Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  Prince Charles, seeing Moravia thus evacuated by the Prussians, determined to garrison the towns which he had just recovered, and pursue the enemy, who, by the assistance of the French, would have been too powerful for prince Lobkowitz.

  Success had now given confidence to the Austrians, and had proportionably abated the spirit of their enemies. The Saxons, who had cooperated with the king of Prussia in the conquest of Moravia, of which they expected the perpetual possession, seeing all hopes of sudden acquisition defeated, and the province left again to its former masters, grew weary of following a prince, whom they considered as no longer acting the part of their confederate; and when they approached the confines of Bohemia took a different road, and left the Prussians to their own fortune.

  The king continued his march, and Charles his pursuit. At Czaslau the two armies came in sight of one another, and the Austrians resolved on a decisive day. On the 6th of May, about seven in the morning, the Austrians began the attack: their impetuosity was matched by the firmness of the Prussians. The animosity of the two armies was much inflamed: the Austrians were fighting for their country, and the Prussians were in a place, where defeat must inevitably end in death or captivity. The fury of the battle continued four hours: the Prussian horse were, at length, broken, and the Austrians forced their way to the camp, where the wild troops, who had fought with so much vigour and constancy, at the sight of plunder forgot their obedience, nor had any man the least thought but how to load himself with the richest spoils.

  While the right wing of the Austrians was thus employed, the main body was left naked: the Prussians recovered from their confusion, and regained the day. Charles was, at last, forced to retire, and carried with him the standards of his enemies, the proofs of a victory, which, though so nearly gained, he had not been able to keep.

  The victory, however, was dearly bought; the Prussian army was much weakened, and the cavalry almost totally destroyed. Peace is easily made when it is necessary to both parties; and the king of Prussia had now reason to believe that the Austrians were not his only enemies. When he found Charles advancing, he sent to Broglio for assistance, and was answered, that “he must have orders from Versailles.” Such a desertion of his most powerful ally disconcerted him, but the battle was unavoidable.

  When the Prussians were returned to the camp, the king, hearing that an Austrian officer was brought in mortally wounded, had the condescension to visit him. The officer, struck with this act of humanity, said, after a short conversation: “I should die, sir, contentedly after this honour, if I might first show my gratitude to your majesty by informing you with what allies you are now united, allies that have no intention but to deceive you.” The king appearing to suspect this intelligence; “Sir,” said the Austrian, “if you will permit me to send a messenger to Vienna, I believe the queen will not refuse to transmit an intercepted letter now in her hands, which will put my report beyond all doubt.”

  The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops on any occasion with the Prussians. Secondly, he was ordered to act always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly, to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the absence of Bellisle.

  The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it is stipulated, “that neither should assist the enemies of the other.”

  The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city which they had taken from her.

  Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals, concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to the augmentation of his army.

  This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels. Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of intelligence. Men who have great confidence in their own penetration are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none will try. Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king’s adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion. Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to keep a neutrality.

  This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary but the determination of a very few men to be silent.

  From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague, which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any prospect appeared of relief.

  The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden and tumultuary excursions, rather than a regular war, had no great degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They, likewise, would naturally consider all the mischiefs done to the city, as falling, ultimately, upon themselves; and, therefore, were willing to gain it by time rather than by force.

  It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it must be yielded at last, and, therefore, all arts were tried to obtain an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent back, sometimes unheard, but always with this answer: “That no terms would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of war.”

  The condition of the garrison was, in the eyes of all Europe, desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprise was considered as romantick. Maillebois was a march of forty days distant from Bohemia, the passes were narrow, and the ways foul; and it was likely that Prague would be taken before he could reach it. The march was, however, begun: the army, being joined by that of count Saxe, consisted of fifty thousand men, who, notwithstanding all the difficulties which two Austrian armies could put in their way, at last entered Bohemia. The siege of Prague, though not raised, was remitted, and a communication was now opened to it with the country. But the Austrians, by perpetual intervention, hindered the garrison from joining their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited him to a battle, because the army was hourly lessening by the want of provisions; but, instead of pressing on to Prague, he retired into Bavaria, and completed the ruin of the emperour’s territories.

  The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle, by a sudden sally, quit
ted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions, wasting, in his retreat, the country which he had undertaken to protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means.

  The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made themselves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich, the capital, but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector’s dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of ammunition, intended, in the dreams of projected greatness, for the siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and ornaments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the Bavarians, but without any explanation, whether temporary or perpetual.

  The emperour lived at Frankfort, in the security that was allowed to neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes, except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of his election, the king of Prussia declared himself determined to support him in the imperial dignity, with all his power.

  This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the queen of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be objected, that voices were procured by illicit influence.

  Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king’s declaration, which he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he appeared openly as an enemy.

  About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover; not, perhaps, because they were thought necessary, but that the king’s designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in danger, and that he could not believe the elector of Hanover to be in much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops, and put them into the pay of England.

  He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the French out of Bavaria, lay, for some months, encamped on the Rhine, endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till, at last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would, in their turn, feel the miseries of war; and the nation, which so long kept the world in alarm, be taught, at last, the value of peace.

  The king of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he had lately made a treaty at Frankfort with the emperour, by which he had engaged, “that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared backward to reestablish the tranquillity of the empire, and more cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of cooperating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the possession of the emperour, his heirs and successours, for ever; in gratitude for which the emperour should resign to him and his successours a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the kingdom of Bohemia. His imperial majesty likewise guaranties to the king of Prussia the perpetual possession of upper Silesia; and the king guaranties to the emperour the perpetual possession of upper Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest.”

  It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show to the emperour, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded Bohemia.

  Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are, indeed, not always very satisfactory.

  Lewis the fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive for the invasion of Holland. The czar attacked Charles of Sweden, because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a journey in disguise. The king of Prussia, having an opportunity of attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July 30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares:

  “That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the power of the laws, and the authority of the emperour.

  “That the queen of Hungary has treated the emperour’s hereditary dominions with inexpressible cruelty.

  “That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched through neutral countries without the customary requisitions.

  “That the emperour’s troops have been attacked under neutral fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master is the head.

  “That the imperial dignity has been treated with indecency by the Hungarian troops.

  “The queen, declaring the election of the emperour void, and the diet of Frankfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but injured all the princes who have the right of election.

  “That he had no particular quarrel with the queen of Hungary; and that he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a war for the liberties of Germany.

  “That the emperour had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to him.

  “That this proposal had been made to the king of England at Hanau, and rejected in such a manner as showed, that the king of England had no intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the troubles.

  “That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and Austrian courts.

  “That the same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected; that, therefore, the queen must impute it to her own councils, that her enemies find new allies.

  “That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in defence of the emperour, in vindication of the right of election, and in support of the liberties of Germany, which the queen of Hungary would enslave.”

  When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the foregoing positions were repeated; the emperour’s candour and disinterestedness were magnified; the dangerous designs of the Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them, as the most flagrant violation of the Germanick constitution, that they had driven the emperour’s troops out of the empire; the publick spirit and generosity of his Prussian majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said, that this quarrel having no connexion with English interests, the English ought not to interpose.

  Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this declaration, which, at once, dismounted them from
the summit of success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France, was never publickly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince, so watchful of opportunity, sold assistance, when it was so much wanted, at the highest rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to so much hazard only for the freedom of Germany, and a few petty districts in Bohemia.

  The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven into their own dominions, and, in their own dominions, were insulted and pursued, were, on a sudden, by this new auxiliary, restored to their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders, and delivered from their terrours. And all the enemies of the house of Bourbon saw, with indignation and amazement, the recovery of that power which they had, with so much cost and bloodshed, brought low, and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet lower than it was.

  The queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to the European princes, with some observations on the Prussian minister’s remonstrance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The same caution was practised before, when the Prussians, after the emperour’s death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use to honesty or wisdom, and as it has been long known to that class of men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much advance the reputation of regal understanding, or, indeed, that it can add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that shall adopt it.