A History of Germany Part 33

Silesia was still the bone of contention, and it was planned that the Austrian and Russian armies should unite there, as before, while Frederick was equally determined to prevent their junction, and to hold the province for himself. But he first sent Prince Henry and General Fouque to Silesia, while he undertook to regain possession of Saxony. He bombarded Dresden furiously, without success, and was then called away by the news that Fouque with 7,000 men had been defeated and taken prisoners near Landshut. All Silesia was overrun by the Austrians, except Breslau, which was heroically defended by a small force. Marshal Laudon was in command, and as the Russians had not yet arrived, he effected a junction with Daun, who had followed Frederick from Saxony.

On the 15th of August, 1760, they attacked him at Liegnitz with a combined force of 95,000 men. Although he had but 35,000, he won such a splendid victory that the Russian army turned back on hearing of it, and in a short time Silesia, except the fortress of Glatz, was restored to Prussia.

[Sidenote: 1760. CAPTURE OF BERLIN.]

Nevertheless, while Frederick was engaged in following up his victory, the Austrians and Russians came to an understanding, and moved suddenly upon Berlin,--the Russians from the Oder, the Austrians and Saxons combined from Lusatia. The city defended itself for a few days, but surrendered on the 9th of October: a contribution of 1,700,000 thalers was levied by the conquerors, the Saxons ravaged the royal palace at Charlottenburg, but the Russians and Austrians committed few depredations. Four days afterwards, the news that Frederick was hastening to the relief of Berlin compelled the enemy to leave. Without attempting to pursue them, Frederick turned and marched back to Silesia, where, on the 3d of November, he met the Austrians, under Daun, at Torgau. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Seven Years' War: the Prussian army was divided between Frederick and Zieten, the former undertaking to storm the Austrian position in front, while the latter attacked their flank. But Frederick, either too impetuous or mistaken in the signals, moved too soon: a terrible day's fight followed, and when night came 10,000 of his soldiers, dead or wounded, lay upon the field.

He sat all night in the village church, making plans for the morrow; then, in the early dawn, Zieten came and announced that he had been victorious on the Austrian flank, and they were in full retreat. After which, turning to his soldiers, Zieten cried: "Boys, hurrah for our King!--he has won the battle!" The men answered: "Hurrah for Fritz, our King, and hurrah for Father Zieten, too!" The Prussian loss was 13,000, the Austrian 20,000.

Although Prussia had been defended with such astonishing vigor and courage during the year 1760, the end of the campaign found her greatly weakened. The Austrians held Dresden and Glatz, two important strategic points, Russia and France were far from being exhausted, and every attempt of Frederick to strengthen himself by alliance--even with Turkey and with Cossack and Tartar chieftains--came to nothing. In October, 1760, George II. of England died, there was a change of ministry, and the four, millions of thalers which Prussia had received for three years were cut off. The French, under Marshals Broglie and Soubise, had been bravely met by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, but he was not strong enough to prevent them from quartering themselves for the winter in Ca.s.sel and Gottingen. Under these discouraging aspects the year 1761 opened.

[Sidenote: 1761.]

The first events were fortunate. Prince Ferdinand moved against the French in February and drove them back nearly to the Rhine; the army of "the German Empire" was expelled from Thuringia by a small detachment of Prussians, and Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, maintained himself in Saxony against the much stronger Austrian army of Marshal Daun. These successes left Frederick free to act with all his remaining forces against the Austrians in Silesia, under Laudon, and their Russian allies who were marching through Poland to unite with them a third time. But their combined force was 140,000 men, his barely 55,000. By the most skilful military tactics, marching rapidly back and forth, threatening first one and then the other, he kept them asunder until the middle of August, when they effected a junction in spite of him. Then he entrenched himself so strongly in a fortified camp near Schweidnitz, that they did not dare to attack him immediately. Marshal Laudon and the Russian commander, Buturlin, quarrelled, in consequence of which a large part of the Russian army left, and marched northwards into Pomerania.

Then Frederick would have given battle, but on the 1st of October, Laudon took Schweidnitz by storm and so strengthened his position thereby that it would have been useless to attack him.

Frederick's prospects were darker than ever when the year 1761 came to a close. On the 16th of December, the Swedes and Russians took the important fortress of Colberg, on the Baltic coast: half Pomerania was in their hands, more than half of Silesia in the hands of the Austrians, Prince Henry was hard pressed in Saxony, and Ferdinand of Brunswick was barely able to hold back the French. On all sides the allied enemies were closing in upon Prussia, whose people could no longer furnish soldiers or pay taxes. For more than a year the country had been hanging on the verge of ruin, and while Frederick's true greatness had been ill.u.s.trated in his unyielding courage, his unshaken energy, his determination never to give up, he was almost powerless to plan any further measures of defence. With four millions of people, he had for six years fought powers which embraced eighty millions; but now half his territory was lost to him and the other half utterly exhausted.

[Sidenote: 1762. PRUSSIA AGAIN SUCCESSFUL.]

Suddenly, in the darkest hour, light came. In January, 1762, Frederick's bitter enemy, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, died, and was succeeded by Czar Peter III., who was one of his most devoted admirers. The first thing Peter did was to send back all the Prussian prisoners of war; an armistice was concluded, then a peace, and finally an alliance, by which the Russian troops in Pomerania and Silesia were transferred from the Austrian to the Prussian side. Sweden followed the example of Russia, and made peace, and the campaign of 1762 opened with renewed hopes for Prussia. In July, 1762, Peter III. was dethroned and murdered, whereupon his widow and successor, Catharine II., broke off the alliance with Frederick; but she finally agreed to maintain peace, and Frederick made use of the presence of the Russian troops in his camp to win a decided victory over Daun, on the 21st of July.

Austria was discouraged by this new turn of affairs; the war was conducted with less energy on the part of her generals, while the Prussians were everywhere animated with a fresh spirit. After a siege of several months Frederick took the fortress of Schweidnitz on the 9th of October; on the 29th of the same month Prince Henry defeated the Austrians at Freiberg, in Saxony, and on the 1st of November Ferdinand of Brunswick drove the French out of Ca.s.sel. After this Frederick marched upon Dresden, while small detachments were sent into Bohemia and Franconia, where they levied contributions on the cities and villages and kept the country in a state of terror.

In the meantime negotiations for peace had been carried on between England and France. The preliminaries were settled at Fontainebleau on the 3d of November, and, although the Tory Ministry of George II. would have willingly seen Prussia destroyed, Frederick's popularity was so great in England that the Government was forced to stipulate that the French troops should be withdrawn from Germany. The "German Empire,"

represented by its superannuated Diet at Ratisbon, became alarmed at its position and concluded an armistice with Prussia; so that, before the year closed, Austria was left alone to carry on the war. Maria Theresa's personal hatred of Frederick, which had been the motive power in the combination against him, had not been gratified by his ruin: she could only purchase peace with him, after all his losses and dangers, by giving up Silesia forever. It was a bitter pill for her to swallow, but there was no alternative; she consented, with rage and humiliation in her heart. On the 15th of February, 1763, peace was signed at Hubertsburg, a little hunting-castle near Leipzig, and the Seven Years'

War was over.

[Sidenote: 1763.]

Frederick was now called "the Great" throughout Europe, and Prussia was henceforth ranked among the "Five Great Powers," the others being England, France, Austria and Russia. His first duty, as after the Second Silesian War, was to raise the kingdom from its weak and wasted condition. He distributed among the farmers the supplies of grain which had been h.o.a.rded up for the army, gave them as many artillery and cavalry horses as could be spared, practised the most rigid economy in the expenses of the Government, and bestowed all that could be saved upon the regions which had most suffered. The n.o.bles derived the greatest advantage from this support, for he considered them the main pillar of his State, and took all his officers from their ranks. In order to be prepared for any new emergency, he kept up his army, and finally doubled it, at a great cost; but, as he only used one-sixth of his own income and gave the rest towards supporting this burden, the people, although often oppressed by his system of taxation, did not openly complain.

Frederick continued to be sole and arbitrary ruler. He was unwilling to grant any partic.i.p.ation in the Government to the different cla.s.ses of the people, but demanded that everything should be trusted to his own "sense of duty." Since the people _did_ honor and trust him,--since every day ill.u.s.trated his desire to be just towards all, and his own personal devotion to the interests of the kingdom,--his policy was accepted. He never reflected that the spirit of complete submission which he was inculcating weakened the spirit of the people, and might prove to be the ruin of Prussia if the royal power should fall into base or ignorant hands. In fact, the material development of the country was seriously hindered by his admiration of everything French. He introduced a form of taxation borrowed from France, appointed French officials who oppressed the people, granted monopolies to manufacturers, prohibited the exportation of raw material, and in other ways damaged the interests of Prussia, by trying to _force_ a rapid growth.

[Sidenote: 1772. FREDERICK'S POLICY AS KING.]

The intellectual development of the country was equally hindered. In 1750 Frederick invited Voltaire to Berlin, and the famous French author remained there nearly three years, making many enemies by his arrogance and intolerance of German habits, until a bitter quarrel broke out and the two parted, never to resume their intimacy. It is doubtful whether Frederick had the least consciousness of the swift and splendid rise of German Literature during the latter years of his reign. Although he often declared that he was perfectly willing his subjects should think and speak as they pleased, provided they _obeyed_, he maintained a strict censorship of the press, and was very impatient of all opinions which conflicted with his own. Thus, while he possessed the clearest sense of justice, the severest sense of duty, his policy was governed by his own personal tastes and prejudices, and therefore could not be universally just. What strength he possessed became a part of his government, but what weakness also.

One other event, of a peaceful yet none the less of a violent character, marks Frederick's reign. Within a year after the Peace of Hubertsburg Augustus III. of Poland died, and Catharine of Russia persuaded the Polish n.o.bles to elect Prince Poniatowsky, her favorite, as his successor. The latter granted equal rights to the Protestant sects, which brought on a civil war, as the Catholics were in a majority in Poland. A long series of diplomatic negotiations followed, in which Prussia, Austria, and indirectly France, were involved: the end was, that on the 5th of August, 1772, Frederick the Great, Catharine II. and Maria Theresa (the latter most unwillingly) united in taking possession of about one-third of the kingdom of Poland, containing 100,000 square miles and 4,500,000 inhabitants, and dividing it among them. Prussia received the territory between Pomerania and the former Duchy of Prussia, except only the cities of Dantzig and Thorn, with about 700,000 inhabitants. This was the region lost to Germany in 1466, when the incapable Emperor Frederick III. failed to a.s.sist the German Order: its population was still mostly German, and consequently scarcely felt the annexation as a wrong, yet this does not change the character of the act.

[Sidenote: 1786.]

The last years of Frederick the Great were peaceful. He lived to see the American Colonies independent of England, and to send a sword of honor to Washington: he lived when Voltaire and Maria Theresa were dead, preserving to the last his habits of industry and constant supervision of all affairs. Like his father, he was fond of walking or riding through the parks and streets of Berlin and Potsdam, talking familiarly with the people and now and then using his cane upon an idler. His Court was Spartan in its simplicity, and nothing prevented the people from coming personally to him with their complaints. On one occasion, in the streets of Potsdam, he met a company of school-boys, and roughly addressed them with: "Boys, what are you doing here? Be off to your school!" One of the boldest answered: "Oh, you are king, are you, and don't know that there is no school to-day!" Frederick laughed heartily, dropped his uplifted cane, and gave the urchins a piece of money that they might better enjoy their holiday. The windmill at Potsdam, which stood on some ground he wanted for his park, but could not get because the miller would not sell and defied him to take it arbitrarily, stands to this day, as a token of his respect for the rights of a poor man.

When Frederick died, on the 17th of August, 1786, at the age of seventy-four, he left a kingdom of 6,000,000 inhabitants, an army of more than 200,000 men, and a sum of 72 millions of thalers in the treasury. But, what was of far more consequence to Germany, he left behind him an example of patriotism, of order, economy and personal duty, which was already followed by other German princes, and an example of resistance to foreign interference which restored the pride and revived the hopes of the German people.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

GERMANY UNDER MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH II. (1740--1790.)

Maria Theresa and her Government. --Death of Francis I. --Character of Joseph II. --The Part.i.tion of Poland. --The Bavarian Succession.

--Last Days of Maria Theresa. --Republican Ideas in Europe.

--Joseph II. as a Revolutionist. --His Reforms. --Visit of Pope Pius VI. --Alarm of the Catholics. --Joseph among the People. --The Order of Jesuits dissolved by the Pope. --Joseph II's Disappointments. --His Death. --Progress in Germany. --A German-Catholic Church proposed by four Archbishops. --"Enlightened Despotism." --The small States. --Influence of the great German Authors.

[Sidenote: 1750. MARIA THERESA.]

In the Empress Maria Theresa, Frederick the Great had an enemy whom he was bound to respect. Since the death of Maximilian II., in 1576, Austria had no male ruler so prudent, just and energetic as this woman.

One of her first acts was to imitate the military organization of Prussia: then she endeavored to restore the finances of the country, which had been sadly shattered by the luxury of her predecessors. Her position during the two Silesian Wars and the Seven Years' War was almost the same as that of her opponent: she fought to recover territory, part of which had been ceded to Austria and part of which she had held by virtue of unsettled claims. The only difference was that the very existence of Austria did not depend on the result, as was the case with Prussia.

Maria Theresa, like all the Hapsburgs after Ferdinand I., had grown up under the influence of the Jesuits, and her ideas of justice were limited by her religious bigotry. In other respects she was wise and liberal: she effected a complete reorganization of the government, establishing special departments of justice, industry and commerce; she sought to develop the resources of the country, abolished torture, introduced a new criminal code,--in short, she neglected scarcely any important interests of the people, except their education and their religious freedom. Nevertheless, she was always jealous of the a.s.sumptions of Rome, and prevented, as far as she was able, the immediate dependence of the Catholic clergy upon the Pope.

[Sidenote: 1765.]

In 1765, her husband, Francis I. (of Lorraine and Tuscany) suddenly died, and was succeeded, as German Emperor, by her eldest son, Joseph II., who was then twenty-four years of age. He was an earnest, n.o.ble-hearted, aspiring man, who had already taken his mother's enemy, Frederick the Great, as his model for a ruler. Maria Theresa, therefore, kept the Government of the Austrian dominions in her own hands, and the t.i.tle of "Emperor" was not much more than an empty dignity while she lived. In August, 1769, Joseph had an interview with Frederick at Neisse, in Silesia, at which the Polish question was discussed. The latter returned the visit, at Neustadt in Moravia, the following year, and the terms of the part.i.tion of Poland appear to have been then agreed upon between them. Nevertheless, after the treaty had been formally drawn up and laid before Maria Theresa for her signature, she added these words: "Long after I am dead, the effects of this violation of all which has. .h.i.therto been considered right and holy will be made manifest." Joseph, with all his liberal ideas, had no such scruples of conscience. He was easily controlled by Frederick the Great, who, notwithstanding, never entirely trusted him.

In 1777 a new trouble arose, which for two years held Germany on the brink of internal war. The Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria, the last of the house of Wittelsbach in a direct line, died without leaving brother or son, and the next heir was the Elector Karl Theodore of the Palatinate. The latter was persuaded by Joseph II. to give up about half of Bavaria to Austria, and Austrian troops immediately took possession of the territory. This proceeding created great alarm among the German princes, who looked upon it as the beginning of an attempt to extend the Austrian sway over all the other States. Another heir to Bavaria, Duke Karl of Zweibrucken (a little princ.i.p.ality on the French frontier), was brought forward and presented by Frederick the Great, who, in order to support him, sent two armies into the field. Saxony and some of the smaller States took the same side; even Maria Theresa desired peace, but Joseph II. persisted in his plans until both France and Russia intervened. The matter was finally settled in May, 1779, by giving Bavaria to the Elector Karl Theodore, and annexing a strip of territory along the river Inn, containing about 900 square miles and 139,000 inhabitants, to Austria.

[Sidenote: 1780. DEATH OF MARIA THERESA.]

Maria Theresa had long been ill of an incurable dropsy, and on the 29th of November, 1780, she died, in the sixty-fourth year of her age. A few days before her death she had herself lowered by ropes and pulleys into the vault where the coffin of Francis I. reposed. On being drawn up again, one of the ropes parted, whereupon she exclaimed: "He wishes to keep me with him, and I shall soon come!" She wrote in her prayer-book that in regard to matters of justice, the Church, the education of her children, and her obligations towards the different orders of her people, she found little cause for self-reproach; but that she had been a sinner in making war from motives of pride, envy and anger, and in her speech had shown too little charity for others. She left Austria in a condition of order and material prosperity such as the country had not known for centuries.

When Frederick the Great heard of her death, he said to one of his ministers: "Maria Theresa is dead; now there will be a new order of things!" He evidently believed that Joseph II. would set about indulging his restless ambition for conquest. But the latter kept the peace, and devoted himself to the interests of Austria, establishing, indeed, a new and most astonishing order of things, but of a totally different nature from what Frederick had expected. Joseph II. was filled with the new ideas of human rights which already agitated Europe. The short but ill.u.s.trious history of the Corsican Republic, the foundation of the new nation of the United States of America, the works of French authors advocating democracy in society and politics, were beginning to exercise a powerful influence in Germany, not so much among the people as among the highly educated cla.s.ses. Thus at the very moment when Frederick and Maria Theresa were exercising the most absolute form of despotism, and the smaller rulers were doing their best to imitate them, the most radical theories of republicanism were beginning to be openly discussed, and the great Revolution which they occasioned was only a few years off.

[Sidenote: 1781.]

Joseph II. was scarcely less despotic in his habits of government than Frederick the Great, and he used his power to force new liberties upon a people who were not intelligent enough to understand them. He stands almost alone among monarchs, as an example of a Revolutionist upon the throne, not only granting far more than was ever demanded of his predecessors, but compelling his people to accept rights which they hardly knew how to use. He determined to transform Austria, by a few bold measures, into a State which should embody all the progressive ideas of the day, and be a model for the world. The plan was high and n.o.ble, but he failed because he did not perceive that the condition of a people cannot be so totally changed, without a wise and gradual preparation for it.

He began by reforming the entire civil service of Austria; but, as he took the reform into his own hands and had little practical knowledge of the position and duties of the officials, many of the changes operated injuriously. In regard to taxation, industry and commerce, he followed the theories of French writers, which, in many respects, did not apply to the state of things in Austria. He abolished the penalty of death, put an end to serfdom among the peasantry, cut down the privileges of the n.o.bles, and tried, for a short time, the experiment of a free press.

His boldest measure was in regard to the Church, which he endeavored to make wholly independent of Rome. He openly declared that the priests were "the most dangerous and most useless cla.s.s in every country"; he suppressed seven hundred monasteries and turned them into schools or asylums, granted the Protestants freedom of worship and all rights enjoyed by Catholics, and continued his work in so sweeping a manner that the Pope, Pius VI., hastened to Vienna in 1782, in the greatest alarm, hoping to restore the influence of the Church. Joseph II.

received him with external politeness, but had him carefully watched and allowed no one to visit him without his own express permission. After a stay of four weeks during which he did not obtain a single concession of any importance, the Pope returned to Rome.

Not content with what he had accomplished, Joseph now went further. He gave equal rights to Jews and members of the Greek Church, ordered German hymns to be sung in the Catholic Churches and the German Bible to be read, and prohibited pilgrimages and religious processions. These measures gave the priesthood the means of alarming the ignorant people, who were easily persuaded that the Emperor intended to abolish the Christian religion. They became suspicious and hostile towards the one man who was defying the Church and the n.o.bles in his efforts to help them. Only the few who came into direct contact with him were able to appreciate his sincerity and goodness. He was fond of going about alone, dressed so simply that few recognized him, and almost as many stories of his intercourse with the lower cla.s.ses are told of him in Austria as of Frederick the Great in Prussia. On one occasion he attended a poor sick woman whose daughter took him for a physician: on another he took the plough from the hands of a peasant, and ploughed a few furrows around the field. If his reign had been longer, the Austrian people would have learned to trust him, and many of his reforms might have become permanent; but he was better understood and loved after his death than during his life.

[Sidenote: 1785. JOSEPH II.'S REFORMS.]

One circ.u.mstance must be mentioned, in explanation of the sudden and sweeping character of Joseph II.'s measures towards the Church. The Jesuits, by their intrigues and the demoralizing influence which they exercised, had made themselves hated in all Catholic countries, and were only tolerated in Bavaria and Austria. France, Spain, Naples and Portugal, one after the other, banished the Order, and Pope Clement XIV.

was finally induced, in 1773, to dissolve its connection with the Church of Rome. The Jesuits were then compelled to leave Austria, and for a time they found refuge only in Russia and Prussia, where, through a most mistaken policy, they were employed by the governments as teachers.

Their expulsion was the sign of a new life for the schools and universities, which were released from their paralyzing sway, and Joseph II. evidently supposed that the Church of Rome itself had made a step in advance. The Archbishop of Mayence and the Bishop of Treves were noted liberals; the latter even favored a reformation of the Catholic Church, and the Emperor had reason to believe that he would receive at least a moral support throughout Germany. He neither perceived the thorough demoralization which two centuries of Jesuit rule had produced in Austria, nor the settled determination of the Papal power to restore the Order as soon as circ.u.mstances would permit.

Joseph II.'s last years were disastrous to all his plans. In Flanders, which was still a dependency of Austria, the priests incited the people to revolt; in Hungary the n.o.bles were bitterly hostile to him, on account of the abolition of serfdom, and an alliance with Catharine II.

of Russia against Turkey, into which he entered in 1788,--chiefly, it seems, in the hope of achieving military renown--was in every way unfortunate. At the head of an army of 200,000 men, he marched against Belgrade, but was repelled by the Turks, and finally returned to Vienna with the seeds of a fatal fever in his frame. Russia made peace with Turkey before the fortunes of war could be retrieved; Flanders declared itself independent of Austria, and a revolution in Hungary was only prevented by his taking back most of the decrees which had been issued for the emanc.i.p.ation of the people. Disappointed and hopeless, Joseph II. succ.u.mbed to the fever which hung upon him: he died on the 20th of February, 1790, only forty-nine years of age. He ordered these words to be engraved upon his tomb-stone: "Here lies a prince, whose intentions were pure, but who had the misfortune to see all his plans shattered!"

History has done justice to his character, and the people whom he tried to help learned to appreciate his efforts when it was too late.

[Sidenote: 1790.]

The condition of Germany, from the end of the Seven Years' War to the close of the eighteenth century, shows a remarkable progress, when we contrast it with the first half of the century. The stern, heroic character of Frederick the Great, the strong, humane aspirations of Joseph II., and the rapid growth of democratic ideas all over the world, affected at last many of the smaller German States. Their imitation of the pomp and state of Louis XIV., which they had practised for nearly a hundred years, came to an end; the princes were now possessed with the idea of "an enlightened despotism"--that is, while retaining their absolute power, they endeavored to exercise it for the good of the people. There were some dark exceptions to this general change for the better. The rulers of Hesse-Ca.s.sel and Wurtemberg, for example, sold whole regiments of their subjects to England, to be used against the American Colonies in the War of Independence. Although many of these soldiers remained in the United States, and encouraged, by their satisfaction with their new homes, the later German emigration to America, the princes who sold them covered their own memories with infamy, and deservedly so.