could. The puny Electoral army,
and the few Hessians and Danes in Electoral
pay, girded themselves to do battle with the
finest troops in Europe ; whilst the principals to
the quarrel issued manifestoes in which each,
after the manner of royal pugilists, solemnly
called heaven and earth to witness that he was
solely in the right and the other wholly in the
wrong.
Beyond an insignificarrt army, a righteous
174
Bad W ather at Wusterhausen
cause, and public approval, the Elector-King
had little at his back. His English Ministry
were by no means effusive in their promises or
sympathy. They had little love for the petty
Electorate that forced upon them every year a
double dose of mal-de-mer they would gladly
have escaped. As for money, they had none to
waste on quarrels of German make. It was all
required for wars of home manufacture, and for
the purchase of worthless continental alliances
at prices ruinous to the nation. Just how the
Elector-King was to bear the burden of his
quarrel did not appear, but he went ahead.
On Frederick William's side the crucial
question was, " How would the Emperor take
it?" The Emperor's men, the Emperor's
money, he could do without, having plenty of
his own; but upon the Emperor's sympathy,
whether secret or avowed, depended the attitude
and action of Germany at large, and that was a
factor in the deglutition of Hanover which he
could ill afford to slight. The brutal violences
of the Prussian recruiter, be it remembered, had
already been keenly felt throughout the length
and breadth of mid-Europe. The German
States especially smarted from them, and desired
175
t)
I
i
n ■!
The Romance of a Regiment
nothing so much as to see the author of these
scandalous outrages brought to book for his
lawlessness. Too timid or too weak for indepen-
dent action, yet ready to make common cause
with any powerful champion of the universal
grievance, they were as tinder awaiting the spark.
To supply that spark, by resorting to open
hostilities in support of his assumed recruiting
rights, was more than Frederick William cared
or dared to venture, unless first assured of the
Emperor's moral support in his immoral enter-
prise. No such assurances, however, were
forthcoming. On the contrary', his terrible
threats were pooh-poohed at Vienna as the
veriest rodomontade. '* He may bluster," said
the shrewd Austrian Ministers, who had got to
know him better than he knew himself, "he
may bluster, but he will never carry things to
extremities."
Events amply justified the prediction, for when
the Prussian Rodomont had sent his army
marching to the extreme limit of his outposts,
he abruptly changed his tactics and whistled it
back again. "An unparalleled act of dignified
forbearance ! " cried his few admirers ; but the
true reason of his sudden change of front
176
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
need not be minced. It smacked as little of
dignity as of glory. Hanover was saved by
cowardice.
For, with the fear of a united Empire before
his eyes, Frederick William durst not " raise a
devil he could not lay ; " and in the very midst
of his blusterings there occurred a singular
incident which, conjuring up the awesome shape
in lurid colours, afflicted him with a political
nausea so extreme that he thought no more of
his boasted territorial breakfast.
Entering his cabinet one morning, he saw on
his table a fragment of paper with writing upon
it. He picked it up and read these words:
"Or what king, going to make war against
another king, sitteth not down first, and con-
sulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to
meet him that cometh against him with twenty
thousand ? Or else, while the other is yet a
great way off, he sendeth an embassage, and
desiretii conditions of peace."
Regarding the incident as a piece of effrontery
on the part of his ministers or attendants, the
King's first emotions were those of anger ; but
more sober reflections supervened and forced
upon him the conviction that the text was a
177 N
^i
i
I
)
1
T'he Romance cf a Regiment
veritable warning from God. It struck terror to
his superstitious soul.
Without loss of time he obeyed a divine
message which chimed so nicely with his own
political misgivings. He would send that em-
bassage while there was yet time ! In all haste a
council was summoned. One minister, perhaps
guessing how it stood with his master, inveighed
in unmeasured terms against war in general and
all promoters of it. Others satisfied stray scruples
as to the point d'honneur. It was quite a mush-
room Peace Congress, and since friends of both
parties to the quarrel had already intervened,
counselling pacific measures, Frederick William
yielded. He would send that embassage ! So
his troops were recalled, the English sailor-man
went free op. payment of an arbitrary fine of
twelve rix-dollarii, and the fate of the 200 Prussian
recruiters who, it was alleged, languished in the
prisons of Hanover, as also the fate of the
Hanoverians who were the objects of Prussian
hospitality, was referred to arbitrators appointed
by their respective claimants. Instead of break-
fasting off the delectable duchy, Frederick
William ate humble pie.
Once roused from their national apathy, the
178
h '
V
.•jjj_.'..i^Liujbuuiiui-a
■^ fj. ' . ;w i¥ ! . m
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
Dutch showed as uncivil and absurd a disin-
clination as the Hanoverians from being carried
off by Prussian kidnappers. Count Flemmingof
Saxony was once treated to a sample of their
growing animosity against the Recruiter King,
more entertaining than serious. He was post-
ing through Holland in 1724, attended by a
numerous retinue, when the people mistook
him for his Majesty of Prussia. Before every
inn where he put up a mob speedily collected,
and whenever the Count showed himself, he
was greeted with groans, hisses, and derisive
shouts of : '* Right face ! left face ! Twenty-five
stripes ! "
It took long years of cruelty and violence,
however, to stir the sluggish Dutch blood to the
point of braving the fury of their awe-inspiring
neighbour by open retaliation. Recruiting party
trod on the heels of recruiting party, and when
the supply of stalwart carters, farmers and
burghers ran short, free contribution was levied
on tall stragglers from the Dutch garrisons. The
King welcomed all with open arms — arms which
closed upon them never to open again. Dutch
citizens, he argued, were his by right of capture,
Dutch soldiers by right of treaty
179
for their High
The Romance of a Regiment
Mightinesses, by acceding to the Convention
of Hanover in the mid-twenties, had agreed to
supply him with succours in his time of need,
and his need of tall soldiers was ever urgent.
Such was the characteristic interpretation he put
upon his treaty rights, in so far as they applied
to the Dutch.
Their High Mightinesses, unfortunately, could
not see the matter in this truly Prussian light.
Not for such singular proofs of regard as this had
they consented to become allies of Prussia.
Time and again they sat in solemn conclave on
the violences of the ruffianly marauder. Their
Minister at Berlin, honest Herr Ginkel, passed
his days in the solemn presentation of solemn
memorials which the King, w^hile reading, punc-
tuated with frightful German oaths levelled at
the obtuse heads of " those blasted Dutch," who
stubbornly refused to regard outrages as neigh-
bourly amenities. But the memorials, though
strong in language, v/erc followed by notoriously
" faint proceedings," and hence served to pique
rather than to stall the King's appetite for tall
Dutchmen.
But even Dutch patience, proverbially bovine
though it was, had a limit beyond which it might
1 80
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
not be urged with safety. The roasting of the
tall carrier pushed it well up to that limit ; while
subsequent outrages sent it bridling far beyond
the bounds of human endurance, to the climax
of summary vengeance. Their High Mighti-
nesses, with a courage for once in keeping with
their pretentious title, took the law of nations
into their own hands and shoi two of Frederick
William's sacrosanct recruiters.
The Prussian recruiter seldom ventured within
the gates of fortified towns, for sore experience
had taught him that discretion which is the better
part of valour. In his desire to preserve a whole
skin he confined his nefarious operations to the
suburbs, where military supervision was lax, and
avenues of escape were many. Here, in by-ways
and taverns frequented by the soldier on pleasure
bent, he took his prey as chance delivered him
into his hands. The garrison of Maestricht had
long suffered heavily from his depredations, and
when, in December of 1732, it became known
that a trio of the sneaking clan were haunting
the vicinity, some of the officers within the walls
hit upon an ingenious means of effecting their
capture. A letter was concocted, purporting to
come from an informer, in which the enroUers
181
The Romance of a Regiment
I
i«
were assured that if they would meet the writer
at a specified hour and place, they should find
there a tall soldier who would serve their purpose
admirably well. The recruiters walked into the
trap without suspicion, and were met, not by a
single soldier, but by a squad, who disarmed
and secured them on the spot. Stripped of
their disguise, one of the number proved to be
a well-known Prussian lieutenant of good family,
another a sergeant, the third an Aix-la-Chapelle
militia officer employed in the Prussian recruiting
service.
In the first flush of capture it was proposed to
hang the rascals out of hand, but more sober
counsels prevailed, and their fate was referred to
the decision of the States-General, who ordered
a trial by council of war. Masch, Prussian
Resident at the Hague, hearing the news, inter-
ceded with threats. "Justice must for once
take its course," said their High Mightinesses
curtly. Nevertheless, the lives of the Prussian
officers were considered to be " pretty safe."
The council of war acted with true Dutch
deliberation, and some weeks had been con-
sumed in working up evidence against the prison-
ers, when there occurred an incident which
182
II '
Bad Weather at IVusterhausen
materially hastened its decision. A Dutch
trooper, in passing through some corner of
Prussian territory, was taken and carried to
Wesel, where they stripped him of his uniform
and arms. Happily, he found means to effect
his escape, pressed a chance horse into his
service, and added the story of his cavalier
treatment to the already heavy score of Prussian
indignities. The council dallied no longer.
The two officers were condemned to be arque-
bussed ; the sergeant, to suffer banishment to
the Indies after witnessing their execution.
Meantime, a Prussian colonel and an auditor
were galloping to Maestricht to take an official
information of the case. They arrived after the
execution, and were refused sight or copy of the
prods crhninel. The colonel rode away white
with rage, hurling behind him threatening
epithets — the first mutterings of the approaching
storm.
News of the affair spread with the rapidity of
wild-fire, and soon every Court in Europe was
on the qui vive to learn its effects at Wuster-
hausen. When the tidings reached Frederick
William his anger was terrible to witness, for he
had little expected such treatment at the hands
183
J
I \
\s
The Romance of a Regiment
of their meek High Mightinesses. Berliners
looked for immediate and high-handed marks
of his resentment. The States themselves,
remembering the fate with which Hanover had
been threatened, anticipated a stormy scene,
and lost no time in strengthening their border
garrisons. At the Hague, however, it was
thought that his Prussian Majesty would never
magnify the insult into loie affaire d'cchit, but
rather seek revenge through the contemptible
reprisals in which he was a past master. How
true a forecast of the weather at W'usterhausen
this was, remains to be seen.
An ominous calm succeeded the first ebulli-
tion of passion, and those who were deceived by
it flattered themselves that the affair would be
attended with no serious consequences — that
the storm had blown over ; but they did gener-
ous injustice to the King's low cunning and
inveterate spite. The wrathful monarch was
merely nursing his anger until the time should
be ripe for paying the Dutch out, not in their
own, but in a baser coin. To visit them with
condign punishment, as he had threatened to
visit Hanover, was yet far from bis thoughts,
though on its way. He had other resources at
184
'
Bad Weather at IVusterhausen
command — resources on which he might draw,
if he were but cautious, without setting the
tindery Empire ablaze.
The fnst indication of how the wind blew was
afforded by the death of Major-General Hom-
pesch — one of the ablest Dutch officers of the
day. Deceived by the calm at Wustevhausen,
Ginkel communicated the intelliger^ce to his
Prussian Majesty, who replied with a pen dipped
in yall.
" He wi's concerned to hear of the Major's
decease," he said, "for that gentleman's own
sake ; but he rejoiced at the loss their High
Mightinesses had sustained in the death of so
brave an officer. The scene that had passed
at Maestricht was engraved where it ought to be,
and he would soon have an opportunity of
showing those gentlemen with whom they had
to do."
It so chanced that on the Sunday following
the receipt of this venomous comtnuntquc, Ginkel
was due to dine with Count Jagouskinski, and
it was probably at this engagement that the King
hinted in speaking of his anticipated oppor-
tunity ; but of this the Envoy had no suspicion
until after the event, when, as he was returning
185
T
.'
I
11'
I?- ,'l -
r
I
at-'
I
m
w\
mt '
The Romance of a Regiment
into the town, a sentinel posted at one of the
gates fell upon his coachman and gave him a
severe thrashing — with a cane. Now Prussian
sentries, it need scarcely be said, were not as a
rule armed with canes, and this well-known fact,
coupled with his Majesty's dark hint and the
persistent refusal of the delinquent's captain to
entertain any complaint against him, put a very
sinister complexion on the affair. Berlin in
general believed it to have been instigated — by
whom, none cared to say. But Ginkel was not
so reticent. He declared, upon what he be-
lieved to be unquestionable authority, that it
had been committed by express order of the
King.
The sequel lent strong probability to this
assertion. The sentinel remained at large.
Ginkel's formal complaint the King returned
without so much as a marginal comment ; it
was beneath the contempt of ink. Ministers
intimated that when their master got satisfaction
for the affair of Maestricht, Ginkel might ex-
pect satisfaction for the insult to his official
"character."
In the interim the King's resentment boiled
over in other directions, to the serious disturb-
i86
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
this
It
ance of the general peace. Some Dutch officers
at BerUn only escaped the ebullition, at a hint
from Ginkel, by betaking themselves to summary
flight. Detachments from the frontier garrisons
of Wesel, Guelders and Cleves scoured the
country in all directions in search of stray
Dutchmen. Already they had captured half-a-
dozen officers and forty or fifty privates, who lay
in irons at Wesel. Others were added to their
number daily. Twelve troopers and a sergeant,
convoying a deserter, tasted the King's venge-
ance. A Maestricht packet-boat was attacked
whilst descending the river Maes, and the pas-
sengers only avoided capture by precipitate dis-
embarkation. Orders were signed for the seizure
of every Dutch ship lying at the quays of Konigs-
berg. The merchants of the Dutch factory
there anticipated a similar fate.
This tempest in a teapot kept Ginkel busy
enough. He loaded the tables of ministers with
memorials, and looked in vain for answers. He
pressed for an audience, and was told that the
King "esteemed but would rather not see him."
A few days later he was bidden, to his great
surprise, to dine with his Majesty, but excused
himself in terms incapable of misconstruction.
187
t' i
'f
The Romance of a Regiment
i
t
I
I
[' i
The King, having ever before his eyes the fear
of that devil which might not be laid, then
condescended to notice the memorials.
"Since the Dutch," he said, "had refused
him the right of raising recruits in their country,
he did not think proper to allow any of his sub-
jects to remain in their service. He had there-
fore ordered the seizure of all pseudo-Dutch
soldiers found on this side the Rhine. If any of
those seized unfortunately proved to be born
Dutchmen, they should be released — when their
High Mightinesses had accorded him satisfac-
tion for the bloody and barbarous action at
Maestricht. As for the seizure of Dutch officers,
it was entirely a mistake, and they might be had
back on the same terms."
This masterly piece of irony was emphasized
by further reprisals. Guy-Dickens, as it hap-
pened, had had orders from his Court to back
Ginkel's complaints, and had obeyed them. He
was selected as the next victim.
One evening he was dining with the States
Minister, and his coachman, whilst on the way
to fetch him, met a couple of soldiers on the
Pont de Pierre, an unfrequented bridge near
the post-house ; the hour, a quarter past eight
1 88
, -H
Bad Weather at IVusterhausen
. ..»-^ ,.
way
the
near
in the evening. As the coach rose to the crown
of the bridge, one of the soldiers suddenly
seized the reins and threw the horses back on
their haunches. " At this the groom who was
behind got down and bade the soldier take
himself off. The soldier replied in these words :
^ Hundschwishe canaille/ shut up, or I'll dock
your ears;' and drawing his sabre he struck
the groom upon the neck and hand. He then
took to his heels, closely followed by his com-
rade-in-arms, who until now had looked idly
on." The footman gave chase, but failed to
overtake them. He succeeded, however, in
ascertaining their regiment — that of Major-
General Sidow.
This "very odd incident," as it was called,
•' made a great deal of noise " at Berlin. Folk
remarked on its suspicious resemblance to the
Ginkel assault. It got about, too, that the
King "had several times expressed himself with
great resentment" because of Dickens's inter-
ference in the Dutch affair ; and when the
King resented a thing, he generally found some
means of venting his ill-humour. Folk drew
their own inferences, and if those inferences
did not exactly redound to the credit of his
189
If I
|Si
The Romance of a Regiment
Majesty, the fault was not altogether one of
reasoning.
In his official despatches Dickens did not
hesitate to lay the blame where it probably
belonged, and his Court, itching for some
plausible excuse to annoy a sister-court for
which they had any but the kindliest feelings,
bade him insist upon the fullest amends. If
he could not have them, he must leave Berlin
sans ccrhnonie.
The Prussian Ministers, who were adepts at
laughing a case out of court, treated the affair
in a spirit of jocularity. It was a pure accident,
said they, the senseless frolic of a drunken
soldier, having neither political significance nor
weight. " But if the soldier was so exceed-
ingly drunk," argued Dickens, with unconscious
humour, '* he could scarcely have run away so
fast but that the footman, who was as sober
as ever English footman could be, must
surely have overtaken him." His reasoning,
however, was lost upon ministers. Although
the culprit's regiment was known, and the pre-
cise discipline of the garrison, by which the
rolls were called every night at the stroke of
eight, made it an easy matter to establish his
190
L 4
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
of
identity, ministers "seemed always to doubt
whether inquiries would meet with success."
For the King's resentment was now — March
1733 — ^t i's climax. It looked, indeed, as if
he would yet throw off the mask and proceed
to open hostihties. The regiments throughout
the entire kingdom, both horse and foot, had
orders to hold themselves in readiness to march
at a moment's notice. At Potsdam, moreover,
King and Ministers were busy day and night
in drawing up plans of operation each of which
surpassed its predecessor in extravagance of
conception. One of these programmes forecast
a forced march upon Hanover, and the seizure
of the Electoral treasure there. The proceeds
were to be applied to doubling the pay of the
Prussian troops in order to prevent desertion
whilst they were engaged in "licking" the
Dutch !
All this, however, was but the last empty
threat of a braggart coward before submitting
with ill-grace to the inevitable. He might boast
that he should treat the interference of his
Britannic Majesty with the utmost indifference
and contempt, but at heart he feared nothing
so much, excepting always a united Empire, as
n
The Romance of a Regiment
aggressive measures on the part of England and
Holland. The Emperor, too, was dead against
him, and he could not yet afford to lose the
Emperor. The whole enormity of his conduct
in recruiting affairs was known at Vienna, and
what piqued them most was, that they could
not excuse it in the least. On the first news
of the Maestricht execution Prince Eugene
had written him a friendly letter of caution.
His dastardly reprisals upon the Dutch aroused
the Emperor himself to plain-spoken remon-
strance, and pricked the conscience even of a
Seckendorf. Acting on urgent orders from his
Court, the favourite demanded that the victims
of Prussian animosity should be released, and
that the King should agree to enlist no more
foreigners by force or fraud. He defiantly re-
fused. But fear of the consequences, together
with a nominal apology from their High Mighti-
nesses for the slaughter of his innocents, under-
mined his obstinacy, and in April 1733 the
prisons were delivered of their Dutch inmates.
Many of these, it should be borne in mind,
were officers and gentlemen, and it may be
supposed that on their release the King would
have shown them at least some measure of the
192
t.-l
Bad Weather at JVusterhausen
consideration due to their status. But not he !
Enlarged from remote frontier garrison towns,
without a penny in their pockets, the poor
fellows were actually obliged to beg their way
home. His Majesty's sympathies 'were wholly
taken up with consoling his sergeant who had
been sentenced, but not sent, to transportation by
the Dutch. Him he promptly made a lieutenant.
The injury to the Dutch Minister's "cha-
racter" was now salved over by an apology
more profuse than sincere; but Dickens could
obtain no satisfaction. His case was destined
to have a more protracted, though less con-
ventional, sequel, than that of his confrere^ for
the English Ministry, unable to obtain redress
at Berlin, where the authorities persisted in their
doubts as to the efficacy of inquiries, transferred
the scene of their complaints to Vienna, and
there struck at Frederick William through his
evil genius Seckendorf.
"A thousand ill ofifices" were laid at the
Count's door. It was he who had prevented
the double marriage ; he who had caused all the
trouble between the Hanoverian and Prussian
Courts ; he who had, by his malicious insinua-
tions, instigated the recent scandalous attack on
o
f
The Romance of a Regiment
f
Dickens's equipage; and through his minister
Robinson, George II. now called upon the
Emperor to accord him a signal mark of his
Imperial regard by removing the "artful knave "
for ever from Berlin.
For Robinson, who had arrived at Vienna
but a short time before "more like a courier
than a minister," this was a difficult and delicate
commission to execute. Fortunately, he had
already found a friend in Prince Eugene, and
Seckendorf had many enemies at Court. To
the Prince he accordingly applied himself, only
to learn that his Royal Highness now heard of
the insult for the first time, Seckendorf having
forgotten to report it ! The lapse of memory
wore so suspicious an appearance, his Britannic
Majesty's charges were so specific, the Prince,
as was his habit, "knotted his handkerchief"
that he might not forget to acquaint the
Emperor with a concatenation of circumstances
so astounding ; and Robinson, after an hour's
audience in which he did his duty with a zeal
tempered only by respect for everybody con-
cerned except Seckendorf, took his leave with
many self-gratulations on having dealt a fatal
blow at "that odious man."
194
Baii JVeather at JVusterhausen
But the blow was not to be so easily dealt,
nor was it to prove fatal when it had fallen.
Seckendorf was too firmly rooted at Berlin to
be lightly plucked up. His presence there was
absolutely necessary to his Prussian Majesty,
who could neither " live without him, act with-
out him, nor be governed without him." The
Emperor, moreover, had no " proper person " to
succeed him, and even if he had, could not in
honour disgrace him without the clearest proof
of his villainy. In short, between a desire to
oblige the King of England on the one hand,
and to give the King of Prussia no offence on
the other, no affair of such weight as this captious
demand for Seckendorfs recall had come under
consideration at Vienna for many years.
Of all the Courts of Europe, excepting only
the French, that of Vienna was perhaps the
most expert at splitting diplomatic hairs, and on
this occasion their skill was applied in a manner
which did them infinite credit, and Seckendorf
little harm. To his temporary removal from
Berlin they consented; but only on condition
that the actual cause of his cloignement should
be kept secret from the King of Prussia, and
that in his absence the King of England should
195
; f
fi
i-
'The Romance of a Regiment
set on foot at the Prussian Court no negotiation
"dishonourable to the Emperor." These con-
ditions — the second of which was in itself a
national insult — the high-spirited English Cabinet
accepted without demur, and Seckendorf was
ordered away from Berlin. Sent into Saxony
on a faked-up diplomatic mission, he succeeded,
on his return journey, in eluding the courier
who bore despatches indefinitely prolonging his
absence, and in a short time was again at
Berlin, where he remained, in placid contempt
of orders, to appease the angry King.
While the English Court thus exacted doubt-
ful satisfaction for the harmless stroke of a
Prussian sabre, Frederick William was seeking,
by equally roundabout but infinitely less honour-
able methods, to complete his satisfaction for
the Maestricht volley. The incident had scored
his heart too deeply to be forgiven, and to
oblivion, honourable or otherwise, his injuries
were never consigned. Like those gashes in his
leg and arm, inflicted years ago by the tusks of
the wild boar, the wound broke out at intervals
with renewed virulence. Nothing would then
serve his purpose but Dutch salve, and though
the systematic stealing of tall Dutchmen was
196
Bad Weather at Wusterhausen
:iation
5 con-
Lself a
:abinet
)rf was
Saxony
ceeded,
courier
ging his
.gain at
ontempt
abandoned, he every now and then, just by
way of obtaining the requisite emollient, and
of keeping his memory green across the border,
"lifted" some specially coveted burgher into
the ranks of the Great Grenadiers. But he
never quite forgave the Dutch the big men
whom he was obliged to forego, and when they
asked him to send them a professor for their
University at Leyden, his curt reply was : *' No
tall fellows, no professors ! "
i doubt-
.ke of a
seeking,
5 honour-
ction for
id scored
I, and to
s injuries
hes in his
; tusks of
t intervals
ould then
id though
imen was
T97
'
l^
f> }
It
U.'i
;,|
I'l
CHAPTER VIII
AMENITIES OF THE RECRUITER'S LIFE
Joy reigned at Potsdam. In the midst of
the morning evolutions there had come riding
in at the great gates his Majesty's son-in-law,
the Margrave of Baireuth, all unexpected and
unannounced, with eight towering recruits in
his train. The King's delight was incredible.
Tears stood in his eyes. He embraced the
Margrave " a thousand times," calling him his
dear son, and faltering again and again: " Moti
dieu I what pleasure you give me." The Mar-
grave, lucky beggar ! returned to his domain,
which was so small that its affairs of State could
be settled at breakfast, the happy possessor of
a gold snuff-box set with diamonds and worth
4000 crowns — a knick-knack probably disposed
of without delay to the highest Jew bidder.
Differentiating only the warmth of the royal
embraces and the magnitude of the guerdon, the
Margrave's reception is typical of the welcome
198
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
extended by the King to every successful re-
cruiter. He might verify the words of (irumkow,
and be *' as stingy as the devil " in most things,
but in this particular he was liberality itself
both in money and remenhnents. What sums
were ' paid to Dohna, to Marwit/, to Borcke,
to Schmettau, to a hundred others, for the
gratification of the royal whim ! How " deeply
obliged " he was by Seckendorfs " trouble " in
this regard, and how frequent were the occasions
on which he recognized the obligation ! How
often, as in the case of a Count Nesselrodt, did
" very fine recruits " win for their lucky purveyor
the far from little *' all that that he asked ! "
How munificent was the grand total — one and
three-quarter millions of pounds — expended on
big men in the twenty-two years which saw the
giant-fancier's mania at fever heat ! But it was
not in money only that the miser-spendthrift
paid. Notable man-hunters had as their reward
the command of some much-coveted regiment,
the fat perquisites of office, an influential seat
at the Council board, or — like Baron Cotter,
the Jupiter foudroyant of the Vienna wits, and
his Majesty's Recruiter-in-Chief for the Austrian
Crown territories — the Order of the Black Eagle.
199
The Romance of a Regiment
The lesser fry were contented with an order on
the Treasury. So, through one door or other,
whether palatial main entrance or mean back-
way, the trepanner oi tall men entered into the
joy of his lord.
Colours of infinitely sadder hue filled in the
reverse of the picture — the back of the canvas,
so to speak, at which few ever looked, lest they
should find thereon the marks of their own
blood-stained fingers. Such a scene ! Amid
brutal outrage, deplorable misery, and shrieking
woe there flitted the wraiths of unnumbered
victims slain in the ruthless endeavour to satisfy
this inordinate lust for gigantic men. The
King who shed tears of joy when a fresh
"mass" — as he feelingly termed a fine recruit
— tramped in at his gates, could see without
compunction that same "mass" die in the gutter
like a masterless dog if too stupid to make a
grenadier; while for the sweethearts and wives,
the mothers and children bereft, who wept
somewhere beyond his gates — God and the
recruiter best knew where — he had never a
thought, much less a tear. Small wonder that
his name was execrated as widely as his
emissaries were feared, or that his giant cap-
200
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
tives never manoeuvred so cleverly as when
manoeuvring to get a shot at him, never prayed
so fervently as when praying for the death they
could not compass.
The recruiting of men abroad became a
definite industry in the year 1718, and speedily
assumed alarming proportions. There was per-
haps no corner of Europe, however remote or
inaccessible, into which the King's emissaries
did not penetrate in their efforts to spy out the
tall men of the land; and it may fairly be
inferred, since a number of the regimental
fifers were blacks of herculean build, that they
extended their operations beyond continental
limits, to the slave marts of northern, if not to
the wilds of further Africa. Wherever lavish
nature had added an extra cubit unto man's
stature, there they were either to be found or
expected. They over-ran Germany like vermin,
and though at first the lesser Princes were glad
enough to rid themselves of worthless fellows
in this way, their attitude underwent a very
decided change when force was used to carry
oif able-bodied men for the Potsdam Guard.
The King had often as many as 800 or 1000
recruiting ofificers scattered throughout the
201
t
!
I
\
Ij
i . ^ i
m
The Romance of a Regiment
length and breadth of the land at one time,
to say nothing of their numerous assistants.
No less than 300 once operated simultaneously,
under Baron Cotter's direction and special per-
mit of the Emperor, in the Austrian duchies
alone. Frontier countries they held in perpetual
terror. The Saxon peasant feared to carry his
produce to town on market days. The Polish
monk durst not stroll beyond the narrow walls
of his monastery. The Hessian mother hushed
her child with uplifted finger and threats of the
Prussian bogie-man.
And never, perhaps, was marauder feared
with more reason. He bore the indelible stamp
of the mint in which he was coined — that mad
whim which stopped at nothing in pursuit of
self-gratification. Frequently a soldier of the
Flanders breed, his profanity was only surpassed
by his brutality, his brutality by his unscrupu-
lousness. Not for him were nice distinctions
of tneum and tuum. His bread depended on
his success in man-hunting — a superlatively tall
recruit hardly ever failed to screw a thousand
ducats or more out of his close-fisted master —
and in these circumstances he could be no
stickler for uprightness or refinement of method.
202
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
So long as he could but come at the requisite
" mass," no stratagem was too contemptible for
him to stoop to, no lengths too great for him
to go. He seized his prey where and how he
could, playing the sneak-thief, lying till all was
blue, brandishing sabre and pistol, slaying his
opponent with bullet or thrust, selling his soul
for bread and his master's craze. Given an
inch, he took an ell. Told that he might have
one man, he stole a second, and killed half-a-
dozen in getting him safe away. Neither was
he mo's of a stickler for the accident of birth.
An Emperor's ambassador was not too great a
lion to make a soldier, nor a British guardsman
to make a grenadier. Count or cook, Chevalier
or kettle-drummer, it was all one to him.
Answerable for his actions to a master who
respected nothing higher than inches, he was
in every particular that master's most dutiful
and devoted servant.
And if his master did not always support
him in a manner exactly right royal, as when
he marched his fine battalions to the Elbe, he
yet supported him after a fashion sufficiently
suggestive of the sovereign to save him, as a
rule, from death at twenty puces or at the hands
203
/'
I,'
The Romance of a Regiment
of the common hangman. The over-zealous
recruiter — speaking now after the manner of
the royal casuist — was seldom guilty of violent
enlisting; he was merely "catching deserters."
Public reproof was the worst he need expect at
his master's hands when his alleged unjustifiable
actions gave offence to a neighbour strident or
powerful enough to obtain a hearing — public
reproof, and private reward.
In the recruiting instructions for Hanover,
Cologne, and the Palatinate, it is true, officers
were warned "to have a care how they went
into those countries;" but the caution — surely
a needless one, since no officer would lightly
incur " the risk of being hanged or shot for the
sake only of having in his company a man one
or two inches higher than the rest " — implied
absolutely no threat of punishment. It was
merely an expression of the King's paternal
solicitude for agents dearer to him than his own
offspring.
A recruiting party entered a church one Sun-
day during Divine Service, and proceeded to
help themselves to the tallest of the worshippers.
The priest was at first struck dumb by the
blasphemous audacity of the proceeding, but
204
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
presently recovering his wits, he announced, as
an impromptu text suitable to the occasion,
the words, " Cast out the unclean thing," and
duly enlarging thereon, exhorted his hearers to
resistance with so much unction and fervency
of spirit that they straightway rose up and
treated the sacrilegious intruders to a display of
muscular Christianity as little in keeping with
the dispensation of grace as with the orders of
the King. Means were found to punish the
priest, but the soldiers were rewarded for their
zeal.
There was indeed but a single offence for
which the recruiter, however "zealous," was
ever punished, and that was the abuse of his
authority for purposes of illicit gain.
Under Frederick William's ingenious method
of home conscription, opportunities for extortion
were by no means wanting. The grown-up
generation, as we have already had occasion to
observe, did not suffice the Recruiter King, and
in his endeavours to find suitable food for
powder he anticipated the rising one. His
officers and their underlings, making a regu-
lar house-to-house inquisition, reported the
advent of all infants of abnormal weight or
205
■ I
JJ
The Romance of a Regiment
inches, and hunted down every gawky lad who
promised to be tall, and gave him a pass or
a red cravat in token of his future destiny.
Complications and abuses of various kinds,
both ofificial and domestic, were consequently
of frequent occurrence. An irate cobbler,
whose son came home delighted with his new
cravat, caught up his strap and drove the lad
howling through the streets, back to the cap-
tain who had favoured him with the gift, to
whom he shouted out that those who clad the
King's soldiers might also feed them, since he
should not. The element of tragedy was not
wanting, either. A peasant snatched up a
hatchet, and buried it in the head of a recruiter
who had enlisted his son. He fled, and suffered
no punishment, the King deeming it was wiser
to hush the matter up. Other parents averse
to the system bought their children off, and
paid dear for the privilege, a certain privy
councillor forking out to the tune of 4000
dollars before he could obtain his son's dis-
charge. The money in this instance went into
the recruiting fund, but as a rule the price of
immunity from service, whether present or
prospective, found another haven — the pocket
206
'I
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
of the rapacious recruiter, to wit. No home
v.ds exempt unless a Hberal sprinkHng with the
magic hyssop induced the invader to pass on.
The love-affairs of the rising generation,
again, yielded the recruiter a golden harvest.
No Prussian young man could marry without
first obtaining permission from the captain on
whose list he was, and although gratuities were
strictly forbidden, no captain afforded his free
consent to the forthcoming nuptials. The
couple who desired to marry had therefore to
pay the captain's price or forego connubial
felicity. Whether the male candidate for matri-
mony was tall or short, made little if any
difference in the long run. If he was tall, he
paid the captain's price on the nail. If he was
short, " Go ahead," said the captain, and, when
the knot was tied, made the happy man his
footman or his groom, or hired him out to some
brother officer, and pocketed his wages as the
price of the favour.
Another sheep who came in for merciless
fleecing was the village pedagogue. The manner
of it was this. Once the village dunce got the
fact of his ultimate enlistment into his head,
he threw the three R's and the authority of the
207
£>
■I
'The Romance of a Regiment
i\ fi
school-master to the winds — unless the latter
sported the military sash or cravat. In order
to keep his pupils and his living the school-
master had therefore to get himself invested
with the only recognized badge of authority,
and to obtain this badge he had of necessity to
apply to the captain of his circle or canton, who
bled him freely for the privilege of wearing it.
The recruiter was perhaps not altogether
inexcusable for seeking to augment his slender
pay by such means as these, considering the
great expense to which he was put in the obtain-
ing of tall recruits. Unfortunately for him, the
King not only sternly refused to connive at the
practice, but adopted rigorous measures to
stamp it out — measures which speedily involved,
amongst scores of others, no less a man than
Count Dohna, who was temporarily confined
at Wesel for abuses of this description. An
even worse fate overtook his Majesty's Resi-
dent at Hamburg — one Evans, who was de-
tected in the misappropriation of certain moneys
entrusted to him for the procuring of tall fellows.
He was sent to Spandau, declares de Mauvillon,
" there to end his days amongst the infamous."
On the other hand, a lieutenant who forcibly
208
.^^..,
Ameniiies of the Recruiter s Life
deprived the Crossen tax-collector of seventy
dollars, because, as he said, he had some big
men for the King's own to provide for, was
allowed to go scot-free, his Majesty decreeing that
since the tax-collector had disbursed the money
without orders, he should have to make it good.
The aggrieved parties themselves not infre-
quently brought the extortionate recruiter to
book for the persistent blackmail levied upon
them. But there was a heavier score than this
permanently chalked up against him on the
public slate — a score only to be wiped out with
blood, since from the recruiter's unparalleled
brutality there was, all too often, absolutely no
protection to be had save that afforded by the
last resource of the desperate, appeal to arms.
Hence affrays with the peasantry of this country
or that, came to be of almost daily occur-
rence, and out of these encounters the recruiting
clan, notwithstanding their superiority of arms
and training, seldom emerged with whole skins.
Scores bit the dust in the hot skirmishes which
kept the Polish frontier wet with blood. Ham-
burgers knocked them on the head in such
numbers, and with so little compunction, as to
forfeit their very chances of salvation ; for when
209 P
'■7
t-^f
El<^
'The Romance of a Regiment
they asked that a Berlin chaplain might be sent
to preach the gospel to them, the King refused
point-blank, alleging as a reason that "they
had no scruples in begging for his preachers,
but they made a devil of a row if his officers
laid hands on a rascally recruit." The field
labourers of the Old Mark mowed them down
with scythes and hacked them in pieces with
bill-hooks. The people of Guelders, lying in
wait behind dykes and hedgerows, "dropped"
them like partridges, often killing a brace or
so of a morning before breakfast. They were
the common game, as they were the common
pest, of central Europe.
At Berlin these affairs were regarded with
shame, and spoken of with reticence. Ministers
who could not wholly avoid them in conversa-
tion, euphemistically alluded to them as " acci-
dents." It would be highly interesting to know
how many Prussian officers died an " accidental "
death between 1725 and 1740. The informa-
tion will probably never be forthcoming; but
in its absence it is comforting to reflect that
the giant captives at Potsdam, and the kindred
who mourned their captivity, did not go alto-
gether unavenged.
210
)e sent
•efused
"they
achers,
officers
e field
1 down
3S with
ying in
opped "
race or
3y were
ommon
id with
linisters
DHversa-
s "acci-
o know
dental "
nforma-
; but
BCt that
cindred
go alto-
Amonities of the Recruiter s Life
Zealous as the peasantry were in hunting
down the authorized bandits who levied tribute
on their slender purses and their long men, the
recruiter could not always count upon the score
being wiped out for good and all when he had
reckoned with bludgeons or scythes. It he
escaped with his life, that is. The quarrel of
the vassal only too often, by some unforeseen
twist of circumstances, became the quarrel of
the lord, and many a cock of a recruiter paid
dear for crowing before he was safely out of
the wood. This was more especially true of
recruiters who held commissions, since, while
their superiority to the common ruck gave them
social status, it also subjected them to certain
inconvenient demands as between gentleman
and gentleman.
A young blood of the name of Pudlitz was
once obliged in honour to settle a small out-
standing recruiting account after this fashion.
Though a Baron of the Empire, Pudlitz, like
many others of his rank, was not in enjoyment
of a patrimony, and therefore consented to serve
his Prussian Majesty in the dual capacity of
lieutenant and recruiting agent. Or perhaps
it would be more correct to say that his lieu-
211
'
w
The Romance of a Regiment
m .:
tenancy obliged him to turn recruiter. Anyhow,
acting in the latter capacity he stole a tall brewer,
with the assistance of his men, from a village
belonging to General Flemming, own brother to
the Count of that name who was first minister
to the King of Poland, and who, in his private
capacity, drove so thriving a trade in "long
fellows " with his Prussian Majesty.
Some little time after the brewer had been
"lifted" from his vat, the General, being on the
road to Saxony, was invited by a Polish gentle-
man to dine at his country seat, whither, as it
unluckily happened, Pudlitz was also bidden as
a guest. During dinner the conversation, taking
one of those erratic flights which not even the
most tactful host can always control, suddenly
alighted on the sore subject of Pruiisian recruit-
ing violences in Poland ; whereupon the General,
to whom the Baron was an utter stranger, re-
marked that few had so good reason to complain
of Prussian rascality as he, and proceeded to
detail the fate of his maltster in terms which
reflected little credit upon those who had
favoured him with a change of occupation.
Fancying the General's invectives to be aimed
at him, Pudlitz reddened with mortification and
212
z W
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
re-
anger, but contained himself until the company
rose from table, when, striding up to the
(leneral, he drew his sword and bade that
officer defend himself. Flemming had only a
light cane about him, but with this he kept his
furious assailant at bay until some Polish officers
who were of the company, seeing him at a
serious disadvantage, closed with the Baron and
eased him of his sword.
Here the matter would probably have ended
but for a further act of folly on the liaron's
part. It chanced that the General had occasion
to pass through the town where the Baron's
regiment was quartered, and a number of the
soldiers, egged on, it is said, by their lieutenant,
fell upon the traveller's coach and ransacked it
on the pretence of searching for their com-
mander's sword. The insult proved too much
for Flemming's forbearance, and he forthwith
sent the Baron a challenge.
It was agreed to decide the affair with pistols,
a brace to each combatant, and in default of
satisfaction through the medium of powder and
ball, recourse was to be had to the sword. Eager
seconds arranged all details in accordance with
the punctilio observed on such occasions, and
213
The Romance of a Regiment
at the appointed time and place the parties met.
It was no "first blood" travesty that ensued,
but a duel of the stern old sort — in deadly
earnest, and fought to the death. At the second
round the Baron fell, shot through the head.
Another source of annoyance, if not of posi-
tive danger, to the recruiter, was the Jew. The
demand for "great men" presented a new
opening for his speculative genius, and wher-
ever a tall fellow was to be found, there was
sure to be either a King's agent or one of the
house of Israel hovering in the near background.
Sometimes both were after him at once, and
then the competition became keen indeed. In
1725 Count Flemming presented the King with
a brace of singularly tall recruits for whom, he
said, Jewish dealers had offered him as much
as 2000 dollars apiece. At Potsdam many a
hard and stormy bargain was driven with the
shrewd interlopers. The King hated them for
their interference as much as he dreaded their
extortion, and scores of drastic orders were
dashed off by his embittered pen against "those
meddling Jews."
Of the many minor inconveniences incidental
to the recruiter's calling, a curious specimen is
214
.^.4,
nt
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
rties met.
t ensued,
n deadly
tie second
head,
t of posi-
ew. The
d a new
md wher-
there was
ne of the
ckground.
ance, and
deed. In
King with
whom, he
as much
n many a
I with the
them for
ided their
iers were
tist "those
incidental
Decimen is
afforded by the friction which preceded the
Hanover quarrel of 1729. Hearing that King
George had renewed his interdict against
Prussian enlistments in that country, Frederick
William strictly enjoined upon his officers to
traverse no part of the forbidden ground, when
they had recruits in charge, " even though they
should be obliged to go twenty leagues round
about ! "
For the King himself the life of the recruiter
was not without its unpleasantnesses, but of all
the scrapes into which his lawless craze brought
him, few were perhaps so awkward, in a social
sense, as the one in which he found himself
whilst the guest of the Emperor at Prague in
1732. One evening it was remarked that he
was not in his usual entrain. All his gaiety
and good-humour had vanished, and those who
were unaware that unpleasant news had reached
him earlier in the day, were naturally at a loss
to account for so sudden and marked a change
of manner. The reason of it, however, was not
far to seek. He had again been touched in
"his tenderest point."
The story is worth the re-telling. Some
officers of his, it appeared, while man-hunting
215
•J
i
I
^p^
?
M »cf
1 f
The Romance of a Regiment
in Wolfenbiittel, had run three tall fellows to
earth and conveyed them away in a close waggon ;
and how to face the Emperor and Empress,
whose nearest relatives thus suffered gross insult
from his officers at the very time when he was
receiving the greatest honour and civilities from
their Imperial Majesties, the King did not
know. All that could be done to palliate the
offence was, he declared, already done. Express
orders had been sent off", on receipt of the
disquieting news, for the instant release of the
men and the punishment of the guilty parties.
What still weighed upon his mind was, how to
sustain the looks, and, what he feared more,
the reproaches, of his exalted host and hostess.
The best expedient that could be thought of,
was for one of the ministers to go to their
Majesties immediately after dinner and beg
them to dissemble their knowledge of the ugly
incident. Upon a positive assurance that this
should be done, the King "went cheerfully,
about four o'clock, to the Gallery of Paintings
in the Castle, where, some time afterwards, the
Emperor and Empress appeared, as it were by
chance, at a farther door, and after a conversa-
tion of about half-an-hour the King took his
216
(1
L
Hows to
waggon;
impress,
ss insult
1 he was
;ies from
did not
Hate the
Express
: of the
e of the
r parties.
5, how to
id more,
hostess.
)ught of,
o their
md beg
le ugly-
hat this
eerfuUy,
aintings
irds, the
were by
onversa-
ook his
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
last leave " — doubtless glad at heart that it was
his last.
The oddest part of the story is yet to be told.
Whether orders for the release of the men were
never sent, or whether the express failed to
overtake the waggon, is uncertain ; at all events
the tall fellows were still in custody when the
King returned to Potsdam, and the question of
their retention or release was referred to that
"good, sensible man" Seckendorf, who reported
that he saw no reason for their discharge, since
it appeared, upon their own confession, that
they were volunteers ! So different an aspect
did the deplorable " insult " to their Imperial
Majesties wear on Prussian soil !
The purely political embroglios for ever crop-
ping up as a result of the King's man-hunting
excesses, were by no means so easy of evasion
as this unpleasant contretemps. The King did
not, indeed, hunt the tall man as he hunted the
boar, in his native wilds, or directly expose his
royal person to the manifold dangers attending
that noble pursuit; but as Potsdam was the
kennels from which his bloodhounds were let
loose upon the tall men of Europe, so Wuster-
hausen became in course of time the focus to-
217
i:
H;
Mih
".:!:
K'i : V
T"/!? Romance of a Regiment
wards which all the political effects of their
ravages converged with a fierceness of heat that
cost the Recruiter King many a troubled day
and sleepless night. The royal chateau re-
mained a storm centre as of old, but the storms
no longer emanated from within it. They beat
upon it from without, a tempest of fire, threaten-
ing it with destruction.
A decree launched in 1724 against the
Prussian recruiter in Hanover, first aroused the
Princes of the Empire to a just resentment of
the injuries they suffered at the hands of the
infatuated King, and supplied the electric spark
that set the thunder rolling about his devoted
head. From that spark the tempest grew and
spread until there was scarcely a Court in
Europe that did not contribute to its violence.
" It is to be feared," wrote Seckendorf to Prince
Eugene, "that this passion for recruiting will
yet cause trouble all round."
And certainly there was every appearance of
the prophecy's speedy verification. Complaints
poured in from every quarter, threatenings were
heard on every hand, reprisals rapidly multiplied
in number and severity. In England it was the
disgrace of a Prussian Envoy; in Holland, a
218
'\
,
f their
sat that
ed day
sau re-
storms
ley beat
nreaten-
nst the
ised the
ment of
s of the
ric spark
devoted
rew and
:ourt in
violence.
Prince
iting will
irance of
)mplaints
[ngs were
lultiplied
was the
lolland, a
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
volley of musketry. From France came a de-
claration that if the violences of the Prussian
recruiter in that country were not instantly put
a stop to, his Most Christian Majesty should do
himself justice. Everywhere the outcry was the
same. States big and little, towns great and
small, swelled the clamour. The Herstallers,
who had unwittingly contributed a young man
of generous height to the King's body-guard,
seized the officer responsible for the contribution
and stuck to him with grim pertinacity until
their own was restored to them again. When
the man returned to Herstal, his fellow towns-
men could hardly credit the evidence of their
senses. Such a thing as the surrender of a
Great Grenadier had never before been heard
of! Russia, who had hitherto treated Prussia
so handsomely in the matter of tall men, rounded
on him and demanded an exact account of all
Muscovites in his army, to the end that such as
were deserters, or had been kidnapped, should
be restored to their Imperial Mistress the Czarina.
The Catholic Princes of the Empire, doubly
incensed by Prussian reprisals for the imprison-
ment of von Quade, and by an insult to the
Abbess of Quedlingburg, whose placards against
219
I
F
The Romance of a Regiment
Prussian recruiters had been torn down and
burnt by the common hangman, added their
united fury to the general storm of protest and
meviace. The Emperor himself awoke and
hurled his thunder-bolt. "The behaviour of
the Prussian recruiter " — so ran the Imperial
edict ^ — *' was the scandal of Germany, and had
t' ?onp; been regarded with indulgent eye.
But c,;^ ' nee and patience alike were now at
an end, and hip Majesty of Prussia should learn
whether he could with impunity defy his Head
and Chici. No ?p'>re Prussian recruits, from
what part of the world soever, should pass
through Imperial territory, and if objectionable
practices were still employed to entice the
subjects of his Imperial Majesty away, the
guilty should suffer death, regardless of person
or rank."
It was now for the King to tremble rather than
to storm. So many complaints, demands and
threats, coming upon him as they did at a time
when the danger and difficulty of raising neces-
sary recruits increased daily on all sides, caused
him the liveliest apprehension. His ministers
' Afterwards revoked, so far as concerned recruiting
for the Great Grenadiers.
220
Amenities of the Recruiter s Life
ler than
is and
a time
neces-
1 caused
inisters
bcruiting
proved but sorry comforters, being filled with
the most melancholy fears and forebodings.
" Prussia had not an ally in all the world. Her
pretended friends were but snakes in the grass.
Suppose England and Holland should join
with the Princes of the Empire to clip her
wings ! " It was a lugubrious time at Wuster-
hausen and Berlin.
How to escape the storm which raged about
him ? This was the problem with which the
King now found himself face to face, and in
order to solve it he sought refuge with character-
istic promptitude and resourcefulness — in mag-
nificent prevarication ! " It had never been his
custom to sanction the secret or violent lifting
of the subjects of other princes. The most
stringent orders had been, and were still, in
force against it, and he would never permit the
slightest excess. Cases of it had indeed now
and then come to his knowledge, but for these
he had made immediate reparation. His one
desire was to do that which was right, and he
had accordingly just renewed his orders, strictly
charging his officers on no account to take
people by force or fraud."
Had this avowal, so plausibly frank on the
221
TfT^
I ' ■■'/
fli-l
If
i^Hl
!»5
l;
f
,,.. li
ill
If
11
The Romance of a Regiment
face of it, been in reality what it purported to
be, Frederick William would have been put to
little further trouble by the injured neighbours
who were now clamouring for redress ; but un-
happily it was at bottom merely a clever com-
pound of specious truth and covert falsehood ;
for while it was true that orders were issued, and
occasionally read at the head of regiments, strict-
ly forbidding violent recruiting on pain of death,
it was equally true that such orders were never
meant to become operative. How could they
be of force, so long as the royal anger threatened
to consume every ofificer who was unable to
show a lot of fine new recruits at each inspection ?
Seckendorf habitually laughed in his sleeve at
the plausible effusions ; nor is it to be supposed
that he had the laugh entirely to himself, since
it was matter of common notoriety that the
standing orders against recruiting by force,
when not the outcome of pique or spite, were
intended solely as a salve to allay, for the time
being, the growing irritation of the foreign body
politic.
Three clearly defined crises mark the growth
of the general opposition to Frederick William's
far-reaching mania. His ill-advised march on
222
Dried to
1 put to
ghbours
but un-
er com-
sehood ;
led, and
:s, strict-
f death,
e never
Id they
eatened
able to
jection?
eeve at
ipposed
if, since
hat the
force,
te, were
he time
jn body
Amenities of the Recruiter's Life
Hanover, and his precipitate retreat, produced
the first. The second followed the Maestricht
volley like a sullen echo. The third and most
serious succeeded the disgrace of Borcke But
no opposition, however universal or determined
could shake the hold which the passion for
soldiers of superlative stature had upon this
extraordinary man. Like a mountain torrent
It grew only the more violent from the very
opposition it met. Circumspection it learnt in
time ; but surcease never came to it until the
man and his mania lay buried in a common
grave.
growth
William's
irch on
— o
if- 1 1
!
(.. i'
CHAPTER IX
THE RULINC. PASSION STRONC IN DFATH
Ui'ON few princes did the future ever dawn
with fairer promise than upon Frederick William
when he mounted the throne of his father.
Endowed with a constitution of iron, and lead-
ing the frugal life of a country gentleman, the
autocrat of twenty-five had before him, to all
appearances, the years of an octogenarian.
Unhappily, there was a worm in the bud of
this fair future. The abstemiousness of the
King was only affected. When indulgence
suited his bent, or when opportunity to indulge
came at another's expense, moderation was a
thing undreamt of. His simplicity in dress long
survived his simplicity in living. He might
turn the laugh on Count Rothenburg and his
dandified suite at a review, by rigging out all
the provosts of his regiments in ridiculously big
hats, feathers, cuffs and hair-bags ; but when he
staggered from Rothenburg's table gorged to re-
pletion and immoderately drunk, the laugh was
224
EATH
ir dawn
William
father.
^d lead-
nan, the
I, to all
in.
bud of
! of the
iulgence
indulge
was a
ess long
might
and his
out all
lusly big
when he
:d to re-
ugh was
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
all the other way. Here, in embryo, lay the
fatal error of the imperious King. He put the
laws of health on a par with the law of nations,
and just as his iron hand could defy the one
with impunity, so his iron constitution, he
argued, might defy the other without fear of
consequences. The error led him into un-
bridled licence. Excessive eating, drinking,
smoking, hunting and passion made up his
round of life and produced their inevitable
result. He died at fifty-two, a broken and
prematurely aged man.
While yet in his thirty-ninth year he began
to reap the aftermath of his frequent debauches.
His health failed, he grew infirm. A natural
tendency to hypochondria increased upon him,
and in his dejection he sought consolation in
religion. The pietist Franck was much with
him, feathering his nest while the frenzy held.
Franck, too, had an infirmity, though not of the
flesh. It took the not uncommon form of
scruples of conscience concerning the actions of
others. Whatever gave one pleasure was damn-
able in the bigot's eyes. The King took
pleasure in painting, in music, in hunting ;
therefore hunting, music and painting were
225 Q
'I
I
The Romance of a Regiment
f '
'; n:/
deadliest sins, which he must put away from
him would he make his peace with (led. He
might talk of nothing but the Word and the
welfare of his soul. Cant was served with every
meagre course at table ; secular conversation
was taboo. After dinner the King preached a
sermon, which rambled on until late in the
afternoon. His children, suffering purgatorial
pains on their stiff-backed chairs, listened as if
to an apostle. His shady factotum Eversmann
led the singing, and to hear the sanctimonious
hypocrite drone the canticle through his nose
was often too much for the forced gravity of the
young people. They exploded, and all the
anathemas of the Church were hurled at their
devoted heads by the royal preacher and " that
dog of a Franck."
The bigot having proved the kingly office to
be inconsistent with a religious life, his convert
resolved to abdicate. He would reserve for
himself 10,000 crowns a year, retire to Wuster-
hausen, and there devote his life to God and
the national finances. Wilhelmine should have
the oversight of the washing, Charlotte should
do the marketing, while the Queen his wife
looked after the babies and the cooking.
226
1
/f
M'
t
i
i -i
t
ay from
od. He
and the
ith every
versation
eached a
e in the
jrgatorial
ned as if
fcrsmann
imonious
his nose
ity of the
all the
1 at their
Mid " that
office to
convert
serve for
Wuster-
God and
)uld have
e should
his wife
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
It was in 1727 that this craze had temporary
sway. With reviving health the religious fit
passed, and the carnal man reasserted himself.
The King resumed his old alternation of ex-
treme frugality and extreme dissipation. No-
thing short of extremes satisfied him. Was it a
bout at the partridges? Four hundred fell to
his single gun in less than fifteen days. At
pig-sticking ? Between dawn and dark an
equal number of wild-boar got the spear in their
vitals.
The slaughter began at break of day, when
in an enclosure 500 or 1000 paces square, joo
or 300 boars of every age and size were fre-
quently let loose. Two by two, armed with
spear or spontoon, the huntsmen awaited the
charge of the savage brutes. Woe betide the
man who missed his thrust or broke his spear !
The King's lust for blood increased the danger.
He compelled his pages to seize and hold the
larger boars by the ears, at the imminent hazard
of life or Hmb, whilst he ran in and despatched
the bristling monsters. Those who exposed
themselves the most came off covered with
ghastly wounds ; those who hung back weie
cursed for contemptible poltroons unworthy the
227
r
I H
M
ST^f Romance of a Regiment
service of a pig-sticking King. Seldom a hunt
took place but two or three were maimed for
life or killed outright by the furious tuskers.
The spoils on these occasions were stupen-
dous. In the winter of 1729, after slaughtering
1720 boars in the forests about Kopenic, the
King went into Pomerania, and there added to
his trophies one thousand, eight hundred, four-
score and two, 300 of which were tuskers of
extraordinary size. Nine hundred or 1000 head
was considered a very moderate bag for a week's
pig-sticking.
The prospect of such sanguinary sport found
the King early astir. By five in the morning
he was up and on his way to the rendezvous in
an open waggon, no matter how arctic the
weather. At noon a cold snack was hurriedly
eaten en plein air. At dusk the royal sportsman
reluctantly abandoned the slaughter, only to
renew it the next day with unabated vigour and
zest. His cruel nature found sweet enjoyment
in the sport, though he often paid dear for tlie
pleasure it afforded him. In the great hunt of
1729 he came within an ace of losing his life at
the tusks of a huge boar. A wound received at
that time incommoded him ever after. When
228
i ill
he came out of the melee unscathed in limb,
reaction supervening on the continued exposure,
excitement and strain frequently compelled him
to keep his bed for days. The tedium of his
enforced leisure he relieved by disposing of the
spoils of the hunt ; and having always an eye to
business, he took good care that his distribution
of the game should yield him profit as well as
pleasure. It was accordingly sent to councillors
and Government clerks, to rich merchants and
burghers, who, knowing only too well what was
expected of them, reluctantly paid for wild boar
at the rate of from three to six dollars a head.
Jews were a special butt of the royal favour
in this respect.
His extraordinary mode of travel, too, affected
his health prejudicially. He moved from place
to place with astonishing celerity, being to-day
here, to-morrow two-score leagues away. Baggage
never impeded his movements. A carriage for
himself, and one or two for attendant officers,
composed his entire train. The relays which
awaited him every two leagues cost him nothing.
The provinces through which he did not pass
paid for them by an annual cess called the Vor-
spann. He slept in his carriage, and ate at the
229
r I
It'
The Romance of a Regiment
houses of such of his generals or officials as lay
on his route. When obliged to go to an inn, he
dined like a beggar, and, for a wonder, paid like
a lord. His health suffered from these light-
ning journeys far more than his pocket.
By 1732 he was again in a bad way. The
great hunt had to be countermanded. Who-
ever spoke of his Majesty's health either one
way or other, did so under pain of Spandau.
Medicines only aggravated his complaint — a
circumstance scarcely to be wondered at, since
his physicians were a sorry lot, whose ignorance
was of the grossest, whose methods of the most
drastic nature.
One Stahl may be taken as a fair specimen of
the whole tribe. He held that when the soul
found itself trammelled by too great an afflu-
ence of matter, it freed itself by afflicting the
body with ailments. Dangerous diseases were
merely a sign of weakness of the soul, which,
not having strength sufficient to throw off the
superabundant matter, fretted itself away in vain
endeavours, and often succumbed under stress
of its own efforts. On the strength of this
reasoning he employed only two remedies —
sedative powders and purges — which he pre-
230
m-
u
lis as lay
n inn, he
paid like
ise light-
ly. The
I. Whe-
ther one
Spandau.
plaint — a
at, since
gnorance
the most
icimcn of
the soul
an afflu-
:ting the
.ses were
il, which,
w off the
y in vain
ler stress
1 of this
medies —
he pre-
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
scribed indiscriminately for every species of
complaint.
In the King the medicos found a truly
captious patient. He feared their potions no
less than they feared his stick. If they failed
to cure him, they were murderous assassins who
had covert designs on his life; if they told
him the truth, they were unmitigated rogues and
liars. He would swallow the nauseous doses of
some pretentious adventurer during a week, and
then send him flying with no other reward than
blows and curses. He drew up papers, describ-
ing his symptoms at length, and circulated them
amongst the doctors of Berlin under assumed
names. When no two of the fraternity agreed,
he loaded them with jeers and reproaches. He
consulted all, and followed the advice of none.
It is remarkable that the King's health-crises
invariably follow the crises produced by his
recruiting mania. The Hanover quarrel of 1729,
the Maestricht of 1732-3, and the Borcke of
1736-7 were each succeeded by serious, and in
the third instance by fatal, derangement of
health. The reason is not far to seek. The
violent agitations and passions occasioned b)
these squabbles unhinged him l)oth physically
231
r
The Romance of a Regiment
!)'•
and mentally, and left him an easy prey to
disease whose ineradicable seeds had already
been sown by excess and disregard of the most
patent sanitary laws.
The deleterious health efifects of the second
recruiting crisis were not so easily shaken off as
those of the first. Throughout 1732 and '33 the
symptoms of seated disease became more and
more pronounced. The King grew visibly
emaciated. A racking cough gave him no rest
day or night. His physicians began to fear
decline. A sort of lethargy seized hirr. ; he no
sooner sat down than he instantly fell asleep.
His feet swelled with the slightest exertion, and
an involuntary trembling affected his knees.
His will, however, was still as indomitable as of
old. There was in his stables an English horse
unbroken to bit or saddle. This animal he
resolved to mount. The horse reared and
threw him, dashing the royal . ' "iput with
terrific violence against a pillar of the stable.
Though nearly killed, the King was not van-
(juished. Mounting a second time, he stuck to
the saddle for an hour ; after which he went to
bed and staid there until noon next day.
His life at Potsdam, where he was frequently
232
?Hi
ent
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
y prey to
d already
■the most
he second
iken off as
,nd '33 the
more and
3\v visibly
im no rest
in to fear
iir. ] he no
fell asleep,
ertion, and
his knees,
itable as of
glish horse
animal he
eared and
-•iput with
the stable.
3 not van-
he stuck to
he went to
iay.
frequently
m residence, did him no good. However ill
he might be, he seldom shirked his night duties.
The morning was one continuous round of
fatigues. At noon he dined. Never before or
since was meal so poor and scanty served at
royal table; one could not get enough. A
jester, seated opposite the King, interspersed
the news of the gazettes with political or social
comments scarcely less wearisome than ludi-
crous. On rising from table the King took a
nap m an arm-chair placed in a corner of the
chimney. His children, if any of them were
present, gathered round him to watcii him snore,
jeering his squat, heaving figure, his broad'
unlovely face and his ridiculous wig in en-
venomed undertones. The nap finished, at
three he sallied forth to ride, returning at six
to paint, or rather to daub, until seven, when he
began to smoke. Supper came on at eight, and
dragged itself out to the stroke of midnight, the
table-talk resembling the sermons prescribed by
certain preachers as a remedy for insomnia.
Deadly dulness prevailed everywhere, always
"Never in my life," declares his vivacious
daughter Wilhelmine, " have I seen anything to
compare with it."
1
' '
III
r, '
The Romance of a Regiment
About this time he began to complain of a
'* shanker," or cancer on his tongue. At Berlin
a woman lay dying of the same disorder, and
the King was excessively frightened. He con-
sulted his physicians, who told him he smoked
too much. He put out his sore tongue at
them, in a figurative sense, and smoked on.
The boar wound of 1739 now re-opened,
disabling his right arm, and obliging him to
sign all papers with his left hand. His margin-
als, already famous for their illegibility, became
on this account more illegible than ever. His
affectation of a learning to winch he could lay
no claim, materially increased their vagueness.
Honoured with an Oxford doctorate whilst yet
a youth, he was probably the most ignorant
doctor of that or any other University. In his
acquisitive days — speaking still of knowledge —
his big men came between him and his books,
and though in after life he loved to affect
acquaintance with most languages, living or
dead, he was conversant, as a matter of fact,
with only two — coUoc^uial German and profane.
Documents from his pen abounded in bastard
French and Latin terms unintelligible, as a rule,
to all save himself, while his marginals were
234
!/
lain of a
\,t Berlin
■der, and
He con-
; smoked
angiie at
d on.
2-opened,
y him to
s margin-
r, became
ver. His
could lay
vagueness,
svhilst yet
ignorant
r. In his
)wledge —
his books,
to affect
living or
er of fact,
d profane,
in bastard
:, as a rule,
inals were
T/ie Ruling Passion Strong in Death
often wholly untranslatable or capable of several
constructions, and the most unfortunate mis-
takes occurred owing to the difficulty of de-
ciphering them.
General Glasenapp, commandant of Berlin,
having once reported that a party of masons
had become riotous when ordered to work on
a holy day, his Majesty's marginal was read as
an order "to hang Raedel at once." The
General was sorely puzzled. None of the
rioters answered to the name of Raedel— no
one in Berlin, indeed, except an inoffensive
lieutenant. Without loss of time, however, he
was arrested; the order was read to him; a
clergyman was hastily summoned to prepare
him for death. Just as the sentence was about
to be carried out, up came an official better
versed in the King's hieroglyphics. "Hang
the ringleader," was how he read the order, to
the unspeakable relief of the wretched lieuten-
ant. But here, again, a difficulty cropped up.
All the masons had been equally riotous. In
this dilemma the General hit upon a happy
expedient. One of the men happened to have
red hair, and as red was notoriously the badge of
all sedition, he was forthwith led to the gallows.
235
The Romance of a Regiment
' /
In the autumn of 1734 there fell upon the
King the most serious illness of his life save
one. Dropsical symptoms set in -, his legs
swelled to the size of "two butter-tubs." The
servants who helped to move him were cruelly
beaten because his knees refused to bear his
weight. At his bedside he kept a brace of
pistols loaded with salt, with which to pepper
the faces or calves of those who displeased him.
His very physicians durst not tell him of his
danger for fear " of having their eyes shot out."
The only way to manage him was to suggest
that he should order a squad of Great Grenadiers
into the sick-room and amuse himself at their
expense, thus falsifying Voltaire's dictum that
" regiments do not make one happy." ^
After he had lain in this condition for many
weeks, his iron constitution again reasserted
itself and enabled him to disappoint " the whole
tribe of Galen and Hippocrates." One day he
crawled out of bed and mounted a horse in the
great hall at Potsdam, " to try his force to enter
Berlin in the same manner." People who had
been eagerly speculating on his early demise,
^ "Ce ne sont pas des regiments qui rendent heu-
reux."
236
m
i '^
%
'«/
upon the
life save
his legs
DS." The
re cruelly
} bear his
brace of
to pepper
;ased him.
lim of his
shot out."
to suggest
jrenadiers
ilf at their
ctum that
for many
reasserted
the whole
Ine day he
Drse in the
:e to enter
i who had
demise,
sndent heu-
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
now cried out piously that his resurrection was
as miraculous as that of Lazarus.
Excepting only his mania for tall men, which
nothing could make more rabid than it was, all
his crazes were exaggerated or thrown into
bolder relief by sickness. It gave fresh vehe-
mence to his evil temper. Of his many dis-
orders, anger was the chief j he raged with
greater fury than any lion. It tightened his
hold upon stick and purse-strings : he dispensed
more blows than a slave-driver, and retrenched
so much in his table that his family suffered for
the common necessaries of li^e. It aroused all
his suspicions and jealousies to the highest
pitch : he would crawl from a sick-bed in the
bitterest spring-weather to menace King George's
arrival in Hanover with an awe-inspiring military
display at Berlin ; or feign himself worse than
he really was in order to delay his reviews when
his hated rival delayed his coming.
Nor did his son, the Prince Royal, escape his
quickened enmity. One morning during his
last illness the King, finding himself better than
usual, dressed and called for his generals. They
assembled in the great hall, where he joined
them. Pipes and tobacco were passed round ;
237
The Romance of a Regiment
the King was in the gayest of humours. Sud-
denly, in came the Prince, and all, on seeing
him, rose to their feet, contrary to the estab-
lished rules of iabagie. The King went white
with rage. " Ay ! " cried he, *' adore the rising
sun ; but I still live, and I'll let you see who's
master."
In October 1739 came the first premonitions
of the approaching end. The King who in his
young manhood had had a lively eye, a hand-
some mouth and nose, a clear complexion and
a well-turned leg, now retained few traces of
those attractions. His eyes, it is true, were
still lively, but his looks were " frightful," his
complexion being composed of a mixture of red,
blue, yellow and green, distributed in unsightly
blotches, whilst his neck, as though over-
burdened by the extraordinarily large head that
surmounted it, had quite sunk between his
shoulders, giving his squat figure the appearance
of being even shorter and more obese than it
really was. For the first time in his life he
complained of a distaste for hunting, which, he
said, rendered all pleasure dull and insipid to
him. December saw him confined to his room
at Berlin by an oppression on his chest, for
238
Lirs. Sud-
on seeing
the estab-
rent white
the rising
see who's
monitions
vho in his
J, a hand-
;xion and
traces of
•ue, were
itful," his
re of red,
unsightly
igh over-
head that
ween his
)pearance
e than it
is life he
vhich, he
isipid to
his room
hest, for
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
which he could find no relief except in bursts
of passion little short of frenzy. Fearing mad-
ness, those about him began to hope that
Providence would speedily take him out of the
world.
Early in February he took to his bed, but
could not lie down. A little table was contrived,
on which he rested his chin, and so slept
sitting. He took leave of the Queen, bestowed
his blessing on his children, and sent it also
to those other "beloved children in blue"
at Potsdam. The (Ireat (Irenadiers received it
gladly, thanking Heaven that the time of their
release was at hand.
People at large, however, suspected him of
"playing a little farce "in order to observe its
effect upon the Prince Royal and others who
perhaps desired a change. Equally suspicious
on his side, the King ordered the postal authori-
ties to open all letters, that he might know what
his subjects said about him. This visitation,
and reports of an enormously swollen royal leg,
convinced the public of the sad truth. The
equinox, they argued, would surely seal the
King's fate.
While affairs were in this melancholy situa-
239
The Romance of a Regiment
I
t I
tion, there occurred an incident which roused
the failing giant from his lethargy, and fixed his
thoughts at once upon the world departing and
the world to come. On the Polish frontier
stood an abbey called Paradise, surrounded by
well-tilled lands, which yielded the abbot a
goodly revenue, and afforded the Prussian man-
hunters special facilities for their favourite diver-
sion. The schultz or head-man of the abbey
villages chancing to be exceptionally tall, they
took him by strategy and stole him away. The
enraged abbot laid hands on some carts laden
with goods belonging to his Prussian Majesty,
and sent to Potsdam a message to the effect that
they should be given up on the release of his
schultz. The message found the King on his
death-bed. He called for pen and ink, and
scrawled an order eminently suggestive of taking
the Kingdom of Heaven by force, as the violent
are said to do : '* Let fifty hussars, and one
hundred and forty grenadiers march direct to
Paradise and demand restitution of my goods.
If restitution is denied, they are to make an
irruption on the abbot's lands, and live there at
discretion." Presuming on these orders, the
soldiers pillaged the abbey, flogged the monks,
240
nt
1 roused
fixed his
rting and
frontier
mded by
abbot a
lian man-
ite diver-
le abbey
tall, they
ay. The
irts laden
Majesty,
iffect that
,se of his
g on his
ink, and
of taking
le violent
and one
direct to
jy goods,
make an
there at
iers, the
I monks,
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
and only spared the abbot because he, having
taken Time by the forelock, could not be found.
The King had an easy night after hearing the
news.
Scarcely had the excitement of this episode
subsided, when Berlin was favoured with an-
other pleasing break in the monotonous pastime
of waiting for the King to die. One morning in
April there came dashing in at one of the gates
a mud-bespattered carriage with the royal lilies
of France emblazoned on its panels, and in it an
individual who wore the livery of his Most
Christian Majesty. He proved to be the bearer
of a medicine, hitherto unheard of in Prussia,
which no less a person than (Cardinal Fleury had
sent for the use of the dying King. In the case
of M. Herault, Intendant of Paris, it had worked
miracles after he had been abandoned by his
physicians ; and his Prussian Majesty's symp-
toms were in every respect identical with
Herault's. Composed chiefly of a new drug
known as " Jesuit's bark," ^ the mixture was
warranted to kill or cure in eight days' time.
In his extremity the King was willing to take
the new medicine, though the learned doctors
' Peruvian bark.
241 R
■■
; I
The Romance of a Regiment
regarded it with suspicion. They feared its
novelty, they feared its reputed potency. They
knew, or pretended to know, of what it was
composed, and after many heated consultations
they decided to administer it in a modified
form. It did the patient neither good nor
harm.
The physicians now abandoned all hope of his
recovery, declaring publicly that nothing short
of a miracle could save him. So great were
his sufferings, his most attached friends began
to wish for his release. The wish was apparently
echoed by the King himself. He sent for his
chaplain and expressed an earnest desire to go
to — Potsdam ! If he must die, let him at least
die surrounded by his " beloved children in
blue." The doctors raised no objection to the
quixotic idea \ as a person given over, they
allowed his Majesty to do as he pleased, even
to ordering his own food and medicines. The
weather happening to be unusually mild, to
show his people that he still lived, and to see if
he could bear the air, he one day had himself
carried in a chair to the stables, the next driven
about the town in a chaise. A fainting fit
obliged him to stop for an hour in the middle of
242
nt
eared its
y. They
It it was
jultations
modified
;ood nor
ipe of his
ng short
eat were
is began
;)parently
It for his
re to go
n at least
Idren in
)n to the
i^er, they
led, even
^s. The
mild, to
to see if
i himself
St driven
nting fit
iiiddle of
^he Ruling Passion Strong in Death
the street. In spite of this, however, he made
up his mind to go to Potsdam, even though he
should die on the road.
April and the harassed life had well-nigh run
their course when the hazardous design was put
in execution. Again he disappointed the doc*
tors, who never expected to see him complete
the journey alive. His arrival at the old home
was signalized by the distribution of a handsome
gratuity amongst the officers of his regiment.
They alone benefited by the event. Though
bread was selling at little short of famine prices,
the royal miser refused to throw open his teem-
ing magazines of grain. The poor and his soul
he commended to God, talking in his sore
extremity of nothing but death — and of remov-
ing to town again !
But he was never again to return to the palace
of his fathers. A more pitiless man-hunter than
himself was on his track, fast running him to
earth. At his bedside his chaplain reminded
him, amongst other shortcomings, of his uni-
versal violences in recruiting ; of the men who
had been ruthlessly torn from their homes ; of
the women and children left lamenting. There
was no lack of suitable texts. The past teemed
243
^he Romance of a Regiment
If:
'.' \
i- \ I
u ■
with them. Within a few days, indeed, a new
one had been added to the long list.
The case was this. A rich merchant of x\m-
sterdam had cousins in Prussia, with whom
he quarrelled. Hearing that he had threatened
to leave them nothing at his death, the Prussian
cousins petitioned the King to avert such a
calamity by imprisoning the rich relative before
he could make, or alter, nis will ; promising his
Majesty a number of tall men for his guard if he
would grant their prayer. The King readily
assented. Enticed to Cleves, the rich merchant
was arrested and thrown into Spandau, where
he lay a prisoner while the King lay dying.
To all the chaplain's representations of the
enormity of his conduct, the King returned but
one answer : " He had been forced into these
things by reason of State. The end justified
the means." "Such reasons may go down
with man," said the chaplain, "but with God
they will stand you in sorry stead." The King
professed to be convinced of this, and cried
aloud for mercy.
Although the end was now imminent, the
Prince Royal had not yet put in an appearance
at Potsdam. An odd circumstance had revived
244
new
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
the enmity between father and son in all its
former bitterness. There had been sent to
Rheinsberg, for the Prince's signature, a mys-
terious paper, said to contain a project for
the dismemberment of Prussia in favour of a
younger brother. The Prince would not sign
it, and, as the King took his refusal in high
dudgeon, his friends advised him to remain
where he was until his Majesty lay at the very
point of death. " Don't go to Potsdam," he
wrote to his sister Wilhelmine ; " if you do, you
will be received like a dog."
On May 28, three days before the King's
death, the Prince hastened to his bedside in
response to an urgent summons. He expected
to find the King at his last gasp. He found
him instead hobbling painfully to and fro
on the parade, watching the progress of some
building operations. He was received with
open arms and tears of joy. " I have nothing
more to do in the world," cried the King, " I
have talked with my son. God grant me a
speedy and easy death ! "
In his dying, as in his living thoughts, his
Great Grenadiers held a conspicuous place.
The minute instructions which he gave for his
245
i, 'i
ii >
t r
;■ ) !
fn'#!
r f
>^,
1
^f.
iv
m
11
1
T
1
T'/z^ Romance of a Regiment
burial bristle with allusions to them. They
were to mount guard in the town on the day he
died ; to be new-clad from head to foot for his
funeral. Eight captains of Grenadiers should
bear his cofifin lo and from the mourning-coach,
which should proceed to the church, and thence
to the grave, attended by the entire regiment
with muskets reversed, the drums beating the
Dead March, the fifes playing the hymn, "O
sacred head once wounded." A picked detach-
ment of giants should remove the colours from
his cofifin, and fire a triple volley over his grave ;
"and take care," interpolated the dying martinet,
" that the rascals don't hang fire ! " Each man,
on returning to quarters, was to receive the
gratuity usually given after a review ; and in the
great hall the officers were to be treated to a
supper, for which the largest tun of Rhenish
wine in the royal cellars must be broached.
Slowly but surely, nevertheless, the mania of
the Recruiter King was loosening its hold upon
him. " I have weaned my heart," he told his
chaplain, "from every object of its affections —
from my wife, my children, my army." Con-
versing with the Crown Prince, he recognized
how wrongly he had acted in making the Great
246
It
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
. They
e day he
)t for his
=; should
ig-coach,
d thence
regiment
xting the
mn, "O
i detach-
lurs from
is grave ;
martinet,
ach man,
;eive the
id in the
ited to a
Rhenish
iched.
mania of
old upon
told his
actions —
." Con-
cognized
le Great
Grenadiers his hobby, and in spending so many
millions upon them. He would have broken
the corps long before, he said, had not false
pride prevented him ; but he hoped the Prince
would act more wisely when he was gone, and
dismiss the tall fellows to their homes. One of
the Grenadiers was introduced into the sick-
room, resplendent in his new uniform. The King
regarded him fixedly for a moment, then turned
his face to the wall, groaning, " Vanity of vani-
ties ! " and prepared for the eternal sleep.
The marvel was that he so long resisted that
sleep, or bore up under the load of infirmities
which crushed him to the very verge of the
grave. For weeks his lower limbs had been
utterly dead to sensation or volition. His body,
swollen to an incredible size, had become "as
hard as a board." The very methods he adopted
in the vain hope of recovering his lost vitality,
were enough to have wrecked a constitution of
steel. Every four-and-twenty hours he took
three purges, " each strong enough for a horse."
His physicians held aloof, unwilling to add to
his pains by censuring his folly or contradicting
his whim. And so, on May 31, 1740, between
one and two o'clock in the afternoon, the end
247
The Romance of a Regiment
W'
came, and the Great Grenadiers were practically
free men.
Some three weeks later they fired their triple
volley of farewell over the grave of their late
master — an empty grave, since the actual burial
had long since taken place. That duty was the
last required of them. The new King had cal-
culated that eight complete regiments of foot
could be maintained for the annual cost of the
useless giants ; and this discovery, rather than
his father's dying injunction, decided him to
disband them, and that very day the famous
body-guard was " broke."
Many of the tall men elected to take the oath
of fealty to the new monarch, the coming hero
of many a hard-won fight ; the rest went their
several ways unmolested by the recruiter, whose
day, for a little while at least, was over. Of the
giants thus discharged the majority were Eng-
lish, and Massendine, Willis and Evans were of
the number.
'■■■ I
THE END.
fA'. Clay ir Sons, l.d., London &• Bniii,<-ny,
M*uAijt«Uk«^«*
■A
»^
nt
ractically
leir triple
their late
Lial burial
j^ was the
I had cal-
s of foot
)st of the
ther than
1 him to
e famous
; the oath
iiing hero
-ent their
er, whose
. Of the
rere Eng-
is were of
•don ir liHtii;ny.