Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850

"At Rheinsberg, to be perfectly happy, we want only a Voltaire. But, though you live far from us, still you are in our midst. Your portrait adorns my library; it hangs over the bookcase which contains our Golden Fleece, immediately above your works, and opposite to the place where I generally sit, that I may always have it in my view. I might almost say, that your picture is to me as the statue of Memnon, which, when the sun's rays fell on it, emitted harmonious sounds, and imparted inspiration to the mind of every one who looked upon it."

In another letter he writes —

"In pagan antiquity, men offered to the gods the first fruits of the harvest and of the vintage… In the Romish church, they devote not only the firstborn, not only the younger sons, but whole kingdoms, as we see in the instance of St Louis, who renounced his in favour of the Virgin Mary. For my part, I have no first fruits of the earth, no children, and no kingdom to devote; but I devote to you the first fruits of my muse in the year 1739. Were I a pagan, I would address you by the name of Apollo; were I a Papist, I might have chosen you for my patron saint, or my confessor; but, being none of these, I am content to admire you as a philosopher, to love you as a poet, and to esteem you as a friend."

But this romance was soon to be exchanged for reality; the elegancies of royal idleness were to be forgotten in the sound of cannon, and the fictions of a pampered fancy were to be thrown into the shade by the vicissitudes of one of the most sanguinary struggles that Europe had ever seen.

In 1740, Frederick had ascended the throne. He was at Potsdam, and confined to his chamber by illness, when the death of the Emperor Charles was announced to him. This event broke up the peace of Germany.

The Emperor, Charles VI., having no issue after a marriage of four years, established a new law of succession, known as the Pragmatic Sanction. The heirship of Austria had hitherto been limited to males; but, by the new law, the undivided monarchy was to devolve first to his own daughters, or, if they should not be living at the time of his death, to the daughters of his elder brother Joseph, Electresses of Saxony and Bavaria, and so on, always to the nearest relatives.

The death of the Emperor obviously threatened to involve all Europe, and especially Germany, in convulsion; for the mere publication of the Pragmatic Sanction, in 1724, had produced counter declarations from no less than three princes of the empire, who regarded their rights as invaded. The Elector of Bavaria, who was married to a daughter of the Emperor Joseph I., founded a claim to the Austrian dominions on the will of Ferdinand I.; France was disposed to enter into an alliance with Prussia; Sweden and Russia would have been inevitably involved in the war. And it was of this complication of events that the young Prussian monarch took advantage to make an assault upon Austria. For one hundred years Prussia had complained of the loss of Silesia. Her successive kings had severally impeached its seizure by Austria, and the Great Elector had still earlier bequeathed the recovery of the province to the gallantry, or the good fortune, of his successors. Frederick, now at the head of a powerful army, with a full treasury, and seeing an approaching contest for the possession of Austria itself, regarded this as a favourable moment for the recovery of his ancestral territory.

Frederick, having now completed all his preparations, sent an envoy to Vienna, to offer his alliance to Maria-Theresa, and his vote to her husband at the election of emperor, provided she would give up Silesia. But knowing the contempt with which the Austrian cabinet regarded the minor princes of Germany, and also knowing the advantage of promptitude, where the object is possession, he at once set his army in motion for the Silesian frontier. His proposal was, as he had foreseen, rejected; and on its rejection, without a moment's delay, he rushed over the frontier. He found, as he had expected, the Austrian government wholly unprepared. The whole disposable force of Austria, for the defence of Silesia, amounted to 3000 men. The invading army amounted to 28,000. Breslau the capital, Glogau the principal fortress, every town, speedily fell before him. In a note to his friend Jordan, who had attempted to dissuade him from the enterprise, he wrote, in a mixture of scoffing and exultation —

"My gentle M. Jordan, my kind, my mild, my peace-loving M. Jordan, I acquaint your serenity that Silesia is as good as conquered. I prepare you for most important plans, and announce to you the greatest luck that the womb of fortune ever produced. For the present this must be enough for you. Be my Cicero in defending my enterprise; in its execution I will be your Cæsar."

We now advert to the distinguished public servant whose correspondence throws the principal light on this important period of our foreign policy – the British envoy to the court of Berlin.

Andrew Mitchell was born in Edinburgh in 1708, son of one of the ministers of St Giles's, king's chaplain for Scotland. His mother, Margaret Cunningham, was a descendant of Lord Glencairn. Mitchell adopted the law as his profession, was admitted to the Middle Temple, and was called to the English bar in 1738. Besides a knowledge of the Scotch law, he was a man of general and rather elegant acquirement, having left among his papers observations on the Ciceronian philosophy, on the chief European histories, on morals, models, statues, and classic objects in general. He was also a member of the Royal Society.

Mitchell was evidently either sustained by active interest, or an opinion of his talents; for on the appointment of the Marquis of Tweeddale to the secretaryship for Scotland, he fixed on Mitchell as his undersecretary. In 1747, he was elected member for the county of Aberdeen. In 1756, he was appointed as British representative at the court of Frederick II.

In the more decorous style of modern diplomacy, we can seldom find examples of the court-candour with which the royal personages of the last age spoke of each other. George II. called Frederick-William "my brother the corporal." Frederick-William called George II. "my brother the dancing-master." Of course those opinions made their way to the last ears which ought to have heard them, and they left stings. But the necessities of the time overcame the bitterness of the sarcasms. Some of the letters of the elder Horace Walpole, Sir Robert's brother, who had been ambassador at Paris and the Hague, then the chief scenes of foreign diplomacy, probably expressed the chief feeling of English public men in his day, as they certainly were soon embodied in their policy. Of Frederick II. he says, —

"I know the character of that prince. I know how little he is to be trusted, and I would not have trusted him without good security for the execution of his engagements… I need not tell you that the house of Brandenburg is a rising house. The economy of the late king, the spirit of discipline he introduced into his army, the ambition, talents, and active genius of the present monarch, must render that house a powerful friend or formidable enemy."

He gives an equally decisive opinion of the Austrian policy —

"I apprehend that the principal object of the court of Vienna will be to distract, divide, and devour the Prussian dominions. Their pride, their vengeance, and, above all, their bigotry will naturally lead them to destroy a Protestant power that has dared to offend them."

At length it was ascertained that a private negotiation had been commenced between Austria and France, the result of which must expose the Electoral dominions to invasion by France. An alliance with Prussia was immediately concluded. The account subsequently given by Thiébault, in his Memoirs of the Prussian Court, gives a strong impression of Mitchell's manliness and intelligence: —

"Sir Andrew Mitchell, Knight of the Order of the Garter, [a mistake for the Bath,] had been for several years the English ambassador at Berlin, when I first arrived there. Some time, however, elapsed before I had the least acquaintance with him, not only because it was little to be expected that Englishmen should be desirous of the society of Frenchmen, but also because Sir Andrew Mitchell was of the number of those meritorious characters who stand in no need of perpetual society for existence, and have the philosophy to prefer being occasionally alone. When he first arrived in Berlin, he had caused the persons who necessarily invited him to their houses considerable perplexity; for he played at no game of cards, so that his hosts constantly said, – 'What shall we do with the Englishman, who never plays at cards?' In a few days, however, the contest was, who should withhold himself from the card-table, and have the advantage of conversing with a man in whom they had discovered every requisite to afford the highest pleasure in colloquial intercourse. In reality, his understanding was no less admirable than the virtues of his character. Of this I cannot give a more substantial proof, than by observing that he was united in the strictest bonds of friendship with the author of L'Esprit des Loix."

Some of the shrewd bons-mots of the diplomatic Scot are given by the Frenchman. On one occasion, when the English mail had three times been due, the king said to him at the levée – "Have you not the spleen, M. Mitchell, when the mail is thus delayed?" The reply was, – "No, Sire, not when it is delayed, but often enough when it duly arrives."

The English cabinet having promised to send a fleet to the Baltic, to prevent the Russians from sending troops against the king, and the fleet not appearing, Frederick was chagrined; at length he ceased to invite the envoy to the royal table. One day some of the servants, meeting him, asked, – "Is it dinner-time, M. Mitchell?" The significant retort was, – "Gentlemen, no fleet, no dinner." This was told to Frederick, and the invitations were renewed.

The next bon-mot is happier still. After the taking of Port Mahon, and the retreat of the unfortunate Admiral Byng, the king, meeting the envoy, said, – "You have made a bad beginning, M. Mitchell; your trial of Admiral Byng is but a bad plaster for the disease; you have made an unlucky campaign." "Sire," observed Mitchell, "we hope, with God's assistance, to make a better one next year."

"With God's assistance, sir! I did not know that you had such an ally," said the king.

"We hope we have, Sire; and he is the only one of our allies that costs us nothing," was the pungent reply.

In the latter portion of the war against Napoleon, it was the custom to send British officers to attend the headquarters of the Allies, and diplomatists frequently moved along with the armies. But the instance of Mitchell's moving along with the Prussian monarch was, we believe, the first example of the kind. On this subject, we have a lively letter from the Earl of Holdernesse, then Secretary of State to the envoy: —

"Dear Sir, – I heartily wish you health and success in the new trade you are going to undertake. However, do not grow too much a soldier, and set a bad precedent for the rest of your black brethren of the ink-bottle. Observation is our business, not fighting. Remember, if you do get a knock of the pate, vous en emporterez la peine, et l'on dira – Que diable y avoit-il à faire. Yet I would not advise you to follow the steps of the minister of Mayence at Dettingen, who, during the time of action, came up to Lord Granville's coach, crying out, 'Je proteste contre toute violence.'

"I can find no trace in the office books of any particular allowance made to Foreign Ministers for such sort of expeditions; but I am persuaded I shall adjust it easily with the Duke of Newcastle. Once more, adieu. Our constant toast now here is, 'Success to the King of Prussia.' He grows vastly popular among us. For my part, I always add a gulp more to my old friend Mitchell."

A letter from the envoy, addressed to the King of Prussia, makes the formal request that he may be allowed to follow the headquarters – a permission which was immediately conceded by the king. The object of this request, (suggested by the English Ministry,) was twofold – to have an intelligent observer of the politics of Prussia on the spot; and to supply George II. with anecdotes of war, for which he conceived himself to have a peculiar talent; and on which subject the despatches of the envoy were always read by him with peculiar interest.

The envoy was not long without material. Before he left Berlin, he had the following despatch to write to the Earl of Holdernesse —

"My Lord, – This morning, about seven o'clock, Monsieur Oppen, an officer in the Guards, arrived here from the Prussian army. He had no letters, only a scrap of paper without date, which he was directed to deliver to the queen-mother, in which was written with a pencil, in the king's own hand, that his troops had beaten the Austrians, platte couture, that he reckoned his loss about two thousand, and that of the Austrians at four thousand men."

This was a hard-fought but indecisive action. The Austrians, under Marshal Browne, were the assailants; and the engagement continued from morning till past midday, when they retreated; but they numbered two-thirds more than the Prussians, their force being nearly seventy thousand to about forty thousand.

But a more important success immediately followed. The Saxon army, amounting to sixteen thousand, had been surrounded in their fortified camp at Pirna; the fortifications were so strong that the only hope of reducing them was by famine. To the universal astonishment, they suddenly quitted this impregnable position, and marched into a defile, where they could neither advance nor retreat. The king offered them conditions, which they accepted; and Mitchell, who had waited at Berlin only for the royal permission to join the army, arrived just in time to see the surrender; and what was more curious still, the quiet transfer of their allegiance to the Prussian service. He thus writes —

"October 21, 1756.

"On Sunday the 17th, the Saxon troops, preceded by their general officers, crossed the Elbe… Thence they marched into a plain in the neighbourhood, and, after passing between two battalions of Prussian Guards, they were received by the battalions of the Prince of Prussia's regiments, drawn up on the right and left. They were then formed into a hollow square, and had the articles of war read, and the military oath administered to them, in the presence of Prince Maurice of Anhalt-Dessau, or of Prince Ferdinand, the King of Prussia's brother. The soldiers were all armed; but the officers, almost to a man, refused to enter into the Prussian service.

"The whole Saxon army consisted of sixteen thousand, of which three thousand were horse and dragoons. The soldiers are extremely well-looking, mostly young men, and do not seem to have suffered for want of provisions during the blockade of five weeks. The cavalry have suffered more – many of their horses are ruined."

But we are not to suppose that this association with the mighty of the earth, and these exhibitions of capitulating armies were without their drawbacks. The Prussian king's politics were always subtle, the English cabinet was already tottering, and the campaign was already prolonged into winter. The envoy's correspondence at length sinks into complaint, and his description of his harassed life might make a man shrink from the honours of travelling diplomacy. He writes in November from Seidlitz —

"I am here in a very awkward situation – quite out of my element; and though I have great reason to be satisfied with the King of Prussia's manner of treating me, I wish I was at Berlin again, or rather in England, notwithstanding the absurd speeches that I should hear in parliament.

"The Prussian camp is no place of pleasure. Neither convenience nor luxury dwell here. You are well provided with everything, if you bring it along with you. I find I must increase my equipage, or starve. All my family are like spectres. It is true I am fed at the king's table, because he desired me to leave my equipage at Dresden. The Duke of Newcastle has this encouraging paragraph in his letter: 'I will forward your demands for the expenses of your journey, whenever you send them over in a proper manner to my Lord Holdernesse.' I have spent a great deal of money, and have hardly the necessaries of life, and none of its comforts."

Correspondence of this intimate kind gives us a true view of that life which the world in general sees so gilded and glittering. It thus has a value superior to even its historical interest. It tells the humbler conditions of life to be content with their fate; and perhaps demonstrates that, like the traveller among mountains, the higher man goes, the more slippery is his path, and the more stormy his atmosphere. The Secretary of State thus writes: —

"November, 1766.

"Mr Pitt [Chatham] has been laid up with a severe fit of the gout ever since his nomination to office, which has greatly retarded business. I think his opinions on foreign affairs, now he is in place, are exactly the same with mine, however different they were some time ago. Tempora mutantur et nos, &c.– I hope you will never find that maxim applicable to your old friend in Arlington Street. I knew long ago of some private letters written to you by the Duke of Newcastle. You were in the right not to discover a secret intrusted to you; but though – for reasons you know – I bore this from him, such matters must cease for the future with others. I therefore insist that I may know directly if any other person in the Administration offers to correspond with you. While I remain in business, I will do the duty of my office myself, and without submitting to those disagreeable interruptions I have met with from others; nor will I henceforward be led by persons of my own age, and less experience.

"In short, dear Mitchell, if I stay in, I must now have my share of the cake; and if you hear I continue, depend upon it I have succeeded in what I think just and reasonable pretensions. A volume would not explain to you the transactions of these last six weeks. We have five Administrations in one day, and none existing at night.

"The parliament will produce a motley scene next week; you are happy to be out of the scrape."

The next campaign was one of still greater political perplexity, and of still more desperate fighting. It was signalised by the then unheard-of number of four pitched battles; but the French war has since accustomed history to more ruinous and more frequent conflicts. The first engagement was the battle of Prague, thus hastily sketched in a flying despatch to Lord Holdernesse: —

"May 6.

"I have the honour to acquaint your lordship that this day, a little before ten o'clock in the morning, a general engagement began between the Prussian and Austrian armies, which lasted till half an hour past two in the afternoon. The fire of the artillery and small arms was dreadful; but I can yet give no account of particulars on either side. All we know is, that the left of the Prussians, commanded by the king, attacked the right of the Austrians, and, after a very obstinate resistance, drove them from the field of battle. The Prussian hussars and cavalry are now in full pursuit of them, and the right wing of the Austrians are now retiring towards the Zasawa. The right of the Prussians attacked the left of the Austrians, have likewise defeated them, and drove them towards the Moldan. A great part of their infantry have thrown themselves into Prague.

"The place where this action happened is in the high grounds on the other side of Prague. The King of Prussia's army, after the junction with Marshal Schwerin, might be seventy or eighty thousand men; and that of the Austrians upwards of one hundred thousand – the deserters say one hundred and fifty thousand.

"I can say nothing of the loss on either side, which must be considerable. But the whole Prussian army are now in tears for the loss of Marshal Schwerin, one of the greatest officers this, or perhaps any country, has produced, and one of the best of men. The King of Prussia is well, but greatly afflicted for the loss of Marshal Schwerin."

This victory cost a terrible sacrifice of human life. The victors had eighteen thousand men hors-de-combat; the vanquished had twenty-four thousand killed, wounded, and taken. The struggle was long doubtful. At one period of the day, the Prussian infantry, moving through a defile, recoiled from the showers of ball which swept the head of the defile; the Marshal rushed forward to the front, and, taking a standard from its bearer, led back the column, and charged the enemy. In this charge the gallant old man was struck by a ball, and fell. He was seventy-two.

This battle was useless, for all its fruits were lost immediately after; but in a military sense it was justifiable, for it was fought to prevent the junction of Marshal Daun with General Browne, whose army protected Prague. Its effects in England, however, were greatly to increase the popular feeling in favour of Frederick. A letter from Lord Holdernesse gives a strong picture of the public excitement: —

"May 20, 1757.

"Dear Mitchell, – A fishing-boat despatched by Colonel Yorke, (Sir Joseph,) brought us, last night, the news of the great and glorious victory obtained by the King of Prussia, near Prague, on the 6th inst., which fortunate event has filled the Court and the whole nation with the highest joy, and raised the admiration we already had of his Prussian Majesty's heroism to the highest pitch. Women and children are singing his praises; the most frantic marks of joy appear in the public streets: he is, in short, become the idol of the people. It only remains that we make a proper use of those advantages, and neither suffer ourselves to be elated beyond bounds, or to lose precious moments."

 

But, from the beginning, the struggle was unequal between Austria and Prussia. Nothing but a miracle could make a country then but of five millions vanquish a country of thirty; and the prodigious rapidity with which the Austrian armies were recruited after the severest losses, made perpetual battles actually necessary to keep them at bay. The Prussians had blockaded Prague. An Austrian force of forty-two thousand, or upwards, was advancing to raise the blockade; and Frederick, with his usual promptitude, rushed to meet it on its march, with thirty-two thousand. The armies met at Kaurzim, (better known as Kolin.) The battle began at noon, and was carried into night. The Prussians attacked: the Austrian positions were too strong for even the impetuosity and the perseverance of their brave assailants. The Prussians, after driving them from two heights, were ascending the third, when, from some mistake, their flank was exposed. The Austrian cavalry, then the finest on the Continent, took instant advantage of the misfortune, charged, and threw the whole movement into confusion. The battle was lost; and though the king retained the honour of the day by resting that night on the field, the result was unequivocal, in a retrograde march next day, and the raising of the blockade of Prague.

This battle diminished his army by thirteen thousand men! The king exposed himself with almost desperation. At last his staff remonstrated with him on his gallant obstinacy, and one of his officers even exclaimed, "Does your Majesty mean to storm those batteries alone?"

Frederick was now in the deepest distress. The Austrian hussars had advanced to the gates of Berlin, and even levied a contribution on the city. The scandalous convention by which the Hanoverian army laid down its arms, let loose its French assailants; and Prussia was about to be crushed by a weight of force then unexampled in European hostilities. On this occasion the envoy speaks in the spirit of a man who saw no hope for the king, but to save himself by a negotiation in which he must concede everything, or take his chance of an honourable death in the field. But he strikingly reminds the British Cabinet of the probable consequences of disaster to Prussia.

"If the King of Prussia should be ruined, or obliged, from necessity, to throw himself into the arms of France, (which he has no inclination to do,) my duty obliges me to put your lordship in mind what the situation of England will be next year, without a single friend on the Continent to resist the whole undiverted power of France, instigated by the malice of the house of Austria, against which too early and too vigorous preparations cannot be made, and I most heartily wish they may be effectual.

"I have but one imagination which comforts me, which arises from the insatiable ambition of the French. They have already ruined a great part of Germany and reduced the house of Brandenburg; they are at this moment masters of Germany, and have the Empress-Queen almost as much in their power as they have the King of Prussia. Now, it is not consistent with common sense to leave the house of Austria possessed of a greater degree of power than it ever had, and without a rival in the empire. I therefore flatter myself they will find some pretence to save the King of Prussia, which may embroil them with their new ally, and give a breathing-time to England."

The British envoy, sagacious as he certainly was, here adopted the common error of conceiving that the safety of England depended on her Continental allies. The cry has been repeated in every war in which England has been subsequently engaged; and the British diplomatist at foreign courts has habitually employed his ingenuity in the elaborate effort to warn us that the national existence depended at one time on the triumph of Prussia; at another, of Austria; or, at another, of Spain. All these are follies. The whole Continent, not merely alienated from us, but combined against us, was not able to shake the strength of England, during the last and bloodiest of all wars, urged by the last and bloodiest of all ambitions. In this foolish spirit, it has been echoed from one desponding party to another, that England was saved from ruin by the march from Moscow, then by the battle of Leipzig, then by the battle of Waterloo. England would have survived, if Napoleon had grasped every province of Prussia, if Leipzig had been a field of German massacre, and if Waterloo had only exhibited the bravery without the fortune of the British army. This style of talking is trifling and pusillanimous – it exhibits an utter forgetfulness of history, and an utter ignorance of the actual capacities of the country. England, if true to herself, is unconquerable, and might look on Continental battles with no more personal consideration of the consequences than if they were battles in the clouds. Still, it will fully be admitted, that our Continental alliances ought to be scrupulously sustained; that, in the event of war with any of the Continental powers, it must be of importance to have as few enemies, and as many friends as we can; and that there can be no more short-sighted sense of the true interests of England than insult to foreign thrones, under the shallow pretext of forwarding the privileges of the people. Monarchs are the natural allies of a monarchy – rebels are the natural enemies of all government; and the attempt to create liberty on the Continent, by encouraging the absurdities of the rabble, is only to waste the noble influence of England in the most hopeless of all projects, and to degrade the national character by the abuse of the national principles.

The proverbial uncertainty of war was now about to be vividly illustrated by a new phase of Frederick's varied career. The French army, under the Prince Soubise, had poured into the centre of Germany in great force, and Marshal Keith, a gallant Scot, distinguished in the service of Prussia, was sent to check their irruption. The result was one of the most extraordinary victories on record. Frederick had arrived at Rosbach with but eighteen thousand men; the French and Imperialists, amounting to sixty thousand, made sure of his capture. It was even said that the Prince de Soubise had already sent a courier to Paris announcing it, and the ruin of the whole army. The French officers, in the spirit of their nation, actually scoffed at the idea of war with so small a kingdom as Prussia. They said "it was doing Monsieur le Marquis de Brandenbourg too much honour to carry on a sort of war with him."

On the 6th of November, Soubise advanced; the King then formed his plan of attack. It was to fall on the enemy before they had time to form. The general of cavalry, Seydlitz, was to turn the enemy's horse, and fall on their infantry in the act of formation. The two armies moved parallel to each other, until Seydlitz had turned the enemy's right unseen. The Prussian infantry were in movement after him; but seeing, with the quick eye of a thorough soldier, a favourable moment, he galloped in front of his squadrons, threw up his meerschaum in the air, as the signal for attack, and plunged into the enemy's columns. Two Austrian cuirassier regiments and two French battalions fought stoutly, but they were overwhelmed. All thenceforth was confusion. Though the king's infantry had scarcely been engaged, the enemy's infantry had been driven together in a mass, and, on nightfall, had broken up. By six in the evening the victory was complete. Six thousand prisoners were taken, with five generals and three hundred officers. The Allied army lost, on the whole, ten thousand men; the Prussians about four hundred in killed and wounded. They took seventy guns, fifteen standards, &c.

This victory spread universal exultation through Germany. It was scarcely to be called a German defeat, for the weight of the action fell on the French. It was regarded as a trial of strength between the German and the Frenchman. The victory made the king a National champion.