For Sceptre and Crown Volume II Part 1

For Sceptre and Crown.

Vol. II.

by Gregor Samarow.

CHAPTER XIII.

DELAY.

Events did indeed hurry on during those memorable days, and history took as many forward steps in the annals of the world in hours as she had formerly done in years. General von Manteuffel marched from the north; General Vogel von Falckenstein occupied Hanover, and took possession of the government of the country, the king having commanded all magistrates to keep in their various positions; General Beyer concentrated his divided forces in Hesse; General von Seckendorf occupied the country from Magdeburg to Nordhausen, and from Erfurt a part of the garrison and a battery of artillery marched to Eisenach, and there joined the troops of the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, to block the road to the south against the Hanoverian army.

Orders flew from Berlin to the different generals in command, and quick and unanimous movements were made throughout the Prussian army, their aim being to strengthen every point of a circle they were forming around the Hanoverian army, which continually grew stronger and drew closer together.

Now, only the quickest and most direct road to Fulda remained open.

And the brave-spirited army still lay in Gottingen and its immediate neighbourhood.

The general staff worked day and night to prepare it for the march.

Certainly the younger officers and men boiled with impatience, and could not understand why the regiments, after making such a sudden march from their various quarters to Gottingen, were not able to march on by a perfectly open road to the south. Certainly old General Brandis shook his head, and said it would be better to break through the enemy with an army unprepared to march, than to be hemmed in with an army prepared to march. Certainly he hinted that the soldiers of the great Wellington had, according to every rule, frequently been unprepared to march, yet they had marched, fought, and conquered. Truly the king gnashed his teeth with impatience; he could do nothing, the ruler whose eyes were deprived of light by the hand of Heaven, but question and urge, and again urge and question.

But the general staff in the aula of Georgia Augusta proved to good General von Arentschildt that, according to all existing rules, the army was not yet ready to march. The rules lay before them, and the general staff was right; and General von Arentschildt told the king the army could not march yet.

The general staff waited, too, for the advance of the Hessians and Bavarians, to combine with the Hanoverian army.

The king was obliged to wait in silent impatience in his rooms at the Crown Hotel.

The troops, in their quarters and cantonments, waited, and their impatience was not silent; on the contrary, the air resounded with good hearty oaths, and impatience was loudest and liveliest amongst the cavalry regiments, where the snorting horses pawed the ground, and the men thought they had but to spring into the saddle to be as ready to march as any cavalry in the world.

They all waited.

Count Platen waited for some relenting on the part of Prince Ysenburg.

He had sent an explanation about the Prussian ultimatum from Gottingen to the prince, and he hoped it might be the means of recommencing negotiations; but on the second day the explanation itself came back, opened, it is true, but with the short and cold remark from Prince Ysenburg that after the declaration of hostilities all his diplomatic functions had ceased, and that he was no longer in a position to receive writings from the Hanoverian minister.

So they all waited, and impatience waxed hotter in the army still unprepared to march; but so much had been neglected and left disorderly--so the new leaders of the army found and maintained--that, in spite of all this and all that, they still could not march.

The courier Duve went on his way without meeting a Prussian soldier; he found the Hessian head-quarters not in Fulda, but in Hanau, and there General von Lossberg declared he could not alter the disposition of the army, as Prince Alexander of Hesse had already a.s.sumed the command,--besides the army of Hesse-Ca.s.sel was immovable.

The courier hastened on; and in Frankfort he delivered to Baron Kubeck, the Austrian presidential amba.s.sador to the confederacy, the despatches confided to him by Count Ingelheim, and he received from Herr von Kubeck an urgent memorial to Prince Alexander of Hesse, who was then in Darmstadt. Duve told the prince all about the position of the Hanoverian army, which was entirely unknown to him. Prince Alexander sent a message, that he would request the Bavarians, who were at Schweinfurth, to march towards the north, and that the eighth corps d'armee at Fulda should march upon Eschwege immediately, to stretch out a hand to the Hanoverian army; and finally, that the Hessian brigade should be pushed forwards from Hanau to Giessen as a demonstration.

It was expected in Prince Alexander's head-quarters that the Hanoverian army would march immediately on the road to Fulda, there join the Hessian brigade, and unite with the eighth army corps. The road to Fulda was free, and only a portion of General Beyer's divided corps could have been met with, and it was improbable that it would have hazarded an encounter.

This was the way they reckoned in Prince Alexander's head-quarters.

But the new Hanoverian generals decided otherwise in the aula of Georgia Augusta. News had arrived partly from travellers, partly from messengers sent to ascertain, that 60,000, 80,000, yes 100,000 Prussian troops blocked the way to Fulda; so it was decided not to take that road, but to march into the midst of the Prussian territory between the Prussian armies, and to get to Eisenach by Heiligenstadt and Treffurt, there to cross the road and to fall in with the Bavarians, from whom they had received no information; but they remained persuaded that they must be there.

In vain old General von Brandis shook his head, and remarked in his curt fashion, that an army who wished to fight must learn to stand up to the enemy; that if Prussian troops were on the road to Fulda, it was one of Wellington's practical maxims for conducting war, "to go on;"

that, at any rate, they had a better chance of overthrowing the enemy and reaching the south that way, than by jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire, as they seemed determined to do.

The general staff unanimously determined to march to Heiligenstadt, and the king consented.

At last the army was to move on the morning of the 21st of June, at four o'clock, and a general cry of joy throughout all the quarters and cantonments greeted the order to march.

In exemplary order, as on parade, the valiant brigades formed. The king left Gottingen about five o'clock, the senate of the university and the civic magistrates a.s.sembling to take leave of him.

It was a brilliant and dazzling procession which in the early morning light crossed into the Prussian territory.

A half squadron of the Cambridge dragoons formed the body-guard of their royal master.

Mounted on a large and beautiful white horse, which was guided by Major Schweppe of the Guard Cuira.s.siers, with an almost imperceptible leading rein, rode George V., with the proud knightly bearing which always gave him so imposing and regal an aspect when on horseback; by his side came the crown prince in his hussar uniform, on a small thorough-bred horse.

They were surrounded by a numerous suite, both civil and military; old General von Brandis, notwithstanding his seventy-one years, had sent back his carriage, and Count Ingelheim rode beside the king in a grey dress and long stable boots. The brilliant cavalcade was followed by the king's travelling carriage, drawn by six horses, with outriders and piquers; and then a number of other carriages for the suite, led horses, the master of the stables, and servants.

Whenever the royal train pa.s.sed the troops on the march, a loud, joyful hurrah burst forth, and every brave soldier's heart beat higher when he saw his king amongst them.

The courageous but strategically puzzling march of the Hanoverian army belongs to history, and is fully related in writings upon the war of 1866. It may perhaps be granted to future times to unriddle the extraordinary movements made by the army, and perhaps to explain why the march upon Treffurt was given up when they had reached Heiligenstadt, and their course turned by Muhlhausen to Langensalza; from thence right under the cannon of Erfurt they marched to Eisenach, and then suddenly, when this place was as good as taken, they halted, because an envoy from the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, without credentials, appeared at the Hanoverian headquarters. Major von Jacobi was sent by the Hanoverian general staff to Gotha to clear up this mission; and there, deceived as to the number of Prussian troops occupying Eisenach, he telegraphed such an account of the enemy to Colonel von Bulow, the Hanoverian officer in command, that, misled by the report, he withdrew his troops from Eisenach, and concluded a provisional armistice with the enemy.

When, therefore,--so runs the official report of these events,--General von Arentschildt arrived on the spot at about eight o'clock in the evening, expecting to find Eisenach taken, he was opposed to circ.u.mstances that completely defeated his plans, and contradicted all his majesty's views, but which both the armistice just concluded and the approaching night prevented him from grappling with.

Major von Jacobi was brought before a court-martial, the course of which was rendered impossible by succeeding events.

The reception of the envoy, the negotiations commenced with him and with the Duke of Coburg in the midst of military action, combined with the withdrawal of the troops from Eisenach, caused the idea to gain ground in Berlin that the king wished to negotiate; and King William of Prussia, animated by the desire of avoiding a b.l.o.o.d.y encounter with the Hanoverians, sent General von Alvensleben to the Hanoverian head-quarters, situated on the 25th June at Gross-Behringen, on the road to Eisenach.

During the previous negotiations with the Duke of Coburg, and the withdrawal of the Hanoverian troops, the Prussians had seized the opportunity of reinforcing Eisenach so strongly that it was now very difficult to take it.

General von Alvensleben announced himself in Bavaria as empowered by his majesty the King of Prussia "to receive any commands from the King of Hanover." The negotiations turned upon the proposition made by the Hanoverian council of war, that the Hanoverian troops should be granted a free pa.s.sage to the south without battle or bloodshed, upon condition of abstaining for a certain time from fighting against Prussia. Prussia required that the time named should be a year, and demanded various guarantees and pledges. The King of Hanover did not accept these stipulations, yet negotiations were not broken off; on the contrary, a suspension of hostilities was concluded, and the king promised a definite answer on the morning of the 26th of June. But when he despatched Colonel Rudorff, of the general staff, early in the morning of the 26th, he was turned back by General Vogel von Falckenstein, who had already arrived in Eisenach and concentrated there nearly two whole divisions. He declared he know nothing of an armistice, and that he should certainly attack the enemy.

The Hanoverian army was thus placed in a most unfavourable position.

The king, who had pa.s.sed the night in Behringen, removed his head-quarters early on the morning of the 26th to the Schutzhaus[1] in Langensalza.

The Schutzhaus, a large and handsome building, stands back from the road leading to Eisenach, at some little distance from the town; before it is a large open square, and opposite to it rises the s.p.a.cious post-house. Behind the house there is a large garden surrounded by high walls and covered walks, and a broad verandah connects the house with the garden.

Double sentries were posted before the Schutzhaus; in the square stood the royal carriages, and officers of every branch of the service came and went; the aides-de-camp of the general in command, whose head-quarters were in the town, hurried to and fro, to bring the king the latest information,--all was movement and military life.

The army was concentrated around Langensalza, and placed in a defensive position, for as General Vogel von Falckenstein refused to recognize the armistice, a Prussian attack was expected at any moment. After Falckenstein had learnt from General von Alvensleben all particulars, he declared himself willing to respect the suspension of arms; but the defensive position of the Hanoverian army was nevertheless maintained.

The king sat in his room. The expression on his face was very grave.

Old General von Brandis stood near him.

"My dear Brandis," said the king gloomily, "I fear we are in very evil case!"

"Alas! I am quite sure we are, your majesty!" replied the general.

"I fear," continued the king, "that these unfortunate and involved negotiations have only served to give the Prussians time to strengthen the forces opposed to us, and to make our position worse. Without these negotiations we should have taken Eisenach and perhaps we should by this time have joined the Bavarians in safety."

"We should certainly have done so," said the general drily. "Your majesty will do me the justice to remember I always spoke strongly against these negotiations," he continued. "According to my opinion your majesty might negotiate or march; but to attempt both together would never succeed. I cannot understand what these negotiations were to lead to. I do not see their aim. To march to the south under the obligation not to fight against Prussia for a certain time----"

"For two months," interrupted the king.

"But what good could it do?" pursued the general; "what reception could we expect in South Germany if we arrived saying, 'Here we are, we want maintenance and quarters, but we can't fight'? I really don't know,"