Frederick the Great

by Nancy Mitford

  Frederick had not foreseen that it would take so long to reduce Augustus; it was now too late in the year to continue the campaign; so the surprise, which had been the reason for attacking first, no longer worked. But he had a solid base for his operations. He took Prince Henry to Berlin for two days to say good-bye to their mother, and then spent the winter in Dresden. Here he carried on a sort of guerrilla warfare with the Queen of Poland. She gave him Correggio’s La Notte from Augustus’s collection on hearing that he had sat gazing at it for half an hour (he must have given it back, as it still hangs at Dresden); but sausages and barrels of wine for her kitchen were found to be full of spying messages and instructions from Poland; and she was very successful in stirring up Frederick’s Saxon troops against him. He called her ‘the Fairy Carabosse’ and heartily disliked her.

  Many people thought that, since Frederick’s treaty with Augustus had taken away Maria Theresa’s excuse for fighting, a peaceful solution would now be found. However, as Voltaire remarked, wars generally go on for no better reason than that they have begun. He was fascinated, indeed obsessed, by this one. ‘If Frederick continues to be lucky and glorious my old liking for him will be justified. If he is beaten I shall be avenged.’ One is left in no doubt that Voltaire wished for the second alternative. He sent a model of an armoured vehicle he had invented to the Duc de Richelieu saying he hoped that it would serve to kill many Prussians; at the same time he wrote to Wilhelmine, ‘My heart has always loved him, my spirit has always admired him—madame, madame, the King of Prussia is a great man.’ All through the war he was wildly on Frederick’s side in letters to the King’s supporters and wildly against him when writing to Paris. How did he explain such contradictions to himself and how, knowing that his letters were kept and treasured, did he have the face to be so inconsistent? He was maddened by the problem of news which, at Geneva where he now lived, arrived late and was far from reliable. It came in various roundabout ways and when a battle was reported there was often doubt, at first, as to who had won it. The Duchess of Saxe-Gotha and Wilhelmine were Voltaire’s correspondents nearest the scene of action, since he and Frederick were still on non-writing terms. The Duchess had not yet met Frederick but she had already fallen under the spell and her letters are full of funny stories about him. Luckily for us, letter-writing was an occupation of the age. Frederick himself was never without his pen and his brother Henry shared the habit: after fighting or marching all day they would spend half the night describing its events.

  In April 1757 Frederick, who knew that Maria Theresa’s French and Russian allies were massing huge armies against him, decided to try and knock out the Austrians before the others were ready to take the field. The Austrian generals were quite sure that he would remain on the defensive and when a spy employed by the Queen of Poland told them his plans down to the last detail they thought them too crazy to be true and paid no attention. So to begin with Frederick had everything his own way: he found the Austrians weak and unready and he captured six large magazines in Bohemia whose supplies were more than useful to him. Then he advanced on Prague. The Austrian army was holding the heights of Žižkaberg outside the city, with Charles of Lorraine and Browne in command. They were on bad terms as Prince Charles had refused to let Browne make a sortie to prevent Schwerin’s army from joining Frederick’s. Frederick was beginning to know Prince Charles’s methods and had taken a gamble which came off. So Schwerin arrived at midnight, 5 May, his troops very tired from forced marches. The next morning Frederick was unwell; he had been sick all night and could hardly get up on to his horse. Schwerin wanted to put the battle off for twenty-four hours, to rest his men, but Frederick thought that another Austrian army under Daun was on its way and insisted on fighting at once. He, Winterfeldt and Schwerin galloped off in different directions to see where it would be possible to attack; a place was found; Schwerin’s regiment launched the assault.

  The battle was extremely tough. Winterfeldt was wounded in the neck and lay unconscious. When he came to (blood was pouring over him as though from a tap), he found that his men were retreating and the Austrians not as yet pursuing. He shouted threats, entreaties and insults at the men but could not rally them. Schwerin appeared and gave up his second horse so that Winterfeldt could go and find a surgeon; then the old fellow seized a standard, rallied the men and led them forward—he fell, shot dead; another officer took the flag—he and yet another were killed. Both Prussians and Austrians fought heroically—the Austrian Grenadiers who survived the day had double pay thereafter. Browne’s foot was shot off. When after twelve hours of fighting Prince Charles realized that the battle was lost, he had a sort of fit and became unconscious; his army streamed into Prague bearing him and Browne. The victory cost Frederick dear. He lost between 12,000 and 18,000 killed or wounded and, what was very serious at this early stage of the war, 400 officers. He grieved over the loss of Schwerin ‘who was worth 10,000 men’; he and Prince Henry, who had greatly distinguished himself by plunging waist-deep into a bog and storming a battery, sat together at sundown and wept for their old friend.

  Thirty thousand fresh troops under James Keith were brought up and Frederick laid siege to the strongly fortified city of Prague where he knew there were enough provisions for eight weeks. He tried to take the town by all possible means and failed; after a month he decided to go and attack Marshal Daun whose presence at Kolin, about forty miles away, was making Frederick’s position far from comfortable. He was much blamed afterwards, especially by his brothers, for taking this step against all advice, and he explained his reasons at some length in the Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans. They were partly political and partly strategic. He was always afraid that Uncle George the Elector of Hanover would take a different line from Uncle George the King of England and that, if the French looked like invading Hanover, the Elector, who loved that country more than anything, would declare it neutral. So Frederick wanted to be free to attack the French at once. If his gamble at Kolin had succeeded he might well have been able to end the war there and then—Austria’s allies seemed to be cooling off—but if he left Daun in possession of Kolin the Battle of Prague would have been fought in vain.

  On 18 June, a day which, he said, was always unlucky to him (such a fateful day it seems to be, having seen the downfall of Napoleon and the appearance of General de Gaulle), Frederick attacked Marshal Daun. He was greatly outnumbered—60,000 Austrians against 34,000 Prussians; Daun, on the heights of Kolin, was in an excellent strategic position; and the Prussians were tired by a long march through fields of high, ripe wheat. Frederick had to let them rest for three hours before beginning the battle, which he did at 2 p.m. He said to his brothers, ‘Do what you can—I shall not spare myself.’ For a long time all went well with the Prussians and one by one Daun’s positions were taken; but then two officers in two different parts of the battle disobeyed or misunderstood Frederick’s orders, throwing out his plans and causing confusion. Daun took advantage of this new situation and soon the Prussians were in disarray. Frederick made desperate efforts to restore order. He shouted, in his curious Frenchified German: ‘Aber mein Herren Generals, wollen Sie nicht attackieren? Allons, ganze Cavalerie, marche, marche.’ (But, Generals, aren’t you going to attack? Come on the whole of the cavalry, quick march.) He tried to lead his Cuirassiers into action but they melted away; not until Colonel Grant, his A.D.C., asked if he intended to take the batteries by himself did he realize that the two of them were alone. He retreated, got hold of another battalion—‘Dogs, would you live forever?’—but was forced to concede that a single battalion, however brave, cannot win a battle. The Austrians with their superiority of numbers made havoc of the exhausted and disorganized Prussians; only at 9 p.m. did all fighting stop. Frederick did not wait to think of his losses, which were shattering (another 400 officers, at least 13,000 men, 43 pieces of artillery and 22 standards); as soon as it was certain that there was no hope he galloped away. ‘Phaeton has fallen’, Prince Henry wrote to their s
ister Amelia, ‘Phaeton has saved his own skin.’ Henry and the Prince of Prussia, with loud and bitter sobs, blamed Frederick for what they thought was the downfall of their House.

  Phaeton, meanwhile, accompanied by his A.D.C.s, had gone to save not his skin but his army outside Prague. When he reached it, after having made dispositions for his defeated regiments, he had been thirty-six hours in the saddle. Even so he had found time to write to Milord Maréchal on 18 June 1757:

  Fortune has turned her back on me. I ought to have expected it: she is a woman and I am not gallant. Henry performed marvels . . . What do you say to this league against the Marquis de Brandebourg? The Great Elector would be surprised to see his great-grandson fighting the Russians, the Austrians, nearly all Germany and 100,000 Frenchmen. There is little glory in defeating me.

  In Prague the dying Browne implored Prince Charles to make a sortie and prevent the Prussian retreat, but he was too dilatory and too half-hearted; Frederick’s rearguard easily dealt with him. As for Daun, instead of following up his victory he seemed to fear that the King would come back. By the time the two Austrian armies joined forces the Prussians had made themselves scarce.

  So, at the very beginning of the war Frederick was practically knocked out and thereafter there was no time, during the next seven years, when he and his generals thought that they could prevail. The only emotion he showed after Kolin was when he saw what remained of his favourite regiment, the Lifeguards (infantry). He had known every man of it by name since the old days at Ruppin; hardly any were left alive. The now useless death of Schwerin, Colonel von der Goltz and so many brave men at Prague was a nagging sorrow and the future seemed black indeed.

  Maria Theresa triumphed. To the end of her life 18 June was a feast and a holy day—whenever she felt depressed she remembered the Battle of Kolin. She went herself to tell the news to Daun’s wife. Bounty was distributed to the army and the Order of Maria Theresa, for military merit, was struck. Now, she said, the King of Prussia will be destroyed and his lands divided. She herself would take Silesia and Glatz; the King of Poland Magdeburg and Halberstadt; the Elector Palatine Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg and the King of Sweden Prussian Pomerania.

  Frederick still intended to go and fight the French. He encamped at Leitmeritz, putting the Prince of Prussia in charge of an army which was to remain in Bohemia and bar the way to Silesia. He gave him Winterfeldt to do the work and take the decisions. Now Schwerin, one of the oldest and most distinguished of German soldiers, had always acted in perfect harmony with Winterfeldt, had taken Frederick’s orders from him and accepted the fact that the King confided in him alone, but the younger generals and particularly the King’s brothers loathed him with a jealous loathing. Prince Henry said he was a bore and despised him for knowing no French, though he was obliged to admit that he had qualities in the field. Augustus William, in a particularly bloody-minded mood, talking loudly against his brother and writing indiscretions to Berlin, declared that he had no intention of being put upon by Winterfeldt. The officers with the Prince said (which may well have been true) that Winterfeldt was not the same person since his wound.

  When Daun and Prince Charles finally made up their minds to pursue the Prussians they went after Augustus William, thinking he would be easier game than Frederick. The Prince was nervous; he heard that the enemy force was immense and he kept on prudently retreating. Frederick, very angry, wrote every day trying to stiffen him, finally saying, ‘If you go on like this you will find yourself in Berlin, and then what?’ When he arrived in Saxony Frederick ordered him to shut himself and his army up in Zittau where there was a big magazine. Winterfeldt begged to be allowed to take a light force with which to go ahead and occupy Zittau, but the Prince would not listen to him nor follow the route which he had planned. He went by a devious way over mountains and lost all his baggage; when finally he arrived at Zittau Prince Charles had got there first and burnt it to the ground with fire-balls. Ten thousand particularly worthy and industrious citizens had perished in the flames and much horror at this deed was felt all over the Empire. The Prince of Prussia now had no provisions for his army nearer than Dresden; he left the way to Silesia wide open and made for Bautzen where he was told the King would join him. Winterfeldt went to Frederick to report on these doings.

  Bad news was coming in from all sides. In a letter from his wife which she, by an extraordinary oversight, had sealed with red instead of black wax, Frederick learnt of the death of Sophia Dorothea. Unprepared for the shock, he was plunged into terrible grief, described by Sir Andrew Mitchell, who was with him. He forgot how tedious the old Queen had become of late and only remembered the time when she had protected him against his father’s rages and when she had seemed such a great and glamorous person. Coming on top of his other miseries, this death caused him to break down completely for two or three days. Sophia Dorothea left a wish not to be buried with her husband.

  Frederick took his army to Bautzen, leaving Prince Henry at Leitmeritz with a small force to guard the magazine and a hospital full of wounded soldiers. The reliable Henry succeeded in this undertaking. On the road to Bautzen the King learnt that a Russian army had poured into East Prussia; that the Prince de Soubise, with French and Imperial troops, was advancing into Saxony and that Frederick’s only ally, the Duke of Cumberland, with an Anglo-Hanoverian army, had been defeated by Maréchal d’Estrées and General de Chevert at Hastenbeck and was on the run.

  Frederick and the Prince of Prussia met at 4 a.m., 29 July. As the King’s party approached, Augustus William saluted and the King’s retinue returned the salute, but Frederick did not. He dismounted and lay on the ground as though he were expecting somebody, with Winterfeldt and General von der Goltz sitting beside him. After a good long time the Prince and his generals were told they could approach. Goltz then read out a document to the effect that the King was displeased with H.R.H.; that he and his generals deserved a court martial which would certainly sentence them to death, but that H.M. cannot forget that the commanding officer is also his brother. The Prince demanded a court martial. The next day there was an exchange of letters, the King saying that Augustus William had done him more harm than the enemy, but that he loved him and always would. Augustus William hung about the camp for a few more days and then sent a message asking the King’s permission to go to Dresden. ‘He can go wherever he likes.’ So he went home to Wusterhausen, blaming Winterfeldt for all his misfortunes, and made a centre for those who had real or imaginary grievances against the King.

  During the next weeks Frederick tried in vain to bring the Austrians to battle, a trial for which they were not anxious. At last he decided to waste no more time. He left the greater part of his army, his best regiments and Winterfeldt under the command of his wife’s cousin, the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, with orders to defend Silesia and went off with a small force to try and clear Soubise out of Saxony. But Soubise played the same game as Daun, marched about here and there and refused to fight. Then Frederick heard that a contingent of Austrians was on its way to Berlin; he again divided his sadly diminished army and went, by a series of forced marches which killed many men from exhaustion, to save his capital. But he had been misinformed—there had only been a small raiding party at Berlin and it had gone away by the time he arrived there. Meanwhile, the Duke of Cumberland had signed a convention with the Duc de Richelieu at Kloster Zeven which engaged the Anglo-Hanoverian army to disband, leaving Richelieu free to besiege Magdeburg. There was one bonus. The Russians, having defeated a tiny but gallant Prussian contingent in East Prussia, were themselves defeated by their hopeless supply system and withdrew to their own country. Frederick decided that he would no longer try to defend East Prussia and he ordered his troops there to go to Stettin.

  Surrounded and hugely outnumbered by French and Imperial armies, he thought there was little hope for him, and in his letters to Wilhelmine he hinted at suicide. Wilhelmine was beside herself with worry. She begged Voltaire, who by her good offices was again in c
orrespondence with the King, to exert his influence and prevent so terrible a design, saying that she would never survive her brother. Voltaire and Prince Henry both told him that it was not the end of the world to give up some territory; many rulers had done so and been none the worse for it. Voltaire also remarked that the bigoted nations would vilify Frederick’s memory if he committed such an unholy action. It seems probable that Frederick would have killed himself only if he had been captured by the enemy. Speaking of Mollwitz at about this time he said he had left the battlefield because he thought he might be taken prisoner; he had not yet got his ‘little box’ (of poison) which he always carried with him during the Seven Years’ War. The idea of being taken alive haunted him and he left secret orders in Berlin that, if ever he were to fall into enemy hands, his brother was to assume power and above all to pay no attention to anything Frederick might say or write. He replied to Voltaire:

  Pour moi, menacé du naufrage

  Je dois, en affrontant l’orage,

  Penser, vivre et mourir en roi.