AUTHOR LI3.V.RY OF CHARLES S. LANDERS, NEW BRITAIN, CONN. DATE, JA1 QTKKN LOSE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY BY POULTXEY BIGELOW, B.A. ILLUSTRATED WITH UY K. CATOX WOODVILLE A\D WITH PORTRAITS A.\D MAI'S IX TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. NK\V YORK HAUPEU ^ liUOTHEUS TUHLI^IIEUS IS SIT) Copyright. 180r>, by HAKPKK & HKOTIIEKS TO C A R I B E E MY C It U I SING CANOE In her I have slept by night and sailed by day for weeks and months at a time, exploring the beautiful waterways of the German Fatherland. She has maile me friends with every kind of man the bargee, the raftsman, the peasant, the wood-chopper, the weaver, the gendarme, the parish parson, the miller, the tax-collector and many more of the types that make life interesting to the contemplative traveller. By the aid of Caribee I learned to feel how Germans feel. Without her this book would not have been written. CONTEXTS OF VOL. I CHAPTER TASK I. EXECUTION OF JOHN PALM, BOOKSELLER 1 II. QfEKN LUISE OF PRUSSIA BEFORE JENA (5 III. WHAT SOKT OF A BRINGING-UP HAD QUEEN LUISE . . 13 IV. QUEEN LUISE ENTERS BERLIN IN TRIUMPH .... 20 V. Tin; Two PHILOSOPHERS OF JENA HEGEL AND XAPO- LEON 80 VI. THE EVE OF JENA, OCTOBER 18, 180G 83 VII. Tin: GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE FROM JENA AND AUERSTADT 43 VIII. WHAT SOKT OF ARMY FOUGHT THE FRENCH AT JENA ? ."34 IX. A PRUSSIAN CHRONIC Lie OF XOHLE CRIMINALS ... 01 X. A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA 73 XI. PEACE WITH DISHONOR 88 XII. COLP.EKG GNEISENAU, XETTELKECK, SCIIII.L .... 104 XIII. SOMETHING AIJOUT GNEISKNAU'S KAKLY STRUGGLES . 118 XIV. SCIIAKNIIOKST MAKES A Xi:\v AIIMY 100 XV. SOMETHING AP.OUT S< IIAUMIOKST 141 XVI. THE PI:IN< i.s OF (JEKMANY PAY COURT TO XAPOI.EON AT EliFURT l.")2 X\"II. Tin: FIUST I^REATII OF LIUKRTY IN PRUSSIA 1807 . . 1(53 XVIII. PRUSSIANS BECOME KEUELS TO THEIR KINC, AND DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY 172 XIX. GERMAN I,II;ERTY TAKES UEFUGE IN THE AUSTRIAN ALPS ls-> XX. THE LAST DAYS OF QUEEN LUISE lilt vi CONTENTS OF VOL. I CIIAPTFr. PACK XXI. A NURSERY VIEW OF KING, QUEEN, AND POLITICS. . 212 XXII. THE FIRST NATIONAL PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT MEETS IN BERLIN, 1811 220 XXIII. JAIIN, THE PATRIOT WHO FOUNDED GYMNASTIC SOCIE- TIES AND TAUGHT THE SCHOOL CHILDREN TO PRAY FOR GERMAN LIISERTY 230 XXIV. How THE IRON CROSS CAME TO UE FOUNDED . . . 244 ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. I QUEEN I.UTSE. (See fool note on page 82 ) Fi-nntitpi<:c. 4<) METTERNU'II, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRIA " 5<) NAI'oI.EON AT Till: DESK OF FREDERICK THE (iRKAT AT v\NS SOI'CI FI.I'.Hl' OF QUEEN I.UISE .... MAP SIloWINi; THE ROUTE OF (^UEEN I.UISIo's FI.KIHT AND 'I'll;: TERRITORY OVERRUN I!Y NAPOI.EoX IN THE \VI.N- TER OF IHOiJ 7S, 7'.) F.A>T SIDE OF THE CASTLE OF Ko.NKiSP.ERC /'!'. i/i : / ;'. S4 FREDERICK WILLIAM III. WAITINC FOR THE END OF THE CONFERENCE ON THE RAFT " ',M NAi'oi.EuN's HI;ADQUARTERS AT TII.-IT " 'J\ viii ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL I HOUSE AT TILSIT IX WHICH QUEEN LUISE RECEIVED NAPOLEON Facing p. 98 MAP PRUSSIA BEFOKE AND AFTEIt THE TREATY OF TILSIT " 09 LUISE AND NAPOLEON AT TILSIT " 100 THE DEMAND FOIl THE SURRENDER OF COLBERG ... " 106 NETTELBECK THREATENS THE GOVERNOR " 108 NETTELBECK AND GNEISENAU ON THE RAMPARTS . . " 110 SCHILL " 112 GNEI.SENAU'S MONEY 113 NETTELBECK Facing p. 11 6 GNEISENAU. (From the original phister cast by Rnuch) .... " 124 ALEXANDER I. OF RUSSIA _ . . " ICO FREDERICK WILLIAM III " 138 GENERAL SCIIARNHOST " 154 FREDERICK LUDWIG JAIIN " 1G4 ONE OF SCHILL'S FOLLOWERS " 172 DEATH OF SCHILL IN THE MARKET-PLACE AT STRALSUND " ISO IIOFER CONFERRING WITH THE AUSTRIAN STADTIIOLDER " 188 ANDREAS IIOFER A PRISONER " 192 IIARDENBERG " 204 THE MARQUIS DE TALLEYRAND , " 214 THE GREAT BARON STEIN " 222 THE PATRIOT FICIITE " 232 THE IKON CROSS . . 244 PREFACE THESE pages go to the printer at a moment when (Germany is celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the great war which culminated in a German empire, manhood suffrage, and a free Parliament. These were the ideals of the patriots who roused the German nation against the tyranny of Napoleon, and for these their de- scendants cheerfully became rebels in the stormy days of 1S4S. It has been my purpose to tell in simple lan- guage the story of this struggle a story addressed to people of English speech and tradition, who believe that the strength of government is in the vigor and virtue of the individual citizen. In Europe to-day some rulers act as though soldiers alone kne\v how to be patriotic as though great armies made great nations. Yet in Germany we have seen a constant increase of the so- cialistic vote keeping pace with the growth and perfec- tion of a monster military organism. AVhen JJismarck in 1^71 became Chancellor of the new German Empire, the socialist vote was so small that it could be ignored. When he left oflice, after twenty years of rule, he left to his people a legacy of popular disaffection that may X PREFACE be estimated only by reference to one and a quarter million votes cast for socialist candidates. The parallel progress of militarism and socialism in the new German Empire offers problems for the modern philosopher and law-maker. There are many causes at the bottom of it. But the cause most clear is that Ger- many to-day does not move in the spirit of her great men, who raised her up when all the world thought her destroyed. The German volunteers of 1813 were offi- cered by patriot citizens AY ho pretended to no more social rank and privilege than was absolutely necessary for the enforcement of military discipline. They en- tered the army for the sake of defending their country, and returned to their citizen work when the Avar was done. To-day the German officer is wholly a profes- sional soldier, and of the non-commissioned officer this is almost equally true. The soldier and the citizen have ceased to feel that their titles are interchangeable. A spirit of caste has come to permeate the great soldier class the same spirit that led the Prussian army to its disgraces after Jena. In these pages we may see that great military results have been achieved by patriotic citizens who volun- teered for active service AY hen their country Avas in dan- ger. Their example should teacli us the importance of insisting that each able-bodied citizen must know the duties of a soldier. It is surely not too much to ask that each member of a free country should surrender at least one month in every year to exercises which will qualify him to defend that country in the event of in- PREFACE xi vasion. Our historical traditions make us dislike large standing armies, and for that reason ought we the more readily to adopt measures that shall in the moment of danger make us a nation in arms. No country can maintain its liberty unless it is ready to light for it ; nor can that fight end well unless the fighting is done by the whole body of the people. The nation that has to employ mercenaries may purchase temporary secu- rity; but the price becomes higher as the years go by, and in time that people will surely sell its liberty as the price of mere existence. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I have to thank His Majesty the German Emperor for permission to use the precious manuscript material stored in the Prussian archives. This mate- rial is excellently arranged. I received much assist- ance from Colonel Les/.c/yns/ki at the War Archives (Generalstabsarchiv), and from Dr. JJailleu at the Ge- heime Staatsarchiv (State Secret Archives). There is much valuable material in the House Archives of the Hohenzollcrn family, which, for political reasons, is not yet available to the historian. 11 is Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland and Her Majesty the (Jueen of Hanover have placed me under deep obligations in the making of these pages. So has the present Count Yoss, a direct descendant of the lady who was principal companion to (jueen Ltiise. xii PREFACE Dr. Peschel, the director of the Korner Museum in Dresden, gave me several days of his precious time amidst his treasures. Professor Siemering, the director of the Ranch Museum in Berlin, Avas equally kind in assisting me to get the best possible portraits from Ranch's originals. Professor Schiemann, of the Berlin University, has given me generous advice and aid. The late Countess Chorinsky, who had in her possession a large correspondence Avith Queen Luise, also aided my Avork. Pastor Deckert, of Schilda, did everything in his power to clear up for me the mystery of Gneisenau's birth. Finally, let me heartily acknowledge my obli- gation to Mr. Hubert Hall, of the London Record Office, Avho took as much interest in my Avork as though he Avere writing it himself. So many kind acts are there for me to recall at this moment that to note them individually Avould be im- possible. I have had occasion to ask very many favors from Germans in every corner of the empire, and have invariably received generous treatment ; the one or two exceptions are not worth noting. The lines of the Mol- dau, the Elbe, and the Danube, the Spree and the Havel, I have slowly paddled in my canoe, stopping at every point from Avhich interesting excursions might be made as, for instance, from Torgau to Schilda and Leipzig; from Dresden to Bautzen. Xcarly every battle-field I have tramped over on foot, verifying previous authori- ties and noting the changes made by modern progress. These excursions, made during the last eight years. haA'e brought me into contact with manv different kinds PREFACE of Germans in a manner most agreeable to me. I wish I could thank again, personally, each of the many who have helped me while tramping and paddling up and down the fatherland. The books to which I owe a debt of gratitude are many indeed, nearly all in the German language, and almost without exception devoid of index. The student interested in learning more of this period can be most readily guided by taking in turn each of the great names of that time and reading either his memoirs, his life, or possibly a collection of his letters. Thus 1'ertz has left us a monumental life of Stein ; llanke an equally serious life of Ifardenberg; Ijoyen's autobiography is already a classic; and when the head of the Ilohenzol- lerns decides to open his most secret archives we shall have at least material for a complete life of Queen Luise. It is deeply to be regretted that so much of the polit- ical and social correspondence of notable Germans has been destroyed for fear of the police. Arndt congratu- hited himself that all his precious manuscript had been lost at sea. The years following the battle of AVater- loo Ill-ought with them much political persecution, and nearly every German who had been conspicuous as a patriot in liberating the country from Napoleon became afterwards a traitor at least in the eyes of tin. 1 govern- ment. This fact alone renders the task of writing a hi>tory of this period dillicult. XIV PREFACE In regard to illustrations, I have to thank Mr. Caton Woodville for the interest he has shown in making his pictures conform to historic truth. I have had to reject a great many well-known pictures by other names sim- ply because they were calculated to give the reader a wrong impression. The directors of German museums have been uniformly helpful to me. In conclusion, I must thank the editor of Harped* ^[afjazlnc for first encouraging me towards this publi- cation, when other editors and publishers had given me only discouragement. Should this story prove interest- ing in book form, I shall hope to continue it at some future date. POULTNEY BlGELOW. HIGHLAND FALLS, N. Y., March 30, 1896. AUTHOR'S NOTE WIIILK tliis work was passing through tin- press the author was in South Africa, and he is under obligations to his friend, Charl- ton T. Lewis, Esq., for his care and attention in looking over the proofs. REFERENCE TABLE OF CONTEMPORARIES RULERS I?.ir.N DIEI> Frederick William III 1770 1*4') Queen Lui>e 177IJ 1*10 Napoleon 1 171.59 1*01 George III ' 17:',* 1*00 (/.ar Alexander 1777 1*0.1 President Madison 17") 1 1SJG STATESMEN Stein 17".7 1*31 llardi-nberir 17~>0 1*00 Talleyrand 17-">4 1 s :!* Metternieh 177;5 is.j'J SOLDIERS IJliicher 1740 1<1!) Gneisenau 17UO l s :!l lioyen 1771 1*4* Schtirnliorsit 17")."i 1*1:? Schi'.l 177<> l*i i'.t Lut/...\v 17*0 1*:?4 Yori'k 17.V.) 1*:JO AKT1STS, I'OETS, PHILOSOPHERS, WRITERS. PATRIOTS Seliil'.rr 17")',) l*n.") Curthe 1741 1*:?0 Koi-n. r 17H1 !*]:; Arnd; 17iil l*i'.0 l-'ich:.- Ka::t .Tahn 177* Illlai..! 17.">9 ]'cstal'/./i 171'! Ranch . .1777 XVi REFERENCE TABLE A FEW DATES WORTH REFERRING TO Holy Roman Empire of Germany dissolved by Napo- leon August G, 1806 Execution of John Palm August 25, 1806 Battle of Jena and Auerstiidt October 14, 1806 Treaty of Tilsit 1807 Period of Stein's important ministry 1807-8 Schill's death 1809 Execution of Andreas Ilofer 1810 Death of Queen Luise 1810 Ilardenbcrg calls together a Parliament 1811 King Frederick William III. entertains the idea of the Iron Cross 1811 Napoleon enters Moscow 1812 Napoleon forsakes his army in Russia and hurries to Paris December, 1812 Yorek declares against Napoleon Christmas, 1812 Rebellious Congress of Konigsberg 1813 Call for volunteers 1813 War declared against Napoleon March 17, 1813 The Liitzow Free Corps organized ... ... 1813 First battle of the war of liberation May 2, 1813 Battle of Leipzig October 16-10, 1813 BH'ichcr crosses the Rhine January 1. 1814 Prussians enter Paris March, 1814 Peace signed 1814 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY IX TWO VOLUMES VOL. I HISTORY OF THE GERMAX STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY EXECUTION OF JOHN PALM. BOOKSELLER "Aber nichtsdestoweniger steht die "\Valirhcit fcst : Dass die gcistige Entwickelung des, Volkes und seine ihm geset/.lich gegebenc Tlieilnahme ;ui den olTcntlichen Angelegenheiten in unserer ge- gomviirtigen Zcit. die Ilauptstiitxcn ties Staates sind."* Memoirs of General J5oyen, a Prussian .Minister of War, vol. i., p. IH)7. Ix the summer of ISoti, the memorable year of Jona, there lived in the pifturesi|iie old town of Xiii'enilici'ij,- ;i much-respected bookseller named John J'alm. I'nder ordinary circumstances he would have lived and died like many another respectable (Jerman bookseller had not Napoleon, by a stroke of his pen, sent his name echo- I'IILT around the world with the sio'iiiiicance aitachinu' to t hose of patriots like John llampden and Nathan Hale. John I'alm received, one dav. in the usual coiii'se of his business, a package of boolraunau, an Austrian town garrisoned by French troops, about two hundred miles from Xuremberg. lie had taken leave of his wife and children, promising a speedy return, and felt confident that his trial would be merely a matter of form ; and so it was. lie was ii'iven two short hearings. ?so one was al- EXECUTION' OF JOHN PALM, BOOKSELLER lowed to plead for him, and within two days of entering the fortress he was sentenced to be shot. At eleven o'clock on the iMJth of August his prison door was opened. He assumed that he was to be set at liberty and start immediately to join his wife and chil- dren in Nuremberg. Instead of this, however, he was notified that he was to be shot at two o'clock, leaving him barely time to write a few letters to his family and most intimate friends. The three short hours between the announcement of his sentence and the execution were of no use to him, nor would they have been had the electric telegraph been at his disposal. The judgment of the court-mar- tial was a surprise to his friends as well as to him- self in fact, to every one excepting the French military authorities, who were acting under instructions from Paris. The good people of the town begged mercy for him at the knees of the French commandant, ignorant of the fact that this oflicer was acting not as judge, but as executioner. At the appointed hour John Palm was placed upon a peasant's cart and escorted beyond the walls of the town under a strong military escort. The whole garri- son of the place was assembled to look on at the killing of this plain every-day little bookseller of Nuremberg. No people in (iermany are more kindly and peace-loving than those of this particular neighborhood; but even these good people gave the French officers reason to fear that an attempt might be made to rescue him, and that therefore it was prudent to make as great a display of force as possible. .John Palm's wrists were tied behind his back, and six French soldiers stepped forward, aimed, and fired. Five of the shots missed him; the sixth brought him to the THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ground with a cry of pain. He struggled to his feet to receive another volley, which again brought him to the ground, crippled and helpless, but not yet dead. Two soldiers now ran quickly forward, placed the muzzles of their muskets against his head, and finished the task with disgusting thoroughness. It is significant that John Palm, although a Protestant, was cared for by the Roman Catholic community of Braunau, was buried in their church-yard, and in 1866 was honored there by a national monument to his mem- ory.* The body of John Palm died in the summer of 1806, but, like John Brown of Ossawatomie, "his soul goes marching on." The killing of John Palm of Nuremberg may be char- acterized as was the killing of the Duke of Enghien two years before it was more than a crime, it was a blunder. The shots which brought sharp sorrow to the widow and children of this Bavarian bookseller brought mortifica- tion and anger into the heart of every German, to what- ever petty state he might belong. No one could be blind to the fact that Napoleon by this act asserted his right, or at least his power, to reach out beyond his frontiers into a neighboring German state in a time of profound peace, seize a respectable German citizen, try him by court-martial far from his home, execute him against the clearest evidence of innocence, and after it was done be ~ x ~ On the occasion of my pilgrimage clown the beautiful valley of the Inn which, of course, must be made in a canoe I found plenty to repay the traveller who is interested in this period of history. And no point awakens more grateful memories than Braunau, where the Protestant Palm was tenderly cared for by his Koinan Catholic fellow-Germans in the spirit of charity and common indignation at his murder. P. 13. KXKCL'TIOX OF JOHN PALM, BOOKSELLEIt 5 called to account by nobody, not even the state whoso territory he had outraged. The story of John Palm's execution went from mouth to mouth all over Germany, kindling into patriotic lire the smouldering embers of (Jerman nationality. Even the court of Prussia was made to feel that there was in Germany such a thing as public sentiment. There were very many patriotic Germans who had looked on with deep distrust as Xapoleon encroached more and more beyond the boundaries of France and dictated terms more and more humiliating to German states ; but such aifairs were, after all, the business of a small number of people, and but vaguely understood outside of diplomatic circles. Xapoleon had upset many kings and raised up many more ; he had overthrown constitutions and put up new ones in their place; but not even his statecraft could make good in the popular mind the killing of the plain little German bookseller John Palm. II QUEEN LUISE OF PRUSSIA BEFORE JEXA " By the Treat}' of Basel (1795) Frederic William III., in common with most German princes, surrendered a cause that was more German and of greater importance to the body of the people than any that has ever been fought out along the Rhine. By a disgraceful peace he surrendered to Frenchmen the honor and independence of Germany. . . . The Prussians retired, hated by many ; shorn of their illustrious, honorable fame rendered more odious still by the recent smashing and carving up of Poland." The Poet Arndt, p. 214, anno 180o. THE travelling-carriage stood ready in the courtyard of the Palace of Potsdam one fine morning in June, 180(5. It was the c year of Jena, but no one knew that. Queen Luise came down the steps with her husband and children, bade them an affectionate farewell, and drove away in search of health to a little Avatering- placc called Pyrmont, situated between Hanover town and that Teutoburger Forest where Hermann (Armin- ius) routed the legions of Home, and for all time as- serted the power of Germany as a distinct nation. Queen Luise had buried a little baby boy in April of this year. It was her eighth child, and she loved it dearly. The loss alllicted her so much that her health suffered, and her doctors ordered her away in the hope that she might forget her sorrow in the pleasures of a watering-place. Luise. in this year of sadness, was not merely the QUEEN LUISE OF PRUSSIA BEFORE JENA 7 most beautiful woman on a throne, but a woman of beauty absolutely. We have the most abundant evi- dence on this point from contemporaries not even ex- cepting Napoleon. Hut more than beauty had she. Her character was pure. She had been reared amidst home influence calculated to develop the best qualities of a naturally frank, spirited, affectionate woman. There may have been prettier queens, and there have been queens more clever, but it would, I think, be difficult to name one combining so much of beauty and so much of sound political instinct as Luise. Of the hundreds of pictures that have passed through my hands, all pretending to be portraits, only one does her justice, and that one is a miniature, Avithout name or date, in the study of the Queen of Hanover, at (imun- den, on the Traun Lake. The best portrait in every way is the one by the great sculptor IJauch, who was for six years in service about the person of the Queen, and therefore knew her every expression. Jlauch com- peted with Canova and Thorwaldsen for the honor of making the famous sarcophagus at Charlottenburg, rep- resenting Luise extended as if in sleep, with hands fold- ed across her bosom, lie was awarded the pri/.e. and produced a monument unique in its way. The portrait reproduced here is from the bust made by Ranch in 1M'>. In photographing this I was assisted bv Professor Siemering, t lie sculpt or, who has charge of the Ranch Museum in Ilerlin. This portrait is to me better than the one on the sarcophagus, because not ideali/ed. Tliis is the living and speaking Queen Luise as Ranch knew her. and as Napoleon I. saw her at Tilsit, with tin- e-lassie diadem upon her head."-'' In this portrait we see THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the harmony of her features ; the sensitive quality of her mouth, which is noticeable in the present Emperor William, her great-grandson. Her forehead is broad ; her eyes are thoughtful. It is the face of a woman who should have known only kindness from others, for she lived only to make others happy. She was born in the year of American Independence, 1770. and in 1800 was therefore barelv thirty years old. / t/ Germans loved her with an intensity which can be ac- counted for by reference not merely to her personal gentleness and good sense, but to the peculiar position she occupied. She was the first Queen of Prussia in the memory of living man Avhose relations with her hus- band, her court, or her people were those which could please the average respectable mother. Luise at once became not merely the first lady of Prussia, but she made the Prussian court a pattern of domestic life to Germans of every degree. Germans have much senti- ment, and above all do they cling to the traditions of purity in family life. Frederick the Great had not done much in this direction ; his successor, Frederick William II. , had done even less he had permitted the court of Berlin and Potsdam to set an example pain- fully demoralizing to German princes in general, and, above all, scandalous to the plain, honest people. her only to pursue his art in Italy. His first great work was a study of his Queen. The bust here pictured was made in 1816, six years after the Queen's death. It was done from the death-mask, and proves con- clusively Ihat Luise had in her face not merely beauty, but also other qualities that attract us to woman. I have compared about one hun- dred different reproductions of this Queen, and find none so faithful to the death-musk and at the same time so satisfactory in every other re- spect as this one. There is a bron/e of this in Charlottenburg. The marble was sent, lsl6, to " Lord Gower, in London." 0,1-EEX LUISE OF PRUSSIA BEFOKE JENA 9 It had also been the fashion under the two previous Kings of Prussia to regard the German language and German life in general as something good enough for the common people, but not at all the thing for people of rank. At court every one spoke French and wrote letters in French, even where both parties were German. Now, so far as this was a fad in one class of society it did little harm, but since the French Revolution (17> s '.) the armies of France had been cutting their way about Eu- rope so energetically that Prussia, amongst others, was called upon to decide whether she should become a province of Napoleon's empire or light him to the death. AVriting at the close of the nineteenth century, it is very strange to look back upon a period of Prussian his- tory when for a series of years an influential section of the King's cabinet and court openly insisted that there was nothing degrading in becoming a dependent ally of the great Napoleon. " : ' : " Germans had tasted the dangerous sweets of a long peace. They had become accustomed to luxury ; to a dream of universal empire with a wise Augustus at the head. Napoleon seemed to have been sent by Heaven for the purpose of inaugurating a great European millennium, and whv should people of culture oppose an end so manifestly in the interests of nil. litera- ture, science, and human happiness? 1 !ut Luise was German through and through. She knew her ( iermany by heart. She had travelled in every part of it. and knew the feelings of the people better than the members of the King's cabinet. She did not trust. Na- poleon. She knew that between the German and the Fi'eiieh was a irulf of differences not to be bridged bv 10 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY fair promises, and she had faith in the German character as capable of developing a nation. Is it wonder that Luise was beloved and treated al- most as a national saint ? To the rugged peasantry of Protestant Germany she embodied their national aspira- tions ; she might have led them to war ; she was their Brandenburg Madonna a greater than Joan of Arc. At Pyrmont, Luise was the head of a political con- gress made up of little princely families who had come to this watering-place nominally for their health, but really to compare notes on the political situation and to distribute news and gossip. Here, too, came Bliicher, breathing fury against the French. Luise loved this old soldier, and many were the talks they had together, making plans for the future of her country. At six every day Luise took her morning walk, glass in hand, listening to the hymn that was always played at this hour under the trees. She passed the shop of an invalid widower left with two feeble daughters, and asked after his health. It was not good. Luise recom- mended the drinking of asses' milk for them. The poor man answered that such milk was too ex- pensive for him. " Well, then, I am delighted,'' said the Queen, " to be able to help you in the matter. I drink asses' milk every morning with my steel, and there is a great deal left over. I shall see that the rest of the asses' milk comes to you each morning." And the Queen kept her word. The milk itself may not have been of much value, but the manner in which the 5; "Napo- leon had hinted to the Prussian monarch that a North German Empire would be viewed with favor in Paris. In short, to a superficial observer it might have seemed that no sovereign had more reason to be satisfied with his prospects than the King of Prussia in the summer of 180(5. Luise left Pyrmont with hope and happiness somewhat revived. She had talked with representatives of nearly all the ruling families of North Germany, as well as with many Germans of note in other ways, and carried back to Chaiiottenburg a budget of impressions that were intended to make her husband very happy on his birthday, the 3d of August. Put that birthday brought other news, to be followed by worse news still. Napoleon had created a vast con- federation of South German states, all dependent upon France. Francis II., head of the (ierman Empire, had formally abdicated that title, and was to be henceforth merely Emperor of Austria. Then came rumors of Freneh intrigue in the little courts of northern Germany, tin: object of which was to make t hem allies of Napoleon and to isolate Prussia. I Jut the worst blow came in the news from Paris that Hanover was, after all, to be handed back to England: that Napoleon, in other words, regarded Prussia as no more than a very feeble state to be treated like the rest of his vassal kingdoms. All these expressions of Napoleon's contempt for his Prussian Majesty, coming pretty well together, con- vinced even Frederick William III. that he was now in a corner from which he must light his wav out or be trampled to pieces. 12 THE GEKMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBEETY The most natural thing, therefore, was to look around for friends to help him. He tried the little neighboring states, but it was too late. They had all conceived dis- trust of Prussia and immense fear of Napoleon.* They remembered that since 1792 Prussia had been constantly pretending to protect Germany against French aggres- sion, but somehow or other had always found her profit in letting France have her own Avay. The year of Jena brought upon Prussia the natural consequences of politi- cal blunders and crimes perpetrated upon her German neighbors. Of course Prussia could not expect help from Austria after Austerlitz. The Russian Czar promised to come, but he Avas far away. England Avas energetically de- stroying Prussian ships wherever she could surprise them.f Frederick William III. objected to having ships of Avar because Frederick II. had not found them neces- sary, and at this time, therefore, England had rather an easy time of it in her Avar against Prussian commerce. And this Avas the condition of things when the Prus- sian King took up amis against Napoleon. In .1805, Avhen backed by Russia, England, and Austria, he shirked the contest. In 1SOG he gayly marched against the same common enemy, Avhen that enemy had become A'astly stronger, and Avhen his own government had not a single friend or ally worth mentioning. *" " The curse of king murder rested upon the people of France ; but upon the three Eastern monarchies lay the guilt of having murdered a whole people (Poland)." Droysen, Lecture?, vol. i., p. 5538. | "More than 1200 Prussian merchantmen became then the booty of 15ritish or Swedish privateers. . . . Sweden and Norway, in spite of their poverty and weakness, found the means of building strong navies, while Prussia, famed for her war strength, possessed in it a single armed ship with which to protect her subjects against these pirates. "- Mcnzel, p. ( J;5. Ill WHAT SORT OF A BR1XGIXO-UP HAD QUEEX LOSE " His [Xapolcon's] proclamations and bulletins constantly mingled in- sults with throats. He did not even spare grief, that sacred thing not even in the person of the Prussian Queen." Pasquier, i., 29:}. ROYAL characters arc most interesting when doing something which is not marked out for them by an oilicial programme. In this respect Queen Luise is most refreshing. The year after she became Queen of Prussia she was at a grand ball in Magdeburg, the famous fortress on the Elbe. Amongst the many noble ladies presented to her was an army officer's wife who was herself not of the so-called aristocracy, though her father was a mer- chant of eminent respectability. Queen Luise, who wished to set the young woman at her ease, asked her the question she so often put to strangers : Let. me hear about voiir family -your birth !" %> <>li. your Majesty!" stammered the embarrassed merchant's daughter, "I am- nobody, of no particular birth (>/'//' /,'<' Imi't n>\." The poor frightened woman was the centre of a circle 1 made up of the most pompous dames of the neighbor- hood, and these enjoyed the discomfiture of their rival. Queen Luise noted the look of high-bred scorn on the laces of the ladies about her: she heard also behind her 14 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY a loud whisper conveying a coarse witticism anent the words '' of no particular birth." This was more than Luise could stand. Her pure, motherly instinct was roused. She raised her beautiful head of wavy hair, over which shone the diadem we know so well. Without betraying the feelings that boiled within her, she allowed her eyes to rest upon one and the other of the ladies about her ; and with a pleasant smile and the most gentle voice imaginable addressed these words to the merchant's daughter : " To be sure, your answer contains a fine flavor of satire and truth. I must confess that the expression to be a person of Mrtk, in so far as that has reference to advantages secured by the act of being born, has always sounded to me particularly senseless. The fact is, that so far as birth is concerned, all of us, without exception, are equal. It is, of course, pleasant to reflect that our parents and ancestors have been people of virtue and respecta- bility, for who does not respect this sort of thing? l>ut such good qualities, thank God, are found in all grades of life ; and the greatest benefactors of mankind have frequently sprung from the humblest social conditions. You may inherit outward show and worldly advantage ; but the real personal character on which all depends this eacli one must acquire for himself by self-control. I thank you, my dear madame, for having given me the opportunity of saying freely something which may be not wholly devoid of importance for the future. I wish you much happiness in your married life and the source of happiness is of course in our hearts/' The smile of scorn died away from the lips of the high- born dames ; the merchant's daughter was made the happiest of women, and wherever this incident was re- peated the hearts of the people opened to their Queen WHAT SORT OF A BRINGING-IT HAD QUEEN Ll'ISE 15 as to one \vlio came to preach a nc\v gospel of liberty the libertv to be a man, a character, an influence, irre- spective of birth or titles. The anecdote I have related is true. But were it not, I should be inclined to reproduce it here to illustrate exact! v what Luise would have done under such con- ditions. Queen Luise was born in a narrow, dingy street of Hanover in 177<>. Her father was an exceedingly im- pecunious prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and she owed nearly all her bringing-up to her grandparents on the mother's side, who lived near the Rhine at Darmstadt, some three hundred miles away to the south. Queen Luise was not merely born on British soil her father's principal financial support came from his pay as a gen- eral in the English army. What we know of him is little, and that little not complimentary, lie obviouslv could not give his children the education they were entitled to, <>r they would not have been sent to Darmstadt. In fact. Queen Luise may be said to have known no home until she came to Berlin as Crown-Princess of Prussia. It was at the age of nine that Luise lost her mother and was sent to her grandmother to be brought up. The journey lay through a most interesting portion of (Jer- many, as a glance at the map will show, and the child Luis*', on this her first journey, did not fail to note the dill'erence in speech and dress between one frontier and the other -even from one village to another. She trav- elled from the sandy ilats of Hanover through a countrv full of beautiful streams, wooded mountains, and meadows wonderfully fertile. Here for tin; lirst time did she have an object-lesson in political geographv. The people she saw all spoke one ( Jerman ; all were of common (ierman anccstrv ; all read the same uTeat worksof German liter- 16 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ature why, then, did they not unite under one flag, as did the French ? At a time when the French tongue ruled all courts, Luise assiduously cultivated German. She could talk the dialect of the peasants as well as the German of gram- marians, and was proud of her accomplishment. Queen Luise had as governess in Darmstadt Mademoi- selle de Gelieu, a Swiss lady whose family had fled from France in consequence of the St. Bartholomew massacre. This lady was about thirty years old when she under- took the education of Luise, and was in all respects a per- son of conspicuous merit of strong personal character, and Protestant faith. Aside from positive evidence on this point is the circumstance that she remained with Luise up to the moment of her marriage. In the year 1814, when Luise had already been dead four years, her royal husband, on his return from a vic- torious entiy into Paris, turned aside to visit the little rectory on the Lake of Xeuchatel. where this lady Avas living with her brother, the local parson. The late Emperor William accompanied his father on this journey, and to both it Avas a pilgrimage full of profound suggestion. In her childhood Europe was crumbling about her, and she had occasion to hear of many curious things. She Avas thirteen Avhen the Bastille fell, and engaged to be married about the same time that Louis XVI. died under the guillotine. Her future husband was Avith the allied army that marched into France for the purpose of quelling the spirit of revolution. It Avas during this campaign that her engagement was formally announced. But even at this time Luise must have been struck by the fact that the Prussian army marched back again from France in 1705 Avithout having accomplished anything worth mention inir. WHAT SORT OF A BRINGINO-UP HAD O,UEEN LUISE 17 She had gone to Frankfort in 1702 to see the corona- tion of the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; and in the year of Jena, when that empire was dissolved bv one word of Napoleon, she recalled the empty pagean- try of those early days. She had heard the guns of the sanx-culnttc army of the Revolution, and had been forced to {lee like many a princely family of that day. The old Emperor AVilliam used to treasure with par- ticular care a bundle of love-letters signed Luise. They arc unique in a way, for love-letters are rarely written in duplicate. This is how it happened. Mademoiselle dc Gelieu was charged with superintending the correspondence of Luise. and particularly the correspondence with her future hus- band for was not this all matter of etiquette and state importance ? * The post leaves to-dav for Mavence, your highness/' I i i - says mademoiselle, "and your highness must write a letter to your exalted future husband." So Luise seats herself obediently and begins: " Mon cher Fritz !" " AYhat does that mean '." exclaims mademoiselle, se- verely. " What sort of style is that C" "Wliv. how otherwise!!" answers Luise. " I call him Frit/, to his face how can I use- anything else on paper '" "You are quite wi'oii^," savs the correct Madenioi- s.'lle de (n'lieii. " Young ladies of your exalted station must weigh every word carefully before you use it. Let peasants romp and shout not princesses." P>ut romping is invat fun," retorts Luise. " Minuet was invented for princesses. Your highness must dance onlv minuet and write only minuet." ' Very well," sighs Luise; then let us say, 'My dear Frederick/ " I. 2 18 THE GERMAX STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY " ]S"o ; not even that." " What, then ?" "Monseigneur is the proper title for one destined to become crown-prince." And so Luise writes to her monseigneur in the stilted French jargon of the court, assuring- him, in the style of Racine and Corneille, that her heart is profoundly touched by the sentiment which monseigneur is gra- ciously pleased to entertain, etc. Luise obeyed so far as that letter was concerned, but insisted upon closing and sealing it herself. Before do- ing so, however, she always managed to smuggle in a hasty scrawl of strictly original composition to u Fritz," her sweetheart. These letters, coming in pairs one to monseigneur, the other to Fritz are quaint testimony to the ceremo- nious forms of the day and the fact that the love of Fritz and Luise was as genuine as it proved endur- ing. Not only was our Fritz over head and heels in love with young Princess Luise ; it is obvious that Fritz's father waived all considerations of a worldly nature and blessed the } T oung couple because he saw in their mar- riage a union promising more happiness to his posterity than had ever come into the domestic life of himself or his illustrious predecessor. It is a significant commentary upon the political and financial condition of Luise' s family that her own coun- try. Mecklenburg - Strelitz, refused to make her any grant on the occasion of this wedding, although it was law of the land that twenty thousand thalers should be voted when a princess married. There had been bad relations for many years between the prince of the country and his House of Representatives, and here was WHAT SORT OF A BRINGING-!/!' HAD QUEKN LUISE 19 an opportunity \vhicli the tax-paying section of the com- munity could not afford to neglect. But the fat and luxurious Prussian monarch was gen- erous and rich. He made no difficulties for the penni- less princess; granted all that was asked for on her behalf, and even added, by way of pin-money, six thou- sand thalers yearly, with the stipulation that out of that sum she should pay for the presents she might have to make on weddings and other festive occasions. I have known many a New York miss with more annual pocket- money than this; but then a Prussian queen lived more simply at that time than does to-day the daughter of a Xew York merchant. Luise at least felt very rich and looked forward to doing a great deal of good with her precious six thou- sand thalers a year. IV QUEEN LU1SE ENTERS BERLIN IN TRIUMPH " God save the King ; preserve the House of Ilohenzollern ; protect our country; strengthen the German spirit ; cleanse our national life from foreign imitation ; make Prussia a shining example in the Germanic Union; weld this Union into the New Empire, and grant us speedily the one thing we sorely need, a wise Constitu- tion.'' Closing words of the "Turnvater" Jalin, Lectures on Volksthum, 1817. Ox the 22d of December, 1793, two clays before her marriage to the Crown-Prince of Prussia, Luise drove in state down the great Berlin avenue called Under the Lindens, and was quartered in the same apartments of the old palace that had been used by Frederick the Great. The Berliners are the Yankees of Germany indus- trious, inventive, sober, and witty. They arc slow to praise, but loyal to those whom they trust. Luise on that day won the heart of Berlin, and her citizens have since cultivated her memory with singular fidelity. As she entered the city in state, her coach was stop- ped by a group of little girls dressed in white, with wreaths of flowers in their hair. One of them had some verses of welcome to recite, and the oilicial pro- gramme required Luise only to make formal acknowl- edgment and then drive on. But she loved little chil- dren, and so before the whole crowd of citizens she picked the little girl up in her arms and kissed her affectionately. QUEEN LUISK ENTERS 1JEKLIN IN TKIL'Ml'II This was, however, quite outside of the programme, and rather shocking to Luise's chief lady-in-waiting, who sat opposite to her in the state coach for the purpose of warning her against just such breaches of etiquette. .15 ut this one touch of womanly feeling, which had not been put down on the programme, pleased the Berliners more than all the rest of the day's festive parade. They had had enough of kings and uniforms their eyes were aching for the sight of a real woman. This stern lady-in-waiting was the Countess Voss, al- ready sixty-four years of age. She outlived Luise, how- ever.'- This old lady had come to the Prussian court as an attendant upon the mother of Frederick the Great. She had fallen in love with the Queen's third son. The prince would have no other. The court was in an up- roar and serious consequence was expected a suicide at least. The Countess Voss was, in her youth, of exquisite beauty and of graceful proportions. She had also every charm of mind that makes a love episode of this nature possible. IJut one after the other of the court besieged her with prayers and threats, and iinally she determined to leave Deri in and her sweetheart to sacrifice her first love, to marry another. She came back in after-years, and named her Jirst-born aftfi' the prince she had adored. Hut she was not cm- bittrivd. She retained the esteem of successive courts, ' Countess YMSS left behind her :i di:uy unique i;i its "vvav, for it divers nearly sevi n!y years of her life spent at the Prussian court. Th:- (iiary was plaeed in my hands by the present representative of the family. It i> v/iitten in French and in a hand ahno.-t illegible. A German alleged translation has been published, but so fauitv as to be almost valucle-s. It is greatly to be ]n>ped that the diary mav some day be Driven to the world exactly as it left the hands of the famous woman to \vhom Bcrlincrs still rcvi rentlv refer as Die itlti' I '".. THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY and Frederick William II. made a particular point of having his new daughter-in-law under the care of this old lady. In spite of the difference in their ages, Luise and the old Yoss did well together. The old lady had seen much of the world ; knew the ins and outs of every intrigue, and was able to save the unsuspecting Luise from many a blunder. But she was at the same time a straightfor- ward, pure woman, loyal and high-spirited. Luise soon came to have enormous respect for her lady-in-waiting, whom she treated as a dear, good, stiff grandmamma. When Luise looked about her rooms in the Berlin pal- ace she was struck by the fact that the tapestry on the walls represented only Scriptural subjects. She knew well enough that Frederick the Great had not been over partial to Biblical tales. Of course Dame Yoss gave her the reasons. Louis XY. of France had ordered two handsome sets of Gobelin sent as presents, one to a great Papal dignitar^v, the other to Frederick the Great. For the churchman he had selected Bible pictures ; for the Alte Fritz he had arranged a set of battle scenes. These Gobelin tapestries had become mixed in the packing, so that the battle pictures went to the church, and the scenes from Holy Writ astonished the eyes of the least orthodox of Prussian kings. Princess Luise was married on Christmas Eve of 1793, in the Weisse Saal of the Berlin palace, where nowadays the Emperor opens Parliament in person. In L70T her husband became King of Prussia, and in the same year she gave birth to William, First German Emperor, who was destined three times to go with a victorious Germany across the Rhine to Paris. Her life as Queen, down to the year of Jena, furnishes little that is remarkable. She loved to spend her days in the conn- QUEEN I.UISE ENTERS BERLIX IX TRIUMPH 23 try about Potsdam, a region full of beautiful lakes and forests, where Frederick the Great also spent much of his time. Pefore she had been married ten years she had presented her husband with eight children, and she found much of her happiness in their society. ( )ne dav two English travellers hired a boat and rowed over to the Pfauen (Peacock) Island, near Potsdam. Thev had a natural curiosity to see the island where the royal family spent much of their time, and, with the enterprise characteristic of Anglo-Saxons, succeeded in effecting a landing in spite of notices and guards, which are to-day as numerous as they were one hundred years ago. 15ut the Lord Chamberlain espied them, and thev received from him very violent expressions of opinion and orders to leave immediately, under penalty of arrest. So they proceeded to regain their boat. On the Avay, however, they met a lady leaning on the arm of a Prus- sian oilicer. They did not know who it was, but raised their hats politely. The lady addressed them in their own tongue ; said she presumed them to be English ; were they here for the iirst time, and. if so, might she show them about the park? The Englishmen were, of course, highly pleased, but protested that they dared not stay because the Lord Chamberlain had threatened them with arrest in ease thev did not at once leave. the lady, with a smile. "I know that ofli- lle and I are good friends. 1 will inter- lie will not be angrv." showed them about, chatting meanwhile ngland and English life, for which she showed keen svmpat h v. At last thev came upon a group of people who bowed as onlv courtiers can; and then the two Englishmen sus- 24 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY pected that they had been shown about by no other than the King and Queen of Prussia. They tried to escape, but Luise made them stay to luncheon. The Lord Cham- berlain was appeased, we may be sure, and the two Eng- lishmen who rowed away from the Pfaueninsel on that day were no doubt the two happiest men in Prussia. The years that passed, down to the time of Jena, were made memorable to Luise mainly by the journeys she made and the interesting people she met on the Avay. She travelled, of course, in the posting manner of the day, over roads little better than are now found in the United States or Russia ; for at that time there was scarcely a macadamized road in Prussia, and very few in south Germany. AVe read frequently of a breakdown to the royal carriage ; and, in fact, a postman of that day had to be as full of resource as the driver of a California mail-coach. Travel is now so rapid and so commonplace that we are apt to forget the enormous role it played in the edu- cation of our ancestors. The journey from Berlin to Paris occupied then more time than at present from Berlin to Xew York, and represented contact with many people in many towns and villages on the way. To-day the traveller sees no one but the sleeping-car porter or the train conductor in a journey carrying him perhaps from Paris to Constantinople. AVhat he learns of the land and people is simply a fence of telegraph poles and a railway station at intervals. To get an idea of what travel meant one hundred years ago we must now go yachting, or move on a bicycle, or on foot, or, better still, paddle our own canoe ; for only by these means can we secure the educational benefits of travel. It is noteworthy that the Germans who have made deep impression on their age have been good travellers. QUEEN LUISE ENTERS BERLIN IN TRIUMPH ~~> They have consciously or unconsciously acted on the prin- ciple that a politician, to be of power, must know well the sources of his power the people for whom he is to legislate. Luther had tramped his Germany and far be- vond before he ventured upon the Reformation. He had talked with Germans of every state, and knew pretty well what was in their thoughts about I 'a pal abuses, before he nailed his theses on the doors of AVittenberg church. The leaders of the German movement for liberty were conspicuously men who had tramped their country thoroughly and studied the public feeling wherever they went. Ernst Morit/. Arndt, Avho sang of United Ger- many; .Tahn, the father of the gymnastic societies these two spent most of their pocket-money on foot journevs. .Uliicher, Gneisenau, Ilardenberg, Stein, were men who knew what they were talking about when they proposed popular measures, for they knew the people of every province. Queen Luise knew her Germany well. Eefore her engagement she had visited south Germany and Stras- bui'g; had also made a trip incognita to Holland. From Darmstadt she had visited Frankfort, and then the Thuringian Forest. On her wedding-trip to llerlin from Darmstadt she had travelled by way of Wiir/burg, Frfurt, Weimar, Leip- zig- names that awaken the echoes of historic events. She did not then associate Wiir/burg with the school years of Gneisenau, and little dreamed that in a few years Napoleon would be there oil his way to.lena. At Frfurt she no doubt refreshed her love for Luther's heroism by visiting the monastery cell where he lived as a monk. Here Gneisenau was a wild student and first entered militarv life, but in that vear Gneisenau 26 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY was as insignificant as many another hero before the time of trial. She could not suspect that Erfurt would be surren- dered to France after Jena without a blo\v, and that in 1SOS Xapoleon would hold here a Congress of Kings as in a minor capital of France. Weimar was then the most interesting literary and artistic town of Germany, not merely on account of Goethe and Schiller and other notable men who fre- quented it, but from the fact that nearly every one of distinction who travelled Germany in these years man- aged to spend some of his time in Weimar, where the ruling prince did everything to make such a visit profit- able and agreeable to travellers of note. To be sure, Luise travelled as Queen, and royal peo- ple are generally bad travellers ; but she had a rare gift of finding interesting people and learning truths that were often concealed from her husband. In the first year after becoming Queen (1708) she visited the Baltic and saw Prussian sea-going ships for the first time, at Dantzic and Konigsberg. It was a tri- umphal procession to celebrate the new sovereigns 1 ac- cession to the throne. Luise was delighted with her re- ception, and the King inspected troops everywhere and received deputations. He was at the head of an army of 250,000 men, of a state with 10,000,000 inhabitants ; lie was courted as an ally by all the great powers. How could Luise suspect that in a very few years she would be flying over these same roads with French troops pressing close behind her ! In Konigsberg a deputation of merchants begged Queen Luise to intercede with her husband in the in- terests of Prussian commerce. This should have opened the Kind's eves to the strange fact that Prussia, with her l.M.KAI. I..M.IH..N Al , ISLlUlKll'S (II IKK ( >K M A I- K QUEEN LUISE ENTERS 15EKLIN IN TKI I'M I'll 27 manv ports and her valuable commerce, had not a single man -of- war! l>ut we fail to discover that the King profited by this journey; he looked at soldiers as so manv uniforms, he heard reports and addresses, and took everything for granted. From Konigsberg the journey continued through Poland to Warsaw, then a Prussian town, and back by \vav of I'reslau and Silesia an enormous journey for that day measured by time and hardship. In the next year another lung tour was made, to her birthplace, Hanover, which was soon (1803) to be seized by France; to (,'assel, where 1 Napoleon III. was confined in 1*70 ; to Anspach and P>avreuth, which then be- longed to Prussia; and home again through the beauti- ful Thuringian towns, notably Eisenach, where Luther made his famous translation of the IJible in the Wart- burg Castle overlooking the town. In !> I.uise made her second journey to Konigsberg and beyond, to Tilsit. Here tin 1 royal pair met the Russian Emperor, and here five vears later she was to be dragged a sup- pliant into the presence of the First Napoleon. Memel too she visited for the first time the last and most northern town of Prussia where she was destined to shed many a bitter tear while expecting each hour the order to l;iy down her crown and seek an asylum in a foreign land. In I ^i*:.', however, the Prussian King and the Russian C/ar feasted and held military reviews together. Their ministers meanwhile were drawing up papers ami si^n- iiiir awav (Jerman lands on the Rhine, in consideration THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY of other booty elsewhere. ]S~apoleon \vantecl all the left bank of the great German river, and Frederick William III. had consented to this act of spoliation on condition that he be well paid in other ways. Kext 3 T ear south Germany was again visited ; Erfurt, Bam- berg, Bayreuth, Darmstadt, and in 1S05 the borders of Bohemia and Bavaria. These long journeys to every corner of Germany were calculated to afford an average monarch the best possible means of knowing the strength of his own army. Since 1703 Frederick William III. had seen from year to year France adding to her territory mainly by annexing German land. His was the only German government which could unite the others in resistance to French aggression ; he was the big brother of the famil\ T , and all Germany looked to him for leadership. But in all his travels he never once recognized this phase of his duty and opportunity. Each time that Napoleon stole a piece of Germany he shared some of his plunder with Frederick William III., and thus made Prussia party to his crimes against the great Father- land. The little states were not slow in seeing that the King of Prussia was not honest with them, that he A\*as little more than an ally of France. Can we blame them, there- fore, if in the year of Jena they all declined to support him i Queen Luise, of course, knew nothing of the dishonest diplomatic work that was going on in the cabinet of her husband. As a good wife and a German who loved her country she believed in her King and husband ; and if events of the day seemed discouraging, she had faith, and believed that matters were shaping themselves to good purpose. She grew up among people who knew QTKEX LUISE ENTERS BEKLIX IX TKU'Ml'II '.29 and had fought under the Great Fredei'ick ; she had en- tered Berlin as a bride in the same year that saw the completion of the glorious Brandenburg Triumphal Arch, which was erected to commemorate 1'riissian tri- umphs. Her ears had caught in that year for the first time the strains of Germany's national anthem, "Heil dir im Siegeskranz,'" a song written in 171KJ, and destined to rank with the '* Wacht am lihein " in power to kindle German enthusiasm for a fighting fatherland. From that year to Jena she heard of Prussia only as a steadily increasing power in which the traditions of Frederick the Great were kept alive by a greater army than Frederick ever had. Prussian generals said to her : " What if Xapoleon has whipped the Austrians, the llus- sians, the Italians, and the Dutch what are those com- pared with the battalions of Frederick?'' And that is why the Prussians marched so imylv ^ O (, J towards Jena. THE TWO PHILOSOPHERS OF JENA HEGEL AXD NAPOLEON " The dawn of the new German world has commenced. . . . Wherever the German tongue is spoken, there is the longing for a new Ger- man Empire. . . ." Words of Jalm written in the visitors' album on the Wartburg, near Eisenach, on July 24, 1814, on his way home from the victorious campaign against Napoleon. Ix the night of October 1-i, 1806, a great German philosopher named Hegel occupied himself with the closing lines of a very learned work about positive con- ceptions and historical infinities. He called his book Phenomenology . His lamp burned late that night, for on the next morn- ing the manuscript was to be sent by post to his pub- lisher. Another lamp was burning late on that same night, almost next door. Another philosopher, and a vastly more practical one, was preparing for the press a manu- script quite as perplexing as that of Hegel. This philos- opher, however, could not wait until the morning before posting his manuscript, but sent it off at once to Paris. .I>oth philosophers burned their lamps at the same hour in the beautiful little university town of Jena, and the man who sent his manuscript first was .Napoleon Bonaparte. The Gorman philosopher rose early on the morning of 1IIK TWO PHILOSOPHERS OF JKXA :51 October 15th, and, with liis precious Phenomenology under liis arm, walked to the post-office. Here lie learned for the first time that Napoleon had fought a great battle; that a Prussian army had been routed ; that French troops occupied every village of this sweet, smiling Saxon country, and no post would leave Jena that day. So Hegel prepared to trudge back to his desk and wait for better times before giving Plienoiuenoloyy to the world. As he pressed the precious bundle under his arm a clattering of hoofs caused him to stand aside in time to salute, with unaffected humility, the man who had on the day before manured t\vo battle-liclds with German carcasses. In later days the author of Phcnomcnoloyy referred to this one peep at the conqueror as a most ex- alting moment. Hegel adored in Xnpoleon the great mind, the philosophic intellect. He recognized in him a colleague a professor in another faculty who had written better stuff than even Phenomenoloyy. There were many men in the Germany of ISO*; who were Jiddling and philosophizing while French troops man-lied across their country. Let us not judge Hegel too harshlv. for he was in the fashion. German men of letters, (ioniums who pretended to elegance in social matters, had been brought up to regard patriotism as savoring of bad taste, if not positive vulgaritv. The plain people preserved their national feelings, but in INK! the plain people were not asked their opinion on current events. Germanv had been trained to docility for gen- erations past, and this docility had turned into political imbecility. The country was full of Hegels who never bothered their heads whether they were ^ovei'lied by Turk or Tycoon. Whatever came from above they ac- cepted with meekness; if the taxes were heavy they paid them with a groan, if they were lii^ht they paid THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY them with a smile ; but in any case they paid them, and never asked themselves who received the money or what it was spent for. Xapoleon won the battle because Prussia was full of men like Hegel Ilegels in the uni- versities, Ilegels in the government offices, Ilegels even at the head of the army. VI THE EVE OF JEXA, OCTOBER 13, 1808 " \Vuhrlich Unfilhigkeit und Kopflosigkeit an alien Orten !"* V. Lct- tu\v, p. 274, I. " L'armee prussieime ofTrait 1'etrange spectacle de 1'audacc la plus temcraire, commandee par la senilite." Lanfrcy, iii., 473. Ox the 20th of September, 1SOO, the royal travelling- carriage rolled into the palace court of Charlottenburg, near Berlin. Queen Ltiise and her husband took their seats and were driven to Jena. They made their head- quarters at ISTaumburg, which is about half-way between Leipzig and Erfurt, and there they spent two weeks, in which the King watched his showily dressed troops marching on to the front to do battle with the French. In this neighborhood the Prussian army took a loose, straggling position, with the general idea of checking Napoleon should he try to break through into Prussia. The King was, of course 1 , the head of the army, but the .Duke of Brunswick had been appointed Commander-in- chief. This old man had served under the great Frederick, -f was then seventy odd years of age, and had solemnly said to a group of ollicers shortly before Jena: "The * Translation : "Truly, at all points incapacity and loss of head !" f I'asqiiicr (i., '^:!0) says thut even in France "La Pnissc avail en- core (isi)l'i) le prc.-tiiri 1 attache aux creations militaires du (.Jrand Fre- deric." I. 3 34 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY [Prussian] army is, in spite of all that has happened of late, and even without improvements, unquestionably the first army of the world." This reminds us of the lan- guage held by the marshals of Napoleon III. in the summer of IS TO. The Prussian army was at the centre of Germany, surrounded by people who not only spoke a common tongue, but who were actively in S3 T mpathy with its purpose of defeating the French. This great army down to the morning of the 14th of October never once found out where Napoleon was, where his troops were, how many were marching, or in what direction. Frederick William III. had every facility for learning all about Napoleon, for the French army had been in Germany during many weeks past, and Prussian officers could have travelled about in disguise without difficulty. It does not need a professional soldier to tell us that when going to war it is important to know where the enemy is, and how strong he is. On September 13, 1SOG, Napoleon wrote to his agent at Munich to keep him in- formed in regard to the movements of the Prussian army ; that war would break out as soon as Prussians crossed into Saxony. ' ; You will then write to Rapp, in Stras- burg, to telegraph me, and one hour afterwards I shall be on the way to Wiirzburg." Here is a practical man. He has a telegraphic line of semaphores reaching from Paris to every corner of his empire, and can communicate with Strasburg in half an hour, whereas the ordinary post required four days. The King of Prussia had no telegraphs, and it took nine days for a courier to get from Paris to Berlin, a journey now done in one day and night. Yet telegraphs were no new thing in Europe. The French had used them in the armv of the Revolution, ten THE EVE OF JENA, OCTOBER 13, 150C 3.J years before. Why did not Prussia also have telegraphs from Berlin to her frontiers; 1 Strange as it may seem, I am assured by the editor of the famous Brockhaus En- cyclopaedia that not until IS:'.:! did Prussia operate her first optical telegraph between Berlin and the Rhine. The Enevclopiedia itself is silent on this subject. Even the excellent Post Museum in Berlin could give me no information in this matter. Xapoleon knew pretty much all there was to know about the Prussian army, its movements, and that is wliv, on September 12th, he wrote to Talleyrand : " The idea that Prussia will venture to attack me single-handed is so ridiculous that it deserves no notice. .My alliance with Prussia is based upon her fear of me. That cabinet is so contemptible, the King so devoid of character," etc. Six days after Queen Luise and Frederick William had started from Berlin, Xapoleon left Paris. In two days (September 23th) he was on the Rhine, at Mainz, and had made every disposition for an offensive move, to begin on October .'!d. His troops had been in garri- son all the way from Bonn, on the Rhine, to Braunau, on the Inn Braunau. where poor John Palm was mur- duivd. < )n October 4th his army of invasion had united with great rapidity on the line AVurzburg-Baireuth, and already on the Tth began the great forward move of the whole mass straight on Berlin. lie had 1 0<>. ooi) men with him, divided into six armv corps. These men had for the most part done severe marching to reach their places in time, as a glance at the map will show. Two regiments and tin.' Corps Ar- tillerv. for instance, had been ordered lobe in AViir/.buru' on October :)d, marching all the wav from Bonn. It was a twelve, 1 days' march, for which Xapoleon had 36 THE GEP.MAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY allowed only nine days. But these troops made it in eight days, arriving on October 2d. A day's march for troops was 22^ kilometres in the French army. This made an average of more than 33^ kilometres for eight consecutive days. Napoleon had on this campaign a manuscript map prepared by his engineer corps. The Prussians had only a Saxon map published in 17<>3, and reaching no further than the river AVerra and the Saale, at llof ; map-making in general was then in its infancy. There was no topographical map of Prussia in existence, al- though a beginning had been made in 1S03, covering only the extreme northern corner on the Baltic. * In 1812 there was captured at the Beresina, in Xa- poleon's baggage, a manuscript map of central Europe on a scale 1 : 100,000. Tiie original is in St. Peters- burg, and the only copy extant, so far as I know, is in the .Berlin Military Intelligence Bureau. Of this copy I have had the use, thanks to the kindness of the *"The army [Prussian] was most scantily equipped even with the most needful geographical material. We discovered later that Gen- eral Von Billow in the Lausitz did not possess the one useful map of Saxony, that of Petri, . . . although it was at the time on sale at Schropp's (in Berlin). Even I had the map in my possession, and would gladly have given it for this purpose had I known that it was wanted there. . . . "When one has been witness, as I have, to the enormous sums paid by French commanders for maps at Schropp's establishment alone, and how they laid out capital sums for such large maps as that of Russia in "204 sheets, our parsimony in this respect is hard to comprehend." Kloden. p. 312. "There also [at Bautzen] the want of good maps was keenly felt, whereas Napoleon had the most exact knowledge of his battle ground by the use of the larire topographical survey maps of Saxonv belonging to the King of that country, and which existed only in drawings. These are said to have been of great service to Napoleon." Kloden, p. 31.'5. This refers to the year l^llj, and applies, therefore, with even greater force to the year of Jena. THE EVE OF JK.VA, OCTOI5KR 13, 1SOC 37 German government. The map here presented has been based upon that map of Napoleon's, in order that the reader may be able to place himself in the same state of knowledge as was enjoyed by the French .IKN.V AM) ITS SUHHOfNDINCS From llio prf.it map, in sixty-four si'don^, ulrdi u,-is c;i|pturril from Xapolcon at the ror. I have reason to Ihink that Napoleon pre- jiareil this map some time before 4 .Jena, and kept it as accurate as possible on account of its great importance to him. .Napoleon left Hamberg on October sth at three in the morning, and at six of the same morning \vas set- tled in his next headquarters dictating orders, lie gen- 38 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY erally travelled in the night, when the roads were clear, and he consequently could drive more rapidly. He would lie down to sleep about six in the afternoon, and at about midnight would be sending out orders for the morrow. In this way he was able to draw in all pos- sible information regarding the day's movements before himself proposing another move. All this was wearing work, such work as the Prussian army could not or would not do. Napoleon and most of his marshals were between thirty-five and thirty-seven years old. On the Prus- sian side the King alone was within these years. His commander- in-chief was not fit to be on horseback. Out of GO colonels in the infantry of the line, 28 were over sixty years; of 281 majors, SO were over fifty-five and 190 more than fifty years old. On October 8th appeared a Bulletin, of which Napo- leon was editor-in-chief, saying, amongst other things: y o " o o " The Queen of Prussia is with the army, dressed as an Amazon, and wearing the uniform of her dragoon regiment. She writes twenty letters a day to fan the flames in all directions. One might fancy her an Armi- da, who in her excitement sets fire to her own palace." Now, considering that Armida was a classic heroine noted chiefly for having seduced several young men from the path of virtue, it will be admitted that the simile is not chaste. This bulletin of Napoleon was so public an insult that in Prussia at least it was never forgotten or for- given. Luise was destined to receive additional insults from the hands of this soldier, but none more deeply resented by the people of Germany.* *In the Hohcnzollcrn Museum of Berlin are preserved tv.'o cartoons THE EVE OF JENA, OCTOBER 13, 1SOC 39 The date of this bulletin may be taken as the date when war was formally declared, for the Prussian King had threatened to fight France in case Napoleon did not yield to his demands by October Sth. On the afternoon of October 1'Jth Xapoleon arrived in the beautiful little university town of Jena, on the river Saale. Had he followed the example of the Prus- sians he would have gone quietly to bed and waited until morning before doing anything further. Hut he did what any practical commander would do in such a case drew in all possible information regarding the strength of the enemy. Jena is dominated by a high plateau, whose sides run steeply down the river Saale and the town. For our purposes we may roughly compare this plateau to the of Queen Lni.se, published in P;iri.s for the purpose of strengtheniui: the popular notion that this gentle creature was a species of unsexed Ama/.on. One of these cartoons is called "La Heine de Pnisse apn*3 la Bataillc de Jena." It represents rather a pretty woman in a semi- military dress seated on a rock with a sabre beside her. A horse stands nearby decked out in cavalry style, with Prussian eagles worked upon the holsters. These words are printed beneath the picture : Ignorant qucls perils environnent la gloire, .J'animais nies soldats et guidais leurs drapeaux, Je votilns vivre en Heine et mourir en hems Kt ne trouvais la mort id n'obtins la victoire." This was published under government license, and no doubt at gov- ernment instigation. The second cartoon represents Queen Lui>e as a camp-follower of loose habits. She wears a shako on her head; a hus-ar jacket which is thrown open so as to expose her breasts ;md a bit of chemise. These are the only two military cartoons of Lui>e in the Iloheii/ollern Museum. It is hard to say which is the mor,- re- markable: that Xapoleon should thus h;ive allowed this lady to be in- sulted, or that he should so contemptuously have regarded the Prus- sian Kin-j; as to regard this Queen :1S 'he virtual leader of the Pru-shn army. In any case, we know that Queen Luise felt, deeply the dirtv meth"ds by which Napoleon sought to undermine her intlm-ncc. 40 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY parade-ground of West Point, and assume that the enemy was expected to march up from the shore of the Hudson River. So strong is this Jena plateau by nature that a handful of troops could easily hold in check a very much larger force. On this particular evening each side had about 50,000, the advantage of numbers resting with Prussia. Xapoleon, of course, expected to find this plateau bristling with cannon, and looked forward to a severe struggle for its possession. To his amazement he was told that the Prussians had not even taken the trouble to occupy it. This was so improbable that he climbed in person to the top, and satisfied himself that Prussian commanders could be guilty of such folly as would make a militia volunteer blush. The fact was that the Prussian gen- eral found the plateau rather chilly these October nights, and had sought more agreeable shelter farther back in the hollows. He had evidently convinced him- self that the approach to this plateau was so difficult that no artillery could possibly get up to it. And it Avas, of course, exactly by this most difficult approach that Xapoleon did drag up his artillery. AVhen I visited the battle-field in 1893 I found this road in practically the same state as it was described in 1SOG a species of gully washed out of shape by rain- storms. Xapoleon set his men to work with pick and shovel. lie superintended the work himself. As an officer of artillery, it was a work particularly congenial to him, and he soon had the path so widened that be- fore daylight all his artillery was up in position just where the guns of Frederick "William would have been had his generals shown even a very small amount of practical sense or energy. "While Xapolcon was feeling his way about on the THE EVE OF JEN'A, OCTOBER 13, l>nc 41 plateau of Jena, guided by the light of torches, and preparing for a battle on the morrow, the Prussian King was at a little village twelve miles away, called Auerstiidt. This place is too small to be named on or- dinary maps, but can be readily found on a line almost due north from Jena, at a point as far from Jena as AVeimar is from Jena. Auerstiidt is almost equally distant from Jena and AYeimar, and not four miles from the river Saale, along whose right bank French troops had been marching for three days past, this being the best route towards Berlin. The King here called a council of war, made up of the Duke of Brunswick, a Field-Marshal Mollendorf, who "was then eighty years old, four generals, and two colonels. This assemblage represented what was then regarded as the highest military authority in Prussia. They talked and they talked, and they kept on talking, without even knowing that Napoleon's army was within cannon range of them. During the evening of October loth the French Marshal Davoust occupied the Saale crossing at Kosen, only a three hours' march from Auerstiidt in a north- east direction. AVhile the Prussians, therefore, were holding their senseless powwow at Auerstiidt, the French had not only approached their front, thev were already in a position to cut them oil' from Berlin. The Prussian (Jeneral Schmettau knew that the pass at K<">sen was undefended, but said that it would be time enough on the morrow. He went to bed and slept soundlv. In the middle 1 of the night the commander-in-chief at l;ist thought it might be prudent to guard the passes over the Saale against surprise, and therefore ordered that lliis should lie done on the 1 1th, and, of course, 43 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY by the time his order was penned every pass was already in French hands. At this famous council of war held by the King in Auerstiidt, old Brunswick, the commander, could not keep awake. lie dozed part of the time, and imme- diately after it was over went to bed and spent four hours in sleep. Prince Ilohenlohe, who commanded the advance army at Jena, also spent the night in bed. His troops were sound asleep when Kapoleon's artillery opened fire at daybreak of October 14th. The ever- alert and enterprising Bliicher came in the night with an important message to the King; the message could not be delivered. The King also was asleep, and had given orders that he was not to be disturbed. And so the eve of Jena was slumbered away by 50,000 of Prussia's best troops, commanded by professional soldiers, who had been selected for this duty by Fred- erick William III. When Queen Luise in the year fol- lowing, said to Xapoleon that Prussia had fallen asleep on the laurels of the great Frederick, she no doubt had in mind the night before Jena. But Napoleon did not sleep. His men kept on march- ing steadily throughout the night, occupying one good position after the other, until they had at last reached so far into the Prussian rear that Frederick William woke up to find himself not merely invited to battle, but forced to light, if only to secure his retreat. Whatever the view of the reader may be as regards u O military genius in general, I think we shall agree that in the presence of so much ignorance, stupidity, and lazi- ness as characterized the Prussian command on the L.'tth of October, lsO(">, there are few average citizen soldiers who might not have achieved undying fame by com- manding the French armv of that dav. YII THE GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE FROM JEXA AND AUERSTADT " The King of Prussia lias given me un, mnnrftix f/mn-t d'heure. I shall pay it him back with interest (usitn')." Napoleon's language, uttered in 1804. A DKNSK fog covered the neighborhood of Jena on the morn i n<>- of October 14-, 1SOG, and stretched bevond Auer- o . stiidt, t \vclve miles away. At both places the Prussians were comfortably asleep when the cannon of the French commenced to thunder. Xapoleon commanded in per- son 50,000 men at Jena, against 5,">,ooo Prussians. At Auerstiidt Marshal Davoust commanded L'T.-'Joo men, against 50,000 Prussians under their King and old Pruns- wick. Tht; advantage in point of numbers lay entirely Avith the Prussians an advantage "which was particu- larly striking in cavalry and artillery. At Auerstiidt Davoust had only lOoo cavalry against the Prussian .SMH). He ]iad only 11 pieces of artillery against the Prussian L ; "". Towards one o'clock Xapoleon was re- inforced so that his total fighting force amounted to 51.000. but this small superiority of looo \vas outweighed bv Prussian superiority in horses and artillery tin 1 ratio at .Jena being lo.;,oo hoi-ses to the Fi'em-li si;,o,and 175 guns to tin; French l" s . The glorv of the campaign rests, of course, with Xapoleon, as commander- in-chief, but the Lrlorv of the dav is Davoust's, who at Auerstadt 44 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY fought against odds far greater than Xapoleon's and achieved a victory no less decisive. Marshal Soult was fortunate in finding the pastor of TVenigenjena in bed. He made him get up and show him another road from the Saale up to the Jena plateau, on which Xapoleon had spent the night. This road is MAP SHOWING TIIIO DELATION OF JENA TO PARIS AND BERLIN, AND THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS OP 1S06 quite as bad as the one Xapoleon used, and is to-day a mere tangle of forest through which falls the dry bed of a torrent called the Steinbach, or " stone beck." Soult's idea, of course, was to wedge his men, if possible, be- t ween the Prussians near Jena and the rest near Auer- stiidt ; and ho succeeded, thanks to the fact that the THE GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE 45 Prussian commander did not suppose that any troops would attempt to come up this very rocky and difficult defile. It was really more difficult than the Stciycr, "climber," up which Napoleon had brought his guns. The pastor of AVenigenjena has been much abused by German writers for having betrayed his country to the enemy, or, in other words, for having guided Marshal Soult to the plateau above Jena. Put let those cast the first stone who are quite sure that they would have sought the death of a martyr under similar circumstances a French pistol under each ear. At twenty minutes before six Xapoleon commenced the light by liring away into the fog, and feeling his way forward among the sleeping Prussians. At about seven o'clock the Prussian commander discovered that the firing was in his rear, and that they had gone to sleep the night before with their encampment facing the wrong way. Prussia had some very unwilling Saxon allies at this battle. Their commander came to head- quarters at Capellendorf after six o'clock in the morning asking for orders, lie was told that there would be no buttle that day. Then the Prussian general who had drawn his troops away from the .Jena plateau on account of the cold night air thought lie had better go back there and see what the firing was about. He was soon put to rout. At about eight o'clock' Prince Ilolienlohe, the Prussian commander at .Jena, linallv appeared on the right winir, where the tents were still up and the men not yet out. lie had a pleasant chat with their commander; said that the men li ad 1)! 'Her make themselves comfortable in camp until the fog lifted; that there would l>e nothing of im- portance that day ; perhaps a bit of a skirmish that was all. 46 THE GEKMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBEETY Shortly after this little chat news came that the Prus- sian left wing was fighting desperately. At some point the Prussians gained a momenta^ advantage and made a handful of prisoners. Hereupon Prince Hohenlohe sent off a written message to the general commanding the reserves, in which he said, " I am whipping the enemy at every point." Then up galloped another Prussian general to congratulate the Prince on having won a glorious victory ! The fact was that the Prussians were so badly led that their numerical advantage created little more than con- fusion. At both Jena and Auerstiidt their cavalry and artillery achieved scarcely anything, whereas the French used theirs to excellent effect. The infantry fought as well as could be expected of men who had been well drilled but had no confidence in their officers.* By one o'clock Xapoleon ordered a general attack at all points, and by two the Prussians were in full retreat upon Weimar. Capellendorf is on the way, and here the Prussian reserves did their best to make a stand. In the midst of it came worse news from the King, in Auer- stiidt, ten miles away, saying that his battle was as good as lost to hurry and help him. But there was not time to choose. In half an hour the matter was effectually settled by the French, who tumbled the reserves along with the rest head over heels, and sent them madly * A British agent, Francis James Jackson, reported to his govern- ment that the spirit of the Germans marching to Jena was excellent; "The Prussians fought with a courage . . . almost without example," etc.; that " Hohenlohe had completely defeated the French and driven them, back beyond Ilof. . . . Russia and Austria are sure to help;" and so on this oilirial scribe, writing as a " man on the spot," sends to the British Foreign Ollice statements which a war correspondent now- adays would blush to put upon the wires. And yet out of such stuff as this arc manv historic^ concocted. MSS. Record Ofliee. THE GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE 47 careering to Weimar, seven miles away. They did fast running, for some of them got there by four o'clock, and there learned that the French had not only routed the Prussian army at Jena, but at Auerstiidt as well ;' :: ' that thev were nearly surrounded, and would have to run still harder if they meant to escape. Towards night the fugitives from Auerstiidt joined those from Jena. A panic had sei/.ed them all ; officers were brushed aside, knapsacks and muskets were thrown awav, cannon were left stuck in the potato-fields, and the men hurried off with only one desire to escape a pursuing enemy. Prince Kohenlohe, who had been in bed when the battle commenced, and who had complacently assured his generals that the 14th of October was to be a quiet day, could hardly have chosen a better time than this for shortening a life which had cost his country so much shame and misery. ]5ut he thought otherwise. At Weimar he abandoned his troops to their fate, and, with eight squadrons for the protection of his precious per- son, galloped away in the darkness, and reached Castle Villach at ten. Hut his rest here was spoiled by a false alarm of French cavalry, which caused him at midnight to hurry oil' once more in a westerly direction through the darkness. lie reached Tcnnstedt at seven of the followinu 1 morning, forty -four kilometres ^about thirtv miles i from Weimar. I!ut not even here could he rest. The French cavalry were on his track, and after a rest of one and a half hours he started again, and reached Sondcrshausen with only sixtv horsemen left out of the eight squadrons that had started with him. He had 48 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY made sixty miles in that flight from Jena, which shows that a general may develop enormous energy under the spur of fear for his personal safety. Would that he had shown but half so much before the battle commenced ! At Auerstiidt the 1-ith of October brought the same fog that enveloped Jena, twelve miles away. So dense was it that the eagle-eyed Bliicher put his horse at a row of French bayonets, thinking he was at an easy hedge. A volley of musketry taught him his mistake. King Frederick William III. woke up to find that the French corps of Davoust had forced a fight upon him. The Prussians fought here as aimlessly as at Jena. The soldiers did as well as might have been expected of men who were kept from deserting by fear of flogging. But the commanders showed here, as at Jena, complete igno- rance of their trade. It is almost incredible that throughout the battle, when the King's troops were at times less than live miles distant from the army fighting at Jena, he never once received a communication to say even that a fight was in progress. Here was a Prussian army of over one hundred thousand men divided into two parts, neither part knowing what the other was doing. Towards noon the King sent for reinforcements from Capellendorf, which is half-way between Jena and Weimar. He supposed that the troops at Jena were lying idle, and would soon arrive and help drive the French from the field and make him master of the day. But the reserves did not come. The Prussians blundered about aimlessly, owing to conflicting orders. The Duke of Brunswick was shot in one eye, the bullet passing out through the other. He was carried helpless from the iield, and the command devolved upon anybody who chose to give orders. The day had begun with no plan; THE GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE 49 none had been formed during the fight ; and when old Urunswick was carried from the lield no one knew even what direction the army should take in case they had to retire. The King was asked for orders. He ordered a retreat upon Weimar, expecting to there join the rest of his army and renew the light next day. The retreat, how- ever, soon became a rout, under the lively fire of the French sharpshooters and skirmishers. Soldiers threw away all they carried, and were soon in the sweep of the mad current made up of both armies converging upon AVeimar. They were, however, no longer armies sim- ply mobs of frightened men, who, some hours ago, were masquerading in the livery of Frederick the Great. The King was the iirst to hurry from the battle-field, under escort of some picked cavalry. All at once he was surprised by a picket of French hussars, and had to draw his sword and fight his way clear of them at the imminent risk of his life. It would have been the culmination of Napoleon's triumph on this day, had the Prussian King been brought to him as prisoner, along with the news that the commander-in-chief was mortally wounded. Xor let us forget that Queen Luise was also at this moment living over the AVeimar road out of the reach of the same enemy, and that she, too, narrowly escaped rapture. All night long rode the King, chased by fears of capt- ure, and totally separated"" from his army. At seven ;: '<)n October 10, ISIK;, Lord Morpcih arrived in Weimar as English Am;>a->ador to I'nis-ia. Lord (lower, the same who secured the marble bu>t of ('iieen Luise, was subsequently added to this HUMMOH. These dipl"in:its were charired to demand Hanover from 1'nissia. and in return to oil'er LiiL r Ii-h aid again>t the French. The mission failed partly IK cause the l'ni->ian .Minister Jlau-'wiix felt confident of suc- 50 THE GEEMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBEETY on the following morning lie ventured to stop for rest at the village of Sommerda, which is about twenty miles westward of Auerstiidt as the crow flies, but must have been twice as far to them travelling in the dark over an unknown country. Strange to record, the Prussians had no detailed map of the region immediately about Jena. Sommerda may be found by running the eye north- ward from a point half-way between Erfurt and Weimar for about fifteen miles. It is not a town that guide- books notice not even a German Baedeker. Yet here it was that a nephew of Frederick the Great turned to the faithful Blticher, who had stuck to his King through- out this horrible day and night, and said, "Let us con- gratulate ourselves upon having got out of the scrape so well !'' The two armies that desperately struggled for space on the road leading from the two battle-fields to AVeimar hoped that there, at least, they would find rest. The generals expected to iind some arrangements already made to defend the place, give the broken battalions a chance to catch their breath, and at least prepare something to eat. But they were rudely disturbed in these calculations, and all night long under Goethe's window stormed the great army of uniformed tramps cursing and crowding; pushed from behind; dragging themselves blindly along anywhere, so long as it was cess \viihout English assistance ; and the battle of Jena did the rest. Tin.- complete disorder of Prussian affairs is reflected in a despatch of Morpcth to the London Foreign Office, dated Cuxliavcn, October 26, 1800 : "The result of that disastrous day (Jena) rendered it imjwssiblc f<>r me t<> ut on those two battle-fields the night was sadder still. There had been a long day's butchery a killing- match between 10o,0(M.) Prussians and SO.OIMI Frenchmen. Cannon-bulls and musket-balls had scattered over the ground for miles dead bodies, and, worse still, thousands of helpless wounded. The French conquerors were no worse than others in the same position; they had no time to waste over the fallen; their business was to fol- low and finish the work of destruction. So forward galloped the cavalry ; and after them chased the horse- artillery. Their path lay straight towards the flying enemy, and bad luck to the helpless bodies that squirmed and groaned in the furrows as the heavy wheels bumped and crashed over the ground ! So ends the day of Jena. AVhoever wishes to know more about it, let him consult the massive and authoritative work by Lettow-Vorbeck, a retired < ierman colonel. The lesson of this day ought to be treasured by us who believe in personal liberty and self-government. Here was an army of over 1 00,01 HI men, all professional soldiers; led by a King whose education was purely military ; com- manded by o Hirers who knew nothing outside of the pro- fession of arms. They fought on their own ground, in defence of t heir country ; they were superior in cavalry, artillerv, and int'antrv to the French. This annv was completelv defeated bv an enemv which employed no novel met hod of warfare, which commanded no source of knowledge inaccessible to the Prussians, \apoleon con- ducted the 1'Yeiich campaign, but he achieved his victory by adin.g upon principles of warfare common enough in 52 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY his time. lie had no " Napoleonic tactics" ; in fact, he had no tactics at all. His troops had none but the old drill regulations of 1T91, and even these were not uni- formly applied. He let each general drill his troops much as he chose. In fact, the closer Napoleon is studied the more do we see that he was great in his day because he was simple. When he determined to attack Prussia he gathered the largest number of troops together and marched straight upon Berlin. He took care that his men were well fed, while those of Prussia were sadly in want. He gave his men warm cloaks to sleep in ; the Prussians had none.* He kept himself informed of the \vhereaboutsandstrength of his enemy ; the Prussians did not. He kept his troops ahvays in hand, so that when he determined on battle he could strike one hard blo\v instead of a series of weak ones ; the Prussians did just the reverse. These features of Napoleon's behavior in war were not new to any one of that day who kept his eyes open. But the Prussian army was full of old men whose self-conceit made them blind. The American war (1T76-1TS3) had demonstrated that citizen soldiers, led by enterprising men of practical sense, were more than a match for the regulars of the English King. Thirty thousand Germans had been sold into the service of the English in those seven years, of whom only about one-third returned from America. But these few were enough to warn their fellow-countrymen * In October and November of 1805 the Prussian ami}' had "neither overcoats nor waistcoats; instead of which sham waistcoat pockets were stitched on to their jackets. Their breeches were so tight that they burst when violent movement was made. Their shoes, ' kainaschen- schuhen,' constantly remained sticking in the mud. Their hats were so small as to afford no more protection against the weather than their useless pigtails. This was the rig in which they moved to war'' to Jena. Men/el, p. 717. THE GREAT PRUSSIAN STAMPEDE 53 against the folly of marching in solid battalions against an enemy that scattered in skirmishing line. The Prus- sian generals were, however, too much puffed up with professional prejudice to learn the lesson taught by the farmers of America ; it took a Jena to bring that lesson home.' :: " The French learned more readily, because in their rev- olutionary armies necessity forced them to light as best they could, with little reference to parade-ground tactics. Napoleon inherited this French Army of the Revolution, and with it the fighting methods of men who had been in America with Lafayette. Xapoleon led hisr men with practical shrewdness and enterprise against obsolete tac- tics and muddle-headed generals. On the evening of October 14, 1SOO, the Prussian army, commanded by all that Prussia classed as aristocratic, had been converted into a mad mob. The most military state of Europe suddenly discovered that in the day of trial soldiers alone, even when led by ollicers of "noble blood," are a poor substitute for liberty-loving citizens capable of rapid organization. * " L:i Prusso c M 1m oubliu qu'ello ifrsl un ctat quo purer quYlle c'-iait une urniC'C." ILuiterivc to Talleyrand, November ~7, 1805 (Bail- lea, ii.). VIII WHAT SORT OF ARMY FOUGHT THE FREXCII AT JENA? "Whatever in the future may be attempted by great or little t}Tants, they can never again succeed in suppressing amongst nations the spirit of liberty under the laws, the appreciation for constitutional safeguards and popular representation." Perthes, i., o21. IT is difficult to keep in mind when speaking of Jena that Frederick the Great had been dead only twenty years; that the leaders of 1800 were largely veterans of Fred- erick's campaigns ; that the Prussia of Jena was stronger in area and population than the Prussia which Frederick the Great controlled ; and that, finally, no material alter- ation had been made in the administration of the army. Frederick died in 1TSG, leaving G. 000,000 people and a standing army of 200,000 men. The ablest King of Prussia was succeeded by perhaps the least intelligent of Ilohenzollerns, who loved his ease and allowed the government to drift along according to the traditions of his illustrious predecessor. In spite of his faults lie in- creased his territories, his population to nine millions, and his standing army to a quarter of a million. AVhen, therefore, Frederick William III. ascended the throne in HOT ho had abundant means for solving the serious political problems which arose from the French Ilcvolu- tion. Frederick the Great ruled absolutely, in the sense that he alone held in his hands every department of govern- WHAT SOliT OF AUMY FOUGHT THE FRENCH AT .TEN'A >! mcnt, passed upon every measure himself in fact, may he said to have had no cahinet or council at all, merely a hody of very useful clerks. "\Vith a Frederick the Great such methods worked no harm ; on the contrary, business of state moved with great rapidity and efficiency ; fric- tion was reduced to the smallest proportions, and great economy in the administration was the result. When there came to the throne a successor who had every desire to rule absolutely but no capacity to select his clerks, the state then became exposed to dangers which no standing army, however large, could possibly avert. Frederick the Great would have none but nobles to be his officers; in times of great need he relaxed the rule, but only temporarily. His ollicers were strictly for- bidden to marry non-nobles or to consort with what he refers to as "common people and citizens." His army was to be a privileged caste into which few could pene- trate. Captains who had served for ten years as such, and had, into the bargain, purchased an estate of noble o i proportions, might be raised to the rank of noble. Xo wonder that the military looked down upon the plain people, and that in turn tin; peasants and citi/.ens of t<>\vns hated the military. In fact, after Jena there are melancholy proofs that Prussia rejoiced to a considerable extent, not that France had gained another victory, but that the hated " Vunkers" (young squires ) had received a check to their offensive self-conceit. His wars were great ones from the standpoint of his monarchy, but. by no means national in the sense that the American war was in 1 77 ( >. or t hat of France against the allies in 17 ( . Frederick the Great made contracts with colonels for the recruiting of whole regiments of foreigners, and these regiments were kept full bv letting prisoners of war take the place of those who died, or of 56 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the still larger number who deserted. So large was the number of prisoners who were made to fight against their own country people that the inarch of some of his regiments could almost be compared to the procession of a prison gang.* In 174-i he incorporated with his army the troops that had fought against him at Prague ; and in 1750 he did the same with the Saxons whom he defeated at Pirna. The year after he did the same thing with Austrians. His recruiting officers plied their trade all over Europe, with little regard to international law, let alone human- ity. In 1703 no less than 380-1 Austrians were forced into his service. Down to the close of his reign whole regiments were made up of foreigners, although in 1703 he had attempted to check the abuse in a measure by insisting that some part of the army at least should have a majority of native troops , for instance, the musqueteers, grenadiers, cuirassiers, dragoons, and hussars were par- ticularly designated as being required to have about one-fourth more Prussians than foreigners. uNTot that Frederick thought the foreign mercenaries fought better than Prussians, but that in his day, with a population of only four ami a half million, he did not think it possible to withdraw from industry more than 70,000, and he had to maintain in the field 100,000. Obviously there was no other way than to send out press- gangs and be not too particular as to whom they brought in. lie was careful, however, to prefer, where possible, men of German speech and Protestant bringing-up. In ISoG the term soldier might mean thief, drunkard, bankrupt, tramp anything you please except a citizen * " They " (the soldiers before Jena) " deserted at t/m^L', wholesale. Luckow, p. 01. WHAT SOKT OF ARMY FOUGHT THE FRKXCII AT JENA? 5? of respectability; and tho la\vs that governed him were about what might have been expected. Any peasant or laborer, no matter how low, was en- titled to stop any soldier, ask for his pass, and, if it was not forthcoming, take him to the nearest village and hand the case over for investigation. Being without a pass or refusing to follow was looked upon as tanta- mount to desertion. Where a large part of the army was living mainly in the hope of running away, where a reward for the capture of a deserter was paid, and where no love was lost between the soldiers and the people of the country, this rule was not allowed to be- come a dead letter. When a soldier actually did desert, the whole country was roused as though an invasion was imminent. Alarm bells were rung, all roads and passes were occupied, and every boat had to be made fast so that the fugitive could not use it in escaping. "Whoever harbored a de- serter was hanged, and whoever captured one was re- warded to the extent of six to twelve thalers, which would mean the wages which a laborer of that dav could earn in two months. What T have said refers only to the pleasant times of peace. In war time such a thing as desertion became more serious, and there is hardly a general order of Fivderirk that does not refer to this painful subject. His gi.MieraK for instance, are advised not to camp near woods, lest it give the men an opportunity to es- cape: that their tents must be frequently inspected at niuht ; that hussars must patrol about camp ready to ride down deserters, and that sharpshooters are to be posted in the fields of grain in order to discourage such as illicit seek to hide there. Whenever a camp offered opportunities for running away, the cavalrv pickets were 58 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY to be doubled ; men should not fetch wood for their fires or water for their coffee except in rank formation and under proper guard ; strangling must be severely pun- ished ; men were to avoid marching in the dark ; and when it was necessary to march through the woods, hus- sar patrols must march along on either side to keep an eye on would-be deserters. "When a defile is to be trav- ersed, oillcers must be posted at either end, and the men counted as they pass in and as they pass out, so that a desertion can be immediately traced; and if it becomes necessary to retreat, all information on the subject must be suppressed ; or if that be impossible, then the circum- stances must be glossed over as well as possible. But Frederick added advice, without which all severity would be in vain, that the men must be Avell fed, must have plenty of meat, bread, brandy, and straw, and must not be cheated of their perquisites. Slaves will work better for a good than a bad master, and such troops as Frederick commanded did for him what they never accomplished for another. The treatment which the Prussian soldier received is shocking to the feelings we affect to-day, but in that gen- eration, when peasants, soldiers, and helpless people were accustomed to kicks and cuffs, Frederick's army was any- thing but disliked. Soldiers of his time would rather have severe treatment under a victorious flag than peace- ful times and no booty ; and while desertion was a com- mon offence, it was perhaps less so in the army of Fred- erick than in that of any of his neighbors. Desertion was most frequent among the foreign troops, but not unknown among the King's subjects; and we may trace this mainly to the fact that the soldier was treated as a person without self-respect, lie was abused by his oillcers not merely with scandalous epi- WHAT SORT OF ARMY FOUGHT THE FRENCH AT JENA ? 59 thets, but vrith brutal punishment on the most trifling pretext. Captains of companies had got into the way of grant- ing leaves to their men to the extent of half the com- mand, and by so doing they pocketed the money which the government allowed them for these men's support. In this way a captain's pay in peace time was usually doubled, and the guard-mounting, which fell to the indi- o o vidtial soldier, was also doubled. In war time, however, all the men on leave had to come into the ranks, and the captain, whose annual emoluments had been as high as 1 .">).)() thalers, found himself reduced to his legal pay of only Six) thalers at the very time that he needed money very much for his campaign outfit. It need not therefore cause surprise that married ollicers, and all but the very young ones, looked upon a war with anxietv rather than pleasure. AVhat I have said of the captains applied more or less to all ollicers, for the service was thoroughly demoralized by the frequent spectacle of men in high commands making private fortunes by robbing the military chest of their King. Since? 17'5."> Prussia had been disturbed by no great war, and between that, day and .Jena the army had lost not merely its Frederick the (Jreat, but all practical military spirit. A Prussian oilicer was deemed accomplished if he could move his men about with exactness upon a parade-ground - and no more. AVith the false sense of security which the armv felt had grown an amazing fondness for luxurious living, with I he vices which such self-indulgence never fails to en- courage, hi the days of the great Frederick his officers were wont to make themselves merrv over the fopperies oi French ollicers, and the useless bagLray shifting the historical record ! In parenthesis we may sa} r that Napoleon, in his Ger- man campaigns, stole everything that took his fancy pictures, statues, money, curios, private papers in short, was held back by no conventional notions of honesty or social decencv.- A PRUSSIAN CHRONICLE OF NO15LE CRIMINALS 03 From Jena onward through Prussia the French army had a march almost as pleasant as that of their great commander. While Napoleon journeyed on a straight line towards Potsdam and Berlin, a strong force went in pursuit of the King's remnants.* The Prussians from Jena attempted to reach Stettin, at the mouth of the Oder. P>ut the French had the shortest road, straight merates as follows: Pcintures, 350; raauuscrits, 282 ; statues. 50; bro n/e<, 192 ; etc. Lanfrey, iv., p. 152. *Wlicn the "regulars " had run away they leftlJcrlin in charge of the citi/en militia, the Burgergarde ; and here is an illustration of the sort of stuff that composed it : 'Our captain did not know what to do. It seemed he feared lest the Trench might take us for Prussian regulars and treat us as ene- mies: and we were not in a position to defend ourselves. We tried to allay his fear, and succeeded; for it was too ridiculous to think that a Biirrjcrcompugnie, a company of militia, commonly nicknamed 'scrubby shanks' (Rnuhbcinifjcii) should be mistaken for regulars. More likely they would be taken for night-watchmen. "But our captain insisted that it was necessary to show the French- men military honors when they relieved our sentry post, and we must present arms to them when they appeared. "On inquiry, it turned out that only one man knew how to pre- sent arms an old cobbler's apprentice, who had served in the army. "On tin,' approach of the. French guard-mounting troops, our cob- bler's apprentice shouted in a very stiong voice, to turn out the guard, when uiion our captain tremulously ordered us to seize our muskets. Tlie Frenchmen, two companies strong, marched through the palace g'lte i'iom the Schlossi'ieiheit (west gate), making a tremendous noise with their drums. . . . Our captain commanded, 'Present arms.' We went through our movement ; but before we could complete it we weii 1 micercm'>niou>ly shoved out of the way from the left Hank. Our whole company llew into every direction, like a (lock of scared pigeoi.-;. The French took our places, but took no notice whatever of us. They sei/.ed all our sentry post-;, according to their own fancy, without so much as ' By your leave.' Not one of us was prop( rly ix- lieveii. Each one scampi-red home as he felt like it. Our captain shook his head and said, ' Very imposing, but not polite !' " Klodcn, P. 2-24. 64 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY through Halle, Wittenberg, and Berlin. The poor worn- out Prussians had to describe an arc running through Magdeburg, Tangermiinde, Prenzlan, passing Berlin fifty miles to the westward, and wearing themselves out use- lessly in a desperate race destined to end only in further disgrace. The evening of Jena, October 14th, the French occu- pied* "Weimar Goethe's house amongst others. Xext day they went on to Erfurt, about fourteen miles west- ward. This town was a strong fortress, with a garrison of 10,000 Prussian soldiers. A prince was in command here, though not Prince Ilohenlohe. The French ap- peared before the gates with a small detachment of cav- alry and demanded surrender. The prince promptly ac- ceded, and on October IGth the 10,000 soldiers were handed over as prisoners of war, along with an immense amount of military stores for Erfurt had been origi- nally designated as the chief base of supplies for the Prussian army. This was the first fortress to fall, and it fell without a single blow. The 10,000 Prussians were rounded up like cattle, and marched off into captivity by an escort of only 500 Frenchmen. In fact, the French had so few men at Erfurt that they could not even furnish the nec- essary guard-mounting. The fact that 10,000 Prussians could be tamely marched out of Erfurt by this small number of conquer- ors argues of itself a very scant desire for liberty on the part of the 10,000. But a plucky young hussar lieuten- ant named Ilelhvig, a German, who fancied that all Germans dreaded shame more than death, determined to free his fellow-soldiers. lie ambushed himself near Eisenach, where little Martin Luther had been at school, and there, under the shadow of the AVartburg, A PRUSSIAN CHRONICLE OF NOBLE CRIMINALS C-J awaited the drove of prisoners marching by way of Gotha. His enterprise was successful, and he managed to convoy them in safety to the university town of Got- tingen. about fifty miles to the north, on the road to Hanover. Honor to Ilellwig for showing pluck in a war where cowardice ruled in many high places ! But the story has a painfully comic end. These lib- erated Prussians had no stomach for more fighting. In- stead of joining their regiments, they promptly deserted, each according to his fancy; for Gottingen was a point beyond the reach of Prussian drill-sergeants. Spandau is the fortress of Berlin. It is on an island at the confluence of the Havel and Spree, a position most difficult to approach, and so strong that within its walls was deposited not merely an enormous mass of war material, but the great money fund that was to pay for the first stages of war. The Prussian commander of this fortress wrote to Frederick "William III., on October L'.'kl, that he would hold out until there re- mained nothing but ruins. But in two days from mak- ing this boast lie surrendered without having fired a shot. He preserved enough presence of mind, however, to stipulate; that his chicken-coops should be respected. It seems incredible to-day, but at that time, when the army marched to Jena, wagons with grating at the. sides and filled with chickens were a feature of the bag- gage trains. At the close of the war the cowardlv commander was court- mart ialled and ordered to be shot. lint the King commuted this sentence to im- prisonment for life. On October L'Sth the same Prince Ilohenlohe who had distinguished himself by abandoning his troops after Jena found himself again in command of IIHHNI infan- try and nearly UOIMI cavalry, near Pren/.lau, about thirty CG THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY' miles westward of Stettin. Here lie became frightened by a handful of Frenchmen, and surrendered the town and his whole command without even attempting to make a light. This sent into French captivity the fa- mous Foot-guards of Potsdam and Berlin the King's pet troops. The surrender lost to Prussia a valuable army corps ; but that was not all. Other generals ar- gued to themselves, " AVhy should I fight, when Prince Ilohenlohe surrenders?" It was a cowardly bit of sol- dier-work which placed a stain upon his country. Yet this princely poltroon was never called before a court- martial. His soldiers he surrendered into captivity, but himself sought ease at his country- seat in Si- lesia. Stettin in 180(5 was commanded by a rickety old granny of a general eighty-one years of age. He had under him a strong fortress, well supplied with stores of all kinds and 50UO men, who were rapidly being added to by fugitives from the south. This town is a most important strategic point, commanding the en- trance of the Oder and the line of communication be- tween the capital and eastern Prussia. As we have seen, the remnants of the Jena army had expected to make this their common place of refuge. On October 20th a French hussar youngster rode into the town, and without wasting words demanded its surrender. The old governor was so much taken aback that he refused. The Frenchman rode away. Hut no sooner had he disappeared than the old gov- ernor called a council and hurriedly drew up papers of capitulation. "While they were still at this \vo:k the French lieutenant returned with a Hag of truce, and was immediately given a paper in Gi>rina;i. which he was begged to translate into French. This paper sur- A PRUSSIAN CHRONICLE OF NOIiLK CRIMINALS G7 rendered Stettin, with all it contained, and sent more than f>ioo Prussian soldiers into captivity. On October 30th the shameful act was concluded, in the presence of a few squadrons of French cavalry and two pieces of cannon. It is hard to say whether the surrender of Stettin was more or less shameful than any of the others. In l s <"j the governor, who by that time had reached his eighty- fourth year, was tried by court-martial and sentenced to death. 13ut the King, no doubt concluding that he was too old to do much more mischief, pardoned him also. Stettin had no sooner thrown itself away than, on the dav following, a single French regiment of infantrv t, O 7 O O i presented itself before Ivitstrin, another great fortress on the Oder, about sixty miles cast of the capital. The Frenchman coolly demanded the surrender of this for- tress, with its garrison of 13,0n<> men and ninety guns. The demand was ridiculous on the face of it, but rea- sonable to such creatures as commanded Prussian for- tresses at that time. In fact, this very same commander, strange as it may seem, had already been once dismissed from the service for cowardice, but, stranger still, had been reinstated through family influence. AYe seem to be moving through a wicked dreamland when forced to note such military events as these in a country which a fe\v vears before was the envy of all soldiers. AYithin a short distance to the northeast of this town is the little village of Zorndorf. where the great Fred- erick", with only ;;o.oon men, gained a splendid victorv over .~)IHHHI Russians; and now in I^IM; the town itself, well walled, well manned, well armed, surrendered to a handful of Frenchmen, and all because the King of Prussia had chosen to make commander of this place 63 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY one who had already been convicted of gross unfitness for a post of any kind. The Prussian King and Queen had been here shortlv v before, had inspected the place in person, and enjoined upon the commander his duty to hold it to the very last extreme ; for the longer the French could be de- layed in their eastward march, the more time was gained for the Russian allies to arrive, and new regi- ments to be raised in those parts of the kingdom that had not yet suffered by the war. The commandant, however, no sooner heard the French summons to surrender than he quickly called the inevitable council, and urged upon them the neces- sity of immediate surrender. The indignant garrison threw down their arms in the market-place 2100 Prus- sian soldiers surrendered themselves prisoners of war to three companies of French infantry within the walls of their own fortress, on November 1, 1SOG. Xot a shot had been fired, not a gun pointed. This commandant, a count, was also tried by court- martial after the war. lie was condemned to death, but the Kino; commuted his sentence also. o Five fortresses surrendered within two weeks of Jena, and so rapidly as to look as though their commanders were in French pay. This is surely enough for one sea- son. I3ut no ; all these together are trifling compared to what followed. The day that saw the handing over of Kiistrin was the one on which the commander of Magde- burg swaggered about saying that he, at least, would never surrender until the iiring got so hot as to burn the handkerchief in his pocket. This man, like his colleague at Kiistrin, had been once cashiered for cowardice, and like him reinstated in a command that represented one of the strongest places in the kingdom, seventy-five miles A 1'Kl'SSIAN CHRONICLE OF NOBLE CRIMINALS 09 southwesterly of the capital, and situated on the line of the invading armies. The King had passed through here in his flight from Jena. Magdeburg had at that time, as now, great strength a garrison of 24,000 men, doo guns, and enormous supplies. Even if the King had de- cided that Prussians should no longer fight, but should allow themselves to be stuck like pigs, was there any good reason for allowing valuable military stores to go to the enemy: 1 Magdeburg lies on the Elbe, in the centre of water communication with I'erlin. as well as the rest of north Germany, and much of the suffering which Prus- sia subsequently endured for Avant of provisions and accoutrements and guns might have been spared had the King appointed to Magdeburg an honest man of affairs, to say nothing of a competent officer. It took seven months of most desperate siege to con- quer Magdeburg in the Thirty Years' AVar, and then it- was by storm, and when its citizens had endured to the very extremity. In 1 Sod, not the citixens, but the King's representative handed the place over, on the llth of November, as though it were ;i pinch of snull'. This Prussian commandant was a most noble count, seventy- three years old. and described as rather senile. The French had no forces on hand capable of besieging the place; had not even brought up any guns. Hut the venerable aristocrat nevertheless called a council of war, and informed its members that he proposed to surrender the place. A (lerman chronicler (Pert/.) says that the nineteen members of this military council aggregated 14 no years of life, which gives a pretty high average for the in- dividual. ( )ne of these generals, however, who was only seventy-two years old. ventured to remonstrate against the surrender bv dwelling on the fact that thev had 70 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY plenty of war material, and could make a long fight of it, The commandant promptly called him to order in these words : " You are the youngest one here. You will give your opinion when it is asked !" And then they proceeded to sign the contract of shame, and filed away in silence. Xapoleon had a splendid bulletin to publish on the 12th of Xovember: " We have made prisoner 20 generals, 800 officers, 22,000 soldiers, of whom 2000 are artillerists. Besides, 5-i flags, 5 standards, 802 cannon, 1,000,000 pounds of powder, a great pontoon train, and an enor- mous amount of artillery material.'' Kulmbach, about eight miles from Baireuth, is no longer a fortified place, and is remembered only from the name on the label of beer-bottles. In 1SOO, how- ever, it surrendered to the French without firing a shot, on Xovember 25th. Ilamelin, the same that behaved so badly to the Piper, did worse things still on Xovember 21, 1SOG; for on that day it surrendered a fortress, its garrison of 10,000 men, and a splendid supply of war material to a French- man who had under him but GOOO all told. Only a few days before, the commandant had proclaimed that who- ever talked of capitulation should be shot. Among the younger officers, who felt keenly the dastardly char- acter of his commander's act, Avas one of the few French- men who have succeeded in becoming good Germans the brilliant poet Chamisso. He wrote to a friend : " An- other stain rests upon the name of Germany this day; it is consummated ; the cowardly deed is done ; the town has surrendered !'' This was the poet whose talc of the man without a shadow was to make him famous. It is needless to sav that the commandant of Ilamelin was A 1'Kl'SSIAN CHRONICLE OF NOP.LE CRIMINALS 71 of noble name, a AY euk-h ended old man of seventy-live. His crime was partly atoned for by the fact that nearly all the garrison deserted before the French entered the place. r>rcslau, the capital of Silesia, one of the richest to\vns in the country, and soon to become the centre of a new (id-man patriotism, was surrendered under disgraceful circumstances on the f>th of January, 167. Xear here, in 17.") 7. the great Frederick, with ,'W,0()0 men, engaged and completely routed an army of i2,0,oo Held wagons, and 5'J standards by this blow once more bringing all of Silesia within his power. And men were still in the army who had fought under this commander. Xot far from Ureslau, thirty miles in a southwesterly direction, lies the fortress of Schweidnitz, that sustained four sieges in the Seven Years' AVar, and was eager to stand another when Xapolcon's men demanded its sur- render. Its commandant, another rotten branch of the King's tree, was, by his officers, suspected of treachery, and to quiet their suspicions he bombastic-ally proclaimed that "so long as I am in command a capitulation is not to be thought of !" ( >n the next day he surrendered the fortress. There were other disgraceful surrenders dur- ing these weeks let us skip the rest. It is a dirtv chronicle of treachery, cowardice, and incapacitv. The American war of independence developed one Denedict Arnold in seven years, but this short campaign developed a do/en in as many weeks. If I have dwelt to monoto- nous length upon these shameful surrenders, it is that thev deserve to be remembered at a time when some of the great militarv powers of Ku rope ;ire drift in" 1 towards a revival of aristocratic pretensions based upon the pro- fession of arms alone. It is wc-11 to recall that in l^"t> 72 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the disgrace of Prussia was brought about by an army officered almost exclusively by nobles. The most fla- grant cases of incapacity and cowardice were those of highly placed aristocrats leading the life of the profes- sional soldier. This does not prove that men of noble blood may not be worthy soldiers, but it does warn us that pedigree and title are not of themselves sufficient to save men from the consequences of vanity, idleness, self-indulgence, ignorance, or any other of the many failings that undermine character. A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA "A morn vrill dawn upon us, Bright, balmy, and serene ; The pious all await it, By angel hosts 'tis seen. Soon will its rays, unclouded, On every German beam ; O break, thon day of fulness, Thou day of freedom, gleam !" " Soldatcn-Morgcnlied," by Max von Schcnkcndorf ; born at Tilsit, 1781 ; died, 1817. Ax honest man with a warm heart was the great ("ierman physician Ilufeland. lie was in lierlin when the battles of Jena and Auerstiidt were fought, and waited with his friends for news of victory. Had his King been as well provided with telegraphic helio- graphs as his antagonist, the news of that battle would have reached Filter den Linden on the evening of Octo- ber 1 Ith. Put the capital of Prussia had worse than no news. Ilufeland wrote in his diary that "on October 10th F.erlin celebrated a victory for the Prussian army," and t hat he " spent the evening with the philosopher Fichte." This was two days after the battle, and when the Prus- sian army had already ceased to exist. The honest physician has another entry in his valuable diary: "On the l^th [of October, INT,], at six o'clock 74 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY* in the morning, I was called by the Queen to the palace. She had arrived during the night. I found her with eyes inflamed from tears, hair down her back a picture of despair. She came towards me, saying, 'Everything is lost; I must fly with my children, and you must go with us.' ' That was at six o'clock in the morning. At ten o'clock lie was off with the Queen, having had just time to leave final directions of the greatest importance. But Luise had been allowed no time either to pack up or even to collect her most private papers. She had been stopped when driving from "Weimar to Auerstiidt on the eve of the battle, and ordered to get out of the way to a safe place. So back she drove to Berlin. On October 14th, an hour before Xapoleon's artil- lery began to play upon her husband's sleepy tents, Luise started again from Weimar, escorted by sixty cavalrymen. The roads were bad ; the Queen's carriage broke down, and she abandoned it for an open trap. On the 15th she heard that her husband had gained a glorious victory, and on October 17th she reached Berlin to learn that her crown was in danger, that she must not stop, but i\y on to the Baltic to Stettin. So off hurried this hunted Queen on the 18th, not being allowed even one night's rest after being thumped and bumped over very bad roads for the last four days. She left her lady-in-waiting, the prim old Countess Voss, to hurry up the packing and follow on the 10th ; but the old lady was evidently too much flustered by the general panic to do much, for when ^Napoleon took possession, five days later, he amused himself by reading the private correspondence of the Queen, and rummaging like a sneak her most private possessions."'"" * Xnpolcon's l!);li IJullelin said of Queen Lui.se that she had a A FUGITIVE QUEEN OK PRUSSIA 75 During this flight from Jena, Luise had no news whatever of her husband until she reached Stettin, two hundred and fifty miles away. She had absolutely no idea of the general state of the country, and no one to whom she could turn for advice. The Governor of Berlin,* when he heard that his King had lost a battle, took no steps towards placing the capital in a state of defence, lie discouraged the people who attempted to organize; he did not even seek to remove the military stores to a place of safety. The patriots who felt that citizens should light for their home and country were met by this placard upon all the walls: "The citizen's first duty is to be quiet.'' This was the governor who met Queen Luise in Berlin on the night of October 17th and ordered her to move away early next morning to Stettin. lie too, like the cowardly commanders of the fortresses, bore a high- sounding name of patrician origin. Had a plain, honest soldier commanded Berlin then, he might have saved his coiintrv. He would have greeted his Queen with words somewhat in this sense : "The King has lost a battle. \Vhatof that; The great Frederick also lost battles now and then. Xapo- prelty enough face, but lacked intelligence "assex joiie do figure, mai> do pen dYsprit. . . . Tout le niondo avoue que la Koine est, 1'auieur des maux quo soiilTiv la nation pnissieiine. On ciilend dire parloii! : Combicii die a change depuis cot to fa tale ent revue aveo I'Fm- pereur Alexaialre! . . . On a trouvc dans 1'appartement qu'habitait la Rei;;e a Po^dain le portrait do 1'Einporeiir do Rustic dont co prince lui avail 1'ai: prex-nt." Few ureat generals have ever stooped MI low us thi- in t he art. of making war. ' IJiTlin in l*HiJ was relatively quite as handsome a capital as it is to-dav. lis toial population, including the gani.-on of ',?.">. nun troops, \vas i;e;;rly l s O.()(Mt, of whom -IDS'J were French and :><>:'.(' ,b:\v> the Jew- i'i-;ng then clas-ed as foreigners. 76 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY Icon has only 150,000 men. Let us make a stand here, and hold our ground until the King can gather a new army. Berlin is splendidly situated for defence. The Berliners are plucky and patriotic. They love their Queen, and will die rather than hand her a prisoner to the French. The King has more than 100,000 men who were not engaged at Jena ; JSTapoleon is far from his base ; the Russians are marching to our assistance ; the winter is coming on; the advantage will be all on our side." Had the Governor of Berlin spoken in this spirit to the hunted Queen, she would have responded with en- thusiasm. The citizens would have thrown up earth- works as they did in 1813, and the French would have received a check. But all over Prussia it was " like master, like man " the King was weak, his generals cowards. Luise reached Stettin on the 20th, and there first learned that the King was at Kiistrin. So off she hurried to that for- tress, almost back over the same road towards Berlin. Thence the news of pursuit drove the pair together to Danzig, and thence to Konigsberg that grand old Prussian city, where they had spent days of proud hap- piness so very recently. What the King did in these days, when energy was most needed, we cannot discover, beyond that he brooded over his fate, and let everything drift. At Kiistrin he might have talked with llardenberg, who also passed through the place, but no meeting took place.* :;: "T1)C confusion is past all conception both in the military and every other department there really is a total disorganization of the state. . . . To this moment we are unacquainted \\lio conducts the affairs of the Foreign Department [of Prussia]." MS. report of Con- sul Drusina to the British Foreign Oilice. A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PKUSSIA 77 For many days Luise was separated from her chil- dren, but at last they were united, on December l>th, at Kunigsberg. T\vo of them had fallen ill, and the mother nursed them until she too fell ill. "At last," wrote Doctor Ilufeland, "the savage ty- phoid fever seized our noble Queen. She was in a critical condition, and never shall I forget the night of December 22, INH;, when she lay with her life in danger. I was watching at her bedside, and so terrible a storm was raging that one of the gables of the old castle she in- habited blew down, and the ship which contained all there was left of the royal treasure had not yet come to port. . . . " Suddenly came the news that the French were ap- proaching. She immediately declared, positively, I would rather fall by the hand of (4od than into the hands of these men.' "And so on the 5th of January [ISoT], in the coldest weather, in the midst of storm and snow, was she borne II.K.I miles along the strip of sand [Curische Xehrung] to Memel. AVe spent three nights and three clays on this journey, driving at times through the surf of the JJaltic, somet iiiK.-s over ice. "(>ur nights were spent in the most miserable quar- ters. The first night Queen Luise lay in a room with broken windows. The snow was blown in over her bed. She had no nourishing food. " Never did a queen know such want." This journey under the most favorable conditions of summer weather is bad ; for the narrow sand strip is ;;s bleak and inhospitable as the desert no road, no village, only a fisherman's cabin now and then. Arrived in Memel, they found that the King had made no suitable arrangements for her reception, and 78 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY she was carried up-stairs on the arms of a servant. She was very weak, but rather better than otherwise for the fresh air. Mem el is the northernmost town of Germany, a short walk from the Russian border. Here in 1802 she had first met the young Czar Alexander, and here had that gallant young Russian vowed eternal fidelity to Prussia and Frederick "William III. That was a triumphal jour- ney indeed, full of every incident calculated to inspire a monarch with confidence in himself and his future. Poor Luise felt now what misfortune meant. In the MAP SHOWING THK KOTTK OF QfKKX I.UISE S FLIGHT AND THE TICKUITOKY OVKKIITN ]5Y XAI'OLKOX IX TIIK "SVIXTEIl OF INJU (1- r.ai t!.u aut'j fa M.-. m.'ii., l,v M in! pcrmi^inn fr.nn _tl,,- n,. w!.i, h was i-:ii.turt,l from X it! ,.,K.,, n CL his A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA 79 town of (iraiulenz, on the Vistula, for instance, Lnise and IUT husband had only one room in a badly built frame house. The Queen could not cross the threshold without beinir over her ankles in mud. "When the room was bciiii: tidii-d uj> for breakfast, the Kin^ 1 had to <^o and kick his herls outside somewluM'e t make I'oom. Tlu* ministei's of the Kin^ were packed live in a room, with two beds amongst them. Some slept on the lloor, each in his tui'ii. I'lmd was bad and scarce. Here was the Prussian court a few weeks after ,Iena, while Napoleon was making himself quite comfortable in the palaces of l!erl:n.' :: " Put no one dared Crumble 80 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY at Graudenz, for Luise set them an example of cheerful devotion which no soldier could resist. Her child was ill in Konigsberg, but she stayed with her husband, be- lieving that her presence was necessary at this crisis. While she AYUS travelling the lonely road between Stettin and Kiistrin, while rumors of French skirmishes were heard on all sides, and at a moment when the inn- keepers kne\v that the Prussian army had ceased to exist, and that Xapoleon reigned in Berlin, she arrived at a small relay station called Biirwalde. Fresh horses for her carriage were demanded and promised. She waited, but no horses came. Ten minutes became half an hour, and still no sign of horses. She must have re- called a similar episode that befell Louis XVI. shortly before he was handed over to mob justice. Her attend- ant went to make inquiries, and discovered, to their alarm, that the innkeeper had not only himself mysteri- ously disappeared, but had taken the horses with him. To the honor of Germans be it recorded that in all these dark days this is the only treachery chargeable to a man of the people. The traitors of those times were almost exclusively cavaliers, courtiers, professional sol- diers the pick of Prussian aristocracy. As we shall see later, Germany found her strength and safety in ap- pealing to the plain people of the country, who did not brag about their blood, but spilled it freely on the battle- field. The King, too, had an opportunity, just before leav- ing Konigsberg, of pondering on the condition of crown- less monarchs. That old palace was grand to look at Golden Euirlc on top of the pillar at this point might look in at his window. I often saw him from below, as he paced up and down the room while he dictated, his hands behind his back." Kiuden, p. 231, 1806. A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA 81 from the outside, but had not been properly furnished within. In order to make Queen Luise comfortable, there- fore, the riehest citizens of the town had contributed their furniture. But when they heard that the royal family were leaving, living from the French advance, *> O 7 O and presumably hurrying away into a Russian exile, these good citizens hastily backed their carts up to the palace doors, and commenced each to carry away his chairs and pillows. The King was still in the palace, and was unwillingly a witness to this moving of furni- ture from under him. It seemed a presage of helpless- ness, lie never forgot that scene in Kunigsberg."* "While Queen Luise lay between life and death in the old Konigsberg Castle, on the 1st of January, 1SOT, the late Emperor AVilliam entered upon the year in which he was to celebrate his tenth birthday. According to Prussian custom, he was at the age entered as an oilicer in the crack regiment of Foot-guards, the most magnifi- cent troops of the Prussian army. That custom is rig- orously observed to-day, and many is the time that I have seen AVilliam II. in his childhood vainly trying to keep step on the parade-ground with the giants whom he was commanding. And now the children of this AVilliam II. are also enrolled, and these also may be seen on the Potsdam parade-ground vainly stretching their little legs to keep in time with the long strides be- side them. U was the grandfather of AVilliam II. to whom, on Jan- uary 1. 1 s ' 7. was given the uniform of the First Prussian " :: ' '' KojiiL'-ber;; was evacuated with the greatest decree of precipita- tion. ... I 1 is impossible to describe tin 1 feebleness, degradation, and want of enemy which pervade, tin. 1 whole of this country." From the ivpor: of Ilutchinsun to the Dritish government, January D, l^nT. M>S. in the London llecord OMice. J ,; S3 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY Guards. The uniform was duly forthcoming, but not so the guards. These glorious four battalions had been at Auerstiidt ; had been carried away in the general rout ; some had been surrendered by Prince Ilohenlohe ; .some had been killed ; the bulk had deserted. At Graudenz on the 2d of November, 1SOG, all that re- mained of the famous guards reported twenty-nine men. They had. done much forced marching, and were in a sorry plight as regards uniforms; many were as badly off as Washington's men at Valley Forge. "When the King and Queen* moved to Mem el the Royal Foot-guards also moved to what was called by courtesy the seat of government, the little frontier town, whose total population was then SOOO, and is even now less than 20,000. It is indicative of Frederick William's character that at such a time even he felt the need of reviewing his guards, who arrived in Memel on the 14th of January, having increased their number to 21 <> men, 40 non-commissioned and 5 ollicers. Little William wore the old-fashioned pigtail with his uniform, as did the men, though orders had been issued that this absurd custom should cease in the army. But it died hard. The Prussian guards clung to their pigtails with the * The original of the portrait of Queen Luise given as the frontis- piece to this volume Jiangs in the Queen of Hanover's study at Gmun- den, in the Austrian Tyrol. It is the only portrait in existence which represents Luise at this time of life in a manner corresponding to the descriptions we liave of lier. There are two miniatures similar to this one in the Ilohen/ollern Museum of Berlin, but botli are feeble copies. Tliis portrait is considered by the Queen of Hanover as the best one of lier aunt, and she vouches for its authenticity. Subsequently Her Maj- esty presented the author with a replica of this miniature, and it is from this that the frontispiece is made. It is probable that tliis minia- ture was painted in l?'j:5, the year of Luise's engagement to the Prus- sian King, when she was only seventeen years of age. P. B. A FUGITIVE QUKEN OF PRUSSIA S3 spirit of Chinamen. They stuck them inside of their collars on parade, and evaded cutting them where pos- sible. Alexander I. of Russia also brought his guards from St. Petersburg, and held reviews for his ally near the Memel River, about Tilsit. Here, in the presence of his army, he warmly embraced the Prussian King, and cried out with solemn force, " "We shall not fall singly either we fall together or not at all." Luise felt so much encouragement from the generous speech of the Russian in the spring days of lso7 that she moved back to Konigsbcrg, to be nearer the scene of war. Her husband went with Alexander to the army headquarters at 1'artenstein, about thirty miles south- ward from Konigsbcrg. Luise devoted herself to organ- izing relief for the wounded and encouraging the spirit of patriotism, that was sadly on the wane. The liery iJHicher arrived, and had many earnest talks with her. lie had capitulated honorably at Liibeck, because he had neither powder nor bread left, lie had been sub- sequently exchanged for a French general, and had made- his way through the French lines back to his King. He had been presented to Napoleon, who had given him a full hour's talking, and treated him with marked distinction. I Jut IJliieher had kept his bright eyes open while amongst, the French. lie knew that, badly oil' as were the Prussians, the French were in no better plight. 1 le begged for a command of .'lit.oon men. so that he might harass the Frenchmen in the rear and on the Hanks. lie would lie in ambush for their trains of provisions, cut oil' their reinforcements, AVOITV them night and day, and never allow them to light a bi^ battle. Put this most practical plan of the gallant old soldier 84 THE GEEMAX STRUGGLE FOE LIBEETY was brushed aside by the Eussian commander, who wished all the glory for himself, and expected to con- quer Kapoleon by fighting a great fight with overpower- ing force on his side. So Bliicher was once more relegated to inactivity, as he had been at Auerstadt. At Friedland, about thirty miles southeast of Konigs- berg, on the 1-ith of June, just eight months after Jena, Napoleon gave the finishing blow to \vhat there was left of Prussia. He knew that Eussians and Prussians were daily increasing their armies ; that every moment was precious; that his long line of communication, which was about four hundred miles to Dresden, invited opera- tions in his rear; that his troops were beginning to grumble. He therefore determined to collect all the men he could, to abandon his line of retreat, to march straight upon Konigsberg, and to force a battle at any cost. The Eussian commander, Benigsen, blundered into Xapoleon's trap, and before the clay was over Xapoleon had come to believe that his star led to success, no mat- ter how great risk he incurred. Again Luise had to pack up hastily, and flv for her o *j *j life back to Memel.~ x ~ On June 10th Konigsberg sur- rendered, and the small remnants of the Prussian army retired to the other side of the ]\Iemel Eiver, wondering where they should retire to next in case of another bat- * On June 19, 1807, the British Consul, Lewis de Drusina, reports to Canning tluit lie fk j d from Konigsberg to Memel on the 14th, the French entering on the loth. " On my arrival here I found the whole place in the greatest alarm, all preparing for a flight to Russia, and the younger brandies of the royal family going forward to Libau, etc."- London Record Office MSS. Strange that in none of the reports of British officials are any details of Luise's horrible journey from Kouigsberg to Memo!. P. B. A FUGITIVE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA 85 tie; for they had arrived at the last piece of Prussian ground capable of holding them a strip only about fif- teen miles wide, from the river to the llussian border. The King and C/.ar were like brothel's in those days, but their subjects did not fraternize well. On the re- treat from Friedland to Tilsit, Prussian soldiers desert- ed wherever they could, because they feared that they might be incorporated into the llussian army. The llussian Cossacks had not left a pleasant impression in Prussia. They plundered the peasants, insulted the women, drove away cattle and horses, but did very little lighting. It got to be proverbial that the French enemv O O 1 > was preferable to the llussian friend.* On June HHh the French tricolor waved on the banks of the Memel, and Xapoleon could see beyond the united camps of Russia and Prussia. At Jena he had defeated Prussia ; at Friedland, llussia. Frederick AVilliam would have made peace after Jena had he not given his word to Alexander that lie would stand or fall with his llus- sian ally. This alone explains why throughout that dreary winter the Prussian army kept up a semblance of hope lighting and marching, starving and shivering believing that the Russians would soon arrive in strong force and drive Xapoleon away. The nt't result of Russian assistance was the battle of Friedland, which left Prussia in a worse plight than after .Jena. Queen Luise thus writes to her father three days after this battle: " " lift \\vrii the pillage of the lluoiuns ami the ravages of the French, nearly the, whole of the Prussian states cast of the Vistula i.s in most, lamentable condition houses destroyed, people driven ;nvay." I lutchin.soifs dopateh to the British government, January -in, l s i)7. MSS. 86 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ' ; Another terrible blow has struck us ; we are on the point of leaving the country perhaps forever. Just think what I am feeling at this moment! . . . The chil- dren and I must fly as soon as we get news of approach- ing danger. . . . When the moment of danger comes I shall go to Riga " (a Russian town on the Baltic). " God will give me strength when the black moment arrives for me to cross the frontier of my country. It will take strength, but I look up to Heaven, whence come all good and ill ; and I firmly believe that God places upon us burdens no greater than we can bear. " Once more, my best of fathers, be assured we are going down without dishonor, esteemed by all the world ; and we shall always have friends, because we have de- served them. I cannot tell you how much comfort this thought gives me. I bear everything with perfect tran- quillity of mind, which can only come from a quiet con- science and pure hopes. You may be sure, then, dear- est father, that we can never, never be altogether un- happy, and that many a one weighed down with crowns and good fortune is not so light-hearted, so really happy, as we ourselves." (Xo doubt a hit at Xapoleon's many crowns.) A postscript to this letter, dated June 24th, after the Russians had signed a truce with Xapoleon, contains these prophetic words : ''3Iy faith is not shaken but I can no longer hope. My letter to you explains it there is my very heart and soul. When you read that, you have me entirely, dearest father. To do my duty in life, to die, to live on dry bread and salt none of these things can make me unhappy. But do not ask me to be hopeful. One who has been thrown down from a heaven as I have been cannot again feel hope. If anything good again happens to me, ah, how eagerly shall I seize A FL*C;ITIVK Qri-:i:.\ OF I-UUSSIA 8? it, fed it, enjoy it! but I can never hope again. Let misfortune come; for a moment it may cause me sur- prise, but it can no longer break me clown, so long as I have not deserved it. Nothing can drag me into my grave but injustice and dishonesty amongst my own peo- ple that I could not stand. . . /' Poor Luise! She poured out her bleeding heart in those sad days as queens seldom do. She had suffered much had been chased from OIK? end of her country to the other; had endured a terrible illness; had been separated from her beloved children while illness was amongst them; had been the cheering help to her low- spirited husband; had united the patriotic men of Ger- many about her and all because she believed that Alexander with his Ilussians would take the field in the spring, and would not make peace until Prussia was free. Luise had suffered much between Jena and Fried- land, but there was more suffering in store for her at Tilsit. XI PEACE WITH DISHONOR O Deutschland, holy fatherland ! Thy faith and love how true ! Thou noble land ! Thou lovely land ! We swear to thec anew. Our country's ban for knave and slave ! Be they the raven's food ! To Freedom's battle march the brave ! Tis fell revenge we brood." Ernst Moritz Arudt, from the " Vaterlandslied." ONE date of peculiarly American significance is July 4, 1770. Queen Luise was born in the same year as the United States, and it was on the day of " independence," 1807, that she drove from Memel to Tilsit for the pur- pose of pleading with Xapoleon on behalf of her wretched country. Luise* hated the Corsican conqueror \vith the instinc- tive impulse of a high-bred, pure, and truthful nature. She knew him to be both false and brutish. lie had shown no generosity in the moment of victory, but had stooped to the publishing of lies about her private char- acter. He pictured her in his bulletins as not merely an Amazon firebrand, but as unfaithful to her marriage vows a woman of unchaste character. lie suggested * Pusquiur, in his Mcmoircs, speaks of her as ". . . La Reine autour de laqueUe vinrent se ranker presque tons les homines distiiigues et importants du pays " a compliment never paid to her husband. I. , 211. PEACE WITH DISHONOR S ( J improper relations between the Cx.ar Alexander and her- self he stopped at nothing in his attempt to blacken her character and weaken if possible her influence. ]'ut Napoleon* was no match for a pure woman. He over- shot the mark.f His slanders failed in their effect on the Germans, who did not forgive this unchivalrous be- havior towards a queen whom they loved for the very virtues which he could not comprehend. When Queen Luise heard that she must come to this man, beg of him, touch his hand it was more than she could bear. She burst out crying, and said she could not so dishonor herself. ]}ut, after all, it was the King, her husband, who should have felt thus, and spared her this crowning mortification. Up to this moment he might have said that all was lost save honor; but when the moment came for dragging a beautiful young wife upon the scene, in the hope of accomplishing by her physical charms what gunpowder and diplomacy had failed of attaining, then should the hand of every decent man have been raised in protest; To the credit of human nature be it said that in each of the three camps were men who did lind this episode disgraceful. And so on this beautiful -1th of .July Luise and old ('ountess Yoss took their seats in a state car- riage, and were driven tin; iiftv-odd miles to a little village about six miles northeast of Tilsit, called 1'iktu- '' Napoleon, it \viil lie remembered, had been spending tin 1 winter with a I'oli.-h mistress. f Talleyrand, speaking of Queen Luise at Tilsit, said (i.,;>l."J) : " Les efforts i pie. tit eette noble feininc resterent inutiles pivs dc Napoleon ; i! trioinphait ct. alors il e!;ii: inflexible. Les engagements qu'ii avait fait rompre, et cnix f Lady BuryJiersJi, London, 1893 : "FBANKFT., Decembers, 1S13. "I never was so disappointed as in the Emperor Alexander, lie is the image of , only fair instead of red, and also very like W., the dentist. He has certainly fine shoulders, but beyond that he is hum- bly ill-made. lie holds himself bent quite forward, for which reason all his court imitate.' him and bend too, and gird in their waists like women. His countenance is not bad, and that is all I can say." A few . to make the war one of brotherlv interest. In this famous Uartenstein ('ontract, made at a time when the Prussian King had scarcely a kingdom, let alone an armv, the Prime-Minister Hardenberg intro- duced a clause that u'ave I.uise great satisfaction. Here 92 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY was first formally stated that Prussia was fighting the common enemy of all Germany ; that the victory of Prussia meant the independence of Germany, the foun- dation of a great German " Constitutional Federation.'' That all seemed very shadowy to Luise as she drove by the flower-studded fields of East Prussia. There was no thought of such possibilities in her weary spirit. She knew that Xapoleon had taken the half of Prussia for his share of the war spoils. She did not expect that he would give back much of it ; but, as she said, pathet- ically, " If he will give me back a village or two my errand will not have been in vain." But then she reviewed what had happened at Tilsit since the truce. Her husband had not been consulted. On June 25th jSTapoleon entered a skiff on the south side of the Memel River, and Alexander at the same moment pushed off from the north shore. They met on a raft that had been anchored in the stream at a point close above the present bridge. On this raft two huts had been erected, decked out with boughs and flowers.-' The Prussian King was not asked to this meeting on the raft. lie was treated as quite an outsider to the interests at stake. The two emperors were on his land ; they had made a truce, and apparently set about making a peace wholly at Prussian expense. f * 1 made a sketch of the river at this point one beautiful summer's afternoon, and have seen many pictures purporting to represent the meeting of these two emperors. But not only do no two pictures agree one 'with the other, but none gives the loc;J scenery as it is to-day. f " Voici la limite cntrc les deux empires," said Xapoleon, point- ing to the Weichsel. " Votre maitre doit dominer d'un cote, moi de 1'autre !" AVords spoken before Tilsit treaty to Lobanoil ; pre- served by Uantysch-Kameusky, and published by him in 1839. 1'EACE WITH DISHONOR 93 It was raining while this interesting raft meeting took place. During the rain Frederick "\Villiam rode up and down the north shore of the river, impatiently waiting for its conclusion. Put the minutes dragged, and full three hours passed before the King saw his noble ally again. T\vo days before this raft meeting news had come from London that England had already shipped troops to Prussia's assistance ; that plenty of arms, ammunition, and money were also on the way."- From Austria came also good news, that thence, too, help would soon arrive. Naturally Luise looked to Alexander as in a position to make good some of the promises he had so sentimentally expressed, over and over again in the past few weeks. His first words on seeing the French Emperor were, ' I hate the English as heartily as you do, and am ready to help you in everything you undertake against them.'' This is strange language to use in regard to one's allies. However, for the moment it seemed to serve the lius- sian's purpose. Napoleon and Alexander from this moment became bosom friends. They dined and supped together. They were inseparable. They talked about the past war as a '" Already, on May Hi. 1807, Lord Castlerea^h writes to Lieutenant- General Lord I [utehinson, the special llrilish ;mci;t in Prussia, that Kn-Iand has shipped 10,000 muskets to Colberir, al>o li.OOO.OOO bull cartridges 1 00,000 Hints, and sonic artillery. This is soon to be fol- lowed by l>.)0,ooo Hints, oOOO barrels of powder, 5000 sabres, nr.d many other thinirs. On June 9th, Lord IIttchinson reported that lie had paid _"!o.ooo to Knssia and U 100,000 to Prussia by way of subsidy. On I >errinbcr -':!, lxoi5, Ilutehinson mado a report which only reached London on .January :',!, 1^07. In it he quotes a Prussian minister as saying that Prussia di>liked the idea of Austrian assistance against Ma pi ili ' 'ii. upon which the KM irishman makes the reflection that Prus- sia had sunk to tlit: condition of a petty state, still propped up in a measure bv Ku-sia and Eti'dand. London Public Record Ollice MSS. 94 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY blunder, and for the future made plans which knew no limit save that enforced by limited imagination. Ilussia was to conquer all the East ; Xapoleon was to remain content with all the rest of the world. Exactly where the East was to commence and the rest of the world to cease was not quite definitely stated, and this caused much trouble in the } 7 ears that followed, because Russia then as now regarded Turkey as her legitimate prey. At any rate, one point was very satisfactorily arranged that Russia should take possession of British India as soon as she found it convenient. Three hours are a long time for two men to talk under ordinary circumstances, but when the whole world is being mapped out anew it is very short indeed. And so Alexander thought, for he quite forgot all about Prussia while arranging for the incorporation of India as a southern province of Siberia.* At last, and as a species of after-thought, he begged as a favor that he might present to Xapoleon his dear * " L'Empercur Alexandra . . . crut avoir rempli tons Ic.s devoirs do 1'amitie cnvers le Hoi dc Prnsso, en lui conservant iiominalnnent la moitie de son royaume ; aprOs quoi il partit, sans nicme prendre la precaution de s'assurcr si la moitic quo le roi devait conserver lui serait promptement rcmluc, si elle le serait pleineinent, ct s'il ne serait pas oblige de la racheter encore par de nouveaux sacrifices. " On pouvait le craindrc apres la question brutale qne Napoleon fit un j')ur a la Heine de Prusse : ' ' Comment avez-vous ose me faire la guerre, madame, avec d'aussi faiblr< inoyens quo ceux quo vous avie-z ?' ' 'Sire, jc dois le dire a votre ]\Iajeste, la gloirc de Frederic II. nous avail eirares sur notre propre puissance.' " Ce mi.t de ';?"(>'(, si heureusemeut place, et a Tilsit dans le salon de I'Kmpercur XapoU'on, me parut superbe. . . . " J'c! ai- in digue de tout ce (pie je voyais, de tout ce que j'entendais, jnaN j't'tai.s oblige dc cacher mon indignation." Mcmnin-^ d* T/- mi.il, \., p. :;1G. PEACE WITH DISHONOR 95 friend Frederick William. This interview took place on the day following, and on the same raft. Napoleon treat- ed the humiliated King with most conspicuous rude- ness ; acted towards him as to one asking charity ; gave him less than an hour of his time, during which lie ad- dressed his remarks almost wholly to Alexander. Poor Frederick AVilliam was permitted to be present at some of the imperial interviews, but always in the character of an interloper. Alexander was never at his ease until his Prussian ally had left them. The Russian so far forgot his relations to both parties that he listened contentedly while Napoleon joked about the " Brandenburg Don Quixote." The King reminded Alexander now and then of the famous .Hartenstein Contract, but the Muscovite answered always with plausible evasions, lie was just as false as Napoleon, but masked his Oriental qualities by a pretension to sentimental chivalry which deceived many for a short time. Luise was met on the road to Tilsit by Ilardenberg, of whom we shall hear more in coming years. Napoleon knew nothing of this statesman save that he was anti- French. Consequently he ordered Ilardenberg to be dismissed from the King's service, and exiled to a dis- tance of two hundred miles from the 1 capital, whatever place that might be. That Napoleon should give such an order is strange enough, but that a monarch should fail to resent it is stranger still.* The chivalrous Alex- * Tin' Hii;i-h airent in Mrinrl reported, umlcr date September '.2"), l^i >7, lint after tin 1 French li;ul evacuated Ki'iniu'slirix sonic weeks, "an act in- in a military character of a (Jcrtnan play iiv.n-lated from the French" wore the French Legion of Honor. Some l'ruian ollicers in the audience hi-sed the actor otT the ^tau'e. Tin 1 uniform was changed and the play went mi. The niTair was chr<>iiie!cd to Paris. 96 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY antler did not protest, and Ilardenberg sought refuge in Russia. But before lie went he had a good long talk with Luise, and gave her such a picture of the true state of things that she was able to meet Napoleon, on less unequal terms than might otherwise have been the case. It was at this time that Luise wrote of Napoleon : "His talents I can admire, but I do not like his char- acter, which is obviously false and tricky. It will be hard for me to behave well in his presence. And yet that is what they ask of me and I have grown used to making a sacrifice of myself." Napoleon did not pay Luise the compliment of taking the short half-hours drive to Piktupoenen, but waited until she came into Tilsit. Then, after she had been an hour in her rooms, he rode up in state, surrounded by a staff of high officers, and climbed the narrow stairs leading to her room. The house in which she received Napoleon still stands, Champigny sent for the Prussian minister, told him Napoleon felt insulted ; that all diplomatic relations would be stopped, and Prussia not be evacuated until satisfaction given. Two Prussian officers had been mentioned these must be shot. Count Goltz told this story to the British agent, and said that nothing less than a fusillade, and that in peremptory fashion, -was demanded by Bonaparte. "Thus in a town foreign to France, not occupied by French troops, in a theatre of Prussian players and a Prussian audience, a criticism on a matter of fiction is transmuted to a state offence against the French government, for which the death of two officers is demanded as the only atonement." More strange still, this was received by the Prussian government not with a howl of ridicule, but by a solemn conference of the heads of the Prussian government about twenty persons. And this in spite of the fact that the highest pnnishment for such an offence under Prussian law is one month's arrest. So low had Prussia sunk ! MSS. of London Ilecord Office. PKACK WITH DISHONOR 97 fronting a small open space paved with cobble-stones. I had some difficulty in finding it in 1*92, and, not being able to get a good photograph of it, I sat down in front of it and made a rough sketch. There is nothing re- motelv suggestive of a palace; and the house occupied then bv Napoleon is little better.* I could not help wondering that nothing was done by the German gov- ernment of to-day to distinguish these two houses from the others; not even the guide-books call the trav- eller's attention to the historic interest their walls awaken. Tsapoleon was not indifferent to the beauty of Queen Luise, as he admitted afterwards, but he was not success- ful in his efforts to extract amusement from her at such a time. Her heart was heavy with grief at the state of her country; she had sacrificed even her self-respect to crime and beg at his feet, and was it fair to expect that in this hour she could play the coquette? .Napoleon, with a tact bordering on brutality, opened the conversation by asking her if her dress was made of crape or Indian gauze. I.uise begged that he would not bring such trifles up for discussion at such a time. Then there was a dull pause, broken at last by Luise inquiring how he found the climate. To this Napoleon made the rat her ominous answer. "The l-Ycneh soldier is seasoned to every climate." ' :: Tin' hon-e in which Napoleon h;ul his headquarters at TiNi: in l^iiT i- now NurnhiT -1, Petite-he S;ra.-M-. On the occasion of niv vNii in .June, l^'.fj. 1 here was no plate ID mark i:s historical iutrivst. 'I'll'' lower s'nry was occupied hy Iwo shops, the one saddlery, the others milliner 1 /. It fronts upon a broad, well paved, and tras-liu'hled street, and appears ID be to d;iy of the same relative importance a^ in ]si)7. -I'. T.. I " V.'. inoi. j" jinai interieurement de cesst r. a que]i|Ue ]>ri\" que ce fat. d'etre -'>n init:i>trc, di's (pie n^us ^eri"ii- de ivtour en France. I 98 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY Then, quick as a flash, falling back into the role of soldier-diplomat, he said to her, " How could you con- ceive the idea of making war against me ?" But Luise pretended not to note the insult intended, and answered without hesitation, ' We may be pardoned for having built too much upon the fame of Frederick the Great." Even Napoleon could not fail to feel the superiority of her repartee for Kossbach happened not many years before Jena, and there Frederick the Great thrashed the French more gloriously than Xapoleon ever thrashed a Prussian army. So the Emperor tried to change the conversation to pay her compliments. But she alwa^ys came back to the subject near her heart; she had come to beg him for an honorable peace. She begged for her husband and her prostrate kingdom; she admitted his power in war; he had secured all the glory that war could give him now let him put the culminating crown to his head by showing the world that he was generous to the fallen ; she spoke of justice, of mercy, of God, of conscience. Her voice choked ; tears came to her eyes. She forgot all that Ilardenberg had told her ; she was no longer the Queen; she was a mother pleading for her children. It seemed as though he felt for a moment touched by the sight of this pure and beautiful woman " II me confinna dans cette resolution par la barbaric avcc laqucllc, fi Tilsit, il traita la Prussc, quoiqu'il nc in'cn lit pas 1'instrument. "C'ctte fois, il no s'en rapporta pas a moi pour trailer des contribu- i i'>!is de guerre ot do 1'uvacuatioii des terriloires par ses troupes. II en chargea le Marechal Berthier. "11 trouvait qu'a Presbourg je in'en etais acquiUe d'unc maniere trop pen con forme a ce qu'il croyait Gtre ses veritablcs iuterels." . . . Mi- moires dc ToUi-i/nnui., i., 308. It, was this same Talleyrand who claimed credit for having saved \\:<: Dresden galleries from plunder at the hands of Xapoleou. Ihid. i., :JK). PEACE WITH DISHONOR pouring out to him such noble thoughts as no woman had ever before ventured to present to his sensual and J c ,/*> rs* 5 > /\ - >- ^'i q : - *.L u- y= i4* s .t r '"A < .- \? - x-"/ r -r" ' J ^- x (\ %;.,, '-. A 5 f r4i'^H- ^'C:^.^.^ * i!"? 4 A * . ;x ;V J f > I ^ O T *.'?*/ ? > \ s c- ;. -, r > ?, \ /"M J% %J g"\ f {h-i << . , . ^M. j|;. :-U !-.> V* ^ : V:S ^ ^. -^U- \ 3* ' ?T;4^\>5 ^ ->.K \;-^j ( ^;'X - I ^ -v . ' N *** ^ ^ . ) f' .i>-* ,/ I % -j- a calruhitin^ mind. She pleaded hard for ^rau'deburi;- tlie [)n>udest fortress on the Elbe a town as dear to 100 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY Prussia as Dover to an Englishman, as "West Point to an American, as Quebec to a Canadian. JMamleburo 1 o rt was to Luise the key to Prussia, and she begged for it with a fervor that would have gained a kingdom from any other man. Xapoleon, whether honestly or not, seemed moved, and said, with some show of amiability, " You arc asking a great deal but we shall see." The Avords >; we shall see'' made Luise very happy. She thought that Xapoleon had human feelings, after all, and she forgave all those who had induced her to make the degrading journey to Tilsit. She did not know that on the way home that cvenino- J i~5 Xapoleon laughed the matter over with Talleyrand, saying " that Magdeburg was worth to him a dozen Queens of Prussia," That night, after dinner, Xapoleon sought to play the gallant, and offered her a rose. She looked at it. and was about to decline it. Put, recalling the object of her mission, she forced a smile to her lips, and said, "Let it be at least with Magdeburg/' To this Xapoleon answered by a stare, and words which showed that his politeness lay only on the surface ''Permit me to remind you, madame, that it is my place to offer, and yours to accept/' The Tilsit dinners, balls, and so-called festivities were melancholy functions to poor Luise, who learned in the following days that Xapoleon .had insisted upon every item of his demands exactly as ho had originally dictated them, and that he treated his talks with the .Prussian Queen as idle chaff. Furthermore, he sent words to the Prussian King that he was tired of Tilsit,"- and wished 1'KACE WITH DISHONOR 101 the matter closed. And so on July 0, 1807, Prussia signed a\vav to Xapoleon half her territory, and every sovereign right that might assist her to become strong in the future. She hound herself to pay an indemnity enonnouslv hevond her means, and to mantain French garrisons in the country until this impossible sum was paid oil'. Xo such terms had ever before been accepted by a great nation. That was the famous treaty of Tilsit. ~ :: " historian had never been in Til>it and had no access to a contempo- rary picture of the place. P. 15. 'Secret treaty of Tilsit, July 7, 1S07, printed for the first time by Tatisteheir in A!<;>'iiiJn' I. lc;i (1S91). Of this treaty Tatis- tL-heH'says : " Seiil 1'exemplaire ru-secxiste a 1'heuve qu'il est," name- ly, in the archives of the Kus.-ian Foreign Oflicc ; and this he says lie transcribed " lidclement.'' Article I. His .Majesty the Emperor of all the Iliis.-ias and His Maj- esty the Emperor of the French, Kin^- of Italy, enpi^e to make coin- inon cause, whether by land or whether bv sea, or whether by land and sea, in all wars which JJussia or France may be compelled to un- dertake or sustain against any and everv European power. Art. II. provides that each shall place his whole war strength at the disposal of the Other. Art. III. Ail the operations of a ('ommmi war shall be made in con- cert ; and neither of the contracting powers may in any case, treat of peace wiihi'iit the co-operation and consent of the oilier. Art. IV. It' Enirland does not accept the mediation of Kussia, or if at'ier a'vepiinir it she docs not bv the 1st of November consent to make peace by reeoinii/.iii^ lhai ihe tlau^ of all powers shall enjoy equal aii'l perfect independence upon ihe hi^h seas, and bv restoring t he coti([Ue-t -- made at the cxpea-e of I^rance and her allies since l^o."). \\iien IIu-->ia made common eau^e with her, a note shall, in the co'ir-" of that inontli. be sent to ihe court of St. James by the amlias- sad..r of IIi> Maje-ty the I-lmper.ir of ail the Ku<>ias. That note, ex prc.->;!!:;- tin: interest, taken by hi- said Imperial Majestv in the peace of the world, tin' intention he eheri-he-, of employing all the forces of his empire in procuring to liumanity the liles-inirs of peace, shall contain a positive and explicit declaration that on England's n fiisini;- to make pe;Lce on tlie terms indicaicd. His Maje-ty the lunperor of all the JJ';->-ia- will make common cause with France; and in case ihe 102 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY The Czar Alexander* paid his dear ally Frederick Will- iam some compliments, acquiesced in all that Napoleon did, and assisted in the work of spoliation by stealing St. James government shall not have given a categorical and satis- factory answer by the 1st of next December, the Russian ambassador shall have instructions in such an event to demand his passports on that same day, and to leave England immediately. Art. V. AVhen the event just anticipated shall have occurred, the high contracting parties shall in concert and at the same time summon the three courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Lisbon to close their ports to the English, to recall their ambassadors from London, and to declare war against England. Art. VI. The two high contracting parties shall act with the same concert and insist energetically (/tree frce) at the court of Vienna to compel it to adopt the principles enunciated in Art. IV. above : that she close her ports to the English, recall her ambassador from London, and declare war against England. Art. VII. If, on the contrary, England makes peace on the con- ditions above mentioned in the specified interval of time, and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias shall iise his whole influ- ence to accomplish this result, Hanover shall be restored to the Eng- lish King as a compensation for the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies. Art. VIII. refers to the plundering of Turkey. Art. IX. The present treaty shall remain a secret, and cannot be made public or communicated to any cabinet by either party without the consent of the oilier. It shall be ratified, and the ratifications ex- changed at Tilsit within four days. Done at Tilsit, July 7, 1807. Signed by Kourakine, Rostof, and Talleyrand. "En outre fut signo le memo jour un traite secret d'alliancc. La Russic proinettait de declarer la guerre d 1'Anglctenv le l'' r De- cembre siiivant. En revanche, la France promettait sa mediation, et an besoin son alliance; eontre la Turquie et un plan de partage de 1' Empire Ottoman fut anete. 11 fut egalement parle d' une expe- dition vers 1'lnde."- Talleyrand, i., 1-51. "5. -' Alexander I. . . . "appeared effeminate and sensitive, had that peculiar friendliness which expects reciprocal feeling in short, that something whieli in woman's face we look upon as coquettish van- ity." Arndt. lsi:>. p. 4. PEACE WITH DISHONOR from Prussia a large slice of her eastern provinces, in- cluding the city of Warsaw. On July 1<>, l$i>7, Luise went back to Memel. She was incapable of more sacriiice her heart was broken. XII COLBERG GNEISEXAU, XETTELBECK, SCHILL "The God who made Earth's iron hoard Scorned to create a slave ; Hence unto man the spear and sword In his right hand he gave. Hence him with Courage, he imbued. Lent wrath to Freedom's voice ; That death or victory in the feud Might be his only choice." Arndt, " Vaterlandslied." '' THE fortresses which should have shielded us and set bounds to our misfortune passed over to the enemy through cowardice and treachery." So wrote Queen Luise in a confidential letter to her father, dated May 15, 1S07. She applied the terms coward and traitor to Prussian officers who represented exclusively titles of nobility and high military rank. I should not venture to use such language had I not for so doing the author- ity of competent judges. In this campaign between Jena and Tilsit, in which traitors and cowards occupy so much historical space, there is one precious exception. It shows us a^ain how much .Prussia might have accomplished had the honest plain citi/.cns been allowed a voice in the defence of their country. On the lonesome shores of the Prussian P>altic, about seventv miles from the mouth of the Oder at Stettin, COLBERU GXEISEXAT, NETTELBECK, SCIIILL 10-j and about one hundred miles from the Vistula mouth at Dan/.ig, is the little walled seaport of Col berg. It is one of the worst seaports I can imagine, for the town lies about a mile from the Dtiltic, up a narrow and shallow river, which forms at its mouth a bar exceed- ing] v diilicult for boats to cross in bad weather. The walls of Colbcrg hail fallen to decay; on the ramparts were onlv eighty -six pieces of antiquated artillery, which ultimately proved as deadly to the gunners of the town as to the enemy. There was only one artillery- man to each gun, and the total garrison was only about one thousand men, made up of such as were not good enough to send to the front. The commander was, like his colleagues in the other Prussian posts, a "noble- man " of high military position, and, like the rest, showed a most unsoldierly readiness to surrender the town as soon as the French expressed a desire to oc- cupy it. Xow Col berg had some sturdy citizens, who loved their country, and believed that their town was worth a good light. They too had traditions, and remembered that in the days of the great Frederick its walls had successfully resisted three Russian attacks. Colberg also maintained the tradition that every citi/.en must be ready to man the ramparts in case of invasion, and the town had thus an auxiliary force of volunteer militia or minute-men" amounting to ei^ht hundred, well armed and equipped, and tolerably trained. The commander of this citi/.en band was a rare noble character, seventy years of age. Xettelbeck was his name, lie had been a seafaring man, and a traveller in many strange quarters of the globe. After the manner ot sailor-men, he was honest and brave, and full of resource>. lie had come back to his native town at a 106 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY time when most men think only of spending their de- clining years in peace. His fellow-citizens had quickly recognized his loyal qualities, however, and in the hour of danger elected him their leader. When the French menaced Colberg, he promptly reported himself to the " noble" commandant for the purpose of placing at his services the citizen force of eight hundred. Before the commandant could formu- late an answer, his adjutant, another nobleman, turned rudely to old Xettelbeck and said, " But what business is that of yours, pray if' The average nobleman of that time did not think that a plain citizen might also have a country to preserve. The commandant contempt- uously dismissed old Xettelbeck with the words, u AY ell, if you care so much about parading, do so!" The volunteers were therefore drawn up in the market-place, ready for inspection ; and Xettelbcck, pocketing his pride, once more went to the conceited commandant to report that his force was assembled and awaited further orders. The noble commandant wore a most ill-pleased look. Xettelbeck, for all recognition, received this message: " Stop this nonsense, you silly people. For goodness' sake, go back to your homes ! What is the use of my looking at you?" This was discouraging. Xettelbeck held a council with his officers, and it was decided to sacrifice everything to the welfare of Colberg. So Xet- telbcck once more called upon the pretentious comman- dant, olfering to assist in putting the fortifications in better order. The answer given was: "Oh, bother your everlasting citizens! I want no citizens, and shall have nothing whatever to do with them." A less tame population would have treated this com- COLREKG GNEISENAl*, NETTELBECK, SCIIILL 107 mandant to a coat of tar and feathers. Hut the patient and patriotic Colbergers worked away secretly and in spite of the commandant. They suspected him of treacherv, and therefore watched the gates of the town dav and night. taking 1 turns at the work. As the dan- ger grew more serious, Xettolbeck made an inventory of the food-supply, and called the commandant's atten- tion to the matter. Instead of thanks, he was treated t<> insult. On March 1T>, ISoT, a French officer bearing a flag of truce, and drivinir in a carriage drawn bv four horses o o , with postilions, demanded admittance. On the box of the carriage sat a bugler; at each side walked two sol- diers with muskets. The commandant not only allowed the whole party to enter Col berg, but received the oili- cer with cordiality, and remained closeted with him for a long time, during which the soldiers of the escort were shown over the works by a Prussian sergeant, who with- in two days deserted to the French. XVttelbeck was convinced that this French escort was composed of en- gineer otliceis, and that the commandant was hatching treachery while locked up with the bearer of the Hag of truce. Old Xettelbeck was not, afraid of the French, but treacherv was more than he could stand. So down he sat and wrote directly to the King, who was in Meinel, about three hundred miles awav. The King shared with the average Prus>ian noble- man a strong dislike of anything in the shape of citizen enterprise. He had persistent Iv rejected everv proposal made on behalf of a national militia. lie feared an army of Prussian citi/.ens more than he did that of Na- poleon. To him the people in arms meant a mob such as cut oil' the head of Louis XVI. However, now that 108 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY his throne was in such danger that abdication and exile were discussed, he permitted measures which from his point of view were desperate. The letter of old Kettel- beck, instead of calling forth a severe injunction to mind his own business, was at this time well received, and steps were taken to send to Colberg a comman- dant of energy. Meanwhile Xettelbeck and his citizen guard devoted their lives and their fortunes to fighting the French and thwarting the unpatriotic attempts of the supercilious commandant. It was on April 5th, while the bombardment was go- ing on, that this nobleman happened upon the market- place just as a few bombs exploded harmlessly near by. He looked bewildered at the soldiers, and stammered out to the officers near him, " If this goes on, gentlemen, we shall have to give in." A fine way this for a fortress commander to encour- age his men ! Old Xettelbeck stepped forward, and checked further talk of this kind by shouting out to the commander, so that all could hear him : u The first man that dares to repeat that damned suggestion of surren- der dies and I shall kill him !" Then pointing his sword straight at the cowardly commander's breast, he said to the citizens : ' ; Kow is the time to show the stuff that is in us ; let us do our duty or AVC deserve to die like dogs !" The commandant screamed out helplessly: ''Arrest him! Put him in chains!'' .But no one would cany out the order. The citizens crowded around old Xettel- beck and saw him safely home. The commandant then made out an order that Xettelbeck should be shot early on the following morning; but this created such an uproar in Colberg that it was promptly rescinded, with manv threats of future indefinite vengeance. COLHKKG GXEISENAU, NETTELBECK, SCHILL 109 At last, however, this governor was recalled. His successor, who arrived on April 2i>, 1807, was a man dis- liked bv the King; a man of courage and enterprise. JIc had spent a year in America during the war of inde- pendence as a voung ollicer in the pay of George III.* He came hack from that war with new ideas, for there he had learned that farmer-hoys inllamed l>y love of conntrv and guided by men of practical common-sense can he a match for mercenary soldiers led by profes- sional officers. This officer was forty-seven years old, and his name was Gneisenau (pronounced Gn>j:;< non\ the " ow " pronounced as in how}. Old Xettelbeck on the morning of that day had been looking everywhere in town for the vice-commandant of the fortress, and finally found him coming from the shipping with a stranger. Tsettelheck had news regard- ing some fresh movement on the part of the French artillery. "This stranger,'' to use Xettelbeck's language, "a young, vigorous man of noble carriage, pleased me at the vei'v first, nor can I tell exactly why. lint as mv business was with the vice-commandant, and urgent at that, I dre\v him aside by the hand in order to whisper in his ear. because of the presence of this stranger. I5ut he smiled at this precaution, and said, '('due to mv quarters; it is a more convenient place/ "Once there, and 'under six eves.' the vice-eoinman- dani ! u I'M I'd to me and sa id : ' ( 'heer up, old friend ! This gentleman. Major Gii'-isi-nan. is the new commandant whom tin 1 KIUL;' has scut to us.' And turninu 1 to his ITUest. ' Thi- is old Nettelbeck.' 110 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY "My limbs were seized with a sudden pleasurable panic, my heart beat violently in my breast, and tears streamed uninterruptedly from my eyes ; my knees trembled beneath me. Overpowered by my feelings, I sank to the ground before him, our new protecting spirit, held fast hold of him, and cried out : ' In God's name, do not leave us ! "We will stand by you as long as a drop of warm blood remains in our bodies, even though AVC have to see every house in town reduced to cinders ! Kor am I alone in this; we all breathe the same thought: the city must not be, shall not be, surrendered.' ' Gneisenau raised the old man up with the words, "oSTo, children. I'll stand by you. God will help us!" Kext morning, the balance of this day being spent in an incognito inspection of the place, Gneisenau mustered the troops and gave them a talking to, " as impressive and affecting," says Xettelbeck, "as though a good father had been addressing dearly beloved children." " All felt his words so deeply that the old bearded veterans wept like children, and with choking voices shouted that with him as leader they were read}" to die for King and country." On the next day his meeting with the municipal lead- ers was no less touching, they with enthusiasm declar- ing, as they grasped his hand, that they intrusted him cheerfully with their lives and fortunes. " And to speak truth, a new spirit and new life came from this time on upon all we did as though straight from heaven." As to the wretched man whom Gneisenau superseded, he was subsequently retired on a good pension, with the rank ol' major-general a man who richly deserved the gallows. "We shall hear more of Gneisenau in years to come. COLBERG GXEISEXAU, NETTELBECK, SCIIILL 111 He was given command in Col berg purely on account of merit; for, as I have said before, he was personally distasteful to his King, as were nearly all the strong men who subsequently made Germany free. It should encourage young officers to reflect that Gneisenau was forty-seven years old before he found the opportunity to m;ike his name heard in any way. The siege of Colberg gave him the means of putting his previously gathered knowledge into practice. In America he had learned the importance of skirmishing tactics. At Colberg he inaugurated the method of for- tress defence which lias slowly made its way in the mil- itary mind, and now is accepted everywhere. His idea was not to merely shut himself in behind walls and resist the cannon of the enemv. Gneisenau gave his besiegers t o o no rest night or day. Schill was his guerilla help. That gallant young cavalry officer had made his way with a handful of men from Jena, had reached Colberg at last, and at once commenced from under its walls a series of raids upon the French which caused them much trouble. lie received in January the royal permission to re- cruit an independent corps, and throughout the siege contributed enormously to the discouragement of the enemy. Old Xettelbeck always kept a big pot of potatoes and other vegetables simmering on his stove, and these in; carted out to the cam]) of Schill whenever he got the chance. Sometimes he had dillicultv in getting provisions for his "children," as lit; affection- ately called Schill and his gallant men. OKI Xettelbeck would then go about from house to house and beg the good cili/.ens to quickly cook him something good, which was always cheerfully done. It is needless to sav that Schill was disliked bv the 112 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY previous commandant of Colberg as a busybody, but highly prized by Gneisenau and Ts r ettelbeck. It was a hard siege, and it grew in hardness as the French crept nearer and nearer with their big guns. The garrison, however, increased from 1000 to (5000 men, mostly loyal fugitives from Jena and Auerstadt. This "was a force considerably more than the normal population of the town itself. But of these brave GOOO more than 2000 were killed or wounded during the siege, and scarce a house had a window-pane left when a truce was announced on July 3, 1807. The French knew * that on June 25th Xapoleon and Frederick William III. had signed a cessation of hostilities, but they did not let Gneisenau know of this. On the con- trary, they made most desperate efforts to conquer that place before news of peace should penetrate the walls. And so the needless killing went on, simply because the King had made no arrangements for rapid communica- tion between his headquarters and his principal fortresses. '- The isolation of Prussia as regards news during these years was striking, as can readily be noted by any one turning over despatches in the London Record Oflico. From one to two months was re- quired for a letter to reach London from points in Eastern Prussia. The Konigsberg newspaper of January 1, 1807, for instance, has its latest foreign news despatches dated as follows: Ulm, December 4th; Vienna, December 7th ; Hamburg, December llth ; Venice, November !>0th ; Constantinople, November ( Jth. To-day the traveller can cross the Atlantic and return in less time than it took in 1807 for a Prussian to post from one end of Germany to the other. The French did things better then : " Ainsi, les communications cntre sun quartier general [Warsaw] el ses ministres etaient as-urees par un service d'estafetles, connne dies auraient pu 1'etre de Paris a Poiitainebleau." " Le gigantesque entrait dans les habitudes." Pasquier, vol. i., p. 2'J*. Referring to the ease with which Napoleon governed Europe in the winter of 1800-7. COLBKUG GNEISENAl', NETTELBECK, SCIIILL 113 Gnciscnau took no particular credit to himself for the glorious work he had accomplished. lie had acted as a brave man and done his duty. To one of his comrades he wrote: " I had good luck in getting hold of the stuff I needed -and I needed nearly everything. I shoul- dered every responsibility, acted like an independent prince, was often despotic, cashiered oilicers who sho\ved the white feather, made friends with the good fellows, did not worry about the future, and let the artillerv play for all it was worth." AVhcn (iiieisenau ran short of money to pay his men, he issued paper for small sums from two up to eight groschen i from five cents to one shilling, or twenty-five cents). He had no printing-press in Col berg, and there- fore utili/.ed the school -children to write out these extraordinarv notes. Counterfeits were punishable bv death. N'cttelheck had suggested this means of raising monev. lie had seen it in operation amongst the planters of Patch (luiana.as I have seen it amongst J s 114 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the European merchants in the Chinese and Japanese treaty ports. For small sums the plan works well in a community which has full confidence in the solvency of the party making the issue. In Colberg all believed in Gneisenau, and, as events proved, their trust was well placed, for the Prussian treasury subsequently re- doomed all the Colberg paper money issued during the siego. I have seen many specimens of this curious cur- rency in German museums. The paper certificates, or 'checks," are about two inches long by one and a half wide, made of the poorest paper. On one side is the coarse official seal of Colberg stamped in black ink. On the other side is the value, expressed in children's hand- writing two, four, and eight groschen. There are three official seals on each piece of paper money, and this fact alone suggests that the Prussian officials in Colberg must have had much time to spare, if they found it worth their while to sign every live-cent piece in cir- culation. Of course, had the Prussian King been deposed by Xapoleon after Tilsit, this paper money would have been worth no more than Confederate " shinplasters " after the close of the civil war in America.* Gneisenau did not regard himself as either a hero or a genius. lie set to work in Colberg as a plain man of business. Instead of insulting the patriotic citizens, he made them his friends; and when he left the place for good he was followed by the blessings and prayers of all whom he had defended, lie believed in Prussia and the German people; he knew they had suffered a heavy blow, but he believed that this blow would rouse them " "\Ve have been assured on good authority that more than one t'V.vn in Prussia is still (189G) paying interest on moneys raised under compulsion during the Napoleonic; occupation. COL1JEUG GNEISEXAU, NETTELIJECK, SCIIILL 115 from their state of self-conceit and weakness. Even as the siege wore on into the months of summer, when Napoleon had won the battle of Friedland, Gneisenau did not lose heart, lie kept the port of Colberg open, and received supplies from English and Swedish men-of- war. The Prussian army had been so thrashed that at the battle of Eylau, in early February, only GoOo men were there to represent the cause of Germany. ]>ut the people were still there; the King had but to give the signal, and a new army would be in the field." 1 '' Not an army of mercenaries with weak-kneed old nobles in com- mand, but a people in arms commanded by men of their own choosing, like lUticher and Schill and Gneisenau. England controlled the sea, and was landing arms and ammunition as rapidly as they could be used.-r Gneisenau looked upon Golberg as a base from which to sally forth and harass the long weak line of commu- nication between Napoleon and his sources of supply. To be sure, a king must trust his people when he puts rillt-s into their hands and lets them organize independ- ent companies, and, unfortunately for Prussia, Frederick "William could not do this. He did permit privates to rise from the rank's and become ollicers. but only for the : IIutch:n~.n re-ports on April oi>, 1 SI '7, thai a whole battalion of 1'rii-Man leiriilars deserted to tin- French at Weichsclmunde, to sav no'hiiiLr of all tin- Prussian I'o'es. f ( lei -mans are apt to forget the '.iTcat services (lone tlii-ni hy Kir_ r laml in the-e ti \inir days. Aln-adv on NoVeinher 'JO. Isoii, Lieiiienant- (Jeiieral I. ''I'll 1 1 iitchiiiMoii was appointed special envoy, .luthori/.ed to advance 'J'.'iin.oiitl to I'rusna meiviv on coiniitioii of having Hanover n-<:ored to hi]-. And from this time oil thrmijli to the liatt'e of \\'a'iiloi lui^laiid lovaiiy serveil the cause of the (JiTinan peojile, even \\he:i she had reason to fi-ar that the moncv which ^he >ci\\ to Fred' rid; \Viliiain III. ini^ht he spent, not against Xapoleon. luit for him, as, f'.r in-tance, in the cainpaiL: 1 :! airainst llti<-ia. Keport< of ( Jar! ieke :md 1 lu'ehin- -n. I 'uhlic K'I i >r 1 ( )!liee, Lonilon. 116 THE GERMAN STEUGGLE FOR LIBERTY duration of the war. Yet, small as this concession was, it had an excellent effect, and Gneisenau noted on all sides a popular disposition to volunteer and carry on the light. Far down below the surface the people were be- ginning to say to themselves : " AVe have had enough of the pretentious, swaggering, professional soldier. lie makes a line show in peace-time, and runs away when the bullets ily. He sneers at citizens, yet our citizens light better, and make less fuss about it/' Gneisenau had learned in America the importance of public sentiment in a free community. He made soldiers out of the most unpromising material. At Colberg he found free citizens and mercenary garrison troops, and to these were added several thousand who had escaped from Jena. Under other commanders these men accom- plished nothing. They became heroes under the influ- ence of a Gneisenau. Colberg to-day has a costly monument to Frederick William. III., but none to Gneisenau, Schill, or iXettel- beck. In 181)2 I made a pilgrimage to this place, sacred in the annals of German liberty. Many were the in- quiries I made before discovering where was the grave of Xettelbeck a neglected stone in an obscure part of the graveyard. I searched in vain for traces of the great men who have made Colberg a household word wherever German liberty is prized. The old walls still stand from which Gneisenau directed his gallant defence. The earthworks at the mouth of the little river can still be traced, and the ragged sand dunes from behind which Schill started on his daring raids, after the manner of Marion in the war of the American Revolution. The harbor mouth, where English men-of-war unloaded stores for the hard-pressed garrison in lSt>7. is now the resort of pleasure-seekers, who Hock here in summer for the COLUERG (1NKISKNAU, NETTELHECK, SCIIII.L 11? excellent sea-bathing. The ground that then was soaked in the blood of besieged and besiegers is no\v laid out in pleasant oaths for the tourist, and the music of the Casino band plays where formerly only cannons had the say. In truth, looked at from the surface, Colberg has forgotten her heroes and her days of suffering. JJut the heart beats below the surface, and to-day in (ierinanv no words awaken livelier gratitude and patriotism than those four: Col berg, Gneisenuu, Xettelbeck, Schill. XIII SOMETHING ABOUT GXEISEXAU'S EARLY STRUGGLES "Good Sword ! Yes ! I am free And fondly I love thee, As wcrt thou. at my side, My sweet affianced bride. Hurrah !" Korner, " Sclnvertlied." Composed a few hours before the author's death on the battle-field. OXE day, in the course of a canoe cruise do\vn the beautiful Elbe (1803), I arrived under the walls of a grand old castle belonging- to the fortress of Torgau. The majestic walls of this beautiful place recalled to me not merely Frederick the Great's famous victory over the Anstrians, but the curious fact that when young Gneisenau matriculated at the Erfurt University lie was enrolled as from Torgau, rather than from his native place Schilda (now generally spelled Schildau). So oil' I started for Schildau, which lies about ten miles south of Torgau and six miles away from the Elbe. I was driven in an open peasant's wagon by a citi/.cn of Schildau, who proved highly entertaining. In the first place, he taught me that no citizen of Schil- dau c;ires to have it known where he belongs, because throughout (iermanv the term Schildb'drycr (Schilda burgt'ssi carries with it the idea of municipal stupidity. In fact, every story in which acts of peculiar silliness SOMETHING A1JOUT GNEISENAC 3 EARLY STRUGGLES 11!) occur arc to this day referred to Schildau albeit not one person in a thousand could find the place on the map. Schildau is not on any railway, not even on a highway of any kind. A citizen of Schildau thought it a pity that the grass on the town walls should not feed his cow, so one line day he tied a rope round the animal's neck, and hauled her up, hut of course strangled her in the operation. Another citizen called out the lire-brigade one night because the moon was reflected from his windows very brightly. Another citizen blocked the gates of the town for several days in trying to bring in a long piece of timber. The town council were debating how they might accomplish the task, when a tramp from the next town advised them to carry it lengthwise rather than broadside on through the gate. And so the stories run, each more silly than the other each of no consequence, yet in the aggregate strong enough to compel young (ineisenaii to deny the place of his birth for fear of incurring constant ridicule at the hands of would-be wits. My peasant friend knew nothing of (iiieisenau, but I found my way easily enough to a house on the main street over the door of which was carved in stone an old-fashioned beer mug. This was the. sign of the inn - I)ie (ioldene Kanne where on October i'7, IT'' 11 , just forty-six years before Napoleon entered IVrlin. little babv < ineisenaii was born. Gneiscnau was not his name then; his father was plain N'eidhart, an impecunious lieutenant, of artillery, serving in the Austrian armv. Of his father history records nothing satisfactorv, and o! his mother we know onlv that she ran awav from her father and mother in YViirzburg to share the camp life of an obscure vounir soldier of fortune. 120 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY The present owner of the Goldene Kanne showed me a room on the ground iloor where the future hero was born. Two small windows faced the street. The furni- ture was modern. In fact, Schildau has nothing 1 to re- mind the passing stranger of Gneisenau. The poor mother was forced to fly with her first-born almost immediately, for the Prussian Frederick occupied this village within five days of Gneisenau's birth. The christening took place at the Goldene Kanne on the very same day. The father was not present. There was every circumstance to depress a young mother at such a time. The Protestant pastor at Schildau placed his church book at my disposal, on the occasion of my visit, and al- lowed me to make a photograph of the entry which shows that most of the transcriptions I have seen con- tain errors.* ''" In :i life of Gneisenau, published in 1850 by the chief military peri- odical of Germany, I found no less than one mistake for every line in the transcription of this memorable document, which is here for the first time accurately rendered : "August. Wilhclm Antonius, ein Sohnlein Ilerrn August "Wilhclm von ^"cidhart, bey dor xur Ifciehsarmee gehorigen Artillerie bestelllc Lieutenants, und seiner Gcmahlin Fr [.space left, for the moth- er's name], ward den 27. October, Vormittags, gebohreii und gegen Abend sogleich im Hause getauft. "Ti:sTKs: Ilerr Anton'ms von Krumbach; Maior , (lessen Sidle der Pastor 31. Daniel Christian Tittman vertreten ; Fr. Johan- na IJeirina Uosiua, Ilerrn Joliann Christovs "\VollTs, Uhrmachers in Turgan, Kheliebstc; Herr Johann von Uestich, Lieutenant unter dem Ki\.-erl. Regiment Altcoloredo ; Jgfr. Ilcdewig Frdmuth, Ilerrn Carl llciiirich Ileuneiis, Stadlschreibers und Kechts-Consulentes in Schil- daii, ji'uiLisle Tochter, und Ilerr Elias Thomas, General A.xcis Kin- iieJinier in Schildau.'' Traii>latiuii : " Augustus "\Villiam Anthony, a little son, was born in the forenoon of October L'Tth [1700], to .Mr. Augustus William von !Neidliart, a lieutenant of artillery belonging to the Imperial army; SOMETHING AI5OUT GNEISENAUs KARI.Y STRUGGLES 121 As this parish register is all that speaks for Gnei- scnau in his tenderest years, it is most precious. The entrv states that a son is born to Xeidliart the lieu- tenant, "ami to his wife . . . ," leaving a line blank for the insertion of her name. This blank shows that the clerk did not know her name, and that the mother did not choose to publish her shame in the house of God. Another notable feature of the entry is the absence, not merely of the father's name, but of the name of his regimental chief. Four witnesses are recorded, in addi- tion to the pastor. Of these, however, only one is a brother ollicer, and his rank that of lieutenant. The rest are probably such as were called in from the street in order to give a species of solemnity to the entry. Two women and a tax-collector make up the list. Thus was little Gneisenau born in an inn; he was christened by people who knew neither the name of his mother nor the regiment to which his father belonged; even this entrv appears never to have been seen by him, for to the dav of his death he invariably celebrated as his birthday the wrong dav of the month. His mother had to llv before the victorious march of I-'rederiek the Great, as did later Queen Luise before Napoleon and both were winter marches in bitter sorrow. The wagon in which little, Gneisenau started from Schildaii broke down during the nin'lit. and the cliiid \va> cliri-tened towards evening in the house \\here il was horn. \Viluesses, etc., etc-., etc." The i-'iit bel'.irc Neidli.'irt \v,is inserted obviously out of eourte.-v. I'-ir el-i where it appears thai .Mr. Ni i lhait did not use any title of nobili'v uu'il his SMU became an ollicer in 17MI. 122 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY worn-out mother was helped upon a peasant cart. Here she lay between life and death, holding to her breast the little baby boy conceived in shame, born in sor- row, and dedicated to a pauper's career. But in that dreadful night of jolting over bad roads her little strength gave way. The baby slipped from her exhausted arms, and was picked up by a warm- hearted grenadier just as an artillery piece was about grinding it into the mud. The mother died in a few days from the birth of this child. "\Ve do not know who closed her eyes; whether even her parents were informed of the fact that they had a little grandson. At any rate, the baby was handed over by his fa- ther to some people in a village through which the de- feated Austrian army happened to pass. A small sum of mono}' was given with the child, along with the prom- ise that the father would soon return. The money was soon used up, but no father returned. Little Gneisenau knew neither mother nor father, nor even where his early days were spent, lie ran about ragged and barefoot, was fed upon black bread, and his foster parents tolerated him because he was a healthy, useful lad, who could watch their Ilock of geese. One day a beggar passed the little goose-herd and asked him for a piece of bread. Gneisenau had none had, in fact, nothing to give save a praver-book. which bv some o i* strange accident had been left with the child along with the rest of the mother's scant wardrobe. The child of course did not then know the difference between the prayer-book and any other, and so offered it to the beg- gar, who took it into the village and tried to exchange it for bread. l!ut the first tradesman to whom he offered the book suspected him of having stolen it. sei/.ed it, and SOMETHING AHOUT GNEISENAU'S EARLY STRUGGLES 123 brought it back to the foster parents, who rewarded Gneisenau's generosity by a cruel Hogging. The prayer- book was the means of identifying the child's grandfather. A local tailor was touched by the cruel treatment poor little Gneisenau endured, and one day, at his own ex- pense, set olF on a long journey to Wiirzburg to discover the parents of the mother who had given birth to a son in Schildau. Let us hope that the tailor's story melted the hearts of the good people, who no doubt heard for the iirst time the sad fate of the daughter whom they had dis- owned. At any rate, they resolved to do something for their goose-herding grandson. So one line day a carriage, more grand than any that Gneisenau had ever seen, drew up beside the goose-green, and a ilunky in gorgeous livery told the people that he had come with orders from the grandparents in \Viliv. burg to bring the child to them. Tin. 4 little ragged goose-herd thought he was playing a part in a fairy tale, lie wanted the Ilunky to sit inside the carriage while he climbed upon the box, and could not understand that so showv an individual was merely a servant, while he, in his dirt and ra^s. was a person of rank and authority. The fact that no member of the family came in person to look- up the little uTandchiM suggests that < incise nan's rescue was dictated rather by feelings of duty than bv ail'ectioii for a daughter who had brought shame upon them. In Wiir/.buru' his life was not happv. He \vas sent to a ( 'at hoi ic school, for his mother had been of that church, although his fat her was Lutheran. Ill after-vears lie re- called with bitterness that his Uoman Catholic teachers had outraged his childish feelings by addressing him as " Lut heran do' r ." 124 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY AVe arc seeking for some trace of sunshine in the early years of this child, and find nothing but sorrow. His education seems to have been in the hands of heartless and narrow -minded priests, and what he learned was from such books as fell in his way by happy accident. Xext to the christening, the first authentic entry re- garding our hero is on October 1, 1777, in the books of Erfurt University, where his name reads: Antonius AWM'//v//, Torgamensis. This entry, like that other of Schildau, is full of suggestion. In the christening the name is Xc'lliart, showing that he could not have known of this register, or he would have been more particular on so serious an occasion as that of becoming a student of philosophy. At Erfurt he is called simply Antonius ; at Schildauhe was christened August Wilhelm Antonius. There is no suggestion in this entry that the young stu- dent or his father affected noble rank or had ever dreamed of the name Gneisenau. The lad was not quite seven- teen years old when he entered, and did not remain more than a year. His father had married and settled here with Gneisenau' s step-mother, lie had some occupation as civil engineer. But we have no evidence that either he, his wife, or their children ever contributed anything but discomfort to the young student. It is significant that in Erfurt Gneisenau did not live with his father. In 1 77S he became a soldier in the Austrian army, which was then preparing for war with Prussia. But the war- cloud passed, the troops were disbanded, and Gneisenau found himself again without money or employment. His university course had been cut short probably for want of money: but short as it was, it could not have failed in strengthening for good a character so singular- ly frank and receptive as young Gneisenau's. It was then, as in earlv time's, when Luther lived there as a SOMETHING ABOUT GXEISEXAu's EARLY STRUGGLES 12.") monk, 11 battle-ground for Protestant and Papist. It was at the centre of (ionium movement in letters and politics, and here for the lirst time Gneisenau was able to shake off the unhappy results of his clerical training in Wiir/burg, and to taste of the strengthening knowledge furnished by vigorous men of liberal training in north- ern (iermany. From leaving Erfurt Gneisenau became a professional soldier, yet, thanks to the influence of this short year as a 7^/v/^/vV^.sv.v, he preserved throughout his long and active military career a certain breadth of judgment that distinguished him from the average man of his class. In 17 s ". at the age of twenty, we lirst hear of our hero as a "nobleman" bearing the name he since made fa- mous. He then entered the service of a petty German prince who was hiring his troops out to George III. for the purpose of quelling the revolutionary spirit in the American colonies. In those days none but ollicers were considered men of honor, and only a"noble " could make a career as otiicer. The young citizen of Schildau felt therefore constrained to supplement his patronymic bv von Gneisenau, a name suggested bv some shadowv connection between some member of his famil v and some castle of that name some- where. Fortunately the College of Heralds was not over-particular, and no one in his regiment cared to raise tiic question. Gneisenau's verv obscuritv was his best protection. I Ie did not himself know when or where he was born ; there was no one to tell tales about him : he was bound for t IK; wilderness of t he Xew World, and this step was to be a, totallv new departure. Gneisenaii had no more interest in the questions at issue than the many West 1'oiut. graduates who have sought active service, since our civil war. in Firvpt, 126 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY Turkey, China, or South America. The soldier can only perfect himself at his trade by constant practice, and must take employment when he can find it. From the soldier's standpoint there is not much difference between Steuben, who enlisted under Washington, and Gneisenau, who went out in the pay of George III. Both went to get practice in their handicraft and as much salary as possible. Gneisenau was on the losing side, and was not heard of ; Steuben had better luck, and is now quoted in American school-books as a shining example of disinter- ested patriotism. After the surrender of Yorktown Gneisenau returned, much wiser for his American trip. lie prepared an exhaustive paper, setting forth the modifications he deemed necessary in order to profit by the lessons taught in the American war. This paper earned him the reputation of being a dangerous character, and the authorities of this little German principality looked askance at him. But Frederick the Great had his eve on this voung f *. O firebrand, and called him to Potsdam. lie was well received, and in 1TS5 he entered the Prussian service, and began to drill the light infantry in skirmishing tactics. And so Gneisenau became definitely a Prussian. lie commenced life as a Saxon by birth, for Schildau had not then passed into Prussian hands. His school years he spent in Win 1 / burg, a centre of Catholicism in south Germany: as a student he matriculated in the princi- pality of Mainz, to which Erfurt then belonged ; he then bee-aim' Austrian soldier; at the Peace he entered the Army of Ansbach-Baireuth, and in 1785 he for the first time, and at the age of twenty-five, became subject to the monaivliv in whose armv he became field-marshal SOMETHING AKOUT GNEISENAu's EARLY STRUGGLES 127 and count. Few men at t wenty-five can say that they have shifted their citi/.enship half a dozen times. Frederick the Great died the year after Gneisenau entered his service; and with him died, for Prussia, all hope of a military reorganization in the sense of Gnei- senau. Ten years of inactive garrison service, marriage at the age of thirty-six, then ten more years of routijie military life, and at last we reach the year of Jena, ism;, of these twenty -six years as a soldier, Gneisenau spent many in bitter want ; his resources were at times so low that in cold weather he lay in bed because he could not afford a lire, lie had apparently very bad luck through- out, as though Providence meant to thwart his military ambition. His enlistment at Erfurt was followed by pro- found peace : he sailed to America just in time for another peace; he entered the Prussian army just before the great King's death : the Prussian wars from IT'.'-I to 1T1 (> > did not call his company out, and even the battle of Jena gave him no chance for anything but a trifling skirmish four days before the great event. Gncisenau in all these forty-seven years that preceded his appointment as military governor of Colberg had not only never been in battle, he had never enjoyed any regular military education, in the modern sense of the tv 128 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY leading her armies to victory after they had been led to defeat and shame. !No man is the worse for good blood and thorough education ; but disaster is sure to overtake a state which holds that the great body of the people is insensible to patriotism, courage, and civic virtue. The years of servile torment which Germany endured at the hands of Xapoleon after the battle of Jena should make this lesson precious to her, as to all free peoples. XIV SCIIARXIIORST MAKES A NEW ARMY "Where is the German's fatherland V Xame me at, length that mighty land ! ' Where'er resounds the German tongue, "Where'er its hymns to God are sung.' Be this the land, Brave German, this thy fatherland '." Arndt, "Des Deutschen Vuterlaud." X.Yi'or.Kox left Tilsit for Paris on July 9, 1807, de- lighted with his many triumphs, lie had taken from Prussia all her land west of the Elbe; had reduced her population from ten to live millions; had changed the Czar Alexander from an enemy into an enthusiastic friend ; had estranged Russia, and Prussia by giving the Czar parts of Poland which formerly belonged to Prus- sia: he had offered Frederick AYilliam many personal slights, and had capped his triumphs by receiving Queen Luise as a suppliant and sending her back empty-handed. And all this was don* 1 when Frederick the (ireat had been dead only twenty years.''- Xo wonder Napoleon ~ : " On July '.M, lsi7, Ilntcliinsnn reported to the British government thai lie had in vain sought to discover the terms of the Tilsit treatv ; that the I'ru-Man King's minister had given him an evasive answer on the suhj'-et , "and says that, the conditions of t lie treaty are so degrad- ing to I'ru-Ma that lie is a-hamed to give them to the world." This is the testimonv of a friend, for it was this same Ilutehinson who on January '.'S 1 s n?, signed the treaty of peace between Knuland and I'ru^ia, K:ig!and paying L'.jiH 1,111 HI by way of subsidy. I. '.i 130 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY felt that his destinies were guided by a star of good fortune ! Alexander left Tilsit for St. Petersburg quite as happy as Napoleon, for he had secured an alliance with France which promised him the conquest of India and anything else he might covet to the eastward. The official papers of .Russia made the people rejoice by announcing that their Czar had added largely to the empire by annexing land which was formerly Prussian. Queen Luise left Tilsit for Memel with a broken heart. She had, indeed, suffered as only a highly bred woman can suffer. From our point of view she deserves our sympathy vastly more than her royal husband ; for she had endured not merely all that he had endured, but she had endured him into the bargain. The treaty of Tilsit left Frederick William on the throne, but left him hardly means enough to keep it in repair." lie was called upon to pay a war indemnity amounting ultimately to one milliard of francs, and was told that so long as it remained unpaid Napoleon would keep his troops quartered in the country. Now to pay such an amount of money was wholly out of the ques- tion, and Napoleon knew it. lie did not wish the money paid at all. lie much preferred to have his troops quar- '- In the London Record O.Ticc is a despatch from Garlicke, the Brit- ish agent at Memel, dated August 26, 1807, in which he states tiiat the King of Prussia desired of England the loan of one million sterling this, too, at a moment when Prussia was in close alliance with Fiance agninst England. On the clay following the same agent reported that Frederick William III. entertained the notion of joining Napoleon's Rhine Confederation, in which case England's million wouitl have been a gift to Napoleon rather than a loan to Prussia. Instances might be multiplied to show that in these dark days Prussia lost much support because of the dishonesty of her professions towards friends as well as enemies. SCHARNIIORST MAKES A NEW ARMY 131 tercel in Prussia indefinitely, thus making sure that no neu* war could threaten him there. These troops were, of course, available in the event of war with liussia or Austria ; and so long as they cost him nothing to main- tain, it was an arrangement highly satisfactory to the French treasury. So the Prussian King had, in 1S07, two alternatives to face either to remain a captive in his own kingdom, or to buy his liberation at a price he knew not how to pay. lie could not go back to I>erlin, for all that part of Prussia was garrisoned by Frenchmen, lie could not start the machinery of his government on the old lines, for so much of it had been smashed that it would no longer work. Prussia might have earned some- thing by foreign commerce, but Xapoleon forbade any trade with England. This meant that he should trade with no one, for England had complete control of the sea. The situation was desperate from every point of vie\v, but mainly from the fact that there was no money to run the government, and no sources of revenue in anv way adequate. It was only when the Prussian King found that the C/ar had deserted him, and that he was on the brink of bankruptcy or abdication, that he allowed himself to be persuaded into something like a reasonable course of action.'-' ''' Tin- Hriti.-h auent in Memel wrote on XoveinhL'r !>, IMI?, to his L'ovcrninent that after Dint hud made a (k'maml on Prussia Cor Uiu three fortresses, Stettin, Ki'i-'ri:), and (Jloirau. a treaty was ahoiit to l- lei in fur ( Ira I id en/, and ( 'oilier^, " in -lu. (Midi, with a proportion of horses, forage, iiinniunit ion, pay, and C 1 o 1 1 1 i 1 1 iT . 132 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY In these dark days succeeding the Peace of Tilsit the distracted and humiliated King gave his sanction to measures which six months before he would have treated as revolutionary. There is no evidence that he himself was the author of any of the good laws passed at this time, and there is abundant evidence that he did all that was possible to nullify their wholesome object. That Prussia was saved from complete absorption after Tilsit is owing : 1. To Xapoleon, who completely exposed the rotten state of the military and civil administration. 2. To Queen Luise, who braced her husband in his moments of weakness, and who united about her the honest and capable men of Germany. The public sentiment of Prussia judged better than the King's courtly advisers, and this public sentiment was best represented by two men, neither of whom was Prussian by birth or education Stein and Scharnhorst. Stein abolished serfdom in Prussia ; Scharnhorst created " This demand has been accompanied by an estimate of the expense, amounting to 11,000,000 annually. "The whole Prussian army I am supposing the former establish- ment of 200,000 men was maintained for $17,000,000." J'^i'!,'", France demands for these 40,000 about two-thirds of what Prussia required for 250,000, "and something more than half of the actual revenue of Prussia, which is computed, the country being in her own hands, at 20,000,000. "But this is the military demand only. To these $11,000,000 are to be added about $4,000,000 for the annual discharge of the contri- butions, and $2.000,000 for other debts total, $17,000,000 and leav- ing $3, 000.000, or 000,000 sterling, for the revenues of the Prussian monarchy. "The insolent mockery of the proposition is equal to its cruelty, for if Prussia accepted tin; terms she must renounce even the forms of government. The Prussian ministers therefore say that they (the terms; will not be accepted. '' Record Olllce 3I^S., Garlickc to Can- ning. SCIIAUNIIOKST MAKES A NEW AIJMY 133 an arniv of citizens. Germans cannot feel too grateful that in such a crisis appeared t\vo men who loyally sup- ported one another; who sacrificed all they had to the country of their adoption ; who ignored the calumny which their enemies prepared for them; who dared to tell the truth to the King, and consequently never lived in courtly favor. Stein and Scharnhorst, the statesman and the soldier, both believed that Prussia could be regenerated only by calling in the people to a larger share in the government. Iloth held the belief that the monarch is strong only when he is supported by the whole people instead of by a privileged class. The King was ready to acknowledge that something was radically wrong when his officers became bywords for cowardice and incapacitv.' :: ~ Here is a picture, drawn by Scharnhorst. ft is that of a Prussian general who held a conspicuously high com- mand in the war : "He never inspected a regiment, never made a reconnoissance, knew nothing of the outposts excepting upon the map; his memorv and mental po\v ei's were so feeble that he was unable to form a pict- ure of geographical features and the relative position of troops. In campaigning, of even the mildest kind, he was totally incapable of taking command and conduct- ing the operations. lie was satisfied to take the opinion of any one." This was the seventy-year-old man who commanded * The extent t<> which the I'ni^an Ivinir trembled at the sound of Nap-l' "!i is reMectid iii th;- despatches of (Jarlicke, the Kimlish con- sul in Meine!. ( >:i November ',?.">, isu7, he wrote to (Jeorm- Cannim:: UN l'rn--ia!i Ma j>--ty has personally requested liu 1 to leave the coun- try. . ." "At t his moinriii," said Count (Jolt/, (the Kind's mini-ten, " I'ru^-i.'i can assert no opinion of her own. She must adopt those of France !" London Record Ollice MSS. 134 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the Prussian contingent at Eylau, and there were plenty more just like him. Such were the officers who, before Jena, listened complacently on the Potsdam parade- ground while the commanding general uttered these words : " Gentlemen, the army of His Majesty [Frederick William III.] can show many officers /"(^/y equal to Mon- sieur 'Bonaparte /'' A week after Tilsit (July IT, 1SOT) Scharnhorst was placed at the head of a military commission charged with inquiring into the state of the army. He was fifty- three years old, had just been made major-general, and was trusted by the King because he had helped Bliicher in rescuing some remnants of the army from Jena, and bringing them in safety over some two hundred and fifty miles of dangerous country. The King trusted Scharnhorst, but did not like him. lie had, however, no choice. So Scharnhorst, the son of a Hanoverian peasant, found himself, in 1SOT, sitting in judgment over hundreds of Prussian nobles, who had given strange proof of their chivalrous pretensions. Gneisenau was added to this commission, but so afraid was the King lest such men should bo too thorough that he al\v;iys managed to hamper them by adding members who represented the old army traditions and a dislike to change. The matter dragged on in this way until Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both became thoroughly dis- gusted with their King's behavior, and resigned. This frightened Frederick "\Villiam, however, and he promised solemnly that thenceforward he would deal honestly with them. So at last (January 31, ISUS), after six months of wasted time, the commission secured u majority in favor of reform. ()f course T omit the tedious details which filled these six months the intrigues of the court, the vacillation SCHAHN1IOKST MAKES A XKW ARMY l-'5j of the King, the angry protestations of the patriots, aiul the constant efforts of LuLse to keep her husband to his duty. And even after the commission hud a majority in favor of reform, Seliarnhorst found that the King took no direct personal interest in its work, luit obtained his knowledge of its proceedings through an adjutant, who persistently misrepresented the views of the patriots. Finally, with the help of Stein and (Jueen Luise, the King dispensed with this hostile in- termediary, and on May 1, 1SOS, did what should have been done at the outset appointed Scharn- horst to the task of explaining the Work of the com- mission. Here, therefore, we see that it took nearly a, year for the King to make up his mi ml to support a commission which he himself had created for the express purpose of inquiring into the administration of an army of which he was commander-in-chief. Nor is there any evidence that the King's obstruction was dictated by other motives than preference for courtiers and aver- sion to men of energy and honesty like Seliarnhorst, Gneisenau, and Stein. ~ :: " In n-ading the life of Washington I used to imagine that he was singularly handicapped in his command of the army by reason of the Continental Congress, which wasted precious time in debating. lint slow and weak as thai Congress was, it was a model of strength and swiftness compared with this Prussian monarch, whose will was law. The citi/.ens of a self-governing coimnu- nitv can gather a vast store of political courage bv 136 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY closely studying the ups and downs of Prussia under Frederick William III.* Scharnhprst now undertook to collect evidence throughout the armv regard ing the behavior of the O c/ O O , principal officers during tiie late war. Seven generals were condemned to death for cowardice or treachery but the King pardoned them all. The commission, in so far as the King was concerned, failed to punish the men whom it found guilty. But, nevertheless, it did a great good. It purged the army of much bad stuff, and when the war broke out again, in 1S13, only two generals received commands out of the hundred and forty-three who figured in 1800 and one of these gen- erals was, of course, old Bliicher. Xothing but lack of money could have made these reforms possible. Xapoleon cut down the Prussian army to 42,000 men, and the officers who had found places in the old army of 250,000 were now forced to look about elsewhere for work. Here was a capital excuse for getting rid of a large number of incapable men. and Scharnhorst was quick to discover merit in those who remained. Prussian officers in general had treated their defeats with some philosophy so long as their pay continued and the hope of revenge was alive; but when the ma- jority of thorn were turned adrift, and many of them * The German General von Verdy, who was on Moltkc's staff during the Franco - German war, noted the difficulty of making headway after the fall of Xapoleon III. and when the armies of the French Republic were commanded by Gambetta. It took only about four weeks of lighting to capture ^edan with 150,000 "regulars," but it required more than four months to subdue the raw levies of the re- public, even after the whole of the imperial army had been shipped into Germany as prisoners of war. Verdy du Vernois, Ini ^ruyscn 2Ia>ijit>]it7 the bulk' of the Prussian army regarded this measure as calculated to destroy ev- ery vestige of good in her corps of officers. 138 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY Another la\v was signed more willingly, namely, that the soldier should not be flogged for every offence, but should be treated humanely. This measure called forth universal condemnation amongst the old-school officers. They foresaw calamity. They would not understand ho\v men could be kept in order without Hogging them. Soldiers were flogged for every offence imagina- ble, and we have but too many witnesses to prove that officers of that day could treat their soldiers with cruelty equal to that which is chronicled in Uncle Tories Cabin. Scliarnhorst wished to make the army popular, and to do this he had to make it a career open to every citizen of good character. How could a lad be expected to en- list as a volunteer in an army where the privates were regarded as beasts and the officers as taskmasters ? These two little measures were signed about one year from the Treaty of Tilsit. They were very simple measures indeed, but from them have come all the sub- sequent army reforms which placed Germany in a posi- tion to light Xapoleon in 1813, and to maintain herself as the iirst military nation down to our day. The Ger- man army is strong in so far as it is democratic and draws its support from the whole nation. In so far as it seeks to form an aristocracy of its own, it reverts to the dangerous position it occupied before Jena. Since the King would hear nothing of universal ser- vice, and the army was not allowed to exceed 42,000, Scliarnhorst set to work quietly discharging men as soon as they had learned their duties, and filling their places immediately by others. In this way he managed, every month, to tarn five men out of every company. These were not, however, lost sight of. They were secretly looked after in their homes by officers who had been nominally retired, but actually drew small salaries, on SCIIAltXIIORST MAKES A NEW AKMV 139 the understanding that they should reside near the places where they were needed, and should drill these reserve soldiers from time to time. Here was the simple method by which Prussia, under the very noses of Xapoleon's spies, developed the reserve forces into a national militia capable of taking the iield at a moment's notice, fully equipped and commanded. This could never have been accomplished save under the pressure, of the .Napoleonic occupation, which roused amongst the people so much hatred :igainst France that patriotism was kindled where it hail scarcely been known before. Scharnhorst had won the people's con- lidence. The soldier was no longer a despised creat- ure; he had become a citi/en representing German lib- ertv. lie was now ;;s popular as he had before been shunned.* Prussia soon had all the well-drilled soldiers she needed, but had no money to pay for muskets, cannon, horses, ammunition, clothing, and the many costly things needed for an army. Hut Scharnhorst set to work me- thodically and persistently, and soon, little by little, the losses of the war began to be made 1 good. Pikes wore seriouslv treated, and an infantry was drilled in their use : The accompanying cut is. from ;i photograph made under my siiper- vNion i'l'iiin the original by Ranch. A lirmi/.c ca>l of this stands 0:1 tin' ( >pera Place, IVrl;:i. Raueh was a per.-onal frinal to Cneiseiuui, and Lid a '' lUnduii t opportunity of studying him in Px-run in tlic Years lM'.i-.-">. \v!n -n (JiieiM-nau \vas Lroveninr i.f the capital. Ranch made this >t-iMie in !<"/>, and tiie hroii/.c was erected in 1S.V7. Uefon- the 1'ni^-iaii Ixinir. Frederielc ^Vilii.lm IV., \vas satisfied, Kaue'n had to make seven different sketch models in plaster, six of \vhieh. aliout twen'v i:,i-hes hiL'li. are r,o\v in the Ilaueh m;i~ei:m. I; \vas in \^\(t t'nai l!a':e!i returned from Home to take up his residi nee definitely in IJerii::. a:.d it ina\' lie a<-'.inn-d that he uas a frequent visij.ir of Gnei-enaii, who counted amonirst hi.-, fiieiii'.s Schinki ! a:..I Ileu'el and the leadi-r- of science and literature. I'. I!. 140 TUB GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY so long- as no muskets could be got. "We naturally re- call Benjamin Franklin's suggestion that the American troops of his day be armed with bows and arrows rather than not go to war. Loth measures emanated from men who believed that a people fighting for its inde- pendence cannot be conquered, whether its weapons be pikes, muskets, or bows and arrows. And, strange to say, the spirit of liberty in Germany was aroused first amongst the people who joined the national army cre- ated by Scharnhorst. XV SOMETHING ABOUT SCIIARXIIORST " Lk'ber nodi cine Schlacht verlorrn, nur nicht Schurnlmrst."* IJ Richer to Gneisonau, June -I), 1*1:5. SCIIAIINIIORST'S character was so pure, his aims so dis- interested, his purpose so definite, and his tact so infi- nite that we are constantly tempted to draw a parallel between him and Washington. lie was born in 175."), about fifteen miles northwest of Hanover town, in a little village called Hoi'denau. too small to be found on ordinary maps. Jle died in 1^1'], in the first battle of the war, at an equally inaccessible village called Gross Gorschen, where I could find no trace of any disposition to honor his memory, lie lies buried in I>erlin, in the so-called Invaliden Cemetery; a place ignored by travellers in general, and scarcely known (.-veil by Germans. It was on a beautiful morn- ing in August that I made my pilgrimage to this inter- esting 1 spot. I was quite alone during the hour that I s}cnt there, and was told that verv few people come to this place. Trees waved their branches over his monu- ment, which is in everv wav worthv of the man whom it seeks to honor. It is a massive marble block, on which lies a slumbering lion, cast in iron. Gravevards are not often interesting, but this one is a notable exception. 143 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY The only ancestor of whom Scharnhorst had any knowledge was his peasant grandfather. His own father behaved somewhat after the manner of Gneisenau's. He courted the daughter of a village magnate, who rave o o o o him a flat JTo when he offered himself as son-in-law. The daughter, however, helped matters considerably by presenting the would-be son-in-law with a child. In consequence, the marriage was solemnized, and the first born in lawful wedlock was our hero. From the standpoint of social conventions, there is little choice between the mothers of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, although the Hanoverian peasant had the advantage of knowing that he was born legitimately as the little church of Bordenau testifies to this day. Like Gneisenau, Scharnhorst had a rough time of it in childhood. He had no schooling to speak of, and spent his time chiefly in driving the cows to and from pasture. AYhen Scharnhorst was seventeen years old, his father, who had by a lucky stroke of fortune come into some property, made up his mind that one of his children at least should become an officer and thus raise the whole family in the social scale. Xow, the education of Scharnhorst had been as frair- 7 O mentary as that of Gneisenau, and neither could pos- sibly have passed serious examinations. But it so hap- pened that the reigning grandee near by had indulged in the luxury of founding a German West Point on a tiny island in the midst of a great lake not six miles from Bordenau.* It was \vitli i_ r reat difficulty Iliat I managed to get upon this little island, cal.rd Fort William (Wilktli/ttfixt), for the nearest village is five miles frmu the present railway ; there is no regular ferry to the island, and the good peasant \\l\o liually did row me over had much SOMETHING A15OUT SCIIAKNIIOKST 143 This strange little "West Point was founded in 1770, and ceased to exist in 1777. The whole island is scarce- ly as big as a modern man-of-war, and nearly the whole surface is occupied ly 'a miniature fortress. There is less room for parade-ground and gymnastic exercise than on an Atlantic steamer, and life there must have been singularly dull, even to a peasant. The school died with its patron; but it must have done so in any event, for fe\v lads could have survived the bad sanitary conditions of this highly eccentric place. This island school had diiliculty in securing twelve pupils, and no doubt to this eagerness of its patron must we attribute the fact that so ill-equipped a young- ster as Scharnhorst was admitted at all. This place is interesting to us because it was in its dav not merelv the first, but for manv vears the only, i * * / ' artillery school in Germany. The patron was a dis- tinguished soldier, and the course of study excellent and very practical. Scharnhorst, at any rate, held his military Alma Mater in grateful memory, and within its walls one is shown drawings which he had made in his cadet days. The formal oath of allegiance, which he? signed on entering his little "West Point, says : ' 1. Gerhard .lohann David Scharnhoist. about to enter the artillery and engineer corps iu the service of the Serene Master Lord "William, ruling Count of Schaumburg, noble Master and Count of Lippe and Sternburg. Knight of the Royal Prussian Grand Order of the r.laek Kagle, Coininander-in-(.'hief of the Armies of His Most Faithful Majesty the King of Portugal and Alu'arbia, as well as // ,1 ///,-/ * of His Uoval Maiestvof 144 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY Great Britain ; General Field Marshal of His Princely Serenity of Brunswick-Liineburg "Promise, in lieu of oath, that I will not resign from this service within ten years from the date of undertaking its obligations. And should I at any future time resign from the service of the Serene Master Lord William, ruling Count of Schaumburg, etc., I promise never, directly nor indirectly, in any way to serve against His Serenity and his territories, or against such powers as the said master may have as allies, or who may be in the service of his most high person/' It is curious that the name of Scharnhorst appears three times on the same page, but in no two cases is the spelling identical. It will be also noted that while young Scharnhorst bound himself in the most severe manner, the noble patron undertook nothing, and in 1777 turned Scharnhorst out upon the world without even a commission. However, his reputation in the Wilhelmsfest had been so excellent that he almost immediately secured a com- mission in the Hanoverian service, under a general who greatly admired Count William, and who zealously sought to raise the standard of education among the younger officers. Scharnhorst was selected to teach in nearly every branch of military knowledge, including mathematics, drawing, artillery, fortification, history, and geography. The American war was then going on, and his gar- rison was in the way of the German regiment that marched to fight under the ilag of England, lie was in a good position to hear the tales brought home by fellow-officers, and was quick to see that there must be something wrong in Old -World tactics when veteran troops failed to hold their own against farmer lads SOMETHING ABOUT SCIIARNIIORST 145 fighting as volunteers under leaders of their o\vn choos- ing. Scharnhorst was so valuable as an instructor that lie c-ould not be spared for lighting in the New World, or he would no doubt, like Gneisenau, have embarked under the colors of George III. In 178:5, while the grand old Frederick was still alive, Scharnhorst was sent to South Germany and Vienna to make a report on artillery schools. On the journey he made some notes in Prussia, and was ama/.ed to dis- cover that Prussian troops could lire as rapidly as six times iu one minute. In 1 T'.'.'J Scharnhorst became captain, at the age of thirty-seven, and made his first campaign against the soldiers of the French Republic. Here is what he wrote to his wife after the first battle : "May God grant us soon peace! I am not made to bi> a soldier. I can bear danger; but the sight of inno- cent creatures near me groaning in their blood, the flames of burning villages kindled by men for their amusement, and the rest of the barbarity connected with general destruction all this puts me into rage and an unbearable state of mind." These are strange words in the mouth of a man who had been already twenty years apprenticed to the art of killing, and who was destined to lay the. foundation for a militarv svstem which has converted Europe into one vast cam}) of war. This inglorious campaign ( 1 T'.'i' l'~>) had precious lessons to teach, but fe\v were ready to irrasp them. France had sent half a million badly equipped, badly fed. and badlv drilled men into the field against a thor- oughly well prepared armv of twice that number. The population of France was twenty - live millions, that of the nations allied against 1-Yance seventy-four I. ID 146 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ions. The French were "raw levies," the Allies were "regulars"; yet the ragged republicans held their own, and secured an honorable peace after three years of lighting. This war broke out only ten years after the Peace of Yorktown, and men who had fought at Saratoga and Trenton were again in the ranks during the battles of this war. Scharnhorst remarked that these Hessian troops who had learned their fighting in the American war were vastly superior to the rest. But unfortunately for Germany, her kings, princes, and ruling men generally regarded republics as so thor- oughly wicked that no reformer dared quote republican example in preaching the new art of war. It is strange that while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both thorough- ]y appreciated the lessons taught by the war in Amer- ica, there is no evidence in their communications to the King that such a war ever took place. Frederick AVilliam III. regarded the American campaigns as of importance equalling but not exceeding a jungle squab- ble between two handfuls of blacks in some remote part of the East Indies. Xor must it be lost sight of that Xapoleon was spared the necessity of creating an army when he returned from Egypt. He placed himself at the head of troops who had learned the art of war in the best of schools three years of lighting. In IS'il. Scharnhorst received from London the per- mission he sought to leave the service of George III. and enter that of Frederick William III. This step shows us conclusively that he at least had no -suspicion of the real state of Prussia, or that, if he had, he preferred it to that of Hanover. After plena there were very many wise soldiers to explain how it all happened ; but it is SOMETHING ABOUT SCHAUMIORST 147 odd that up to the eve of the catastrophe not even Gneisenau or Scharnhorst saw what was coining. They disapprove! I of many things in detail, but of course no one but the King was in a position to inspect the whole machinery of the army and say what was or was not wanting. Scharnhorst was relieved of his Hanoverian allegiance without a single mark of regret from above. Two years afterwards the French took" charge of the place, and thus lixed their troops in the heart of North Germany, with- in two days' marching from Magdeburg, five from .Ber- lin, seven from Stettin, next door to Denmark, and sepa- rated from Sweden only by the duchy of Mecklenburg. This was a menace, not to any one German state in particular, bur to all of them. Germans, at this stage of Napoleonic development, began to forget their local jealousies and quarrels, for they were face to face with an enemy who menaced them all alike. J'russia.as the big brother of the North-German family, was looked to for assistance and leadership, but Frederick William III. had not the courage or political sense to do his dutv. Can we be surprised that even Germans were dissatis- lied with a definition of monarchy that required them to surrender the proud position they had held under Frederick the Great '. So long as the French fought for their country and for liberty thev had the sympathy of Grrmanv. Hut when Napoleon showed that his object was tit subjugate the nations he conquered, and to win mere military glorv. Kurope took alarm. 1'atriots in every corner of Ger- many ceased to be Saxon. Mecklenburg, or even Prussian thev began to use tin' word (i tlie cost of maintaining it was less than six millions of thalers, or about four and a half million dollars. This is the smallest army a Prussian king ever had, and the comparison with the present military budget of the Ger- man empire is amusing if not instructive. In IS 10 Queen Luise died. and with her seemed to pass away all hope for Prussia; for in 1S11 Napoleon forced her husband to place the Prussian army in his hands for the campaign against his former ally, Alexander. And while Frederick William was signing away his country to the French, Scharnhorst was on a secret mission to St. Petersburg, bearing to Alexander vows of unaltera- ble friendship from the Prussian King. On May llth lie wrote to Alexander: "Rest assured that in the deal- ings between myself and France nothing shall be under- taken against Russia." On July Kith, same year (isilj, he writes again to Alexander: " I voluntarilv bind invsell', in the event of a war between France and Russia, to support no other cause but yours!" All the while he was negotiating with Napoleon a treaty pledging Prussia to make com- mon cause, with France in an invasion of Russia. As late as this year he rejected a^ain every proposal for a national Prussian army, and the recruiting was done by the same clunisv means as in IT'.'i'. Every now and then between l^or.niid isl.'J we seem to have reachrd a point In-low which no nation could possibly sink", yet Frederick William somehow or other 150 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY usual]}' managed to find a level lower still. In 1811 he obeyed Xapoleon as though he were in French pay. On September 2<>tli he ordered all work stopped on the forts of Colberg and Spandau. On October 7th he obeved again, and ordered the disarmament in Prussia . o to be more strictly observed. On October 10th Napo- leon ordered him to dismiss Bliicher from the Prussian service, and it was done. On October 22d the King authorized French officers to make a formal inspection of his garrison and forts, in order to satisfy Napoleon that his orders had been obeyed. Each of these events would justify a nation in cele- brating its anniversary with fasting and mourning but they were too many.* In January of 1812 French troops marched into Pom- erania; in March 15,000 more marched from Magde- burg to Brandenburg ; on the 5th of March Frederick William joined his 20,000 Prussians to the columns of Napoleon, and the French army swallowed up what there was left of the army of the Great Frederick". Gneisenau could not stand this, and he too left the Prussian ser- * Hutchinson reported to his government from Memel, under date of January 9. 1807: " Count (xie) Stein, the only man of real talents in the administration, resigned or was dismissed two days ago. It seems that the expenses of Bonaparte's table and household at Berlin were defrayed, before and after the negotiations for an armistice, by the King of Prussia. Since that period, 1 believe, not many days ago, one of the ministers still resident at Berlin called upon Stein, who was Chief of the Finances, to pay 300,000 crowns on the same account. Stein refused, witli strong expressions of indignation. The King >poke to him on the subject. He remonstrated with His Majesty in the mosl forcible terms, descanted on the wretched humiliation of Mich mean conduct, and said that he never could pay money on such an ac- count unless he had the order in writing from His Majesty which was u'ivcn a few days after this conversation took place." MSS. Lon- don Keeord Ollice. SOMETHING ABOUT SCIIAKXIIOKST 151 vice. "Many Prussians sought employment against the French by entering the army of Wellington; but in July, 1M-J. Frederick William sent out a sharp edict against such of his officers who should dare to engage against France -threatening even deatli in some cases. Throughout isll Prussia in word and deed acted as a conquered province of France. Xo Prussian was allowed in office whom Napoleon did not desire ; no measure was adopted by the King without iirst consult- ing the French. In .June of that year Napoleon had 7s. i too men and DOOM officers quartered in Prussia, and in every respect used her exactly as suited his momen- tary purpose. Put on October I'.Hh Xapolcon began his retreat from Moscow. The news reached Perl in on November 1-Mh. and on December 14th. with the thermometer fif- teen degrees below xero. news reached Preslau that Napoleon had passed (ilogau in his flight from Pussia to Paris. And now Scharnhorst threw aside his mask. XYI THE PRINCES OF GERMANY PAY COURT TO NAPOLEON AT ERFURT "Let all that glows, let all ye can, In flames surge high and bright ! Ye Germans all, come, man for man, And. for your country fight ! Now raise your heart to Heaven's span, Stretch forth j-our hands on high ; And cry with shouting, man for man, Now slavery sliall die!" Arndt, " Yaterlandslied." ALREADY, on January 1-i, 1SOS, six months after em- barking on the raft in the river Memel, Napoleon sent word to Alexander that he wanted to dismember Prus- sia still further that ' Silesia is the only compensation he can entertain'' (Champagny to Caulaincourt).* On February 20th the Czar sent back word that his * Tolstoy, the Russian ambassador, had an interview with Napoleon on November 7, 1807. He pleaded that the Czar desired the accom- plishment of the Treaty of Tilsit, and complained that Napoleon did not keep his word did not evacuate the country. lie painted the pitiful distress of Frederick William III. Napoleon became angry, and said : " You do wrong in bothering about him. You will see him play you a sharp trick yet." He promised to evacuate the country, but added : "Such things cannot be done in a hurry. You cannot remove an army as you take a pinch of snuff." Napoleon offered Russia the Danubian principalities, and when asked by Tolstoy at what price : "Eh bien ! C'est en Prusse '' that he would iind compensation. That meant that Russia should take still more land from Prussia ! PRINCES (F GEHMANY 1'AV COURT TO NAPOLEON 153 "honor" would not allow him to sacrifice Prussia any more. " ('< * n* la those poor devils over there keep writing to me, importuning me, driving me to despair." Thus Alexander referred to his dear friend the Prussian King as an importunate relative. " They are not able to get a square meal ; I am speak- ing literally. . . . You wish to take one of their prov- inces. AVill you release them then from the war contri- butions they owe you '. It is a ruined country." AYe note here that Alexander knew the full extent of the misery he had inflicted upon his Prussian ally by deserting her at Tilsit. AVe shall see later that he ob- jected to Napoleon's absorbing Silesia, not because it would be unjust to Prussia, but because he feared Na- poleon as a near neighbor On Fohruarv -_\ IN is, Na- poleon sent to his ambassador in St. Petersburg a letter which was spread in part before the C/ar. and which gave him great pleasure. It is the only letter of Na- poleon's on this matter that has come down to us, the reason being that this one was copied into the Russian archives, while the other papers in the embassy in gen- eral were destroyed at "Wilna in lsl-j to prevent their falling into the hands of Prussia. " lie sure to tell the (V.ar," writes the C'orsican master of falsehood, "that everv thing that he wishes 1 also wish ; that my system is inseparable from his; that we can never interfere with one another, because the earth is big enough for both." As events proved, however, this earth was not big- enough for both. Alexander wanted Koumania, and Napoleon wanted Silesia.'"" Kach thwarted the other's l:i Silrsir lui fu! rtMir." Pns- 154 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY wish. Koumania has since achieved independence under a Ilohen/.ollern, and Silesia has done the same. Napoleon continued his tale of flattery by saying : " I am not far from contemplating an expedition to the East Indies and the partition of the Ottoman Empire. And for this purpose there should be an army of 20,000 to 25,000 Russians, 8000 to 10,000 Austrians, and !'>5,000 to 40,000 French marched into Asia, and thence into India. Nothing could be easier than this expedition. It is quite clear that before this army reached the Euphrates, Eng- land would be seized with terror." But Napoleon said he must have an interview with the Czar before deciding further. That is, Napo- leon used the Indian scheme as a bait to draw the Czar to him, believing that when once together with him he could succeed in his plans for dismembering 1 O Prussia. " If the Czar Alexander can come to Paris he will make me very happy; it will be the happiest day of my life. If he can come but half-way, place the dividers on the map, and take the half-way point between Petersburg and Paris. With energy and iirmness, therefore, we will bring our two empires up to the highest level of gran- deur. . . . What matters the rest ?" This is one of the most remarkable documents in his- tory the words of a man mad with success, who airily talks of dividing the world as thieves share their booty. Not one word in the letter breathes of justice, or any higher law than physical force. lie encourages Alex- ander to conquer all Sweden, and not rest content with Finland alone. Alexander was delighted with Napoleon's programme. Instead of indignantly protesting against the French- man's constant quartering of troops in Prussia, he wrote PRINCES OF GERMANY PAY COURT TO NAPOLEON 105 to him on March 1^. 1SOS, a letter containing such words ;is these : Monsieur mon fivre, Your Majesty's letter of Feb- ruary second carries me back to the days of Tilsit, the menu try of which will ever remain so tender to me. In reading it I seemed to be once more in the enjoyment of the hours that we passed together, and cannot snUi- ciently express to your Majesty the pleasure they gave me/' * In reading this letter we must bear in mind that Alex- ander was at the same time protesting ardent affection for the Prussian King, at whose expense he and Napo- leon had been enjoying themselves so fully. "The views of your .Majesty appear to me no less glorious than just," continued the Muscovite flatterer. " It has been reserved to a genius so lofty as yours to conceive so vast a plan. ... I offer you an armv for the expedition against India, and another to assist in sei/ing and holding the intermediate posts in Asia Minor. At the same time, I am writing to the different com- manders of my fleet to place themselves entirely at your Majesty's orders." In the midst of a few more bits of flatterv, the (V.ar names Frfurt as the place of meet- ing Napoleon, "///// tn'o '/>t v's trood brother, Alexander." 156 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY So these two imperial highwaymen started from their respective capitals to meet a second time. Erfurt has figured before in this story by reason of its nearness to Jena, and as the university town where Gneisenau studied, before entering the Austrian army as a lad of seventeen. Napoleon went to Erfurt because he felt confident that he could gain control of Alexander through personal contact. lie regarded the Russian as an impetuous and chivalrous nature, whom he could readily dazzle by dreams of Eastern conquest. And Alexander pretended to be dazzled. But under this pretence lurked a large amount of Oriental cunning quite equal to that of the Corsican. Four full-fledged kings and several dozen princes, who were dependent upon Napoleon, also came to Erfurt, and made a very brilliant picture to look at. Napoleon ordered his theatre from Paris, and promised his actors a '' parterre of kings.'' Those were wonderful days in Erfurt a vast display of power for the purpose of dazzling Europe in general, and Alexander in par- ticular. A Prussian general who was officially present (Muf- fling, page 25) records that one day Napoleon took Alex- ander to a grand review near Erfurt, the troops parad- ing being such as were returning to France from the battle-fields of East Prussia: ' Arrived on the field, Napoleon put spurs to his gray and galloped down the front, leaving the Czar to follow on a Napoleonic horse, with much the appearance of an adjutant. ' When the regiment was massed, Napoleon called out. Lcs braves en avant !' (The brave men step for- ward !i. at which a number of officers, non-commissioned PKINCKS OF GERMANY PAY COURT TO NAPOLEOX 137 olHcers, and privates came out of the line and formed a semicircle. " Napoleon dismounted, and invited the Czar to stand at his right. On his left stood the Prince of Xeuchatel with a note-book. The remainder of the semicircle was closed by the princes and their suites. * The regimental commander called each one bv name, O ' and presented him separately to Napoleon, who there- upon asked him where and in what manner he had dis- tinguished himself." i\ow, the particular regiment selected had distin- guished itself mainly by killing a great many of Alex- ander's subjects at .Friedland. This one had killed three liussians with his own sword, that one had captured a liussian Hag, the other had driven a Russian battalion into the river and seen them drown, and so on through a list of glorious deeds at the expense of liussians. The Czar had to listen to all this with the air of one who rather enjoyed it; but he remembered this in 1*12, while his Cossacks were pursuing halt'- frozen Frenchmen from the Heresina to the Memel. " To the honor of Frenchmen,'' wrote the Prussian general who was present, "many of them showed that they did not approve of their master's behavior." it is indeed strange that Napoleon, with all his clever- ness in diplomacy, should have been guilty of several conspicuous acts of tactless brutality such as the one above recorded brutality by which he lost very much, and gained nothing. For instance, during these Frfurt days he invited his roval guests to shoot hares with him over the battle- field of -lena.' ;: ' His guests were mainly (ierman princes. * T;iik'Yrui,<.l. .'/<'//< "quier, i., 341, notes with contempt the "incredible- obsequious- ness" of the German princes who paid court to Xapoleon at .Erfurt chid' among them the one who proposed a day of sport on the Held of .Jena. PRIXCES OF GERMANY PAY COURT TO NAl'Ol.KoX 159 their King in it, their purpose gave way. and Napoleon escaped. And vet, in the eyes of Prussia, who was the more deserving of punishment. Napoleon, who fought, con- (|iici'('d. and oppressed a warlike nation, or the prince of that nation \vlio. in the midst of that oppression, goes out for a day's shooting over the battle-iield where German liberty was lost '. Napoleon was such a bad shot, however, that he nearly accomplished with his own hands what the student assassins shrank from. When the game was driven at him he iired right and left, at the risk of hit- ting indifferently a king, a rabbit, or a field-marshal. Luckily for his suite, they had been provided with rifle- pits, into which they carefully crept when their master pointed his gun in that direction. When the day's sport was over, and it was reported that none of the guests had been killed or wounded, the master of ceremonies gave a sigh of happiness, and said. "God be thanked for His mercy!" When young Gneisenau was a student. Erfurt was a town of the German Empire, garrisoned by Austrian troops. After Jena it received a French garrison, and therefore in 1 SOS Napoleon was entertaining the princes of Europe within his own territories, and at the very centre of Germany. Such as have studied Napoleon closely will have noted the gradual assumption by him of attributes be- longing to an emperor with pretensions far bevond 1'Yance. On taking the imperial crown, in F s "|, he at oner set about copviu^ cioselv evei'v t liing that could revive in his person the traditions of Charlemagne. In Erfurt he was therefore imt merely Emperor of France, but Emperor of the Germans as well. 160 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY He called to him from neighboring Weimar Ger- many's great poet Goethe, and accorded him an audi- ence longer and more intimate than he had vouchsafed to many a royal suppliant. lie invited him to Paris, and mapped out for him new fields for literary effort. For instance, he told Goethe that the character of Cirsar had not yet been properly done for the stage ; that the poet should show the world how happy it might have been had Ca?sar lived to carry out his vast plans. In other words, Monsieur de Gueute, as Xapoleon pro- nounced his name, was invited to assure his German, readers that Xapoleon was doing the very best thing for Europe by ruling it after his own fashion, and that for any nation to take up arms against France was more than folly it was rebellion and treason. Goethe sneered at German patriotism from an honest belief that Xapoleon was right and invincible. lie may have commenced his tragedy of Ca?sar on the Xapole- onic plan ; but if he did, he probably felt ashamed of himself when its great prototype melted away witli his army and his imperial pretensions. Xapoleon knew that Weimar was called the German Athens, and out of compliment to this sentiment allowed his Parisian players to give there a performance of Vol- taire's ' ; Ciesar/' This play was forbidden in Paris, but could do no harm in Germany, thought Xapoleon, who was fond of saying that Germans were always contented if they had a cellar full of potatoes. At the end of the first act these words are put in the mouth of Ca?sar, and were pointedly spoken by the great Talma : " Allons, u'ecoutons point ui soup^ons ni vengeance, Sur I'univers soumis rugnoiis saus violence." These words, spoken to German princes at the centre 1'KINCKS OF GKKMANY 1'AY COL'KT To XAI'OI.KOX 101 of Germany in 1*0$, might bo expected to recall the uiurcler of John Palm, of Nuremberg, and the daily acts of violence towards Prussia. P>ut no. The audi- ence rose as one man, and these German princes gave their master a round of applause. The history of these days is crowded with the dra- matic doings of monarchs of all degrees, and we are in danger of forgetting that there lived at that time in Germany many millions of educated and patriotic citi- zens who did not rise to applaud the conqueror with his iron heel on the neck of their country. They heard about the doings at Erfurt as honest people hear of vast fortunes acquired by rogues as something permitted by an inscrutable Providence, but in no way to be re- garded as part of the divine scheme. In every hamlet of Germany children were training to prepare for the coming struggle, which was to determine not merely whether Germans are one people, but also whether they were to be led like sheep by princes who ha-d made patriotism a term too vulgar for courtly ears. .Nor did the people of Germany know a tithe of their shame. In this year their kinsmen in Austria were arming in defence of their independence, and Prussians clamored for the right to help them against the common enemy. One Prussian nobleman went so far as to pub- lish his opinion that a nation has a right to light for independence even without the consent of the monarch, lie was promptly sent to jail. Germans did not then know, and could not imagine it possible, that their king had pledged Napoleon not only that Prussians should henceforward be obedient to his will, but that in the coming war against their own flesh and blood on the Danube thev should furnish an armv 162 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY The first time that I visited Erfurt it was crowded with the wreck of the French army of the Second Em- pire. That was in 1870. Twenty years later I was again there. A German emperor was entertaining Ger- man princes, and a German army was under inspection. Imt the German princes had become servants to a Ger- man constitution, and the German army was the Ger- man people. XVII THE FIRST r.UKATII OF LIIJERTY IN PRUSSIA 1807 " Conic in ! roine in ! Stuiul, comrades, round, and lend your aid To ehrt.-ten now the bell we've made! Coneordia her name shall lie, In bunds of peace a;:d concord may her peal Unite the loving eonirrcLiation's /eal." Schiller (born, l?.ji) ; died, 1S().">), " Das Lied von der Glocke." I.\ the winter of lsu7 and 1. SOS Prussia passed through ;i revolution quite as refreshing 1 as that of France in 17 s '. 1 , but without shedding one drop of hlood. A fe\v months brought about political reforms which are a blessing in Germany to-day, and which cause every lover of libertv to honor the name of Stein."" This great man was not Prussian, hut from the Rhine province of Nassau, lie was an aristocrat, a five baron of the Holy Roman Km pi re. and he hated shams. Like Scharnhorst and Giieisenau and liliiclier and Ilarden- berg, and manv another "foreigner." lie had made him- self Prussian because he believed in Prussia as the chief state of Germany, and as the destined nucleus of the o'tvat ( ierman ' " ( If >i< >rmy nature, one lit i'i >r sweep- ing ni'.-a.-nres and upheaval : b;:! Ihe Almighty had al-n laid i:i this faithful, brave, and piu>ma:i hindl\ -':n-hi;i<' and fruilfid rain for mankind and his \ ei.ple." Arndt, p. (in. Arndt (p. "'.'.< pnailiarly lilted \<> lead a ua'cat p:.rl:anu ntary Iiudy. 164 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY In January of 1807, after Jena, but before Tilsit, the King dismissed Stein from the Prussian service in these words : . I was not mistaken in you at the beaimiino-. > r> o . . . You are to be regarded as a refractory, insolent, obstinate, and disobedient official, who, proud of his genius and talent, far from regarding the good of the state, guided purely by caprice, acts from passion, and from personal hatred and rancor.'' These words were as unjust to Stein as they would have been from the Continental Congress to AVashino-- D O ton or Franklin. Stein did not receive even a formal letter of dismissal, lie met this violent explosion of temper by a reply of cold defiance, packed up his trunk, and went back to his estate on the Khine. The King was a Ilohenzollern through and through, painstaking and proud, believing in the patriarchal form of government, and dreading nothing so much as an organized public sentiment, lie wished Stein to help him. for he had need of help. Put Stein would not ac- cept the post of Prime Minister unless the King dis- missed many courtiers whom the rugged statesman just- ly regarded as harmful to the public service. And so Stein left the Prussian service, presumably forever. Put in less than six months, immediately after sign- ing the shameful Treaty of Tilsit, this same King was so besieged by the importunities of Queen Luise and the best of his court that he begged Stein to return and take charge of Prussia according to his own terms. AVe of to-day readily see the reasons why the King should recall his excellent minister, but none the less it must be reckoned as the noblest moment in the life of Fivdrrick AVilliam 111. when he took the step which THE FIRST BREATH OF LIBERTY IN PRUSSIA 1807 105 publicly acknowledged the Avrong he hud done, and which showed that he could sacrifice personal feelings to the welfare of his country. The King did not like Stein. lie had never done so. Stein helped to prepare and send to the King, before .Jena, a document protesting against the King's manner of governing. Stein believed in having the people represented in Parliament, and advocated all manner of reforms, which the King deemed revolu- tionary. Then, too, the King had been used to pliant and polite servants, who never contradicted, and never expressed opinions opposed to those of their master. Stein, on the contrary, found very little to praise in the King's prop- ositions, and very many things which lie severely cen- sured. lUit though the King disliked Stein, as he dis- liked other great men of his time, he still came to respect his talent and honesty and patriotism, and con- ferred on him almost unlimited powers. Queen Luise was the most eager to get Stein once more at the head of affairs, for she had an instinctive appreciation for strong men. She wrote impatiently to a dear friend : " ( ) God! why hast thou forsaken us '. "\Vhere is Stein? .He is my last hope. He has a great heart; a mind to grasp everything; lie may find means of de- liverance that are concealed from us." On tin 1 la.st dav of September. 1^'T, Stein reached ^Femel. The letter from the King had taken one month in reaching him; he was ill in bed with fever, but im- mediatelv prepared to obev its summons, lie did not bargain or make conditions; he felt that his country needed him, and that was enough. Hut what could possiblv cause Queen Luise to write 166 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY in so desperate a strain ? Had not jSTapoleon made peace ? Was not Prussia once more a sovereign state ? Stein found matters much worse than he had feared. Nominally he had merely to raise a large war indemnity. P>ut practically he found that this sum was vastly larger than Prussia could possibly pay. 'While Stein was hur- rying from Xassau to Memel, a letter from Xapoleon was on its way to Dam, his agent in Perlin, saying : 'My sine qua non is, first, 150 million francs; sec- ondly, payment in valuable commercial goods ; and if that is impossible, and I must content myself with the King's promissory notes, it is my intention to hold the places Stettin, Glogau, and Kiistrin, with GOOD men as a garrison in each of them, until these bills are fully met. And as these 18,000 would occasion me addition- al expense, it is my intention that the expenses of pay, provision, dress, and board of these 18,000 men be charged to the King. . . . The King of Prussia has no need to keep up an army ; he is not at war with any one. . . /' Xapoleon then went on to say that in case these conditions were not complied with he would not with- draw his troops from Prussia. Xow, King Frederick William believed at that time that if he could but raise 150,o(X>,000 francs, say thirty million dollars, his troubles would be at an end, the French would retire quietly, and he might then have no more serious task than paying interest on ]jis na- tional debt. Hut we know now what he did not know then. .Napoleon did not mean that this indemnity should be completely paid; but he did mean to keep Prussia in a state verging upon bankruptcy until such time as he could arrange to reorganize it as a vassal of France. Till: I-'IKST 11UKATII OF U15EKTV IN* PRUSSIA 1807 16? At that time he hud 157,000 troops in Prussia ; add to these the is, ODD for the three fortresses, and we have 175,000 French soldiers as a permanent charge upon a state whose total population was barely live millions. One naturally asks, why did not Napoleon make an end of Prussia at once, since he treated her as a con- quered province? lie certainly would have done so had he not feared to lose thereby the friendship of the lius- sian C/ar. That Czar cared little for Frederick AVilliam, but he had a keen distrust of Xapoleon, and insisted that Prussia should remain between them as a buffer.* Stein now had one of those grand opportunities which come so seldom in the lives of great men. The King ad- mitted that he was unequal to the task of saving his country the country must save itself. Stein enjoyed in these days such powers as no Prussian minister before " The French ambassador in St. Petersburg had been persistently seeking t<> win the C/ar over to Xapolcon's wishes f<>r the dismember- ment of Prus.-ia. The C/.ar as persistently rejected the advances on this subject, lie feared the proximity of French troops apparently as much as the dishonor of breaking his word to I'rus.-ia. In the course of a lonij conversation, repeated by Caulaincourt, the C/ar said : "The armies of Frederick (I he. (Jrcat) which came to attack ns started always from the line of tin. 1 Oiler. These recollections are too recent. Silesia too near, and that line too offensive to permit of such an arrangement, even if there were no nuestion about that poor Kini^ of Prussia, in whom nobody takes any further interest. For my part, I keep sayinir to all about me that you do not evacuate that country (PrusMa) because he (the Kinir) does not pay up. Is that all that keeps you there? "A nt'x i. -< '!'!': That is the principal reason liatm'hiiii: \ Your Ma jest v will permit, me to say that you have n better ones for remaining in \Yaila'-hh. J!ut. this remark is personal to me, for the Kinpcna- would not allow of a doubt concerning the intentions of your Ma jest v. " Tin (':<'/' (also lauirhin^ : We are chattinir now. I like to be ad- dressed frankly. Your hin^ua.ire was not so bad." Letter of C'aulain- court to Napoleon. 168 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERT V or since has ever had. His King was in desperate straits, and was prepared for heroic remedies. Stein turned his attention first to the millions of acres of public land belonging to the crown. Here was a source of great wealth. The land must be sold, he said, and the proceeds applied to paying Napoleon. On October 9, 1807, Stein made the King of Prussia sign a law which primarily was framed for the purpose of facilitating the transfer of land, but which ultimately abolished, once and forever, the feudal system of serf- dom. Before this date the Prussian peasant was almost a slave. lie was forbidden to move about from place to place, or to change his occupation. He belonged to the soil, and was forced to perform services for the lord of the manor, who had magisterial powers almost un- limited. Stein abolished slavery in Prussia. His next step Avas to make his freemen fit for citizenship, lie made the King sign other bills Avhich recognized the principle of local self-government as applied to the counties or prov- inces of Prussia ; and, above all, he made the towns of Prussia centres of constitutional liberty. It is very hard for us to picture to ourselves a state of society such as Germany presented before Stein set his country free. The King governed through a host of paid officials Avho had no further interest than to keep order and earn their pensions. The German of that day kne\v nothing of what his government proposed until he read of it in an official proclamation, lie could take no interest in public affairs, and was consequently indiffer- ent to political changes. King Frederick William III. made his people free be- cause he needed money, and because free people can pro- THE FIRST BREATH OF LIBERTY IN PRUSSIA 1807 1G9 duce more than slaves. Towns, villages, and county con- ventions vied with one another in voting to their distressed King money which slaves con Id never have brought together. From every hamlet of Prussia came a warm response to the King's words of trust, and for the first time in the history of the Prussian monarchy the plain people were consulted as to the best means of sav- ing their country from extinction. Stein's memorable leadership lasted barely more than a year. In September of ISos Napoleon discovered that he was a patriotic Prussian, and promptly ordered him dismissed from the public service of his country. His Kinir accordingly dismissed him in .November, and in O i . . December, I^IN Napoleon declared him a criminal, and forced him to fly for his life. Such was the career of the greatest benefactor Ger- many has had since .Martin Luther. Jlis reforms have been a blessing to his country from the day of their proclamation. He is the author of civil liberty in Ger- many ; he was preparing the way for a national Prussian constitution when he was dismissed ; and his guiding ambition to the day of his death was to sec all Germany united under a federal constitution headed by a German Emperor. The revolution which Stein accomplished has no par- allel in modern historv. if we take into account the vast change which it eU'eded and the happy results which have followed. The liberation of the negro in l^r,:;, the emancipation of the Russian SIM f, the Japanese revolu- tion of 1 s i!s, and, above all, the great I'Yeneh Revolution these immediately spring to our memory. Hut none of them ell'ected such sweeping results, or left so few mis- chievous traces behind. Stein had no mass meetings, no newspapers, no con- t; 11 170 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBERTY ventions, no party politicians, none of the modern ma- chinery associated with a reform bill. lie was not even sustained by the knowledge that any considerable number of his fellow-countrymen cared about what he was doing. The great German revolution of 1807 was prepared and completed in a thoroughly business-like way. Prac- tical men of affairs were consulted ; experts were sum- moned to give evidence ; and when Stein finally called upon his King for the royal signature he had in his hands a bill prepared on strictly business-like ILnes, and not mutilated by the conflicting demands of political party leaders. This bill, which gave Germans their first taste of constitutional government, was adopted much as though it had been a change of time-table submitted to the directors of a modern railway company. Those who can recall the many years of popular agitation which preceded the English reform bills, the adoption of free trade, the emancipation of our negroes, or any other measure affecting the pecuniary interests of a large class, can readily imagine the strong opposi- tion Stein had to encounter in 1S07, when he came to light against the whole of the Prussian landed aris- tocracy. These besieged the King with petitions ; they intrigued at court ; they accused Stein of being revolu- tionary ; they predicted the ruin of the Prussian mon- archy. And, moreover, they used the very arguments which carried weight with a King who detested democ- racy and innovation. I !ut. fortunately for Germany, the pressure of Xa- poleon was an argument stronger than any which Stein's enemies could bring forward. And the Germans who glory in their constitutional liberty should be grateful, not merely to the great Stein, but also to the THE FIRST 1JKKATII OF LIIJERTY IN PRUSSIA 1H07 171 greedy Corsican, who forced the King of Prussia into such straits that he could choose only between, ruin and reform. AVc shall see more of Stein in coming years. He passed for the moment into exile. ]>ut, though twice in two consecutive years dismissed from the Prussian service, he remained the centre of all German hope of liberty. He kept in touch with the patriots, and fanned the hatred of Napoleon into a flame that was soon to burst out with unexpected power. lie was one with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in preaching that every school train up German children in the feeling that no education was worth anything that did not lead directly to liberating the fatherland from the domination of France. XVIII PRUSSIANS BECOME REBELS TO THEIR KING, AND DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY "Oh, welcome dentil for Fatherland! Whene'er our sinking head With blood he decked, then will we die With fame for Fatherland." Klopstock (horu, 1734; died, 1803), " Ilcinrich der Vogler." ON the 2Sth of April, 1S09, the commander of a Prus- sian hussar regiment marched his men out of Berlin as though for a day's sham-fighting. "When they reached O */ o o / the open country near the yillage of Steglitz, which, bv- the-way, is now swallowed up by Greater Berlin, he called his men about him, and proposed to them to go off and light Napoleon on their own account. This cavalry ollicer was named Schill the same Schill who had conducted the guerilla warfare against the French from under the walls of Colbcrg only two years before. He was a popular hero. Peasants bought prints of him to hang up in their cottages ; his head was painted on big porcelain pipes and on beer-mugs. To the people of Germany Schill appeared to be a man of action, who by daring enterprise would once more stir up a national spirit of resistance to the great French tyrant, and make their country free. In December of 1808 the French had evacuated Berlin, and Prussian troops had once more taken possession. The day had been a national PRUSSIANS BECOME HEDELS TO THKIU KIN(i 173 festival. All crowded to see their hero, and if possible to kiss his hand or some portion of his garment. Uerlin was then full of French spies, and the authorities wagged their heads ominously at this manifestation of patriotic unrest : for they asked themselves, " What will Napoleon say to all this '." Put Schill was not a politician. His trade was fight- ing, and he felt- that the present condition of his country was unbearable to a (ierinan of spirit. During the win- ter months he had been besieged by patriotic emissaries from many parts of Germany, praying him to head a rebellion against the French a popular war. Some proposed to depose the King of Prussia iu case he did not go with them. P>ut Schill was, above all, loyal to his King, and could not dream of his country as in other hands than those of Frederick William III. How- ever, he was given to understand by manv people of influence about the court that the King, in spite of his nominal alliance with Napoleon, was not wholly averse to a movement for deliverance from this humiliatinir O position. So Schill called his gallant troopers about him on this eventful day, and made them a speech that sent the blood tingling through their veins, lie told them that Napoleon was preparing to drive their beloved King from the throne, to treat Prussia as he was then treat- ing Spain. " Put never," said he, with impressive force and (lashing eyes " never shall the faithless tvranl suc- ceed in such a damnable plan. Austria and (irrmanv, cvei'v honest heart, rebels at the thought. And shall we Prussians lag behind '. " We ure acting for our country, our beloved K inu'. for the Oueen, whom each one of us adores, from whom I hold here in my hand a precious gift. For her we are 174 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY prepared to fight to the death at any moment she may call." His words were greeted with enthusiastic approval. He had not said that he moved under orders from the King, but his language left the impression that his movements were not wholly unconnected with some secret plan approved in high quarters. Then he showed his troops a pocket-book given to him by Queen Luise. On it she had written these words: " To the brave Mr. Schill." This confirmed his people in the honest belief that the cause of Schill was not merely the cause of their country, but also that of their King. They drew their swords, gave a mightv hurrah, and swore that they would fight and die for German liberty wherever Schill chose to lead them. In these days Austria was fighting Xapoleon fm the Danube, and ScliilFs idea was to assist her by making a raid in Germany in the neighborhood of Cassel, where Jerome held his court as King of Westphalia. ~ :: ' Jerome had been bullied by his brother into divorce from a beautiful and accomplished young lady of Ualtimore, whose crime in the eyes of Xapoleon was that she was a republican lass, and therefore not fit to sit on a- throne beside the brother of the French Emperor. That this French Emperor was the son of a Corsican attorney made no difference. Schill expected all Germany to rise at his call, but, as '"" So critical "\vas the situation of Xapoleon on the Danube, and so eager the desire of the German people to assist Austria in her light against him, that the French ambassador in Berlin kept his travelling carriage in constant readiness, so that he might fly at a moment's notice. Nut that the diplomat feared the officials or soldiers of the Kiim' he was in dread of the people, "who threatened to follow the example of Schill. Geheim-Staats-Archiv, Berlin. PRUSSIANS BECOME KEIJELS TO THEIIi KING 175 I have said before, Schill was a soldier, not a politician. The good people of Westphalia despised Jerome for the cowardly and cruel manner in which he had treated his American wife, but Napoleon ^as having too many successes on the Danube to let them hope that they could better themselves by going to war. And so Schill's enterprise failed. But his failure paved the way for the great things that followed, for his failure was glorious. ^chill's disappearance from Berlin created an immense excitement in all classes.'- The authorities tried to catch him and brinir him back. The Kinir was verv anirrv. i j t O t ' and sent forth a decree full of threats \ against rebels, -The Chief of the Berlin Police, Gruner, under date of May 13, 1S09, reported to the Prussian King that many ollicers were secretly leaving Berlin to join Schill ; also that he could liarcly keep the towns-people from making public demonstrations in Ids favor, that they were perpetually celebrating alleged victories of Austria over Xa- poleon. Gruner's reports arc preserved in the secret .state archives in Berlin. f In this year a wide-spread movement was started in Benin which gave the police much uneasiness. It was a conspiracy to overthrow the government and rise in insurrection again.-t. tin- French. Four thousand Berlin citi/.ens were at one time reported a> pledged to this purpose. ' Am Soimtag den iJOten d. Mts. liefen das siebente und neiinie ("ister- reichiM-he Armee-Bulletin hier ein, wonacli die Lagc dieser Armec, siegreieh und gun.-tig gesehildert ward. Das (JeiTiehl davon ver- breiU'te sich bald in der Stadt : der . label war all'_ r eniein. Man i'lber- lief das IFotel ties k. (jstcrreichischen Gesandten, um nalierc I>ata /.u ei'halteii, und war im frolilichstcn Tumniel, der siets eineii Au^brucli gegen die fran/("isische Gesandt-cliaft besorgcii lie>s. leii veranstalteti: geheimc und iiiTentliclie I5eobaehtungeii, und Alles lief ruhig ab."^ (On Sunday, llie iJHth April, arrived the ?ih and Dth Austrian Army lliilletin. according to which the condition of that army is favor- able and victorious. The rumor of this rapidly spread in town ; jubi- lation was universal; the palace of the Austiian ambassador was 176 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY but the people prayed for his safety, and a week after his disappearance another bod} 7 ' of Prussian troops, numbering 156 men and four officers, left the capital in secret and joined the patriot rebels. Two days after Schill left Berlin, one of his hussars who had been left behind tried to follow him, but was stopped at the Brandenburg Gate and turned back. Hereupon the gallant trooper dashed at full gallop (mit verhangten ZucjcT) towards the next gate in the town wall, fired off his pistol as he sprang past the guard-house, and disappeared over the fields beyond be- fore the sentry quite realized what it was all about. This incident was deemed worthy of special mention in a report made by the Chief of Police, for it made great sensation in Berlin at the time. The Chief of Police deemed it good policy to encour- age the popular notion that Schill's enterprise was secretly encouraged by the higher authorities. In case of success they would gain ; if he was unsuccessful they might then disavow him. Dr. Jameson's raid into the Transvaal in the winter of 1895-(> furnishes a rough analogy. King Jerome, on May 5th, pronounced Schill a brig- and and outlaw, and offered 10,000 francs for his head. Schill made light of the matter, and returned the com- pliment by putting a price on the head of Jerome live thalers, about three dollars. But Schill did some good fighting before his country saw the last of him. On the 4th of May he reached the overrun in order to learn more particulars. The people were ecstatic with delight, and there was momentary danger of an attack upon the French embassy. I ordered police supervision, secret as well as public, and all passed quietly). From the confidential report of the JJerlin Chief of Police, May 2, 1809. 1'Iirs.SIANS BECOME REBELS TO TIIEIU KING 1.7 outskirts of Magdeburg with about 500 men, of "whom. 50 were infantry. The French came out to meet him with three times that number. They had no cavalry, but to make up for that they had t\vo pieces of artil- lery. Magdeburg became French after the Treat}' of Tilsit, and it was for this historic Prussian fortress that Queen Luise had pleaded with Napoleon, her eyes wet with tears, her voice choking with emotion. The thought of Magdeburg once more German inflamed the minds of Schill and his followers, and he determined to do his best in the cause of a prize so dear to his Queen. IJut first he sent one of his ollicers, Lieutenant Stock, to see if lie could not win over the "Westphalian troops by speaking to them of the common fatherland. The lieutenant went with a flag of truce, but was promptly ordered back by the commanding officer. Young Stock obeyed, and while riding back was killed by a, bullet from the French lines. Schill now sounded the battle-call, and away sprang his men with hurrah and swinging sabres, thirsting to avenge the death of the brave young Stock". They cut the enemy to pieces, Schill himself cutting down the gunners. They took l!o prisoners and a quantity of flags and arms. They left the dead piled high in squares where they had fought, and themselves hurried westward to escape the expected French reinforcement from .Magdeburg. Schill saw now that it required more than a regiment of hussars to make a successful insurrection. He felt that his only hope- lav in reaching the Ilaltic and seek- ing shelter on board Hritish men-of-war. So he led his men towards Stralsund, a famous old town north of Herlin. opposite the island of liiigeii. Danes. Dutch. I. 12 178 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY and French were marching against him, and even the Prussian frontier was in arms against him. It was a forlorn hope that Schill was leading, for the British fleet had sailed away to the eastward, and he had no means of getting word to its admiral. How- ever, there was just the bare possibility that he might sustain himself in Stralsund long enough to effect at least an honorable capitulation. The fortifications of the place were so feeble that the French commander marched out to meet him, and took up a strong position on the sluggish IJecknitx "River, which enters the Baltic close to the west of Stralsund, at a little place named Dammgarten. Here the French- men, supported by Polish Uhlans and Mecklenburg '- riflemen, waited for Schill, who arrived on May i^th, and promptly sought to cross the stream. He engaged the enemy in front with a small portion of his force, while the rest swam their horses across the river at a point lower down, and. sweeping round in a broad cir- cle, fell upon them in flank and rear. The battle lasted four hours, and ended in a total rout of the French, who left GOO of their force as prisoners, together with ol officers. Thus Schill, within thirty days from leaving Berlin, had twice met largely superior French forces upon their own ground and gained brilliant victories. The King might call him a rebel, and officials try to cheek him, but the plain people everywhere felt hope revive when they heard what Schill and his plucky men had done.f " :: " " When Xnpoleon took Berlin after Jena, Prince Jscnburir raised a regiment of Prussian volunteers, to whom Josephine presented colors inscribed ' Le Premier Regiment de Prusse.'"- Droysen, ]-'n.iln.if.x- krietli, and was received by the lire of artillerv, which was intended not for him, but in honor of Napoleon's having entered Vienna on the 1'Uh of May.'- The news had taken twelve days in coming from the Danube to the I'altic, a distance of only about 4.")i> miles airline, so slowly did news travel then in Germany. Si-hill and his troopers were not expected to take part in this celebration. It was of course; assumed by the I-Yeiich garrison at. Stralsnnd that he and his men had been captured ; and when a detachment of cavalry sprang into the town no one would at first believe that these were the very men whom they were looking for. Into the middle of the town dashed the troop, and soon ]i;ul escaped to England run! been made ;i briiradie.r-L, r (.'neral so iso- lated was the Kind's capital then. " :: " Napoleon was not behind the pi II v (lerman soverei;_rn> in tile art of manufacturing spurious popularity. For instance, the following, from the original in the Berlin secret state archives : " By mo-t, hidi and pariicular order \n", rln'n-lixf, n S^,, ,',>!>_(', /// ] of our mo.st t_ r racioiis KiiiLC [of Saxony], the whole of this town is to lie illuminated, in order to celebrate the complete and i:reat Victorv of hi< Imperial and Ifoyal Majesty Napoleon over the Anglian Arm-;. All the (.'iti/.ens and Inhabitants here are therefore notified to iilumi- na'e every front window by plaeiiiL 1 ' lights inside of them " Landlords are to note this, and see tiiat their tenants do the same. 180 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY put a stop to the Frenchmen's celebration by capturing the commander of the artillery in the public square. Had Schill at once embarked his men he might have saved his whole command by landing them on the shores of S \veden. But to him such a course savored of cowardice. So with barely 1500 men he put the walls of Stralsund into fighting shape, and awaited the enemy, who were 5000 strong, made up of Dutch and Danes, allies of Xapoleon. They stormed his walls on the 31st of May, and the end came as might have been foreseen. It was a gal- lant fight against tremendous odds, and Schill sold his life for a good price. When the enemy had battered in the to\vn gates, and all hope of effectual resistance was gone, Schill gathered a troop of his men together, and pointed to a group of officers who were directing the operations against him. ''001110," shouted he, "let us carry our hides to a good market"; and with that he put spurs to his horse, dashed into the midst of them, and cut down a lieutenant-general commanding, while his men sabred right and left about him. As though by miracle he himself was unharmed, and wheeled his horse back to another part of the town where his men were still making a stand. On the way, however, he passed a fountain where a good-hearted Dutch rifleman was binding the wound of a fallen Prussian hussar of Schill's CD corps. Seeing his gallant commander, the Prussian trooper gathered all his strength together and shout- ed. Hurrah! Schill!" This cry of encouragement be- trayed Schill, and drew upon him the vengeance of his enemies. They did not fire at him, for they believed him invulnerable. But they rushed with fury upon him from all sides, attacked him with sabre and bayonet, dragged him from the saddle, mutilated him as he lay PRUSSIANS BECOME REBELS TO THEIR KING 181 in the street, stripped him of uniform and medals, and then exposed him as a monster." So died Schill for his King and his country. Scliill achieved the glory of dying in battle, though the King treated his memory as that of a rebel, and ordered his estates confiscated. -f Ills head was cut off and sent to Cassel. to be laid at the feet of the French King of Westphalia, ."Jerome Bonaparte. That same Cassel was destined to be the prison of a French Emperor, Xapo- leon III., in ls7o, and a favorite summer residence of a (ierman Emperor's family to-day so strangelv does history change. Nor is it without interest to Americans that the splendid palace near Cassel was built by a (ierman prince who secured his means by selling Hes- sian soldiers to George III. of England for the war against the American colonies, and that subsequently this princely house of blood-brokers was itself chased from power, and Ilessia swallowed up by Prussia. Schill's bodv was buried in Stralsund, and was for * One of Schill's hussars, named I.k-skr, who was present at tin- nine i'f his death, deposed in wriiiMir, "<>n tin: word of an honest man" (mil //<i i in*'/, x/ t lit) in the house of a bar'.KT named Schuokart, 0:1 the Old .Market (nm nit, n M/ ir/i trr,;,-t ir/rii\ 182 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY many years neglected. His head was preserved at the University of Ley den, and people came to stare at it along with the other monstrosities of the [Natural His- tory Museum. Here it lay until 1837, when a band of friends in Germany finally succeeded in having it brought to Brunswick, where it is now suitably buried in the soil of the country for which he nobly died.* To-day all Germany honors the name of Schill, and his grave at Stralsund is the- object of many patriotic pilgrimages from all corners of the fatherland. A monu- ment was erected to him here fifty years after his death, and German singing societies vie with one another in here recalling the courage of him who revived hope in Germany when courage had come to be regarded as i/O O madness and patriots were branded as highwaymen. Some of SchilFs companions managed to make their way into Prussia, where they underwent court-martial of a very light kind. But Napoleon's men captured 11 ollicers and 557 privates. These were for the most part wounded in the hard fight, but, notwithstanding, they were inarched off to Cassel and locked up in the com- mon jail as though they had been highwaymen. King Jerome sent to [Napoleon for instructions, and of course " :: Xear Stralsund was erected u pillar, and on it were inscribed verses in memory of Schill. The government subsequently regarded these lines as revolutionary, and the pillar was removed. I quote the last verse, as the only one that could possihly have disturbed the political mind of a German official : "These, steps arc steps of German men, That, when Ihe tyrant keeps his den, Come crowding round with midnight tread, To vow their vengeance o'er the dead. Dead ? Xo, that spirit brightens still. Soldier, thoii seest the grave of Schiil !'' After a translation in the NrtJ/ Anu-rir/in Rt.d<<''. 1'Kl'SSIANS BECOME KEIJELS TO THEIR KING 183 no one doubted what these would be. The privates and non-commissioned officers were to be set to hard labor in the prisons of Cherbourg and I 'rest; the eleven ofli- cvrs were to be brought before a military court and shot within twenty-four hours. Napoleon made no provision fora trial; he ordered them shot within a given number of hours, and gave the tribunal no powers beyond the purely perfunctory one of passing formal sentence."'' Thus had the Duke of Knghien been shot in l^oo; thus was John Palm of Nuremberg disposed of; thus would the grand old Stein have died had the police caught him after his dismissal ; thus was murdered the noble Andreas llofer ; and so died eleven brave young oilicers who had obeyed their commander, believing that he spoke for a Queen whom thev adored and a King whom they had sworn to defend. It w;is on the banks of the lihine that this bloody bit of Xapoieonism was consummated, at the ancient fortress of AVesel. The eleven Prussian otlicers rep- resented names famous in their country's history; the oldest was thirty-one, and the youngest only eighteen thev were mere boys, just old enough to die like men. The charge against them was read; they were pro- nounced guiltv of highway robbery; they were to be shot as common thieves. Thev were manacled two and two. and like a gang of criminals led out to a Hat mead- ow bevond the fortress walls to the shores of the Lippe, which here Hows into the lihine. The place is marked bv a monument to-day; so is the spot in Draunau where -lohn Palm was shot. * ( )n ( >rti ilnT '27, 1^0'.), the police of Berlin stepped the performance of a popular play becau-e then- occunvd in it sevcrd references to Napoleon, which the audience naturally ulili/ed for purposes of popular deiii >n>!ratio:i. 184 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY A detail of French soldiers were on hand. The gal- lant young patriots embraced each the other, commended their souls to God, gave a cheer for their King, tossed their caps into the air, drew themselves up in line twelve paces from their executioners, and then looking the Frenchmen square in the face, called out the word of command, " Fire !" It was a' horrible butchery a bunch of bleeding bodies writhing in the last breath of life. But one yet stood erect. It was a youngster of twenty, Avho had been wounded only in the arm. In the midst of his slaughtered comrades he stood, patiently awaiting the second volley. But soldiers are men ; and the execu- tioners glanced at their commanding officer, pointed to their discharged barrels, and hoped that this young Prussian might be pardoned. The condemned youngster recognized the movement v o O in his favor, but checked it at once. "]S"o pardon !" he cried. " Aim better, my men ! Here is my heart ! It's beating for my King !" Three French soldiers now stepped forward. They had loaded their guns anew. They took deliberate aim, fired, and Xapoleon's will was done. That all happened on the 10th of September, 1800. Things did indeed look well for the French when their Emperor could with impunity reach out his hand into any corner of Europe, seize, imprison, and shoot the subjects of a sovereign state, and be called to account by nobody on earth at least for the present. XIX GERMAN LIBERTY TAKES REFUGE IX THE AUSTRIAN ALPS " Sind erlin to Venice see from their seat in the railway not only one of the most beautiful bits of mountain scenery to be found in Europe, but a succession of places savagely fought over bv (iermans and l-'rench when France represented tvrannv, and the cause of libertv 186 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY was maintained by Alpine peasants fighting- for the house of Ilapsburg. The first official proclamation issued by Andreas Ilofer was short and characteristic of the man: "To- morrow, on the 9th of April, we are to shoulder our muskets for God, Kaiser, and native land. Each one is called upon to make a plucky fight of it." Two days afterwards, in the mountains about Ilofer 1 s home, the mountaineers had a fight with Napoleon's al- lies, the Bavarians. Ilofer had never learned the art of scientific warfare, but he knew how to fight and how to win battles. With a sense of the practical, natural to mountaineers, he made a zareba of hay- wagons, and from behind this simple fortress inflicted such damage upon the enemy that they were forced to lay down their arms. It was a grand day in Tyrol when there marched into Meran Napoleonic "regulars'' Avho had surrendered to the "minute-men" of Andreas Ilofer. On fought the devoted Tyrolese. They were branded by the French as "brigands," but their consciences were clean. They knew that they were obeying the orders of their dear Kaiser Franz. That Emperor had, on ^Fay 29, 1S09, assured his faithful Tyroleans that he would never be party to a peace that did not make Tyrol for- ever a member of the Austrian Empire. These simple peasants believed the word of their Emperor. Ilofer's great influence with his people lay largely herein, that in the }'ear previous he had been called to A'ienna by the government to consult on the best means of making a peasant insurrection. The Emperor's own brother, who was looked upon by the Tyrolese as their particular protector at court, took the liveliest interest in Andreas Ilofer, and assured him and his fellows that Austria would never lav down her arms until Tvrol had GKUMAN LIUKKTY TAKKS KEFL'GK IN AUSTRIAN AI.l'S 1*7 regained her liberty under the empire of the dear Kaiser Fran/.. One must have lived amongst the peasantry of the Austrian Alps to appreciate the iieive loyalty of these mountaineers for their Kaiser, their saints, and their native valleys. The men who followed Ferdinand Schill across the sands of Brandenburg were Lutherans, who cared little whether their lot was on the banks of the Elbe, the Vistula, or the Spree, so long as they shared with their fellow-Germans a common liberty in political development. "With the Tyrolcse the feeling that made them heroes was purely the personal loyalty to a Kaiser Fran/., whom they looked upon as a s'pecies of protector, indissolubly associated with the Virgin Marv. Xepomnk, Florian. and the other images which the traveller sees on every road and every mountain-path of that beautiful country. The childish Tyrolese faith in Kaiser Fran/, played so important a political part of the great war of lN'J that it deserves particular notice. Ilofer probablv knew as little of 1'russia as of .Hunker Hill, and had he been told of Schill, he would have crossed himself and prayed (tod to keep away from Tyrol ;i monster who was not merely a wicked Lutheran, but dared to light without orders from the Lord's anointed. When Ilofer headed the Tyrol insurrection his country was a province of Havana, which was a vassal of France. Uavarian rule had been established only three years, and during these years the Austrian Fmperor had never ceased encouraging in Tyrol the idea of an in.-urrection against I he Franco-Bavarian usurper. The mountaineers had been enrolled into a militia, after the pattern of Switzerland, and this was verv easv, for in the Alps nearly every peasant grows up accustomed to the sport- 188 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ing-rifle, and is as well prepared to take the field as the minute-men who marched to Boston in 17T5. Andreas Ilofer had two excellent staff-officers. The one was a fierce-fighting Capuchin monk named Has- pinger; the other was a chamois-hunter named Speck- bacher. So well did they fight that by the end of May they had driven the enemy out of Innsbruck, and given the whole country once more back to their dear Kaiser Franz. But Kaiser Franz on the Danube did not make so o-ood o a light as Ilofer in the valley of the pale-green rushing and tumbling Inn.* Had he dismissed his field-marshals, and put in their places a few peasants with courage and common-sense, he might have done better he certainly could not have done worse. Xapoleon left Paris on April 12th, and in thirty days had taken up his quarters in Vienna, having beaten in succession all the Austrian generals who came out to meet him. By the middle of July he had frightened the frood Kaiser Franz into signing a truce withdrawing o o o o his troops from T} r rol. Thus the gallant Tyrolese, after shedding their hon- est blood for the Kaiser whom they loved, were by a stroke of the pen handed over naked to the vengeance of the enemy. The French no\v poured into the valleys of the beauti- ful country, and with them the Bavarian allies. This " :: " Whoever wishes to appreciate the intense love of homo charaeter- istio (if the Alpine peasantry, let him launch his canoe at Innsbruck and paddle leisurely down to the mouth of the Inn, with a map in one hand and a history of Ilofer in the other. He will, on such a cruise, enjoy not merely beautiful scenery and architecture, but' meet with a people full of admirable virtues. He will meet with more beauty in women and men than in any trip of equal length in Europe of course with the exception of Hungary. GERMAN* LIBERTY TAKES REFUGE IX AUSTRIAN ALPS 189 was more than Ilofer and his followers could bear. They were prepared to obey the terms of the shameful truce, but could not understand how such a truce per- mitted the enemy to take possession of their home. So once more the Tyrolese issued from their cabins and rallied around Ilofer for a desperate fight against what they regarded as the "enemy of heaven and of earth." The French commander put a pi-ice upon the head of Andreas Ilofer as upon that of a brigand, and this price eventually brought to light a Judas Iscariot. IJut before his end he made such an impression upon a French field-marshal as revived respect for popular armies. IJy the middle of August Innsbruck had been again cleared of French, and Ilofer took up hiscjuarters in the imperial palace. Here he transacted business of state with the same simplicity that lie had been accustomed to i;i his little hut up the valley of 1'asseyr. Ministers of state found him in his shirt sleeves surrounded by peasants who were receiving instructions or discussing with him further defensive measures. These peasants in power did not at any time lose their heads. They permitted no plundering, but carefully watched over the administration of the country in the spirit, of pious ( 'hristians and practical men. The proudest moment in the life of this strange dicta- tor was on the ^Dth of September, when a gorgeous oili- cial from Vienna arrived at the palace of Innsbruck bear- ing a gold medallion with a long chain. 1 1 was a present to Andreas Ilofer from the good Kaiser Fran/. Tears filled tin. 1 peasant's eyes at this mark of his master's favor, ami all good. Tyroleans saw in this not merely a reward for Ilofer's past services, but a proof tliat their Emperor meant them to continue the good tight, rely- 190 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY ing upon his promise that no peace should be signed separating Tyrol from the good Kaiser Franz. And yet on the 1-ithof October, the third anniversary of the battle of Jena, this same Kaiser Franz did make his peace with France, and did expressly surrender T}"rol to the enemy. But the faithful mountaineers would not believe the disgraceful news. They trusted their beloved Kaiser, and kept on offering their money, their goods, and their lives for what they knew to be their duty. They kept up the unequal light for another fortnight, but finally, on Xovember 1st, so severely did the peas- ants suffer in a desperate straggle near Innsbruck that all hope of resisting the armies in the field was aban- doned. The French had finally " pacified ; ' Tyrol ; and the hunted rebels dispersed by inaccessible paths, some to take refuge in Austria, others to places of concealment in their native valleys. Andreas llofer had ample opportunity for escape. But he would not listen to those who talked of leaving his beloved Tyrol. Far up in the valley where he was born he hid himself in a cabin that was left untenanted during the Avinter. For two months he preserved the secret of his life here, protected by the snow and ice and by the loyalty of his comrades in the huts below him. II is meals were brought to him by his intimate friend and adviser, the priest Uonay. But the French finally had their suspicions aroused. Tartly by threats and partly by promises they at length made this priest turn traitor to the confiding friend who had placed his life in his hands. On the L ; <>th () f January, as Andreas llofer lay sleep- ing, troops surrounded his cabin, lie was manacled like a felon, and marched down the valley between loaded muskets. lie passed the village of St. Leonard, where i <^> (JEKMAN LII5ERTY TAKES IlEFUGE IN Al'STUIAN ALl'S 191 ho was born, the little tavern where the patriots of the valley had gathered to talk of Tyrolean liberty. This was his only home, and the sole support of his wife and children. They were now left beggars, for Andreas Ilofer was declared a rebel and a brigand; his goods were condemned to confiscation, and himself to be shot. On through the valley, through ice and snow, he tramped beside his captors. The friends of his youth, the peasants who loved him as their devoted champion, old wonn-n and children for the rest had been killed all pressed around him. They kissed his hands, his clothes; they begged for a blessing, and followed him with wet eyes and lips that trembled with a praver for his deliverance. lit 4 passed through ~Meran, then I>ot/en. down through the magnificent Premier Pass, and was finally locked up in Mantua. Here it was intended that he should have a trial ; but when it appeared that some of his judges were disposed to mercy on the ground that Andreas Ilofer was obeying orders from his Kmperor, there came suddenly a peremptory message from Milan sentencing him to be executed by powder and ball with- in twentv-four hours. This put an (Mid to the mockery of a trial. He was taken out and shot like a mad dog on the L'oth of I-'eb- ruary, 1 s In. If anvthing can make this act of cruelty seem more cruel still.il is the recollection that Andreas Ilofer gave himself up as a sacrifice for his dear Kaiser 1'Vanx, and that while he was await ing execution in the dungeons of Mantua that same Kaiser l-'ran/. was negotiating the. sale of his daughter Marie Louise to a ('orsican notarv's son, who had divorced his lawful wife, ,b ej>hine. in order to marrv into higher societv. ( )ne word from Marie Louise 192 THE GEEMAN STRUGGLE FOE LIBEETY to her future husband might have saved the life of Andreas Ilofer, but that word was not spoken. The good Kaiser Franz might have asked his future son-in- law to set his most loyal subject free before receiving Marie Louise as a bride. But the court of A r ienna was too much occupied in preparations for the wedding to think of Tyrolese patriots, even though these very peas- ants had done more for the crown of Kaiser Franz than all his court and all his pompous generals. Shortly before his death Ilofer wrote to a dear friend : " Farewell, ungrateful world. Dying comes so easy to me that my eyes do not even moisten. At nine o'clock, by the help of all the saints, I set out upon my journey to God/' But Andreas Ilofer did not die in vain. The story of his life and death spread rapidly over all Germany, and made men feel ashamed when they learned of the much that had been done by a handful of brave peasants. Queen Luise was much affected by his fate, coming so soon after the death of Schill.* Austrians now honor their great peasant patriot. To the visitor in Innsbruck is sho\vn a splendid monument in marble erected over his grave in the court church, lie has another heroic monument on the heights over- looking the town, whence he directed his most splendid military operations for the liberation of his country. The museum of Innsbruck is full of interesting relics connected with his life and times, and no stranger can be long in that country without feeling that he is in the laud of Andreas Ilofer. His life has been dramatized and played by his fellow-peasants to enormous audiences ; * The people of Berlin showed their sympathy for the liberty-loving mountaineers by .smoking pipes decorated \vilh the face of Andreas Ilofer. GERMAN' LI15ERTY TAKES REFUGE IN AUSTRIAN ALPS 193 and it would bo almost impossible to find a school-child between the Alps and the .Baltic who did not sing the plaintive song, Zu Muiituti in Buiulcn, DCT trcuu IlofVr war," a song that cannot to-day be sung to even mixed audi- ences without causing the throat to grow tight and the eye to fill in recalling the honest life, the brave fight, and the heroic death of the simple peasant lad who. when generals and grand -dukes surrendered to the French, kept up the fight for liberty and defied Xapoleon with a handful of mountaineers. XX THE LAST DAYS OF QUEEN LOSE "Die Einheit Deutschlands liegt mir am Ilcrzen. Sic ist cin Erb- theil meiner Mutter."* Frederick William IV., eldest son of Queen Luise of Prussia. QUEEN LUISE died in 1810, at the age of thirty-four. She saw all the shame that came upon her country, and died of a broken heart in the midst of political move- ments promising complete extinction to the Ilohcnzol- lern dynasty. After death her heart was examined, and upon it was discovered a strange growth resembling the initial letter of the great Corsican conqueror. The history of her country was impressed upon her by several memorable murders executed by Napoleon. In 1804: the Duke of Enghien was living in Germany as an exile. Xapoleon had him kidnapped and shot without a trial. In 180(5 the German bookseller John Palm forwarded a book of whose contents lie was ignorant. Napoleon ordered him shot without a trial. In LMJS the greatest statesman Germany has ever produced, the Prussian Prime-Minister Stein, was pro- nounced by Xapoleon to be an enemy of France, lie had to ilv for his life. His estates were confiscated. THK LAST DAYS OF yl'EEX LL'ISE I 1 .**! Had he been caught lie \voulcl IKIVO been shot like the Duke of Knghien. In ISOD Schill marched his regiment against Napoleon, hoping to aid Austria in her war. lie was declared a brigand. His head was cut oil' and carried in triumph to .Jerome Bonaparte, his men were sent as convicts to the penitentiary, his fellow-ollic;.T.s were shot as higli- wavmen. In 1 S 10 Napoleon ordered the shooting of the noble peasant Andreas Ilol'er, whose crime lay in lighting for his home and his Emperor against overwhelming odds. His trial was a mockery. These acts of violence were all of a nature to outrage the (German sense of justice, and to kindle in (Jermans of everv section a feeling that Napoleon had come upon earth for t/fle express purpose of being their scourge. So much for the startling acts all'ecting the people. In the councils of the palace the hand of Napoleon was felt still more crushingly. Napoleon had demanded of Prussia a war indemnity representing more than six- teen times the gross revenues of the country for anyone year, and he backed up this demand bv threatening to occupv the country with his troops and tax-collectors until his demands should have been met. This meant nothing less than making 1'russia a province of l-'rance and the Ilohen/ollerns dependent princes. Oiieen I.uise became at once, in these desperate davs, the centre of all national hope. She kept her husband in the right way. and cheered him up when her own heart was sore with bad news. She had an instinctive appreciation for strong men. She knew that the Kin^ disliked Stein, but she brought them together after tile Peace of Tilsit il s o7i, and when Stein lost his temper 196 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY over the King's vacillating behavior, wrote to the rugged statesman (in German) : " I implore you, by all that is sacred, do have patience just this one month. The King will surety keep his word. . . . Do give way for this bit of time, that all may not fall to pieces for the sake of three months' waiting. In the name of God I implore you, in the name of King and country, for the sake of my children, for my own sake patience ! LUISE." This is a mother pleading with the honest but un- bending Stein. These are not sentences polished by courtly officials. Luise would have gone on her knees to Stein for the sake of her country, and we may realize somewhat the sore plight that country was in when she finds it necessary to indorse the promissory notes drawn by her husband. Lnise is the best historian of her time; for. with all the passion and enthusiasm that inspired her, she pre- served a balance of mind which made her capable of forming most correct judgments of men and things. Her brother George was her dearest friend, and to him she wrote loving letters full of her own feelings. 'Ah, George," wrote she (Atemel, October 7, 1807), " yon can't imagine how happy we are when one day does not bring anything worse than the last. Yes, we have come down pretty low. I do not complain of the results of the dreadful peace [of Tilsit J. After such a disastrous wai' one must be prepared for sacrifices, and we did make enormous ones. . . . But to endure caprice and to be the spoil of the whims of French marshals and employes that was too much. We had not the strength to support that no one rould stand that. ... I do not despair of THE LAST DAYS Oi" QUEEN LUISE 107 the internal welfare of the country. The present misery is unlimited, but at the same time there are many forces no\v lying dormant, many springs of plenty yet un- opened. . . . The great master [Stein] is here. lie can \vaken all this up. He has the ability and force; the will and the energy all together/' She was at this time expecting the birth of her eighth child, and hoped that she might soon be allowed to return to Berlin so as to be coniined more comfortably. Her brother George went to Paris shortly after this and begged Xapoleon to allow his sister to return to Ber- lin for the sake of her approaching confinement. In- credible as it may appear, this man. who had pretended so much gallantry towards her in Tilsit, received this re- quest with impatience and refused it with rudeness. Napoleon had cast reflections upon the virtue of Queen Luise and had otherwise offered her insult in bulletins published throughout his official press. In spite of this, and even at this time, she repeatedly offered herself as a hostage in the hands of France as guarantee that the money demanded should be paid. But Stein said," Not vet." lie riu'htlv saw that .Napoleon wanted more than / O 1 the sum of monev he wanted Prussia itself. And that is why Stein, with heart and soul, encouraged everything which promised to awaken personal self-respect and patriotism amongst the people. "(Jod be praised that Stein is here." wrote Queen Luise (October lo, I>o7i. It is a sign that (iod has not wholl v abandoned us." Hut in the same letter she contemplated the probabil- ity of Prussia ceasing to have an independent existence. "I shall then have but one desire - to emigrate 1 - -far away. To live the life of private people and if possible" toforuvt. (Jreat (iod. what has Prussia come to! 198 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY Abandoned out of weakness [a bit at Alexander I.], per- secuted through insolent pride, weakened by misfortune ; thus must we go down. Savary [the French agent] has given assurance that Russian intervention would do us no good; but he offered us a bit of friendly advice : to sell our jewels and valuables at auction. Think of his being allowed to tell us these things V Germans who have grown up under the great modern empire founded at Versailles in 1ST1 must lind food for thought in recalling a time in this century when em- ployes of Napoleon sat in Berlin and told the family of Ilohenzollern how they should make both ends meet. Luise's favorite brother George went to Paris, and had his iirst interview with Napoleon on November 1,1807. lie was twenty-eight years of ao;e, and came to fulfil the / o * o promise he had made to his sister to plead for justice. The court was at Fontainebleau. Napoleon had re- vived the ceremonial state of the old monarchy, and with it the so-called lever at ei"'ht o'clock in the morning, O O 7 where all had to appear in pompous court uniforms mod- elled after those worn before the Devolution. At one of these lci'c/'.s .young Prince George was permitted to ap- proach the mighty man and present his petition, the ad- mission of Mecklenburg as member of the Rhine Con- federation, lie it said, in parenthesis, that Mecklenburg, the ancestral home of Queen Luise, had no choice be- tween joining the Rhine Confederation and being extin- guished. It is to Mecklenburg's credit that she delayed her action to the very last. In the midst of discussing this question Napoleon sud- denly changed his tone. and. with a sneer, asked him if lie had news of his sister. George : Yes. sire." Napoleon : Is she well '.'* THK LAST DAYS OF O.UEKN LUISE 19'J George : ' Xo, sire ; she cannot be."' Xapoleon : " AVhy not i" George: u Because she has been deceived in lier most precious and most just hopes. According to the treaty signed with your Majesty, the King of Prussia should now be back in Ilerlin. But as the conditions of this treaty are not fulfilled, the Queen must see her dearest wish not fulfilled of having her approaching confinement in Berlin ; and that operates unfavorably on her health/' Xapoleon (angrily) : " That is not my fault. You want- ed the war. and these are the results." George: "Peace has been signed and the conditions complied with." Xapoleon: " I cannot place any reliance upon the King, lie is neither soldier nor statesman. Therefore I cannot trust him in the slightest degree." The Prince of Mecklenburg naturally resented Napo- leon's rude speech about his brother-in-law, and pointed out that Frederick William kept on lighting long after Jena because he was loyal to his ally Alexander I., who subsequently deserted him. Napoleon (violently): "No: I know you all better than you do yourselves, and I cannot but be suspicious. And I shall crush them to atoms ( j> l>x o o preserved a simple farm-house, such as a family in re- duced circumstances might select in order to conceal themselves economically during the summer holidays. "When I visited this house, Konigsberg was in festal dress to receive a German Emperor, the great-grandson of Queen Luise. He came to Konigsberg to review 00,000 of the best troops in Europe and to unveil the monument of his grandfather the first German Emperor, on whose twelfth birthday it had been deemed strange luxury to open a bottle of champagne ! Old Emperor William never forgot that birthday of his in Konigsberg, nor did he ever depart from the habits of simplicity which were forced upon his parents by the hard hand of Xapoleon. Luise was devoted to Schiller's poetry, notably those of his plays which glorified the love of country. The great poet died in ISO."), while Queen Luise was arrang- ing for his appointment to Berlin, which would have given him a competence for life. She was a loyal friend to IMiicher, Gneisenau. Scharnhorst, and we have seen how she encouraged the daring Schill bv giving him a O o /<_.) keepsake which tacitly meant the royal approval of his rebellious expedition. AVhen the Tvroleans fought so gallantly in 1S09 she threw all her influence on the side of Austria-, and was the first to see that Gennanv's natural aliv was not THE LAST DAYS OF QUEEN LUISE 201 Russia, but the people of German tongue and German blood, who together make up the great Germanic nation. "When that war ended in disaster and Andreas llofer was shot, she wrote: '-Thou, () God, art the only help left. I believe in no future on earth. God knows where I shall find a grave probably not in Prussian soil. Austria is singing her dying song, and then, good-bye, my Germany !" Her disappointment can be measured by the aid of her own words in a letter to a dear friend : ' ' Liberty dwells in the mountains/ That is a passage "which I only now appreciate as a prophecy, when I see how the mountains have responded to the call of An- dreas llofer. And what a man. this Andreas llofer ! A peasant becomes commander of armies, and what a splendid leader! II is weapons, prayer; his ally. (Jod! lit; lights with clasped hands! lights on bended knee, and smites a>> with the sword of a cherub. ... A child in heart, these people light like Titans, with blocks of rock, which they roll from the side of the mountain." 1 cannot resist quoting so much from this (Jueen, be- cause her words so well reflect her thoughts, and these were so honest. That Prussia might take up arms against Austria and the plucky Tyroleans grieved her intensely ; and yet according to the terms of the treaty with Xapo- leon this was quite possible. "Prussia against Austria! AVhat is then to become of Germany? No. I cannot tell you what I feel: my breast, aches to bursting. ... (> God! have we not vet suffered enough ? My bin Inlay i March l"tln was a dav of horror to me. A big and brilliant ball at night, given in mv honor by the town j Kr>nigsberg], and pre- ceded bv a festive baiuiuet in the palace oh. how it all 202 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY made me sad ! My heart was torn and I danced ! I made a smiling face, I said pleasant things to those who gave this feast, I was agreeable to all the world and through it all desperately miserable! ' To whom will Prussia belong a year from now ? "When shall we all be scattered 2 Father Almighty, take pity on us!'' That was the spring of 1800, when Kapoleon had driven Stein from Germany, and talked seriously of taking from Prussia her richest remaining province- Silesia, that province which Frederick the Great had won after seven years of glorious fighting. Queen Luise in this year of despair laid the foundation for Germany's greatness in many ways, but in none more efficiently than in the encouragement she gave to common -school education on the lines of Pestalozzi. That eccentric genius (born 1745) lived in Switzerland, and developed in his little village principles of educa- tion which now are applied universally, but in his day came like a revelation. lie originated the now gener- ally accepted axiom that the good citizen is the out- growth of a system of training commencing 1 at the .' mother's breast. Education in his eyes was pre-emi- nently of vital interest to the state, on the ground that a state is secure only in so far as it reposes upon the consent of the great body of educated people. These- ideas in his day had something republican about them which was formidable to absolute monarchs, and it is marvellous that the lirst state to accept his gospel and carry his teachings out to their logical end was that of the most absolute monarch Frederick William III. Luise gathered in reports from all schools conducted on IVstalozzi's plan, and gave her husband no peace until he granted her request to have the educational ex- THE LAST DAYS OF QUEEN LUISE 203 periment tried in Konigsberg. Tliis experiment proved successful, in spite of the very small money means at her command. Uut more than money \vas the con- stant personal attention which the Queen gave to this work. "I am reading L'nnhr/ Gertrude" writes she, "a lx>ok for the people, written by Pestalozxi. I feel so at home in that Swiss hamlet. Were 1 only my own master, I would jump into a carriage and roll away to Switzerland to see 1'estalozzi, to thank that noble man with tears in my eyes and the heartiest pressure of the hands. AYhat a great heart he has for humanity! Yes, I can thank him in the name of my fellow-man. One particular passage pleased me. because it is the truth: Suffering and want are blessings of (iod when they have been endured.' And so it is in the midst of my misery I keep saying, * It is the blessing of (iod '' How much nearer am 1 to (iod ! How much more distinctlv have my feelings taken shape regarding the immortality of the soul '." IVstalozzi, like Luise, lived and died in want and sor- row. They never saw one another. Like her, he never knew what his life was to accomplish for the benefit of generations yet to be born. One of the last public acts of Queen Luise was to ^-o with her husband, on December 7, 1 "><>'.>. and carefullv inspect the Koiiigsber" 1 Institute, where the methods of IVstalozzi were on trial. A week after this she left Konigsberg, and. after an absence of three vears and three months, the roval fam- ily of Prussia once more took up its home in lierlin. She was already suffering from the disease that was to close hrr life, and yet never did she accomplish more for her country than in these last precious months. Since 204 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY the banishment of Stein by order of Xapoleon the gov- ernment business had fallen once again into incompe- tent hands, or, worse still, into the hands of officials who believed that the only safety for Prussia lay in complete servility before Xapoleon. The King was weak enough to be influenced by this party, and it was difficult for Luise to make him see the slavery he was preparing. Ilardcnberg was the successor to Stein in popular feeling, for in Ilardenberg the best people of Germany saw a statesman able to cope with the difficulties of their verv painful situation. Luise set in movement every influence at her command to secure the appointment of Ilardenberg as Prime-Minister, and, above all, to over- come the veto of Xapoleon. Ilardenberg was known in France to be of German national sentiment, and there- fore not likely to assist in the policy of Frenchifying his country. But by this time Xapoleon had reached an altitude of glory from which things far below him ap- peared strangely insignificant. lie sneered at the idea that Prussia could ever seriously think of resisting him, and approved of Ilardenberg because that minister gave a guarantee that the Prussian finances would yield the highest possible sums for the benefit of Xapoleon's army, which just then was having a very expensive campaign in Spain. It is notable that in these dark days of Prussia, under a monarch regarded as absolute, whenever we hear of a good bit of statesmanship we can almost always trace it back to the doings of a woman whose character was essentially feminine, domestic, and dependent. Sho took great pains to conceal the part she played in the regen- eration of her country, knowing that her King was a jealous King, who resented sharply any apparent in- THE LAST DAYS OF QUEEN LUISE 205 fringement of liis prerogatives.* She persuaded him no\v and then for the public good, because she was gifted with singular tact, and never made him feel that he was influenced. And, besides, he was fondly attached to her and loved to give her pleasure. So, in IJerlin, in January of isio, the last time that Luise appeared at a grand court function in all her regal splendor, it was to do violence to the social traditions of that court to place a high decoration upon the breast of an actor. Even Xapoleon had not done such a thing in France to a Talma. Luise did it to IHland, and with every circumstance calculated to make the ceremony impressive. Illland was director of the Berlin court theatre during the winter after Jena, when the Queen was living into exile along the shores of the Baltic. The French occu- pied the capital, and had strictly forbidden that there should be any celebration of Queen Luise's birthday. Illland had been threatened with prison by the French in ls< 17 lor attempting to celebrate the birthday of his Queen. In Isos he appeared on the stage with a rose. It was the evening of March 10th. and many hearts were beating for their Queen far away. Illland suddenlv stopped in his role, looked furtively to ri^ht and left, then hotly pressed the rose to his lips. '' The widow of ;i direct, descendant of ()uerii Lui-e's sister, who died in Ginuiuleii at the an'e of over richly, tnltl me, in the sunum r of ]W>. that uinlcr the will of her mother she h;ul hei.n compelled to destroy ;i ma^s of most interest in:_ r eorrespomlenco between Oueen Lui-e, her familv, and friends. An idea of the mi-chief done may he gathered from the fact that this lady was occupied durum' thivr whole day- burnilll;' up the-e preciuU- letters. She, of Ci'lir-e, regretted eiinnno'i-lv the ]o-s slie was ca li^in ij,. lui! had no choice in the matte!'. Thi- In lp- to explain why so little of this admiraMe (^iireti ha- come down to us. Nr do the secret archives of the Ilolien/olleni family :is>i.-t us vet I 206 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY It was a slight thing in itself, but every German saw in that rose the emblem of his Queen, and the uproar in the theatre became so great that the French could not fail to understand the meaning of this enthusiasm. Iffland was then promptly locked up in jail and kept there two days. So Xapoleon hated Queen Luise, because he found that the little finger of that one pure woman could raise against him more enemies than he could conveniently keep quiet. That winter, 1809-10, was her last on earth. She suffered more and more from pain in the region of the chest, and longed for the warm weather, when she might go out into the country and live the plain life that delighted her above all things. On the 25th of June, 1810, at last she was able to start for a visit to her beloved father in Mecklenburg, and during this happy visit she died on the 10th of July, 1810. She died in the arms of her husband, and her last words were: ''Lord, Jesus, make it short."' As she had predicted so often, her life was not to be * Ranch's famous monument of Queen Luise, which to-day makes Charlottenburg the favorite pilgrimage of Germans, was completed in 1814, and at once shipped to Hamburg from Leghorn on board an English ship. It was an odd coincidence that the completed statue left Rome on July 19th, the day of the Queen's death. But England in that, year was at war with the United States, and so it, happened that a Yankee privateer overhauled the British merchantman, took her prisoner, and sailed away with her and her precious cargo. But the captured merchantman was in turn chased and overhauled by the English privateer EHxn, so that once more the monument of Queen Lui-e Bailed under the British Hag. The precious marble was trans- ferred in the island of Jersey to the brig- of- war fyi/. and by her brought safely to C'u.xhaven. at the mouth of the Elbe. At last, on the '2'2d of .May, isl,"}. the famous work reached Berlin, haviii><; Lu-f>,\ (Justice, Faith, Love.) Luise was no hypocrite, and I feel sure that the reader will not begrudge the space I shall here occupy in reproducing a few of the words which this matchless Queen has left us.* " Audi in initcn Taircn kiiiftigc idi inidi durcli die Religion gcgcn die Bosen die da komnien konnen, und in diesem Bron/.enen (*/<) Seculum nil-lit ausbleibcn werden. Potsdam, 1SOIJ." ("In happy day.-, too. I fortify inysdf \vitli Religion against the- evil days which may come, and in this hron/.e age [a hit ;it Xapoleonj inu-t lie expected.") " Der ^lensch lebt von Eriiineriingen. \Venn man sich nur Gates von sidi 7.\i erinnern hat, so kann man nie irtui/ ungHicklich sein. Pot-dam, l^(j:5." (".Man lives upon memories. lit; \vlio has none liiit pleasant ones I'euarding his life can never be wholly unhappy.") "Kin TrnM lies moralisdien .Meii-ehen ist, dass ihn CJott nicht iran/. verla-.-en kann. Ivunmt die Ilulfe aueli nicht sehnell, sic kommt dodi ire \vi-s.-.Memd, ].s()7." The Duke of Cumbeilaiid, \vlio-e father was the last KiiiL r of Han over, kindly placed this precious manu>crip! in mv hands, with per mi.->ion to make the contents puMi>-. I iit'ortunately I am not able to explain satisfactorily the particular occa>ion for many of these si ran ire expressions. 1'. u. I. l I 210 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY "Man kann init Kccht sagen, class nur indem wir thuu was Rcclit ist, und wir unsercr Pflicht leben, wir uns des Gliickes irurdiy machen. Ob wir os Ilicilhaftig wcrden, stobt in Gottcs Hand. Memel, 1807." (''It may be said with truth that we deserve happiness only by doing what is right and living according to our sense of duty. But whether \ve shall attain happiness rests with God.") " AVer das gesagt hat, dass nichts scbrecklicher sei als die gute Mei- nung die man von einem Menschen hat, zurucknchmen /.u miissen, der hat recht gesagt. Es schmerzt furchterlich ! Dennoch glaube ich mehr als je, dass es cine Tugend giebt, und dass sic allein uns auch schon bier auf Erden beglucken kann. Kouigsberg, Mai, 1809." (' Whoever said this spoke true : that there is nothing on earth more dreadful than to be forced to withdraw the good opinion once held of a fellow-man.* It is frightful pain ! But in spite of it all I believe more firmly than ever that there is such a thing as virtue, and that it alone can make us happy, even while yet on earth.") "Also mache ich die Augcn 7.u, und falte die Ililnde ; und sage so oft ich nur kann : AA'ir alle stelien in deiner Hand, Gott ; verlass uns nicht 11809." (Xo place given.) ("And so I close my eyes and fold my hands, and keep repeating over and over araiu : AYe all are in thy hands. Forsake us not. O God !" X.) ___ " Ich las heute cine Stelle die mir gefiel, weil sic wahr ist : ' Leiden und Elcnd sind Gottes Segen. wenn sie uberstanden sind.' Auch ich. mitten in meinem Elond sage schon : AVie naher bin ich bei Gott ; wie deutlich sind meine Gefuhle von der Unsterblichkcit der Seele zu begrifTen geworden ! Koniu>bcrg, Miirz, 1809." ('' This morning I read a passage which pleased me because it is the truth : ' Suffering and misery are blessings from God when we have endured them.' And I, too, in the midst of my wretchedness already say : ][o\v much nearer am 1 to God; how much more dear to me have become my feelings regarding the immortality of the soul !") TIIK LAST DAYS uF ^UEEN LUISE 211 " Nie kann dor Meiisch fur den Ausgung seiner Uiiternehmungen stehen ; wenn aber die Kntschlns.se die man nahm einen gnten Zweek habcn, so muss das weitere in Gottes Hand gelegt werden. Konigs- bcrg, 1809." ("No man c:m guarantee the result of his enterprise ; but when a de- cision is taken with a good purpose in view, then may we leave the result in the hand of God." ") " Ach '. Bei alien verschicdcncn Verwimmgen nur einen Augen- blick Uebcrlegung, und alles in der Welt hat wieder seinen angewie- senen Plat/, welclien Gottes Vorseliung bestimmt. Das Auge, empor gehoben, die Seui'/er /um lliminel gesehiekt und ein Gebet um ncue Stiirke, so geht es gewiss ; denn Gott verlasst niclit die Ihn lieben und die Ihn vertrauen. Konigsbcrg. August, ISQ'J." ( Ah me '. In the midst of many confusions, only stop for a moment and relleot ; and everything in the world will be found in the place prepared for it by God'-; foresight. \Vith our gaxe fixed on things above, a sigh sent to Heaven, and a prayer fur new strength, we shall thus be able to endure, for God dues not abandon those who love him and trust in him.") "Aeh! Ilatte der Menseh doch cine Statte wo seiner bewegten Seele iran/ wold werden konnte ; wo so nianehes Sehnen ire-tilit, so manche Tliriine mit Gewissheit getrocknet. werden konnte ! "So sauf/te ieh oft. Allein ieh linde die>e Statte nirgends auf Erden. Aber mi.-ine S;iuf/.er erhebeii >ieli eiidlic'h al< lieilii. r e Gedan- ken /.u (Jott und ieh werde gestiirkt durdi den (ilaubeii. isuil." 1X0 place given.) ("All, if man had only a place where he eniiM find peace for his worried soul, when- so maiiv a yearninu' emild lie ipiieted. M) manv a tear In- dried with certainty ! " Often did 1 sigh like this. But 1 I'niind no >uch place of rot mi earth. At last, h<>we\v;-, my si^hs g<> up to Gud a-^ sacred memories, and 1 become strong through faith. "j Tln-sc arc the last words of Ourm I.uisc in this her uiofal and religious testament. XXI A NURSERY VIEW OF KING, QUEEN, AND POLITICS "So soil dein Bild auf unscrn Fahnen schweben Und soil uns leuchtcu (lurch die Nacht zum Sieg! Luise sci der Sclmtzgcist deutscher Sache, Luise sei das Losungswort zur Rache !" Theodor Korner, March 19, 1813, from his poem entitled "An Unscre Verkliirte Konigin " (To our Queen in Heaven). ONE of the most conspicuous figures of the Berlin court in the days of Xapoleon was named Yoss (V pro- nounced F), a punctilious, conscientious court lady who kept a diary,* which closed only with her death at the age of nearly eighty-six. When already an old woman she became chief companion to Queen Luise, but that years meant little with her may be inferred from entries in her diary, telling of long-sustained dances when she was eighty-one and eighty-two years of age. Her diary, which deals with royalty and politics, is a most precious legacy, for it is full of odds and ends of * The manuscript diary of Countess Voss has not yet been published, though a much garbled version of it, entitled "Sixty-nine Years at th'- Prussian Court," has appeared in German. The original is in French, and in a handwriting so bad that the most expert manuscript readers at the Record offices of both Berlin and London found the ia-k of deciphering unusually difficult. This diary was kindly placed at my disposal by the present Count Voss, a direct descendant of the famous diarist. It is to be hoped that this precious 3IS. may some day be given to the world exactly as it was penned.- P. 15. A Xl'KSEKY VIEW OF KING, QITKKX, AND POLITICS 213 information unconsciously let fall by her courtly quill. The names of Germany's great men are scarcely heard in these pages, though this is the age of Scharnhorst and Stein, of Gneisenau and IJliiclier. Still she was a power in history when the mood of the King meant more than that of all the wise men of his kingdom. In IT'.'S she made the long, sandy journey from Berlin to Konigsberg on the Baltic, accompanying Frederick William III. and his beautiful Queen Luise. It was the coronation journey, for the Kings of Prussia were by custom crowned in the old capital of Prussia. Countess Voss wrote that the King was soon bored and vexed by the interminable demonstrations of loyalty on the way. She did not, however, remind him that Louis XVI. would have suffered it most cheerfully in his stead. The roads were then very bad, and two carriages broke down in two days. From Konigsberg the royal party proceeded to War- saw, which was then .apart of .Prussia, but now belongs to Tlussia. The Poles of that day appear to have preferred (iernian to liussian rule, for the royal family not only took no unusual precaution against assassination, but appear to have been much pleased by their stay in the beautiful capital (.if the old Polish kings. "Man betet sie liier formlich an,'' says Countess Voss. speaking of the feeling of Poles for Luise. \<>r is this strange. Poland is the home of beautiful women and chivalrous men ; and in such a country the beautiful young Queen soon made herself popular. This first roval journev lasted somewhat more than a month, and gave practical demonstration to Kurope that whatever force republicanism had in !' ranee, in Prussia there was a pretty general confidence in monarchical institutions. 214 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY In the next year (1799) the royal party made a two- months' tour in the other parts of Prussia, and there as well Queen Luise became a popular favorite, though Countess Yoss's diary maintains discreet silence about the King. In 1801 Luise presented the king with a sixth child, and in the next summer made, with her husband, a long journey to the extreme northeastern corner of Prussia to meet the new ilussian Czar, Alexander I. The personal friendship of Alexander and Frederick William was dis- astrous to Prussia, for it gave one weak man a pretext for depending upon another still more weak. Yoss says of Alexander : " He appears to have a soft, benevolent disposition/' In 1SOT she cursed his softness, for he be- came wax in the hands of ISTapoleon. Luise is twice referred to as being more beautiful than usual, and Alexander was very attentive who can blame him '. Old lady Yoss herself is much moved, and writes (under date of June 15, 1802) of Alexander: "He is the most amiable man it is possible to imagine, and withal most honorable in his views and objects. The poor fellow is completely fascinated by the Queen/' On the -Ith of July, 1807, the old lady had to write of this same man of honor that his behavior was '' worse than weak.'' She might have said so earlier had she known what .suggestions this honorable Czar was circulating in St. Petersburg in regard to a Queen whose pure character was never assailed by any other man save a Xapoleon."-- L'Einpereur [Alexander \.\qui aJors Ctaitfurt epris entire part , me racnntu iju'il avait ete suricuscment alarme par I'arrangement ties diam- l>:v- ijui commuuiquaieut avec la sienne, el quc, ]>"/ la unit, if x'<. ///< r- /iHtit ."ff/m nxiiiit nt a double tour pour quo I'oii ne vint pas ]e surpivn- (!;( (' I'induirc a des tentations trup dangereuse.s (pi'il voulait eviter. A NURSERY VIEW OF KING, QUEEN, AND POLITICS 215 Prince Czartoryski, whose memoirs were published in lss7, and who was one of this C/.ar's few intimate friends, reports Alexander as complaining that Queen Luise made improper advances to him during 1 this visit as damnable a bit of self-conceit as ever entered the head of a twenty-live-year-old autocrat. Meinel is the name of the little place where King-ami Czar spent a week of most affectionate intercourse re- viewing* troops, feasting 1 , and (lancing 1 . Here was laid the basis of a friendship which the Prussian court fondly hoped was to protect them effectually against French invasion. Memel saw Queen Luise and her husband again after the battle of Jena when they iled for their lives towards the Russian frontier. Countess Voss lets us see at many points that Luise sympathized with the German patriots who preferred war with France rather than peace and Napoleon's alli- ance. I!ut the King kept his Queen in ignorance of the course he was steering, and got deeper and deeper in the slough of political falsehood and treachery At last we come to the war of ISitO, when the King and Queen drove gayly otf to the army headquarters at Frt'urt. ten days before the battle of Jena. Countess Voss says, na'ively, on October loth: "The French seem to be everv- where." And so they were, but the Prussian generals were the last to know of their whereabouts. The roads were everywhere abominable, she says. On the l-'Uh she is driving with the Queen to Anerstadt, anticipating nothing disagreeable, when the carriage is ordered back to make room for a battle. This little item sufficiently illustrates the hopeless ignorance and helplessness pre- 216 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY vailing in the Prussian headquarters, for what else can explain this stumbling upon a battle-field which was to contain the bulk of the enemy's army ! So back they turn from the battle-field of Jena, and on October 17th, three days after the battle, she hears for the first time that the Prussian army is destroyed, and that she must not stop to pack her valuables, but hurry away beyond the reach of Napoleon. The fact that the Queen of Prussia heard the news of Jena first in Berlin on the 17th tells us eloquently how backward Prussia was as compared with France, not merely in posting facilities, but in the use of semaphores for telegraphing important news. Luise hurried off to the Baltic coast at Stettin on the very next morning, and old lady Yoss followed in twenty-four hours; doing her best meanwhile towards getting the necessary clothing and furniture packed. But one day was too little for her purposes, and Napo- leon had a pleasant time ransacking Luise's private effects and reading letters which should have been burned. No sooner had poor Luise reached Stettin than she received an order to hurry off to Kustrin on the Oder, another long journey which she had to make in a small open wagon. In fact, the ro}'al people at that time were glad enough to get on in any shape, so long as they could keep out of Napoleon's reach. ( )n October 25th Countess Yoss had not seen her dear Queen for a week, and did not know even where the King was. She was ordered to post on, over very bad roads, to another Baltic port, Danzig, and there to look out for the royal children. There she saw Kardenberg on October 2Sth, and he, the great Minister of Foreign Affairs, tells Tante Yoss that in Kustrin he saw the A NURSERY VIEW OF KING, QUEEN, AND POLITICS 217 King, who "did not say a single word to him." Yet Ilardenberg was one of the few men in Prussia capable of giving the King good advice. On the oOth October the old ladv's diarv Hashes with indignation at the in- / / capacity, indecision, and blindness of those in author- ity ; ' even of those about the King."' Tante Yoss is too polite to say that it takes a stupid King to select a stupid council. What she says is much, however, under the circumstances. The month of Xovembcr, 1800, opens with a picture of the royal family of Prussia scattered in dilferent parts of the distracted country without their trunks and scarcely supplied with the common necessities. Queen Luise on Xovember 2d writes that Prussia need expect no future; she hears that Jerome Bonaparte is to be- come King of Poland and Prussia; nor is the imagina- tion startled by this rumor. Pretty soon the Voss has even a worse thing to chron- icle an insurrection in the provinces of Prussia, which were once Polish : "Napoleon is trying to get up a rev- olution in Poland! lie is a monster! "May (iod destroy him !" The good old lady should have blamed Napoleon, not for rousing the Poles* to a struggle for liberty, but for having abandoned them after encouraging them to declare for him. The Christmas of ism; was a sad one at the court of Queen Luise. for she lay ill in bed, and no one was allowed to give or receive presents. The royal familv were to- gether at Konigsberg, the city in which they had been crowned sorecentlv; but now thev counted the hours to the time when thev should have to flv for their lives and 218 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY seek an asylum in Russia, for " the French keep driving us before them, and she [Luise] will soon be in danger here.'' On the 5th of January, 1807, the wretched Queen had to be lifted from her bed to start on her dangerous journey northward, following the narro\v strip of sand which separates the Baltic from the species of brackish sound called the Curische Ilaff. Old Countess A'oss went ahead, but stopped at the first station, for ki storm and sleet were so wild that the horses could get no farther." The Queen followed at noon, but Voss gives no evidence that she was accompanied by her husband. On the 7th of January the old lady's diary says: " It was a wild storm, with thick whirling snow, and our way lay close beside the sea. We had no shelter from the gale ; it was horrible." After four days of this wretched work, in which the party had to spend the night as best they might wherever they happened to alight, they arrived at the little town of Memel, in the most northerly part of the kingdom and that nearest to Russia. Luise was too weak to walk, and the King does not appear to have sent orders ahead in regard to her comfort, for our old lady enters in her diary : " As no invalid chair had been provided to take her from her carriage up the stairs, a servant had to carry her upon his arm ; it pained me to see this." This very severe illness of Luise lasted from December loth to January L7th, when she took her iirst outing * In the Prussian Record Oflice is preserved a letter of Ilardenbcru:, dated August 14, 1810, in which he forbids the publication of a work about Queen Luise. The author of this work was one who signed him-elf 1 lofrath (court councillor) and tutor to a German prince. The rca>on^ advanced by the Prussian Prime-Minister arc strangely ob- scure. - P. 15. A NUESEKY VIEW OF KING, QUEEX, AND POLITICS 219 as convalescent not, however, with strength enough to walk up-stairs. That she survived the journey from Konigsberg to Memel caused universal surprise, and is a valuable tribute to the curative property of fresh air, even in pretty rude doses. XXII THE FIRST NATIONAL PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT MEETS IN BERLIN, 1811 " Wouldst them have beauty ? Give to the people freedom, noble thoughts, Employment that begets great deeds." Leopold Schefer (born, 1784; died, 1862), "Laienbrevier." THE 23d day of February, 1811, should be celebrated with particular joy in the home of every German citi- zen, for it was on that day that there came together in / O Berlin the first semblance of a representative national parliament. Stein had wrung this concession from the Prussian King in 1S07, on Christmas Eve : but the great reformer did not stay long enough in office to carry out more than the provincial features of his great scheme of national representation. After the attainder of Stein by Xapoleon, the King once more fell back upon, the support of ministers and courtiers as weak as himself, and would have remained content with his surroundings had not Xapoleon rudely called upon him to pay more money or lose more territory. In this dilemma his courtiers could give him no help, and he allowed Queen Luise to call Ilardenberg back from exile. Ilardenberg " :: " and Stein are two striking examples of ' x ' Ranch of course saw much of Ilardenberg, wlio sat several limes to tin- sculptor. Ranch did five of Ilardenberg. all busts, for different .notables one at the minister's request. The one I have selected is a TIIE FIRST NATIONAL PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT 221 German statesman. Both advocated for Prussia meas- ures then regarded as revolutionary, yet both were mem- bers of noble families. Neither was born in Prussia, Stein being from Nassau, II ardenberg from Hanover. Stein is dearer to the people's heart ; he was direct, honest, rough very often, and occasionally vented his temper without reserve. Ilardenberg kept his objects equally in view, but was not averse to devious ways. No matter how much provocation he had, his manners were always courtly, and even kindly. Ilardenberg was more of a cavalier, Stein very much of a Puritan. Stein would not allow a dirty story to be told in his hearing ; Ilardenberg was ready to take the world much as he found it. Frederick William III. grew to like Ilardenberg as much as he had disliked Stein. The courtly Hanoverian approached his King with a deference which Stein scorned to assume, and as a consequence Ilardenberg soon found himself clothed with such real power as any Prime-Min- ister might have envied. His first business was, of course, to raise more money for the importunate French, and to do so without driving the people of Prussia into rebellion. lie drew up a linancial scheme for the King's approval, and then went otf to talk it over with his great prede- cessor. But Stein was living in Prague, and dared not come within reach of Xapoleon for fear of being shot. marble bust 40 centimeters high. It has more simplicity and dignity than the others, and reilects Hardenbcrg's courtliness of disposition in contrast to the uncompromising impetuosity of Stein, lili'iehcr, and (Jnei-eiiaii. The accompanying picture is the best reproduction I know of Hardenberg. It was photographed under my supervision from the original in the Raueh Museum bv permission of the director, Professor Siemer'mg. What a pity that Ranch did not also make a study of Stein ! 222 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY So ILirdenberg secretly climbed up into the mountains separating Bohemia from Silesia, and there in a secluded hut joined Stein, who had made the journey from the other side. They had a full and frank talk. Stein then returned, down the southern slopes, to his Austrian exile ; llar- denberg returned to Berlin, and at once commenced put- ting into effect, with all the power at his command, the reform bill both had united in framing. Hardenberg's chief enemies were those who had also opposed Stein the landed aristocracy. This class had been brought up to think that other people came into the world for the purpose of being their servants. They regarded govern- ment as an institution valuable only so far as it protected them in their privileges. The Prussian nobles claimed all the offices in the gift of the King in fact, they claimed all the rights, but none of the duties, of a good citizen. Xow these pretensions had some force in the early days, when armies were made up of many petty barons or ranch-owners, who led their own farm hands into battle at their own expense. In those good old days, say of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a peasant counted for something, because he was constantly called upon to fight for the owner of the land on which lie had his little farm. In fact, stripped of humbug, the so- called feudal system represented a large number of big farms; each farm was managed by the farmer who could do the best fighting, and that farmer had to treat his farm hands well for the sake of the fighting he hoped to get out of them. Xow as time wore on and artillery improved, wars grew more and more costly, and the little feudal farm- ers found that they could make no head against armies TIIK FIRST NATIONAL 1'RL'SSIAX PARLIAMENT 223 equipped by a centralized government. They therefore made terms with their King. Henceforth they were to become loyal subjects of the crown; they were not to make war, but to live on their iields peaceably and hold important oih'ces. The good peasants had been well treated as long as their landlords required them to lie killed in battle; but now that the central government looked after the sol- diers, the landlords had no further use for their peasants, excepting to get as much labor as possible out of them. So little by little the noble landlords reduced their peasantry to a state of slavery. The peasants were bound to the farm on which they were born; they owed all their labor to their landlord : they paid taxes upon everything they used ; they had even to buy their beer of the landlord's brewery. Ilardenberg proposed that the Prussian nobles should pay their share of the national debt along with the rest of the people. And to make his Jinancial reform possi- ble, he at once issued his decree making the peasants independent of their landlords, permitting them to buy their beer from whomsoever they chose. In this man- ifesto was proclaimed that one Prussian was as good as another before the law, and that merit alone should be regarded in selection for public oflice. The nobles were aghast at this invasion of their claims, and promptly besieged the King with a petition in which Ilardenberg was denounced ;is a firebrand. Ilarden- berg met this attack" bv proving to the Kind's satisfac- tion that an insult to the King's minister was somewhat akin to A'*/ -//^//V.v/,'. and consequently should be punished as such. In earlier times the King would have had to drag a heavv cannon through the sands of Brandenburg and 224 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY batter down the castle of the obstreperous barons. On this occasion he simply sent a piece of paper to the two noble ringleaders, and these were promptly taken in charge by the sheriff and locked up in Spandau fortress, in sight of Berlin. After five weeks the King was gra- ciously pleased to release them upon receiving their ab- ject apologies. The Prussian nobles had shown that they could run away from the enemy, as at Jena, and Hardenberg very soon exploded their pretensions to privilege by showing them up as people who were evading the payment of their fair share of taxes. The great National Parliament of February 23, 1811, was a glorious thing in name, for it awakened through- out Germany the belief that Prussia had at length at- tained by a stroke of the pen what France had secured only after horrible bloodshed. The King had used the words " national representation " in connection with this gathering. lie had given his sanction to the principle of a popular legislative body, and if the present time might appear unfavorable for political experiments, still every German had reason to believe that a representa- tive legislative body under suitable constitutional forms O j would follow as soon as the state of the country per- mitted. In our time laws are submitted to the legislative body for discussion. The first Prussian National Parliament of 181 1 was conceived from another point of view. The King first published his law, and afterwards called a Parliament to indorse it. Hardenberg addressed the sixtv-four " representatives of the nation,'' and informed them that he had called them together on this occasion in order that they might have an opportunity of asking questions about the laws that had been passed, lie THE FIRST NATIONAL PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT 225 wished them to understand the benefits they were in- tended to confer on Prussia, and he wished them to go home after the session prepared to make these reforms popular amongst all classes. Nothing better illustrates the degree to which patri- archal government had become natural to Germans than this first experiment in popular assemblies. The King- of Prussia played the role usually assigned to the clamorous mob. He, the monarch absolute, prepared in secret a reform measure sweeping away aristocratic privilege, and calling to his assistance the great body of the people. This reform bill was not the outgrowth of mass-meetings or newspaper agitation. It was a so- cial and political revolution of most popular character, framed and executed under the immediate and exclusive control of an absolute monarch. The German is a strange mixture of man half dem- ocrat, half monarchist. Those who know Germany su- perficially wonder that monarchy can last under the present social conditions of that empire. Put the Ger- man, and particularly the Prussian, has in his blood tra- ditions of kingly rule such as no other nation can point to. lie does not deny that in other countries great re- forms have been accomplished by long and savage civil wars: lie is quite prepared to admit that in many re- spects his political progress falls- short of what he might desire; but, on the whole, he is proud of a long line of Ilohen/ollerns, who have governed Prussia with con- scientious thoroughness, who have alwavs maintained libertv of conscience, who have encouraged common schools, who have respected the independence of judges, and who in their own persons have set an example of industry. Frederick William III. was a strangely shy and weak I. 15 226 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY man, who nearly ruined his country by his lack of judg- ment and lack of courage. But, as though by a miracle, Prussia's very disasters brought into relief a handful of great patriots, who could not have made room for them- selves in days of prosperity; and of them all the most important was a woman, Queen Luise, who did not even live to see the beginnings of parliamentary gov- ernment in Berlin. The strange Parliament of sixty-four members lasted from February 23 to June 28, 1811. Its members re- turned to their several homes to tell of the simplicity of their King's life ; to answer all the questions about the new Prime - Minister ; to descant on Hardenberg's fine voice and presence, his force and talents, his patri- otic efforts, and, above all, to spread throughout Ger- many a knowledge of the great popular forces that were then at work stirring up war against the French. Throughout the little armv of Prussia, numbering \j 42,000 in all, new recruits were called in every three months, and passed rapidly through the most indispensa- ble drill, to be discharged after ninety days. This was the soldiering of 1811, and it was this soldiering which made the troops of 1813, who routed the French at Gross Beeren and Leipzig, who stormed the intrench- ments of "Wartcnburg. Bliicher, Gneisenau, and Scliarn- horst worked incessantly during this 1811 preparing the countrv for a war which they saw was coining. Xa- poleon and Alexander had awaked from their dream of dearest friend, and in this 1811 were exchanging diplo- matic threats. Prussia was therefore between two fires, in that Xa- poleon might crush her on the one side, and Alexander on the other. She was not strong enough to make her armed neutrality respected. She had to choose. THE FIRST NATIONAL PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT 227 Hardenberg made up his mind that for the moment at least Xapoleon was the more dangerous enemy to have. lie made the King profess extravagant friend- ship for France, and promise an offensive and defensive alliance. At the same time he sent word to Russia that he meant very well by the Czar, and that though ap- pearances might be against Prussia, still the King had good intentions. Meanwhile the commanders in the army watched with uneasiness the Russian troops moving on the eastern frontier and the French garrisons becoming stronger. They strengthened themselves as well as they could bv calling in all furlough men, but from day to dav thev did not know whether they were about to take the field with Russia against France, or with France against Russia. In the spring of 181 1 Xapoleon, with brutal frankness, complained of Prussia's warlike activity, and ended with the words: ''That wretched King of Prussia! In four weeks there may be nothing left of him but a .Marquis of Brandenburg." And, indeed, it did seem as though Xapoleon's words were not without reason. During that feverish winter of 1^11 to \^\'2 the French encroached more and more upon Prussian territory. They increased their garrisons in (ilo^au, Kiistrin, and Stettin, three important forts on the river Oder which practically controlled Prussia. They acted as though Prussia were in all but name a French province. Napoleon h;id sent word alivadv in ( )ctober that he would make no treaty with Prussia un- less she placed her soldiers under his orders. It was to Frederick" William a case of stand and deliver. I lartlrnberu' on November I'd advised the King to yield everything Xapoleon aske 1, and meanwhile to 228 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY make secret alliances with Russia, Austria, and En their own monarchs, armies, and custom-houses. Jalm grew up to regard the subjects of George J 1 1. in I lanover and those of the Jioyal Duke of Mecklenburg as quite naturally his own people, in spite of custom houses and diil'erent uniforms. Local jealousy produced occasional lights on market days, but these amounted to no more than the present rivalry between the athletes of our dif- ferent colleges. The states of northern Gennanv re- sembled in a rough wav those of New England; each state was jealous of the other, vet each looked to the other as its natural ally in case of invasion. Political ambition and selfishness kept them apart, yet all spoke the same German tongue; all looked up to Frederick the Great as the champion of German Protestants; all read the Piiile of Martin Luther. THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY To Germany it is of great importance that such a strong nature as Jahn's developed at a place where he felt as a citizen of the great German nation rather than a subject merely of Prussia. His home too, a village named Lenz, or Lenzen, was on the highway of German land and water intercourse between the chief political and commercial centres of Germany. By his door passed the traders of Hamburg on their way to Berlin, either on the sandy post-road or by way of the Elbe, which then, as now, was an important channel of com- merce. Travellers from Bavaria, Saxony, Austria, the Rhine, were apt to pass here on the way northward to the Baltic or Xorth Sea ports. In those slow-coach days, when news was conveyed largely by passengers who chatted while horses were changed, the little vil- lage of Lenz, small as it was and obscure, heard of the outside world then pretty nearly as much as the clubs of the capital. Jahn's home was situated in re- spect to Xorth Germany as favorably as might be con- sidered Hartford or Springfield one hundred years ago as regards Xew England. O o Another element in the making of Jalm was that his neighbors were all free farmers; and he says, with pride, that in his youth he was never forced to bow his head, to landlords, or any master save such as represent- ed wholesome authority, lie knew liberty from hav- ing lived in a self-governing community, and preached libertv, not as revolution, but as the extension of a sys- tem whose practical benefits he had enjoyed. It is not too much to say that Jahn grew up with as much per- sonal liberty as was enjoyed by the average New Eng- land lad of the same period. .Jahn's parents were poor, but able to give their son what educational advantages the small place afforded JAIIN, THE PATRIOT 233 whicli was not much. His father was the Lutheran clergyman, whom all accounts unite in pronouncing a man of excellent character, a good preacher, and of superior intelligence. His mother was more remarkable still of rare courage, simplicity, honesty, and dislike of pretension. She dressed much as the peasants about her, and was the terror of those who affected so-called fashionable life. To her last days she insisted upon making her own bed, sweeping her own room, and doing her own work generally. They were both profoundly religious, and ,Jahn all his life treated Luther's Bible as the most precious book in the world. Ilis mother knew it almost by heart, and had a text for every trouble. She taught her son the beauty of its language and the power of its promises, and the teaching he received at his mother's knee is reflected in his public utterances and in his writings to the day of his death. Prussia was then to Germany what Xew Kngland was to Xorth America a land of simple fare, hard worlc, strong thinking, clean living. The Puritans of Europe lived in Prussia, and -lahn was chief of them, lie grew up in a set of ideas that surrounded Oliver Cromwell and the 1'ilgrim Fathers, and these ideas became stronger us he saw the world nnuv. In later years, whether in Vienna or Paris or P.erlin, lie re- mained the rough, uncompromising Puritan in speech and life. Jalin had no systematic education in the academic sense, and, above all, in that of modern Germaiiv. lie learned to swim and shoot and climb trees and lind his way alone bv starlight ; in all these arts he soon became expert. Hut he had a very checkered career at school. He is said to have studied at ten universities, which is 234 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY almost equivalent to saying that he did no studying at all. In his later years it was an obstacle to his secur- ing a government appointment that he had not passed through the usual academic course of study, and the title of doctor, which the University of Jena in later years granted him, was more a recognition of his services as patriot than as scholar. Down to the year 1806, the year of Jena, when Jahn was twenty-eight years of age, we have but fitful glances at this strange, strong man. lie appears at several uni- versities, amongst others Jena, Gottingen, Greifswald, and Halle ; he is generally conspicuous for very shabby clothes, total absence of money, strong disposition to ac- quire knowledge, and equally strong disposition to be a law unto himself. lie is commonly reported as being a very rough diamond, yet wherever he appears he com- mands a following. As a student he opposed duelling, and proposed that the different fighting corps, instead of instigating duels, should march out in two bodies with pikes and bludgeons, have a pitched battle, and then declare peace. For this he incurred the savage hostility of the corps students, and mam* were the attempts made to haze him at Jena and elsewhere. lie was fre- quently waylaid, but always fought his way successfully through with the help of a stout stick, which he usually carried, and which he handled with skill. lie also took care to have clothes so padded as to form a species of armor. At night he carried a stone in a handkerchief something in the nature of a slung-shot and this weapon was the most effective of all. in his opinion. At Halle he spent a whole summer in a cave, living chiefly from the proceeds of a potato-patch adjoining. Here ho slept and read and studied; and here he pro- duced his first book, in the year of 1SOO a passionate JAIIX, THE PATRIOT 235 appeal to Gentians to be true to themselves, to culti- vate a love of what was German, and thus work towards national unity and power. Our hero led the life of a fighting tramp as far as out- ward signs speak, and we cannot trace anywhere a ref- erence to him during his student years that does not seem to exclude him from cultivated society, lie was a man of direct, honest, and fearless nature, and cannot have spent ten years of his earlv manhood livin the Prussian monarch and JAHN, THE PATRIOT 237 Jahn lived like hunted poachers; the King was chased from Jena up along the bleak Baltic shores to the ex- tremity of his kingdom, and did not return to Berlin until Christmas of ISO'J. Jahn followed the remnants of the Prussian army from the same iield, managed also to elude capture, and wandered also along the .Baltic shores. In every place at which he stopped he preached the regeneration of Germany; he encouraged the de- spondent ; he strengthened the purpose of the coura- geous. Poor and outcast as he was, his country over- run with French troops, officials, and spies, he produced in these days a book which is still a power in the father- land, and at that time made him at once an apostle to the patriots a suspect to the French governors. This hook was called Deutwhcs Vlkxth>ttii, a word I can with difficulty reproduce without using many say, German popular life and thought. In its pages are prophecies realized in 1S71 one people, one nation, one empire, and all united under one legal constitution. In the political testament of Jahn are these words: "The unity of German}' was the dream of my awaken- ing life the light of dawn to my boyhood. In the strength of my manhood it was a sun at noon, and is now the evening star that lights me to everlasting rest." Jahn was at the elose of his life when he put these words on paper; he,' had suffered many disappointments, and lie died at a time when German empire and < ierman constitution seemed lit for the brain only of a madman or dreamer, lint the dream of Jahn was in l^n'.i the dream of many Germans in many separate states; and notably was it steadily kept in view by siieh practical Germans as Stein and Gneisenati, by Kr>rner and Arndt. In looking back upon German historv from the stand- point of to-day, when Germany has her constitution, her 238 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY free press, her right of free speech, her universal suf- frage, and, above all, her unity, let us not forget that these blessings to her national life were earnestly prayed for and fought for by the fathers and grandfathers of the soldiers who fought at Sedan and Metz ; that Ger- man unity and empire were prepared by the German people while Napoleon I. (not Napoleon III.) was Em- peror of the French. From Christmas of 1809 Jahn became the most con- spicuous popular figure in Berlin, and was credited with intimate secret relations with the anti-French patriots throughout Germany, notably in the universities. To Napoleon's officials he was an archrebel, as was Benja- min Franklin to those of George III., and for very much the same reason that both enjoyed to an eminent de- gree the confidence of the people. In Berlin Jahn secured a teacher's position and salary in a great public school, and soon developed the qualities which earn him to-day the proud title of Turnvater father of gymnastic tournament. lie used to take his favorite pupils out into the country on holidays and there interest them in rough, manly games, leaping, wrestling, and running as well. lie had a rare gift for leadership over young minds, and to go out with Jahn soon came to be regarded bj r the school children as so much of a treat that the "Turn" Father conceived the notion of organizing classes for the purpose of conduct- ing gymnastic exercises with system. O (T/t, / Already in 1S11 a sandy field near Berlin"- was secured, :; "T!iis fic'M lay oil the edges of what is now the great exercising- ground of the Berlin garrison. A monument to Jahn lias since been here erected, 1 hanks to the patriotic contributions of gymnu.-ts in every part of the world. The stones in the base of this monument were Sent fr >m far-away countries; some arc marked South Africa, JAIIN, THE PATRIOT 239 and here comrae'nced those valuable gymnastic exercises which now form part of the curriculum in every German school, and which Germans have carried with them to every corner of the civilized and uncivilized world, along with the love of song. Singing in unison goes hand in hand with outdoor exercise, and Jahn quickly recognized the intimate relation between these two great forces. Sin///?, or Folkdoin, under his arm, on Christinas of 1 S 01>, down to the battle of "Waterloo and the disap- pearance of Xapoleon to St. Helena, Jahn was a hero JAIIN, THE PATRIOT 241 not merely to tbo youth and people of Germany, but to the government as well. He was a most useful man to the heads of the state by his knowledge of local affairs, his power over the popular mind, and his zeal for the overthrow of French rule. And as long as war against France was the absorbing task of King and people, Jahn was made much of. lie stood in intimate personal re- lations with the chief men of the government, and in ISl-i received a government salary as recognition of his past and prospective services to the state. After the battle of Waterloo, Jahn, with the rest of his fellow -liberators, recognized that Germany had vindi- cated its right to exist but little more. The Germans of the war had gone to battle for unity and freedom not merely to save the Ilohenzollerns from destruction, but to make the Ilohenzollerns the head of a 1'nited German Empire. When the war closed Jahn felt that the work had been but half done; Germany had no con- stitution, nor had it achieved unity. ISliicher and Gnei- senau raged in anger that Alsace had not been restored to the empire; while Stein and Arndt looked forward to another war as necessary. Jahn went on drilling his classes in singing and gym- nastics, but now the undercurrent of his teaching was to reap the fruits of Waterloo to make good German cit- izens, to produce a desire for union throughout Germany and pave the; way for an imperial constitution. In 1*17, two years after Waterloo, he commenced a series of remarkable lectures on Volksthum, his favorite theme the popular life and thought. The lectures were held in IJerlin, and his room was always crowded. He preached the gospel of German culture, German speech, German song, German unity, as opposed to the fashionable cosmopolitanism which ended in disunion I. ir, 24'^ THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY and defeat. His lectures produced immense political effect, for in all minds they further heightened the pre- vailing dissatisfaction with the fruits of Waterloo. Of course his language had to be guarded, so as to avoid conflict with the police. This was Jalm's last public appearance as the great and universally popular German hero. lie lived yet thirty -five years, and was a delegate to the diet of ISIS; but from the year 1817 he may be said to have been lost to his country, snuffed out by order of gov- ernment in the vigor of his manhood, when his facul- ties were brightest and zeal for his country most active. In 1819 he was arrested on charge of treason and put into prison at Spandau the same prison that has held so many recent German patriots. Two of his children died Avhile he was in confinement awaiting his trial, and he was not allowed to follow them to the grave. After two years of arrest, partly in Spandau and partly in Kiistrin, he cleared himself of the specific charge brought against him, revolutionary conspiracy; but, instead of being lib- erated, was ordered to remain under police watch a species of convict at large on parole and remained in this suspicious category until 184:0 more than twenty years from the time of his arrest. Jahn's patriotism was singularly pure. We have no evidence that his human ambition ever soared higher than a professorship at the Berlin University ; and while most German historians affect to ignore the great services he has rendered to Germany, they all fail to discover a stain upon his character, lie was too honest for the government of the day, and threw away great political prizes because he persisted in preaching the truth when the Prussian official disliked to hear it. JAIIN, THE PATRIOT 243 Jalm fought 'with the spirit of Luther, and shares with the great reformer enormous popularity amongst the people, for whom, he cheerfully surrendered his person- al liberty, and would willingly, if necessary, have laid down his life. XXIV HOW THE IRON CROSS CAME TO BE FOUNDED "Luther . . . was the mightiest man of his century, and assisted in cre- ating it. What he appeared to create was there already ; but he first gave it life so that the people could see what it was." Arudt, 1805, Geist dcr Zeit, p. 39. THE Iron Cross is the most popular war medal in Germany, and, like many another popular German in- stitution, was founded in a time of great national dis- tress. King Frederick William III. is commonly credited with calling this medal into existence on the outbreak of war against Xapoleon in 1813, but in spirit the Iron Cross was created by Gneisenau in the black days of 1811. Xapoleon in that year was threat- ening to invade Russia, and had made large additions to the French garri- sons in and about Prussia. Frederick William was in painful need of mon- ey ; the French indemnity weighed heavilv upon his scanty exchequer, and he realized that in the coming war there would be nothing to prevent Prussia being again tramped over by one or more of the neighboring states at war. The French were already in possession of several Prussian fortresses, and there THE IKON CHOSS HOW THE IRON CROSS CAME TO BE FOUNDED 245 was every reason to anticipate that Napoleon meant to use this country as his prime base of operations. The King became thoroughly alarmed for his personal safety. He sent, on May 14, 1M 1, a most humble plea to Napoleon, which in formal treaty talk sounded fairly well, but in plain English told Napoleon that Prussia would gladly submit to any humiliation if France would only promise not to drive him from the throne. The King was bold enough to beg some abatement of the grinding indemnity ; to ask for the return of one or two Prussian fortresses, and to be allowed a larger standing army than 42,oo(i ; but in return France was offered the use of the Prussian army to iight French battles under any and all circumstances. In other words, the Prus- sian army was offered to Napoleon as part payment for a war indemnity arranged at the Peace of Tilsit. Na- poleon was by this time, however, too blind in matters political to see his own interests. Jle ignored this message. Put for this silence of Napoleon we might never have heard of an Iron Cross in Germany. The King had per- sistently opposed every suggestion looking t<> a popular army of citizen volunteers, for he dreaded his people more than he did the French. Put one thing he dreaded more even than his people, and that was the loss of his throne. As between losing his throne and appealing to his people, lie finally decided to make a great sacrifice, and asked advice of the soldier who had been in Amer- ica ( ineiscnau. (ineiseiiau could not come openly to the King in P>er- lin, but in secret he left his farm in I!reslau. and was smuggled into the presence of the Prime-Minister, llar- denberg, at a little suburb of Merlin called (Jlienicke, on the L'lst of .lime. 1>11. The chief of police assisted in 246 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOK LIBERTY the smuggling ; and no doubt Gneisenau would have been shot like Palm or Schill had Napoleon heard what their talk was about. The King allowed Gneisenau a salary of 2500 thalers say 81875, or 375 a year, and he went to live quietly in Berlin at a house in Unter den Linden, giving the French to understand that he had given up all interest in soldiering, and was there for his private amusement. Here he drew up a memorial for the King, which was handed in on the 8th of August. No such revolutionary programme had ever been prepared for a Prussian mon- arch, and the fact that its author was not sent at once to prison shows that the Prussia of 1811 was not the same Prussia that marched gayly to Jena. Gneisenau commenced by assuming that Prussia was on the verge of being destroyed by Napoleon, and he therefore opened with the following proposition : " Since Prussia is threatened with invasion that means annihilation ( Vernichtung), the royal family must seek its safety and support in a popular call to arms ( Yolks- an/stand)" The King annotated this paragraph with his own hands : " The proposed struggle for existence (Karnpf dcr Verzwcifluny) is no doubt better and more honorable than voluntarily passing under the yoke." Gneisenau elaborately worked out a plan of insur- rectionary warfare, the details of which must have been familiar to him in America. All Prussia was mapped out into districts, each district to be under the control of a confidential agent, each such agent to be known at headquarters, but no correspondence to pass between the conspirators in different parts of the country. The whole scheme was a vast conspiracy, and the greatest precautions had to be observed lest Napoleon should get wind of it and hang the ringleaders without trial. HOW THE IKON CROSS CAME TO BE FOUNDED 247 The whole country was to organize volunteer troops. "They shall organize in the neighborhood of their own homes ; they shall elect their o\vn officers and non-com- missioned officers. To begin with, they may be started by half -pay retired officers.'' Gneisenau proposed to arm them with pikes* until they could get arms from England. f The example of Jena was fresh in every mind, and so Gneisenau proposed the penalty of death for any one assisting the French by furnishing supplies or accepting any administrative post. Ilis idea was to starve the French out, if every other means failed. Clergymen were to preach the duty of citizenship from the pulpit, to which the King made this observation : " As soon as the French shoot one parson, the whole movement will collapse." Gneisenau had difficulty in preserving his temper while the King made criticisms upon the plan for saving his throne. He went on to explain how the militia must operate, hiding by day in the woods, surprising the ene- my at night like North American Indians, worrying them all the time, lie recommended the simplest tac- tics, mainly to load and shoot. The King made a run- ning accompaniment to the effect that Prussians were * " I had a pike made, and studded it with sharp spikes, that no one miijht sei/.e it by the hand. I had, bc.-ides, a French infantry sword, and I bought myself a pair of pistols, which at that time were very expensive, owing to the threat demand. These I wore in my licit. "\Vo were called together for drill under the command of former army of- ficers. Many wonderful things happened in these drill-, for it was that of the Prussian infantry." And Klddcii (.p. :'.!! ) i;oes on to re- late the absurdities that occurred from using the pike as though it had been a mu>ket. f It is ditlicult to bear in mind that while the I'rus.-ian King was ne- gotiating with Napoleon the sale of his army to France, he was at the same time soliciting the aid of Kngland, France's chief antagonist. The situation was so anomalous as to be almost incredible. P. 15. 248 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY too stupid to do such work, and that the whole thing would fall to pieces as soon as the French showed them- selves. Those were iron days, and Gneisenau applied iron measures. lie was advocating the principle that each citizen was bound to spill his blood in defence of his country, and therefore urged that no young man should be allowed to inherit property unless he had served in the army, that he should not be allowed to give testi- mony in court, or even to take the holy communion with his neighbors. On 'the other hand, Gneisenau proposed that every man who had served faithfully should wear for the rest of his life an honorable distinction, either a black-and- white scarf or a national cockade; and here was the idea of the Iron Cross. Tiie King thought well of the decoration in general, but did not approve of limiting it to the citizen sol- dier, lie wished it extended to all his army, and thus robbed it of much of its peculiar value. The original "Iron Cross" was to consist of two pieces of black-and- Avhite ribbon sewed on to the breast in the shape of a cross. The colors were those of Prussia ; the shape suggested the famous cross of the order of German Knights a happy blending of national with imperial aspirations. Of course in practice the King's idea proved awkward, for it involved sewing and resewing the slips of ribbon each time that a coat was changed. The Cross was finally made of iron, less from sentiment than from ex- treme poverty. It became, however, the most precious of war medals in the eyes of the German soldier. It was not given away, like so many medals, for merely courtly services, but had to be earned upon the field of battle; HO\V THE IKON CROSS CAME TO BE FOUNDED 249 and the field-marshal had to earn it no less than the youngest recruit. In this famous document Gneisenau insisted that ti- tles of nobility should henceforth be given only to such as earned them by serving their country, that the Prus- sian aristocrats should be degraded if they failed in this duty, and that henceforth the nobleman should be the man who served his country best. Gneisenau also urged the King to cense using the French language, and to insist that those about him cul- tivate the tongue of the people. The King approved in general of the plan, and, had Queen Luise been at his side, would no doubt have put it into immediate operation. Gneisenau. Uliicher, Scharnhorst, and Ilardenberg worked in unison throughout; they gave the agents of England positive assurance that the Prussian King would never be ally of France ; that in the event of Na- poleon assuming a menacing position, the King would retire from P>erlin. appeal to his people, and Prussia would light the war of insurrection like the peasants of Spain and Tyrol. Xor were these patriots dishonest in this; they believed what they said, and believed what their King had said. Put the King was too weak to fol- low them. In October, 1*11, Illiicher was disgraced for strength- ening the defences of Col berg, and Napoleon had the impudence to send his agents openly about Prussia to see that no other fortresses were being strengthened all this, too, with the King's consent. On November f>t h. Scharnhorst, who had been sent on a secret mission to St. Petersburg, returned full of enthusi- asm, for the C/ar had promised assistance against Napo- leon, and was arming for the eominu; tiu'lit. I Jut I-Yed- 250 THE GERMAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY erick William did not choose to wait one day for this message. On November 4th he declared himself for the alliance with Napoleon, and bound himself to go to war with him against Russia and England. Prussia was to place 20,000 men under Napoleon's orders, and with him invade the land of the King's friend and ally, Alex- ander.* On February 22, 1812, Napoleon compelled the Prus- sian envoy in Paris to sign the treaty which handed over Prussia to Napoleon's caprice. Bliicher wrote to Gneisenau in these days : " Frederick the II. [the Great] after a lost battle wrote, * All is lost save honor.' Now we write, 'All is lost, and honor into the bargain.' '' And honest old Bliicher voiced the general feeling amongst patriotic Germans. Three hundred officers im- mediately forwarded their resignations to the King, which ho accepted with a bad grace. On March 15th Davoust once more occupied Berlin in Napoleon's name, and the whole of Prussia was flooded with men of the ;i Grand Army " concentrating upon the Russian frontier. The King was allowed to keep 1200 men about him in Potsdam, but was virtually a hostage in French hands. * The suppression of public opinion was important in these days, and on November 11, 1811, the Berlin chief of police, acting under orders of the Prime-Minister, forbade the publication of anything of a political nature unless the government had first granted express per- mission. From the censorship reports that are preserved in the Ber- lin archives to-day it would seem as though the Prussian government was concerned mainly with the suppression of matter that could wound the feelings of Xapoleou. P. B. END OF VOLUME I AA 000036573 4