After Mollwitz, victorious Frederick established his headquarters near the battlefield and here, in a tent which seemed about to be carried away by every gust of wind, with only one candle and no heating, he received the ambassadors of foreign powers, by night. His days were spent training the cavalry which had let him down. Belle-Isle, touring the German courts in order to canvass votes for Charles Albert, was at Dresden when he heard of Mollwitz; he immediately went to call on Frederick. It is supposed, though not certain, that he expounded his plans for Europe there and then, but in any case Frederick was not so stupid that he could not guess what they were. The last thing in the world he wanted was French supremacy in Germany; he would much have preferred to see Francis as Emperor. However, he enjoyed the company of Belle-Isle, who was exactly the kind of man he liked: a brilliant, amusing, civilized soldier, accustomed to the ways of courts. Frederick was susceptible to good manners and he often liked those who possessed them. Belle-Isle was fascinated by him. He wrote to Fleury:
He was born with a first-class intelligence, which pushes him towards great designs; he is full of fire; has a keen and penetrating sense of what men are like, quick to pounce on and take advantage of their foibles; never asks advice and indeed could not do so safely since he is surrounded by people in the pay of Austria. He has no heart whatever.
After a few days Belle-Isle went back to Charles Albert and then to Frankfurt.
George II sent Lord Hyndford to Frederick—a blustering, hectoring, rude man whom Frederick could not bear. This war was beginning to worry the English, who counted on the Austrians to keep France occupied while they were avenging Jenkins’ ear on the Spaniards. But now Frederick was keeping the Austrians occupied; furthermore, the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau irritated George II by sitting on the Hanoverian frontier with a large force. The English wanted the war to stop, whatever the cost to Maria Theresa. Hyndford asked Frederick whether, if he were allowed to keep Silesia, he would support the election of Francis. Frederick replied that he had always said he would. Hyndford said something about a magnanimous peace. ‘Do not, my lord, talk to me of magnanimity. A prince must consult his own interests. I am not averse from peace; but I expect to have four duchies and I will have them.’ But he refused to say which duchies he meant. (They were Liegnitz, Brieg, Jägerndorf and Wohlau.)
Then Mr Robinson from Vienna was told to go and see Frederick. He was a prosy man whose talk was like a public speech—his English friends often had difficulty in keeping their countenances when he got going. He was in love with Maria Theresa—enthusiastic proclaimer of her charms, said Frederick, who was overcome with mirth when Robinson told him that if he could see her he too would fall in love. L’infatigable Robinson, as Frederick called him, had a most trying time between these two young people. Maria Theresa loathed his advice and received him only when she hoped for English gold, and Frederick covered him with sarcasms. After Maria Theresa had been preached at by him for weeks, she empowered him to offer Gelderland and Limburg to Frederick if he would drop all claims to Silesia. But Frederick said that in the first place most of Gelderland belonged to him already and, to go on with, he was amazed that the Queen could consider violating the Barrier Treaty (by which the Low Countries were inalienable). And then who would guarantee her offer? Robinson had an answer but was cut short. Who observed guarantees in these days? England and France had both guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction but they didn’t seem to be flying to the help of the Queen of Hungary. Frederick added that his ancestors would rise in their tombs if he should abandon his righteous claim to Silesia. (Robinson often heard from the Queen that her ancestors would rise in their tombs if she let Silesia go.) He went back to Vienna and told Maria Theresa that she must make peace. She burst out at him: ‘Would to God your cursed ditch did not exist and that you were a part of Europe; then you might understand the danger of upsetting the Empire—to touch one part of it is to undermine the whole. Silesia is essential for its defence.’
In June, Maria Theresa, pregnant again, her little Archduke, lively as a squirrel, in her arms and her husband at her side, set forth to be crowned Queen of Hungary at Pressburg according to tradition. She was greeted by Count Palffy, doyen of the nobles who were all-powerful in that land. When the coronation ceremonies were over the reason for the riding lessons became apparent. She mounted a beautiful black horse and, riding astride like her Imperial ancestors, followed by old Palffy in tears and the rest of the Hungarian nobility, she galloped up a hill overlooking the endless plain. Here she drew a sword and shook it to north, to south, to east and to west amid the acclamations of the crowd: ‘We will die for our King, Maria Theresa.’ Francis was not there to share her triumph—the Hungarian magnates refused to have anything to do with the foreigner. But Thomas Robinson was. More in love than ever, he described the scene, adding, ‘The tattered robes of St Stephen became her as well as her own rich habit, if diamonds, pearls and all sorts of precious stones can be called clothes.’ She looked marvellous at the state banquet; her beloved husband was by her side once more, the hot weather gave her a colour and her golden hair hung in fat curls round her face.
While the Queen was still in Hungary the French sent a large army commanded by Belle-Isle to support the Imperial claims of Louis XV’s cousin, the Elector Charles Albert. Together with the Bavarians they took Linz and arrived almost at the gates of Vienna. At the same time another French army threatened Hanover. George II and the other German Electors were becoming increasingly doubtful about the Pragmatic Sanction and were turning to Charles Albert. The Italian states relapsed into a neutrality on the whole favourable to France. The horrified Robinson wrote from Pressburg to the Foreign Secretary, 8 September 1741: ‘It is upon this great moment that depends the fate, not of the House of Austria, not of the Empire but of the House of Hanover, of Great Britain and of all Europe.’
Vienna prepared for the worst; the rich sent away their valuables and joined with the poor in saying that the whole thing was the fault of Francis and that they would be far better off with Charles Albert. The only person who might have raised their morale was the Queen, and she was not there. Even the Hungarians were less enthusiastic about her now that the ceremonies which had so touched their hearts were over. At one moment Maria Theresa nearly gave up; she said there seemed to be nowhere on earth where she could be confined in peace. But nothing could daunt her for long. She had her ancestors in their tombs solidly behind her, and that most valuable of allies, the certitude of final victory. She now adopted a bold and original policy. Against the tradition of her family and the advice of her ministers, and to the horror of the Austrian nobility, she decided to mobilize the Hungarians and ask them to raise an insurrection in her favour. The Austrians said that if such a thing were allowed it would certainly turn against them and be used for Hungarian independence, as had happened in the past. The very names of Hungarian regiments made Austrian blood run cold: Pandours, Tolpatches, Hussars, Uscocks, Slavonians, Warasdinians. Dressed in their wild uniforms, mounted on their wild horses, they seemed to portend a dread invasion from the East. In fact they were never much good against regular troops but had great nuisance value as guerrillas.
Maria Theresa had her own way. In black from head to foot, wearing St Stephen’s crown, she summoned the Hungarian Diet and addressed it in Latin. She told of the invasion of Austria; she spoke of her children; she wiped away a tear. ‘Forsaken by all, we place our sole resource in the fidelity, arms and long-tried valour of the Hungarians.’ There was an outburst of loyalty; the Diet voted to raise and equip an army and even accepted Francis as co-Regent. At the end of the session he cried: ‘My blood and life for the Queen and kingdom’, while the little Archduke was produced and shown to his future subjects. It was clever of Maria Theresa to surround herself with such a wealth of feminine accompaniments and to lay them at the feet of the chivalrous Hungarians; they were deeply touched and never betrayed her. From that moment the tide slowly turned in her favour.
*The War of
Jenkins’ Ear was in progress.
9. Diplomats’ Nightmare
During the months which followed Mollwitz, the various ambassadors who had to deal with Frederick lived through a nightmare. His own objectives were so clear and logical that the said ambassadors must have been rather dense, since none of them seems to have guessed what he was up to. He simply wanted to keep Silesia while preventing French supremacy in Germany. The French, for their part, wanted to see the collapse of Austria while limiting the growing power of Prussia. A secret Franco-Prussian treaty was signed (5 June 1741) and never published; it was the uneasy alliance of rulers who were fighting the same enemy for different reasons.
As the presence of Belle-Isle was considered essential at Frankfurt where the Reichstag was about to assemble, the French and Bavarian troops were all under the command of Charles Albert. The French general was Maurice de Saxe, one of Augustus the Strong’s bastards and a member of Louis XV’s little circle of friends. The main Austrian army was held down by Frederick in Silesia and only 6,000 men were available for the defence of Vienna. But instead of marching straight there, as everybody, and especially the Viennese, expected, Charles Albert laid siege to Prague. Beautiful Prague, situated on steep hills which in places are almost like cliffs, was easy to defend. The Hungarian hordes were not yet under way and Maria Theresa felt obliged to make overtures to the French and the Prussians. Naturally, as allies, they divulged her propositions to each other and equally naturally decided to reject them. But while the French really rejected them, Frederick only pretended to do so. One day Valory accidentally dropped a dispatch from Versailles telling him on no account to let Frederick have the mountain fortress and county of Glatz, considered as the key to Silesia, which, by the Franco-Prussian treaty, was to go to Charles Albert. Frederick put his foot on the paper and Valory never saw it again. Then Frederick rounded on Valory: ‘When are you going to deliver Glatz into my hands?’ ‘I thought I had delivered it into Your Majesty’s feet.’ They both burst out laughing. Valory was beginning to have doubts. He tried never to let the King out of his sight, a fact which Frederick soon cottoned on to; fat, breathless Valory was taken for many a wild gallop when he was longing for his siesta.
All this time Frederick was busy training and reorganizing his troops. He raised a regiment of Hussars on the Hungarian model and gave it to Zieten, who turned out to be the most dashing of all his commanders. Zieten had never fitted into ordinary regimental life; he was now over forty and still only a major, but he distinguished himself during an engagement against Hungarian irregulars in the company of Frederick’s friend Winterfeldt, and from that moment he never looked back. He became a colonel and very soon a general; he and his merry men performed legendary feats in the practical joking, fancy-dress style of warfare.
On 9 October 1741, Frederick, saying he must inspect various outposts, sent Valory to dine with the young Princes of Anhalt-Dessau. He then sneaked away, alone except for the head of his Intelligence, Colonel von der Goltz, to meet ‘the English fraud’ Hyndford, Neipperg and another Austrian general. After a long, naughty preamble in which he declared his deep respect for the Queen and almost brotherly love for Francis, he gave the Austrians every detail of the French positions in Bohemia and pointed out the best way of attacking them. As payment for this piece of treachery the Austrians were to surrender the town of Neisse, but only after a sham siege. Frederick wanted the French to think he was still on their side. He would exchange a few harmless shells with the garrison; the town would fall and the Austrians would leave him in peace for the winter except, perhaps, for a little imaginary fighting here and there. In return he would never molest the Queen again. He graciously suggested that she might care to keep Glatz, though he said the French had specifically guaranteed that he should have it. Could he lend the Queen 50,000 écus?—he would be so glad to be of use to her. Frederick refused to sign any document; the Austrians must believe his royal word; and he stressed that if this highly secret agreement should leak out he would be obliged to go back on it—that was a condition. He knew that Maria Theresa’s court was a hotbed of gossip and felt reasonably sure that this clause would soon operate. Francis thought that Frederick, after an extraordinary lapse, was once again his friend and he wrote soliciting his vote at the Reichstag. Frederick replied with a cordial rigmarole of which he said that he himself did not understand one word. He wrote to Belle-Isle: ‘Louis XV is the arbiter of Kings and Maréchal de Belle-Isle the instrument of his power.’
The ‘siege’ of Neisse duly took place; Neisse duly capitulated to Frederick. Valory, a soldier himself, thought there was something very odd about the operation. It was unusual to invest a strong place without engineers—and then no sooner had it fallen than they appeared, busily fortifying it for the Prussians. However, the King showed him a despairing letter from Lord Hyndford, which he himself had dictated, saying that as he could make no headway with Frederick he was giving up and going home. Valory felt remorseful about his suspicions. But soon there were more curious occurrences and he wrote to Belle-Isle that he could not bear to formulate the dreadful things in his mind.
Of course the whole story came out. Everybody in the secret had told somebody else, and the London clubs were soon buzzing with it. Frederick and Valory had a furious interview: ‘If that’s what the Queen says she’ll pay for it!’ While they were on the subject he might as well tell Valory that he had no intention of going to the help of the French and Charles Albert, who were still besieging Prague. ‘I like to fight wars in my own way.’ Things were going badly for them. Charles Albert was a hopeless commander-in-chief and the French officers refused to obey him; all were at sixes and sevens, and meanwhile Neipperg was on his way to relieve the city with terrifying Hungarians. The Chevalier de Belle-Isle wrote from outside Prague telling his brother to come at once and take command or all was lost. Belle-Isle got as far as Dresden and there was met by Valory who was appalled by the state he found him in. He had sciatica and literally could not move, while one of his eyes was so swollen that it seemed to be falling out of his head. He was in no condition to command an army. The two men were beside themselves with worry, but there was nothing to be done; they had to wait for Belle-Isle to get better. A messenger arrived from the French army with a note for the Marshal. It seemed to be in the writing of a child of five—there was no punctuation and no attempt at spelling.
Monseigneur you wished for Prague to be taken it is taken the Governor [General Ogilvy] has surrendered to me and I am writing from his room I can never tell you the courage of the troops and above all the good conduct of M. de Chevert. Maurice de Saxe.
The messenger enlarged. Saxe had found a flaw in the fortifications and crept through it with Colonel de Chevert and a handful of carefully chosen men. At the city wall they found three ladders on the near-by gallows which, tied together, reached to the top of it. Now comes the celebrated Histoire du Grenadier, known in all French nurseries. Chevert asks for a volunteer to go up the ladders. Grenadier Pascal offers and the following dialogue ensues:
You [tu] will be the first to go up.
Oui, mon colonel.
When you reach the top the sentinel will shout ‘Wer da?’
Oui, mon colonel.
You won’t answer.
Non, mon colonel.
He will shoot at you.
Oui, mon colonel.
But he will miss you.
Oui, mon colonel.
You will then kill him.
Oui, mon colonel.
Pascal went up and all happened according to plan except that the sentry, having missed him, made off in the dark to give the alarm; but by then Chevert, young Broglie and other sparks from Versailles were already over the wall and had got the city gate open. French troops poured in and General Ogilvy had to surrender. That night a ball was going on and at daybreak it was French, not Austrian, officers who armed the young ladies to their homes. Saxe had the army in perfect control; there was no looting and the shops of Pr
ague were open the next day as usual.
Maria Theresa wept. Belle-Isle was cured. Frederick, probably none too pleased, wrote him fulsome congratulations and offered him sixteen squadrons of Dragoons. ‘Sending help now we don’t need it any more’, said Belle-Isle. Frederick became very loving with Valory again and asked how he could have suspected him of collusion with the Queen. ‘What about Neisse?’ ‘You seem to have taken Prague without firing a shot. Perhaps you have an understanding with her?’
But he wrote to Voltaire: ‘Trickery, bad faith and duplicity are unfortunately the dominating characteristics of most men who lead their countries and who ought to provide them with an example. The study of the human heart in these circumstances is humiliating and makes me regret my beloved retreat, the arts, my friends and my independence.’ At this time, careful though he had to be with money, he could not resist buying the collection of antiquities which Cardinal de Polignac had made in Rome.
The French success at Prague brought the German Electors down on their side of the fence. To the amusement of Frederick, who thought it very funny to see how his uncle had to twist and turn in his double role of King of England and Elector of Hanover, George II voted for Charles Albert in return for Hanoverian neutrality. He had really believed in the Pragmatic Sanction and was the hardest nut to crack—the other Electors were won over by various forms of bribery and on 24 January 1742 Charles Albert was unanimously elected Emperor as Charles VII. It was a not very expensive success for France and a triumph for Belle-Isle.