by Thomas Hardy
through the Camp on the downs. You'll accompany us there?
PITT
I am honoured by your Majesty's commands.
[PITT looks resignedly out of the window.]
What curious structure do I see outside, sir?
KING
It's but a stage, a type of all the world. The burgesses have
arranged it in my honour. At six o'clock this evening there are
to be combats at single-stick to amuse the folk; four guineas
the prize for the man who breaks most heads. Afterward there
is to be a grinning match through horse-collars—a very humorous
sport which I must stay here and witness; for I am interested in
whatever entertains my subjects.
PITT
Not one in all the land but knows it, sir.
KING
Now, Mr. Pitt, you must require repose;
Consult your own convenience then, I beg,
On when you leave.
PITT
I thank your Majesty.
[He departs as one whose purpose has failed, and the scene shuts.]
SCENE II
BEFORE THE CITY OF ULM
[A prospect of the city from the east, showing in the foreground
a low-lying marshy country bounded in mid-distance by the banks
of the Danube, which, bordered by poplars and willows, flows
across the picture from the left to the Elchingen Bridge near
the right of the scene, and is backed by irregular heights and
terraces of espaliered vines. Between these and the river stands
the city, crowded with old gabled houses and surrounded by walls,
bastions, and a ditch, all the edifices being dominated by the
nave and tower of the huge Gothic Munster.
On the most prominent of the heights at the back—the Michaelsberg
—to the upper-right of the view, is encamped the mass of the
Austrian army, amid half-finished entrenchments. Advanced posts
of the same are seen south-east of the city, not far from the
advanced corps of the French Grand-Army under SOULT, MARMONT,
LANNES, NEY, and DUPONT, which occupy in a semicircle the whole
breadth of the flat landscape in front, and extend across the
river to higher ground on the right hand of the panorama.
Heavy mixed drifts of rain and snow are descending impartially
on the French and on the Austrians, the downfall nearly blotting
out the latter on the hills. A chill October wind wails across
the country, and the poplars yield slantingly to the gusts.]
DUMB SHOW
Drenched peasants are busily at work, fortifying the heights of
the Austrian position in the face of the enemy. Vague companies
of Austrians above, and of the French below, hazy and indistinct
in the thick atmosphere, come and go without apparent purpose
near their respective lines.
Closer at hand NAPOLEON, in his familiar blue-grey overcoat, rides
hither and thither with his marshals, haranguing familiarly the
bodies of soldiery as he passes them, and observing and pointing
out the disposition of the Austrians to his companions.
Thicker sheets of rain fly across as the murk of evening increases,
which at length entirely obscures the prospect, and cloaks its
bleared lights and fires.
SCENE III
ULM. WITHIN THE CITY
[The interior of the Austrian headquarters on the following
morning. A tempest raging without.
GENERAL MACK, haggard and anxious, the ARCHDUKE FERDINAND, PRINCE
SCHWARZENBERG, GENERAL JELLACHICH, GENERALS RIESC, BIBERBACH, and
other field officers discovered, seated at a table with a map
spread out before them. A wood fire blazes between tall andirons
in a yawning fireplace. At every more than usually boisterous
gust of wind the smoke flaps into the room.]
MACK
The accursed cunning of our adversary
Confounds all codes of honourable war,
Which ever have held as granted that the track
Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine—
Whether in peace or strenuous invasion—
Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen,
And meet us in our front. But he must wind
And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man
Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us
Thiefwise, by out back door! Nevertheless,
If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne,
As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there,
It destines Bonaparte to pack him back
Across the Rhine again. We've but to wait,
And see him go.
ARCHDUKE
But who shall say if these bright tales be true?
MACK
Even then, small matter, your Imperial Highness;
The Russians near us daily, and must soon—
Ay, far within the eight days I have named—
Be operating to untie this knot,
If we hold on.
ARCHDUKE
Conjectures these—no more;
I stomach not such waiting. Neither hope
Has kernel in it. I and my cavalry
With caution, when the shadow fall to-night,
Can bore some hole in this engirdlement;
Outpass the gate north-east; join General Werneck,
And somehow cut our way Bohemia-wards:
Well worth the hazard, in our straitened case!
MACK [firmly]
The body of our force stays here with me.
And I am much surprised, your Highness, much,
You mark not how destructive 'tis to part!
If we wait on, for certain we should wait
In our full strength, compacted, undispersed
By such partition as your Highness plans.
SCHWARZENBERG
There's truth in urging we should not divide,
But weld more closely.—Yet why stay at all?
Methinks there's but one sure salvation left,
To wit, that we conjunctly march herefrom,
And with much circumspection, towards the Tyrol.
The subtle often rack their wits in vain—
Assay whole magazines of strategy—
To shun ill loomings deemed insuperable,
When simple souls by stumbling up to them
Find the grim shapes but air. But let use grant
That the investing French so ring us in
As to leave not a span for such exploit;
Then go we—throw ourselves upon their steel,
And batter through, or die!—
What say you, Generals? Speak your minds, I pray.
JELLACHICH
I favour marching out—the Tyrol way.
RIESC
Bohemia best! The route thereto is open.
ARCHDUKE
My course is chosen. O this black campaign,
Which Pitt's alarmed dispatches pricked us to,
All unforseeing! Any risk for me
Rather than court humiliation here!
[MACK has risen during the latter remarks, walked to the
window, and looked out at the rain. He returns with an air
of embarrassment.]
MACK [to Archduke]
It is my privilege firmly to submit
That your Imperial Highness undertake
No venturous vaulting into risks unknown.—
Assume that you, Sire, as you have proposed,
With your light regiments and the cavalry,
Detach yourself from us, to scoop a way
By circuits northwards through the Rauhe A
lps
And Herdenheim, into Bohemia:
Reports all point that you will be attacked,
Enveloped, borne on to capitulate.
What worse can happen here?—
Remember, Sire, the Emperor deputes me,
Should such a clash arise as has arisen,
To exercise supreme authority.
The honour of our arms, our race, demands
That none of your Imperial Highness' line
Be pounded prisoner by this vulgar foe,
Who is not France, but an adventurer,
Imposing on that country for his gain.
ARCHDUKE
But it seems clear to me that loitering here
Is full as like to compass our surrender
As moving hence. And ill it therefore suits
The mood of one of my high temperature
To pause inactive while await me means
Of desperate cure for these so desperate ills!
[The ARCHDUKE FERDINAND goes out. A troubled, silence follows,
during which the gusts call into the chimney, and raindrops spit
on the fire.]
SCHWARZENBERG
The Archduke bears him shrewdly in this course.
We may as well look matters in the face,
And that we are cooped and cornered is most clear;
Clear it is, too, that but a miracle
Can work to loose us! I have stoutly held
That this man's three years' ostentatious scheme
To fling his army on the tempting shores
Of our Allies the English was a—well—
Scarce other than a trick of thimble-rig
To still us into false security.
JELLACHICH
Well, I know nothing. None needs list to me,
But, on the whole, to southward seems the course
For lunging, all in force, immediately.
[Another pause.]
SPIRIT SINISTER
The Will throws Mack again into agitation:
Ho-ho—what he'll do now!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Nay, hard one, nay;
The clouds weep for him!
SPIRIT SINISTER
If he must;
And it's good antic at a vacant time!
[MACK goes restlessly to the door, and is heard pacing about
the vestibule, and questioning the aides and other officers
gathered there.]
A GENERAL
He wavers like this smoke-wreath that inclines
Or north, or south, as the storm-currents rule!
MACK [returning]
Bring that deserter hither once again.
[A French soldier is brought in, blindfolded and guarded. The
bandage is removed.]
Well, tell us what he says.
AN OFFICER [after speaking to the prisoner in French]
He still repeats
That the whole body of the British strength
Is even now descending on Boulogne,
And that self-preservation must, if need,
Clear us from Bonaparte ere many days,
Who momently is moving.
MACK
Still retain him.
[He walks to the fire, and stands looking into it. The soldier
is taken out.]
JELLACHICH [bending over the map in argument with RIESC]
I much prefer our self-won information;
And if we have Marshal Soult at Landsberg here,
[Which seems to be truth, despite this man,]
And Dupont hard upon us at Albeck,
With Ney not far from Gunzburg; somewhere here,
Or further down the river, lurking Lannes,
Our game's to draw off southward—if we can!
MACK [turning]
I have it. This we'll do. You Jellachich,
Unite with Spangen's troops at Memmingen,
To fend off mischief there. And you, Riesc,
Will make your utmost haste to occupy
The bridge and upper ground at Elchingen,
And all along the left bank of the stream,
Till you observe whereon to concentrate
And sever their connections. I couch here,
And hold the city till the Russians come.
A GENERAL [in a low voice]
Disjunction seems of all expedients worst:
If any stay, then stay should every man,
Gather, inlace, and close up hip to hip,
And perk and bristle hedgehog-like with spines!
MACK
The conference is ended, friends, I say,
And orders will be issued here forthwith.
[Guns heard.]
AN OFFICER
Surely that's from the Michaelsberg above us?
MACK
Never care. Here we stay. In five more days
The Russians hail, and we regain our bays.
[Exeunt severally.]
SCENE IV
BEFORE ULM. THE SAME DAY
[A high wind prevails, and rain falls in torrents. An elevated
terrace near Elchingen forms the foreground.]
DUMB SHOW
From the terrace BONAPARTE surveys and dictates operations against
the entrenched heights of the Michaelsberg that rise in the middle
distance on the right above the city. Through the gauze of
descending waters the French soldiery can be discerned climbing
to the attack under NEY.
They slowly advance, recede, re-advance, halt. A time of suspense
follows. Then they are seen in a state of irregular movement, even
confusion; but in the end they carry the heights with the bayonet.
Below the spot whereon NAPOLEON and his staff are gathered,
glistening wet and plastered with mud, obtrudes on the left the
village of Elchingen, now in the hands of the French. Its white-
walled monastery, its bridge over the Danube, recently broken by
the irresistible NEY, wear a desolated look, and the stream, which
is swollen by the rainfall and rasped by the storm, seems wanly to
sympathize.
Anon shells are dropped by the French from the summits they have
gained into the city below. A bomb from an Austrian battery falls
near NAPOLEON, and in bursting raises a fountain of mud. The
Emperor retreats with his officers to a less conspicuous station.
Meanwhile LANNES advances from a position near NAPOLEON till his
columns reach the top of the Frauenberg hard by. The united corps
of LANNES and NEY descend on the inner slope of the heights towards
the city walls, in the rear of the retreating Austrians. One
of the French columns scales a bastion, but NAPOLEON orders the
assault to be discontinued, and with the wane of day the spectacle
disappears.
SCENE V
THE SAME. THE MICHAELSBERG
[A chilly but rainless noon three days later. At the back of the
scene, northward, rise the Michaelsberg heights; below stretches
the panorama of the city and the Danube. On a secondary eminence
forming a spur of the upper hill, a fire of logs is burning, the
foremost group beside it being NAPOLEON and his staff, the former
in his shabby greatcoat and plain turned-up hat, walking to and
fro with his hands behind him, and occasionally stopping to warm
himself. The French infantry are drawn up in a dense array at
the back of these.
The whole Austrian garrison of Ulm marches out of the city gate
opposite NAPOLEON. GENERAL MACK is at the head, followed by
GIULAY, GOTTESHEIM, KLINAU, LICHTENSTEIN, and many other officers,
who advance to BONAPARTE and deliver their swords.]
>
MACK
Behold me, Sire. Mack the unfortunate!
NAPOLEON
War, General, ever has its ups and downs,
And you must take the better and the worse
As impish chance or destiny ordains.
Come near and warm you here. A glowing fire
Is life on the depressing, mired, moist days
Of smitten leaves down-dropping clammily,
And toadstools like the putrid lungs of men.
[To his Lieutenants.] Cause them so stand to right and left of me.
[The Austrian officers arrange themselves as directed, and the
body of the Austrians now file past their Conqueror, laying down
their arms as they approach; some with angry gestures and words,
others in moody silence.]
Listen, I pray you, Generals gathered her.
I tell you frankly that I know not why
Your master wages this wild war with me.
I know not what he seeks by such injustice,
Unless to give me practice in my trade—
That of a soldier—whereto I was bred:
Deemed he my craft might slip from me, unplied?
Let him now own me still a dab therein!
MACK
Permit me, your Imperial Majesty,
To speak one word in answer; which is this,
No war was wished for by my Emperor:
Russia constrained him to it!
NAPOLEON
If that be,
You are no more a European power.—
I would point out to him that my resources
Are not confined to these my musters here;
My prisoners of war, in route for France,
Will see some marks of my resources there!
Two hundred thousand volunteers, right fit,
Will join my standards at a single nod,
And in six weeks prove soldiers to the bone,
Whilst you recruits, compulsion's scavengings,
Scarce weld to warriors after toilsome years.
But I want nothing on this Continent:
The English only are my enemies.
Ships, colonies, and commerce I desire,
Yea, therewith to advantage you as me.
Let me then charge your Emperor, my brother,
To turn his feet the shortest way to peace.—
All states must have an end, the weak, the strong;
Ay; even may fall the dynasty of Lorraine!
[The filing past and laying down of arms by the Austrian army
continues with monotonous regularity, as if it would never end.]
NAPOLEON [in a murmur, after a while]
Well, what cares England! She has won her game;
I have unlearnt to threaten her from Boulogne....
