“What do you mean?” I said in surprise. “Did the French really offer to spare the leader of the enemy troops?”
“Do you know how to play chess?”
“No.”
“Well, in chess the king, supreme leader of the enemy army, is never killed. When the hostile pieces have forced him into a corner with no way out, checkmate is declared, and the game is over. The defeated king has to capitulate, but does not die. That’s what happens with real sovereigns too: they are not killed. Their peers and generals know and respect the ancient military customs.”
But Joseph, he went on, valiantly turned down Melac’s offer: “My tent is everywhere, shoot wherever you like. And save thou thy labour, gentle herald, come thou no more here. Tell your commander they shall have no other answer, I swear, but these my joints; which if they have as I will leave ’em them, shall yield them little.”
Then he turned to his own men, dismayed and worried at the risk their commander-in-chief had chosen to run: “When I bestride my horse, I soar, I am a hawk. My horse is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. And no one, not even the French dogs, can shoot a hawk.”
In the days that followed Joseph visited the trenches, while the musket balls whistled all around him. A chamberlain of honour suggested that he should not endanger his precious person. He cut him short: “Let those who are afeared go back.”
On 28th July he had the army line up for battle, after examining their equipment himself. On the night between 16th and 17th August the citadel was attacked. The French resisted heroically three times. But in the meantime the coffers of Landau’s garrison had been depleted. Melac did not hesitate: he paid from his own pocket.
“What do you mean?”
Atto brandished the strange piece of blackened silver I had given him.
“It’s another case of the good conventions of war that I was talking about. A true commander will never allow his men to fight without being paid. Domenico, please, could you adjust the cushion behind my back?”
“Of course, Uncle.”
Melac therefore had the silver plates from his own dinner service broken up, and by makeshift means they printed the coins of Landau on them. They were rough, wretched fragments, each one of a different shape – rectangular, square, or triangular, like the pretend money in a children’s game.
“The metal stampings, done half by a French goldsmith and the other half by a German, weren’t all the same either. But each of those coins not in circulation was worth more than gold, boy,” said Atto, staring at me gravely, “because they were the offspring of the noble rules of war.”
“So this coin-like object was the money for Melac’s soldiers. A fragment of his silver dishes!” I said, amazed at the ingenuity of the idea. “That’s why it’s so irregular. So it’s a war souvenir: that’s why Prince Eugene has a whole collection of them. He must really value them if he still keeps one in his pocket.”
During the siege in 1702 Joseph took part in the most dangerous assaults, serving as an example to everyone and exposing himself selflessly. He was charitable to the wounded, he grieved with the widows and consoled the orphans of the fallen. The soldiers were incredulous when they saw his luminous dashing figure amid the cannon smoke, his sword always raised, his long tawny hair, freed from his wig, besmirched with the dust of battle and he, King of the Romans, heedless of fatigue, of danger, of blood, forever to the fore.
The imperial operations were coordinated by Margrave Louis of Baden. Among his subordinates was an Italian, Count Marsili.
“Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, is that right? I know that name,” I said. “I think I bought a couple of his treatises some time ago, one on coffee and one on phosphorus, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s he. A great Italian,” declared Atto.
The Margrave was slow and awkward at manoeuvring men, and unlike Marsili did not know the refinements of trench warfare, the use of explosives or the technique of sappers. For two months no progress had been made, they had suffered great losses and the French resistance seemed invincible. A French army under General Catinat was approaching; if Landau was not conquered soon, they would be crushed. Marsili, who could not bear to see his men die one by one, let Joseph knew about the mistakes made by the Margrave of Baden. They must reinforce their cannons and mortars, he said, and improve their aim. Joseph inspected the lines in person and showed confidence in Marsili: he would follow his advice. Louis of Baden foamed with rage. Marsili promised that Landau would be taken within a week.
Joseph then discovered what no general had had the courage to explain to him: the troops were tired, disheartened and frightened. Capturing Landau seemed an impossible enterprise to them, and if Catinat’s army of liberation arrived it would be a disaster. We need more men – Joseph heard people murmur around him – there are too few of us.
The day before the final engagement, the King of the Romans left his generals and mingled with the troops, amid the simple infantry. He heard a soldier complaining again: the French are a tough proposition, we need more men to win. So Joseph climbed on top of a cannon and spoke to his men on an equal footing.
“Soldiers, subjects of the Emperor, listen to me! What’s he that wishes we were more? If we are mark’d to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. Rather proclaim it, through my host, that he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart; his passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse! We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. Tomorrow will be the day of the Battle of Landau. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named, and rouse him at the name of Landau. He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say, ‘Tomorrow is the day of Landau:’ Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say ‘These wounds I had on Landau’s day.’ Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, but he’ll remember with advantages what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words – Joseph King of Romans, Fürstemberg, Bibra, and Marsili – be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son, and the Day of Landau shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember’d; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen at home and safe a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon the Day of Landau!”
His words had gradually risen to an exultant cry and all around the King and his unsheathed sword the soldiers were applauding and laughing and weeping with emotion. Joseph then turned with a smile to the infantry soldier who just a moment earlier had been bewailing the lack of reinforcements: “Thou dost not wish more troops, dost thou?”
“God’s will! My liege,” he replied, raising his fist with tears in his eyes, “would you and I alone, without more help, could fight these foul French curs!”
“But was Prince Eugene there?” I asked the Abbot, deeply stirred.
Atto had broken off for a moment, wearied by his long narrative, and was sipping a glass of water. He put the glass down on the table but did not answer me.
“That night, the night before the final battle, no one slept, neither the imperial troops or the French,” he went on. “Now entertain conjecture of a time when creeping murmur and the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp through the foul womb of night the hum of either army stilly sounds, that the fixed sentinels almost receive the secret whispers of each other’s watch: fire answers fire, and through their paly flames each battle sees the other’s umber’d face; steed threatens steed, in high an
d boastful neighs piercing the night’s dull ear, and from the tents the armourers, accomplishing the knights, with busy hammers closing rivets up, give dreadful note of preparation. Proud of their numbers and secure in soul, the confident and over-lusty French do the low-rated imperials play at dice; and chide the cripple tardy-gaited night who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp so tediously away.
Nor does Joseph sleep. The officers offer him their company but he refuses and leaves his tent: “I and my bosom must debate awhile, and then I would no other company.”
He borrows from a field assistant a hooded cloak that conceals his face and explores the camp, pretending to be an ordinary captain.
The poor condemned imperials are exhausted. Their gesture sad investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats presenteth them unto the gazing moon so many horrid ghosts. But the royal captain of this ruin’d band, he who soon shall be Joseph the Victorious, walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, goes forth and visits all his host, bids them good morrow with a modest smile and calls them brothers, friends and countrymen. A largess universal like the sun his liberal eye doth give to every one, thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all, behold, as may unworthiness define, a little touch of Joseph in the night.
Still hidden in his hood, he lingers with a group of infantry soldiers. One of them says: “Tomorrow perhaps we will die, but the King of Romans need not fear anything: he is surely asleep calmly in his tent. He will fight as well, but is not as we are.”
Then Joseph replies: “I think the King is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are.”
Then as dawn approaches, he is left all by himself: “Upon the King! let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins lay on the King! We must bear all. O hard condition, twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath of every fool, whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! What infinite heart’s-ease must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, but poison’d flattery? O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts; possess them not with fear; take from them now the sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord, O, not today, think not upon the fault my forebear, Charles the Fifth, made in compassing the sacred crown imperial! He did make expiation, abdicating and becoming then a monk. And every day I have the holy mass said for his soul, and churches and monasteries have I and my good father had erected so the abject stain of moneylenders’ loot shall be washed clean from the imperial crown. O why is it not dawn? The day, my friends, and every other thing await my nod. Tomorrow will I trot a mile and leave in my grim wake a road paved with French faces.”
The voice of Abbot Melani, almost a new Homer, was trembling with weariness and passion.
Dawn breaks, finally they fight. Yet another assault on the stronghold is beaten back. But it is clear that Landau is about to yield. Their spirits are as broken as their bodies, all that every soldier wants is to put an end to the combat, and to seize the neck of the French enemy and cut his throat, and rape his wife and burn and sack his house. As in every real war, man is turned to beast, and the beast goes in search of men.
Then Joseph appeared alone, on a horse, before the walls of the citadel, as close to the wall as he could get while remaining out of shooting-range. Unsheathing his sword he cried out:
“Therefore, you men of Landau, take pity of your town and of your people, whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace o’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds of heady murder, spoil and villainy. If not, why, in a moment look to see the blind and bloody soldier with foul hand defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; your fathers taken by the silver beards, and their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls, your naked infants spitted upon pikes, whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused do break the clouds!”
At the top of the ramparts Governor Melac appeared on horseback. He listened in silence. Terror had gouged dark furrows in his face.
“What say you then,” concluded the King of the Romans. “Will you yield, and this avoid, or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d?”
On 9th September Melac raised the white flag. The next day came the capitulation, which was followed by the exchange of prisoners. By 11th September it was all over.
As promised, Joseph held his soldiers back: the city’s inhabitants had not a hair of their heads harmed. An imperial soldier who had stolen a pyx from a church was immediately hanged by order of the King himself, who attended the execution impassively, even though the condemned man was one of his dearest soldiers. The mothers, who the night before had heard Joseph’s threatening words, and in the darkness of their homes had swooned, clutching their babies to their breasts, knelt down to kiss the imperial insignia. The French evacuated the city the next day; Melac, defeated, had to parade past the King of the Romans: “Great King” was the salutation addressed to him by the French governor, grateful to him for having spared them the terrible violence that frenzied troops always wreak after every siege.
Marsili had predicted that, as a result of his astute moves, Landau would yield within a week. But thanks to his brilliance and to the greatness of the young monarch, it had taken even less time: four days had sufficed.
Atto paused. He had run out of breath. In my collection of writings on Emperor Joseph, I had found several accounts and panegyrics on his deeds at Landau, but unfortunately they were all in German and written in the Teutonic style, with an abundance of boring details and a total lack of anecdotal matter. Abbot Melani’s tale, by contrast, had catapulted me into the feverish heart of the battle and revealed the spirit of my own sovereign.
I could hardly believe the admiration and even the love for the young Caesar that breathed forth from the old castrato’s words. Until then I had never heard him glorify any other monarch than his own Sun King!
“Signor Uncle, at this hour you should be asleep,” Domenico told him.
On his return to Vienna, Atto started up again, paying no attention to his nephew’s words, great festivities were held. In the city a great procession was immediately formed, making its way to the church of St Stephen, where a solemn Te Deum was celebrated. In the New Market Square a column was solemnly erected in honour of St Joseph, protector of Austria. Even Leopold and his wife, those august parents with whom the young King of the Romans had always had difficult relations, were radiant at the triumph of the imperial arms.
Before that victory, Joseph had just been a promising crown prince. After Landau, and thanks to the help of Marsili, he became a hero.
“But before that there was already a hero,” observed Atto. “His name was Eugene of Savoy, the victor of the great Battle of Zenta, the scourge of the Turks. Now in the contest for glory there was an adversary with an unassailable advantage: he was handsome, and he had a crown on his head.”
In Vienna Leopold’s ministers were furious. They knew very well that Joseph could not wait to drive them all out and replace them with his own trusted men. The only way to stop him was to put pressure on his father Leopold. The manoeuvre proved successful. The following year, 1703, when Joseph asked his father if he could go back to war, permission was denied. The ministers’ pressure on Leopold had worked. Eugene, too, who was still resentful at having been put in the shade by Joseph, had done his discreet best to make sure that the King of the Romans did not return to the war. Hostilities continued in the Rhine area, and soon there came bad news: the French had besieged Landau and finally reconquered it.
“So Prince Eugene had a hand in it! But it’s absurd,” I remarked. “Were he and the others not afraid that losing the war might be worse than givi
ng honour and glory to Joseph?”
“The powerful are always ready to destroy the world in order to keep their own positions,” answered Atto. “And at that moment, with a weak emperor like Leopold, no one was more powerful than his ministers, starting with Prince Eugene.”
This brought us up to 1704. The military season was already well under way, autumn was just round the corner and the forces of the Empire and its allies wanted at all costs to close the year with an important victory. They decided to stake everything on Landau, to recapture it from the enemy. On 1st September the young King of the Romans finally arrived. In the end, and only after much tribulation, his father Leopold had agreed to let him depart for the front. On the battlefield he was greeted by Eugene of Savoy and the commander of the Anglo-Dutch allied troops, the famous Marlborough, great friend of Eugene. Now that the hero of the siege of two years earlier had arrived, they were no longer at centre stage. They were sent to the river Lauter, to provide cover for the operations, while the Margrave of Baden greeted Joseph before Landau with twenty-seven battalions and forty-four squadrons.
Once again the leader of the besieged French garrison, Laubanie, offered not to aim his cannons at those places where Joseph would be lodging or visiting, and once again the King of the Romans answered that he was perfectly safe, and would go wherever he wanted without telling anyone.
“Joseph the Victorious never knew it perhaps, but in that second siege of Landau the rule of checkmate was once again respected,” said Atto, “and in the noblest manner.”
“What do you mean?”
“A certain Count Raueskoet, one of Joseph’s hunting companions, presented himself at Versailles, explaining that in his preparations for battle, Joseph used to go hunting close to the French lines without any escort. It would be child’s play to capture him. His Majesty scornfully rejected the proposal and immediately expelled the traitor from France, and even warned the imperial troops of Raueskoet’s treachery. Remember, boy: checkmate yes; assassination among sovereigns and princes of equal rank, never.”
Veritas (Atto Melani) Page 32
