Frederick the Great

by Nancy Mitford

  Wilhelmine went to Frankfurt for the coronation and found many an old enemy, including Seckendorf, who had left Maria Theresa for the new Emperor and who was appointed governor of Philippsburg. The ceremonies were sumptuous but people began to see that Charles VII was a poor creature; for one thing, although only forty-six he was so ill with gout and stone that he could hardly stand. The cruel joke Et Caesar et nihil went from mouth to mouth. Wilhelmine cleverly saw that he was a bad bet and got her husband out of an agreement to back him up with troops.

  On the very day of the election Maria Theresa’s army took Linz and, on that of the coronation, Charles VII’s own capital, Munich, fell to Mentzel, the hideous Colonel of the Pandours. To make a diversion Frederick invaded Moravia, reluctantly supported by the French and the Saxons. Maurice de Saxe had left Prague to command the troops of his half-brother Augustus III who was bankrupt, a condition to which he was accustomed and which never prevented him from buying enormous diamonds and works of art at the exorbitant prices of those days. Frederick said of him, ‘The conquest of ten countries would not make him leave the first act of an opera.’ Maurice de Saxe did not appreciate Frederick’s way of marching his allies about and starving them while his own army went ahead and ‘ate the land’; he soon left him to his own devices and proceeded to enjoy a series of country-house visits, falling thankfully into the Schloss of any nobleman who cared to invite him. Before long he and the French withdrew their troops.

  Maréchal de Broglie, he whom Frederick had so much disliked at Strasbourg, was now commanding in Prague. Frederick went to see him there and again expressed an exaggerated loathing for him; he could not hear his name without falling into a terrifying rage or pronounce it without a string of dirty words. He told Valory that he intended to fight the Austrians by himself without the aid of the French. This was the real truth. No doubt he took a poor view of Broglie, as did many of the Marshal’s own officers, and this served Frederick as an excuse for not collaborating with him. Altogether his was an unlucky appointment. He was seventy and had had a stroke. The French officers, at the beginning of the campaign, thought they would march on Vienna under the orders of Frederick, who was the hero of all young soldiers. The leadership of Saxe had suited them perfectly; now they found themselves shut up in Prague with an old dodderer, no battles, no glory, bored, uncomfortable, and with a most unreliable postal service to Versailles. They complained vociferously.

  Frederick was making overtures to Vienna but always increasing the ante. After what had happened at Neisse, Maria Theresa was naturally rather unwilling to make any more concessions, especially as she had assembled a large and well-equipped army to be led by her beloved Charles of Lorraine, her husband’s brother and her sister’s husband. In May 1742 this army advanced from Moravia and arrived in the neighbourhood of Frederick’s headquarters in Bohemia. On 17 May the Prussians and Austrians met at Chotusitz and here the first battle Frederick ever fought in his own way took place. Mollwitz had been his father’s victory, but at Chotusitz Frederick’s long consideration of the art of warfare, his carefully trained cavalry and his brilliant leadership came into their own. With the eyes of the world upon them and the advantage of slightly superior numbers the Austrians were determined to win and made a dashing start. But Frederick cut their army in half by burning a village and then forced their cavalry into boggy ground, making it useless. After four hours of desperate fighting Charles of Lorraine was obliged to sound a retreat. Then, to the dismay of Valory, who could hardly believe his eyes, Frederick remained on the battle-field, allowing the Austrian army to get away intact, and busied himself with burying the dead; he bought nine acres of ground for the purpose which, for a hundred years, bore heavier crops than the surrounding fields. ‘None of our friends is killed’, he told Jordan; ‘dear Rothenburg, who is wounded, will recover.’ But Rothenburg, who was now Frederick’s closest friend, never fully recovered.

  Two days after Chotusitz Broglie, who had been joined by Belle-Isle, responded to a dispatch from Frederick asking for co-operation, by defeating the Austrian general Prince Lobkowitz at Sahay. The news of these two defeats came to Maria Theresa just after she had given birth to the Archduchess Maria Christina. More shaken than usual by this confinement, she felt in despair; she wept. Hyndford told her, not for the first time, that she had no choice now but to negotiate with Frederick. He said that nobody on earth could blame her, whatever treaty was signed, if later on she decided to reconquer Silesia. Frederick at present could beat her beautiful new army whenever he chose; if she went on being so obstinate she would lose Bohemia as well as Silesia. Maria Theresa dried her tears and became extremely angry. Never, never, she said, would she give up Bohemia, not if the King of England in person, followed by the whole of his Parliament, came and ordered her to do so. But over Silesia, most reluctantly, she gave way. It now remained to be seen if Frederick would insist on the whole of his conquest or accept Upper and Lower Silesia. The Austrian proposition was sent in writing.

  On 4 June Belle-Isle went to see Frederick who, saying that his troops needed a rest and were short of rations, had settled them down on the banks of the Sasawa. Belle-Isle had been to Versailles, where he was made a duke and ordered to go and replace Broglie at Prague. He had arrived in time to command at Sahay, felt uneasy at Frederick’s curious behaviour after Chotusitz, and decided to go and find out his plans. Frederick, with Maria Theresa’s propositions in his pocket, came out of doors to meet the Duke, laughing and congratulating; he hugged his friend. As they walked towards the tent he took off his cloak and threw it over Belle-Isle’s shoulders saying that on no account must he catch cold. Belle-Isle was full of praise for Chotusitz, and the King inhaled the incense but without mentioning Sahay, except to ask in an airy manner why Belle-Isle had not pursued Lobkowitz? Of course, Belle-Isle could not resist asking why the King had not pursued Prince Charles. Frederick replied evasively that he could not do much before July when, if Belle-Isle liked, they could join forces and march on Vienna. He described an imaginary peace plan (very different from the one he had in his pocket) in which the French would have this and the Saxons that, and then he launched into a diatribe against the Queen, whose wicked obstinacy would set Europe ablaze. They must all act together in order to control her. After this interview, Belle-Isle, utterly charmed as usual by Frederick, told Valory that in another month everything would be all right. The next day, when he went to take his leave, Frederick carelessly mentioned the fact that Prince Charles and Lobkowitz had joined forces and were marching on Prague. Belle-Isle knew that Prince Charles would never have dared take this step if there had been any danger of Frederick’s falling on his rear. The French were isolated in the middle of Europe without communications and without an ally. He fainted dead away.

  It may seem strange that the French should have been so roundly beaten at the diplomatic game of which they are the acknowledged masters, but it must be remembered that they play it according to the rules. Frederick, not to put too fine a point on it, had cheated.

  On 11 June Frederick and Maria Theresa signed the Treaty of Breslau by which Frederick got Upper and Lower Silesia. There was no comfort for his allies the French and the Bavarians—they were not mentioned. Maria Theresa wept for her lost province and as usual, Robinson was at the receiving end. At Versailles old Cardinal Fleury wept and so did the many people whose relations were now trapped in Prague. Louis XV, however, let it be known that the news of the treaty must be accepted with calm and without undignified recriminations against the King of Prussia. As for Valory, Frederick said he made killingly funny faces when he realized that the dreadful thoughts he had been unwilling to formulate had fallen short of the dreadful truth. He took leave of the King, saying he must go and see what use he could be in Prague. When Frederick heard this he did look vaguely uncomfortable and begged Valory to go back to Berlin with him, but in vain.

  Frederick trotted home at the head of his army, all his objectives having been attained. He had won a bea
utiful province about one-third the size of England, with inhabitants who were notably good and clever. He came to like them the best of his subjects, and they, except for the Catholic dowagers of Breslau, returned his affection. The French had been taught a sharp lesson and might think twice before meddling in German politics again. The Austrians were weakened and so was the new Emperor—indeed, ill and penniless, his country occupied by the enemy, he had nowhere to lay his head. The Emperor’s ally and brother-in-law Augustus III had demonstrated his impotence. Uncle George had been made to look a fool. Above all the young King of Prussia had acquired reputation. Nevertheless, Frederick was in a vile temper. He may have had doubts as to the eventual wisdom of his behaviour and he possibly felt remorse when its consequences became apparent.

  After they had been abandoned by Frederick the French were shut up in Prague for five months, besieged by Prince Charles and Prince Lobkowitz with 70,000 men.

  It may be of interest here to examine the French army in the eighteenth century. It was the only one in Europe composed entirely of its own nationals, with no mercenaries. For this reason its soldiers were better treated than any; there was none of the flogging employed in every other army (though later it was introduced by Louis XVI); the ambulances, commissariat and surgeons were incomparably the best. Frederick always had French surgeons for his own soldiers. When properly led the French troops were unrivalled—between the death of Saxe and the coming of Napoleon they were improperly led. The reason for that, not far to seek, was that the high command was reserved for the great nobles. The best officer of his generation, François de Chevert, was a country gentleman; he could never rise above Lieutenant-General. Frederick, too, observed this rule whenever possible, but he was lucky enough to have two excellent commanders in his own family, as well as others among the rulers of neighbouring principalities: Holstein, Hesse-Darmstadt, Brunswick, Württemberg, Anhalt-Dessau and his three sons and, in due course, a grandson.

  On 7 December 1742 Belle-Isle led the French out of Prague. A Franco-Bavarian army under Maillebois and Seckendorf had been sent to relieve them, but arrived in Bohemia exhausted after long marches on short rations and was unable to dislodge Charles of Lorraine, who held an almost impregnable position in its path. It retreated to Munich. Everybody thought that the French in Prague would be forced to a shameful capitulation; the Austrians were already gloating over the guns, the equipment and the prisoners of war which they expected to gather in. But when Belle-Isle arrived there with Valory, after leaving Frederick, he transformed the spirit of the soldiers. Broglie refused to relinquish his command; the orders from Versailles on the subject were not clear; indeed, Louis XV, to please the powerful Broglie family, had made him a duke. (Frederick said he could have understood it if Maria Theresa had done so.) His officers sent a deputation to Belle-Isle saying they would take orders only from him. ‘Then I order you to obey M. de Broglie.’ However, to everybody’s relief he soon went off to join Maillebois. Belle-Isle, who was never out of pain from his back and leg, made things so disagreeable for the besiegers with constant sallies that they scorched the earth round Prague and retired ten miles from the city. He put the whole town—citizens, officers and privates—on the same rations, their food consisting of cavalry horses and the maggoty biscuits which his excellent quarter-master had laid in. (Army biscuits in those days were always maggoty but one ate them all the same.) The gilded youth as well as the men would take anything from Belle-Isle, and discipline and morale were perfect. But a particularly severe winter, lack of fuel and of suitable clothes were causing many casualties and when it became clear that he could not be relieved before the spring, Belle-Isle decided upon a retreat. He asked Prince Charles if he could leave with the honours of war. The Lorraine brothers would have been inclined to agree but Maria Theresa would hear of nothing but total surrender.

  So Belle-Isle gave out the news, to citizens and spies, that he was going on an important foraging expedition. ‘Good luck to him’, said the Austrians, who knew that there was nothing left to be eaten in the countryside, frozen like iron. They never for a moment thought he would be so mad as to take the difficult road through forests and mountains with an army, in that weather. He sallied forth in a carriage with eight horses, accompanied by the Count of Bavaria, who had been governing Prague for his half-brother, the Emperor; also in the party were the beautiful Countess and their newly born baby. (The Countess was the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor and thereby her husband’s niece.) They were unmolested. Belle-Isle’s force consisted of 14,000 able-bodied men, and he took all his equipment, and provisions for twelve days, leaving 4,000 sick and wounded in Prague with François de Chevert. The officers gave up their horses to pull the guns and went on foot. By day Belle-Isle, in agony from his sciatica, was driven in a light sleigh in which he seemed to be everywhere at once, comforting and encouraging the men. He himself read the maps, decided which way to go and saw to every detail. By night he lay sleepless for five or six hours in the coach with the Bavarias and the baby; the soldiers built a wall of snow to protect it from the terrible wind. Two of Belle-Isle’s young officers were to become famous: the Marquis de Montcalm and the Marquis de Vauvenargues. Vauvenargues’s health never recovered. It is said that of the three great winter retreats of modern times—the other two being the Swedes’ from Norway after the death of Charles XII and Napoleon’s from Moscow—Belle-Isle’s was the only one in which the troops came away in perfect order with all their guns. Not so much as a kettle-drum was left on the road; but many corpses were. Thousands of men were dispatched by the cruel cold, the lack of food, and the Hungarian irregulars, waiting to pounce on dead and dying and strip them of their clothes, attacking over and over again in the hopes of taking the treasure wagons. Those who lived were nearly all frost-bitten. Finally, it was not much more than half the army that struggled back to France. Belle-Isle, worn out and heart-broken, could not face Versailles; he went to Metz to take up his governorship and to be consoled by the company of his little boy, the Comte de Gisors, whom he worshipped. Some weeks later he had an audience with Louis XV; he looked ghastly and had to be half-carried by two men.

  When the Austrians found that Belle-Isle had slipped through their fingers they were furious, and Maria Theresa wept. Robinson speaks of the agony of her mind. She had set her heart on revenge, on thousands of French prisoners of war and, above all, the guns and the booty. Lobkowitz called on Chevert to surrender, but Chevert demanded a safe conduct to Eger and wagons for the sick—otherwise he threatened to burn Prague to the ground. Lobkowitz, who owned a lot of property there, gave in to all his terms.

  In May 1743 Maria Theresa went to Prague and was crowned Queen of Bohemia.

  10. The King’s Friends

  Now that he was at peace Frederick set to work to gather congenial friends round him. First of all there was his family. The ten surviving children of Frederick William were exceptionally united; Frederick had a strong family feeling and was devoted to his brothers and sisters. Most of them were now grown up; all the sisters but two were married and had gone away—their rare visits to Berlin were always an excitement and Frederick wrote to them regularly. The two youngest lived with their mother; they were Princess Ulrica, who was soon to marry the future King of Sweden, and Amelia, who remained a spinster. The King’s brothers were more like sons to him—Augustus William, the Prince of Prussia, was born ten, Henry fourteen and Ferdinand eighteen years after him; he was strict with them and of course they chafed under his rule. The Prince of Prussia, a good-natured, not very interesting fellow, was already surrounded by all the elements of Berlin society which were hostile to Frederick. It is evident from the King’s delightful letters to this brother that he loved him but he kept an eye on the entourage. Ferdinand was never of much account, but Prince Henry, now seventeen, was a great character, to be a pleasure and a pest to Frederick all his life. Their relationship was complicated by Henry’s acute envy of his brother. When he was a boy he sometimes refused to sp
eak to Frederick for months on end. Frederick complained bitterly of his extrême froideur, said they lived together like a dreary old married couple and begged him to try and overcome his too evident antipathy. Henry became less openly rebellious as time went on, but there was always a degree of jealous hatred in the love and admiration he certainly felt for the King. They had the same gifts, the same marvellously logical intelligence and the same energy; no doubt Henry felt that only a wretched accident of birth relegated him to a back seat and the oblivion of history. They shared all their tastes—Henry was nourished on French literature and was happy alone at Rheinsberg as long as he could read and study. An Englishman who knew him well said he was ‘French to the bone’. To look at he was a caricature of the King.

  The Queen was still not entirely discarded and many of her fourteen brothers and sisters were almost as dear to Frederick as his own. He arranged a marriage between the Prince of Prussia and her sister Louise; his sister Philippine, his favourite next to Wilhelmine, was married to the Duke of Brunswick; Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick became Frederick’s best general; Duke Frederick Francis and their first cousin, the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, also served in the Prussian army. Two of the brothers were in the Austrian interest (the Brunswicks were first cousins of Maria Theresa) and one of them, Anton Ulrich, married Anna Leopoldovna, Regent of Russia, and was the father of the unlucky Ivan VI.

  The old Rheinsberg set was much in evidence at Frederick’s court, especially Jordan, Knobelsdorff, Chasot and Keyserling, who was engaged to be married to a beautiful person, one of the few women whom Frederick really liked. He wrote a play for the wedding festivities, which were brilliant and went on for days. Keyserling was happy and in love but his friends were worried about his health. Maupertuis had not yet returned to Berlin after his adventures at the wars, but Frederick had a new French courtier, the Marquis d’Argens. From now on he was a leading member of the King’s coterie and was to be the recipient of some of his most brilliant letters. D’Argens, eight years older than the King, was from Provence. He had been disinherited by his father for running away with an actress, had wandered all over Europe and had for a time been attaché to the French embassy at the Porte; he earned his living by writing poor novels and works of philosophy. Jordan got to know him while Frederick was at the war; he was in the household of the Duchess of Württemberg (probably his mistress), with whom he was having a series of ringing quarrels. Jordan, seeing at once that he would amuse Frederick, made him leave her and join the household. D’Argens was one of those people who live for the theatre; he helped Frederick very much with the Comédie française de Berlin of which he became director. He also loved pictures; as a very young man he had been to Rome where he was so much absorbed in art that for a whole month he never looked at a woman.