The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power Part 30

The queen still kept her eye anxiously fixed upon Silesia, and in secret combination with the Empress of Russia made preparation for a sudden invasion. With as much secrecy as was possible, large armies were congregated in the vicinity of Prague, while Russia was cautiously concentrating her troops upon the frontiers of Livonia. But Frederic was on the alert, and immediately demanded of the empress queen the significance of these military movements.

"In the present crisis," the queen replied, "I deem it necessary to take measures for the security of myself and my allies, which tend to the prejudice of no one."

So vague an answer was of course unsatisfactory, and the haughty Prussian king reiterated his demand in very imperious tones.

"I wish," said he, "for an immediate and categorical answer, not delivered in an oracular style, ambiguous and inconclusive, respecting the armaments in Bohemia, and I demand a positive a.s.surance that the queen will not attack me either during this or the following year."

The answer returned by the queen to this demand was equally unsatisfactory with the first, and the energetic Prussian monarch, wasting no more words, instantly invaded Saxony with a powerful army, overran the duchy, and took possession of Dresden, its capital. Then wheeling his troops, with twenty-four thousand men he marched boldly into Bohemia. The queen dispatched an army of forty thousand to meet him. The fierce encounter took place at Lowositz, near the banks of the Elbe. The military genius of Frederic prevailed, and the Austrians were repulsed, though the slaughter was about equal on each side, six thousand men, three thousand upon each side, being left in their blood.

Frederic took possession of Saxony as a conquered province. Seventeen thousand soldiers, whom he made prisoners, he forced into his own service. Eighty pieces of cannon were added to his artillery train, and the revenues of Saxony replenished his purse.

The anger of Maria Theresa, at this humiliation of her ally, was roused to the highest pitch, and she spent the winter in the most vigorous preparations for the campaign of the spring. She took advantage of religious fanaticism, and represented, through all the Catholic courts of Europe, that there was a league of the two heretical powers, England and Prussia, against the faithful children of the Church. Jeanette Poisson, Marchioness of Pompadour, who now controlled the destinies of France, raised, for the service of Maria Theresa, an army of one hundred and five thousand men, paid all the expenses of ten thousand Bavarian troops, and promised the queen an annual subsidy of twelve millions of imperial florins. The emperor, regarding the invasion of Saxony as an insult to the empire, roused the States of Germany to cooperate with the queen. Europe was again ablaze with war.

It was indeed a fearful combination now prepared to make a rush upon the King of Prussia. France had a.s.sembled eighty thousand men on the Rhine.

The Swedes were rallying in great numbers on the frontiers of Pomerania.

The Russians had concentrated an army sixty thousand strong on the borders of Livonia. And the Queen of Austria had one hundred and fifty thousand men on the march, through Hungary and Bohemia, to the frontiers of Silesia. Frederic, with an eagle eye, was watching all these movements, and was employing all his amazing energies to meet the crisis. He resolved to have the advantage of striking the first blow, and adopted the bold measure of marching directly into the heart of the Austrian States. To deceive the allies he pretended to be very much frightened, and by breaking down bridges and establishing fortresses seemed intent upon merely presenting a desperate defense behind his ramparts.

Suddenly, in three strong, dense columns, Frederic burst into Bohemia and advanced, with rapid and resistless strides, towards Prague. The unprepared Austrian bands were driven before these impetuous a.s.sailants as chaff is dispersed by the whirlwind. With great precipitation the Austrian troops, from all quarters, fled to the city of Prague and rallied beneath its walls. Seventy thousand men were soon collected, strongly intrenched behind ramparts, thrown up outside of the city, from which ramparts, in case of disaster, they could retire behind the walls and into the citadel.

The king, with his army, came rushing on like the sweep of the tornado, and plunged, as a thunderbolt of war, into the camp of the Austrians.

For a few hours the battle blazed as if it were a strife of demons--h.e.l.l in high carnival. Eighteen thousand Prussians were mowed down by the Austrian batteries, before the fierce a.s.sailants could scale the ramparts. Then, with cimeter and bayonet, they took a b.l.o.o.d.y revenge.

Eight thousand Austrians were speedily weltering in blood. The shriek of the battle penetrated all the dwellings in Prague, appalling every ear, like a wail from the world of woe. The routed Austrians, leaving nine thousand prisoners, in the hands of Frederic, rushed through the gates into the city, while a storm of shot from the batteries on the walls drove back the pursuing Prussians.

Prague, with the broken army thus driven within its walls, now contained one hundred thousand inhabitants. The city was totally unprepared for a siege. All supplies of food being cut off, the inhabitants were soon reduced to extreme suffering. The queen was exceedingly anxious that the city should hold out until she could hasten to its relief. She succeeded in sending a message to the besieged army, by a captain of grenadiers, who contrived to evade the vigilance of the besiegers and to gain entrance to the city.

"I am concerned," said the empress, "that so many generals, with so considerable a force, must remain besieged in Prague, but I augur favorably for the event. I can not too strongly impress upon your minds that the troops will incur everlasting disgrace should they not effect what the French in the last war performed with far inferior numbers. The honor of the whole nation, as well as that of the imperial aims, is interested in their present behavior. The security of Bohemia, of my other hereditary dominions, and of the German empire itself, depends on a gallant defense and the preservation of Prague.

"The army under the command of Marshal Daun is daily strengthening, and will soon be in a condition to raise the siege. The French are approaching with all diligence. The Swedes are marching to my a.s.sistance. In a short s.p.a.ce of time affairs will, under divine Providence, wear a better aspect."

The scene in Prague was awful. Famine strode through all the streets, covering the pavements with the emaciate corpses of the dead. An incessant bombardment was kept up from the Prussian batteries, and shot and sh.e.l.l were falling incessantly, by day and by night, in every portion of the city. Conflagrations were continually blazing; there was no possible place of safety; sh.e.l.ls exploded in parlors, in chambers, in cellars, tearing limb from limb, and burying the mutilated dead beneath the ruins of their dwellings. The booming of the cannon, from the distant batteries, was answered by the thunder of the guns from the citadel and the walls, and blended with all this uproar rose the uninterrupted shrieks of the wounded and the dying. The cannonade from the Prussian batteries was so destructive, that in a few days one quarter of the entire city was demolished.

Count Daun, with sixty thousand men, was soon advancing rapidly towards Prague. Frederic, leaving a small force to continue the blockade of the city, marched with the remainder of his troops to a.s.sail the Austrian general. They soon met, and fought for some hours as fiercely as mortals can fight. The slaughter on both sides was awful. At length the fortune of war turned in favor of the Austrians, though they laid down nine thousand husbands, fathers, sons, in b.l.o.o.d.y death, as the price of the victory. Frederic was almost frantic with grief and rage as he saw his proud battalions melting away before the batteries of the foe. Six times his cavalry charged with the utmost impetuosity, and six times they were as fiercely repulsed. Frederic was finally compelled to withdraw, leaving fourteen thousand of his troops either slain or prisoners.

Twenty-two Prussian standards and forty-three pieces of artillery were taken by the Austrians.

The tidings of this victory elated Maria Theresa almost to delirium.

Feasts were given, medals struck, presents given, and the whole empire blazed with illuminations, and rang with all the voices of joy. The queen even condescended to call in person upon the Countess Daun to congratulate her upon the great victory attained by her husband. She inst.i.tuted, on the occasion, a new military order of merit, called the order of Maria Theresa. Count Daun and his most ill.u.s.trious officers were honored with the first positions in this new order of knighthood.

The Prussians were compelled to raise the siege of Prague, and to retreat with precipitation. Bohemia was speedily evacuated by the Prussian troops. The queen was now determined to crush Frederic entirely, so that he might never rise again. His kingdom was to be taken from him, carved up, and apportioned out between Austria, Sweden, Poland and Russia.

The Prussians retreated, in a broken band of but twenty-five thousand men, into the heart of Silesia, to Breslau, its beautiful and strongly fortified capital. This city, situated upon the Oder, at its junction with the Ohlau, contained a population of nearly eighty thousand. The fugitive troops sought refuge behind its walls, protected as they were by batteries of the heaviest artillery. The Austrians, strengthened by the French, with an army now amounting to ninety thousand, followed closely on, and with their siege artillery commenced the cannonade of the city. An awful scene of carnage ensued, in which the Austrians lost eight thousand men and the Prussians five thousand, when the remnant of the Prussian garrison, retreating by night through a remote gate, left the city in the hands of the Austrians.

It was now mid-winter. But the iron-nerved Frederic, undismayed by these terrible reverses, collected the scattered fragments of his army, and, finding himself at the head of thirty thousand men, advanced to Breslau in the desperate attempt to regain his capital. His force was so inconsiderable as to excite the ridicule of the Austrians. Upon the approach of Frederic, Prince Charles, disdaining to hide behind the ramparts of the city on the defensive, against a foe thus insulting him with inferior numbers, marched to meet the Prussians. The interview between Prince Charles and Frederic was short but very decisive, lasting only from the hour of dinner to the going down of a December's sun. The twilight of the wintry day had not yet come when seven thousand Austrians were lying mangled in death on the blood-stained snow. Twenty thousand were made prisoners. All the baggage of the Austrian army, the military chest, one hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon, and fifty-nine standards fell into the hands of the victors. For this victory Frederic paid the price of five thousand lives; but _life_ to the poor Prussian soldier must have been a joyless scene, and death must have been a relief.

Frederic now, with triumphant banners, approached the city. It immediately capitulated, surrendering nearly eighteen thousand soldiers, six hundred and eighty-six officers and thirteen generals as prisoners of war. In this one storm of battle, protracted through but a few days, Maria Theresa lost fifty thousand men. Frederic then turned upon the Russians, and drove them out of Silesia. The same doom awaited the Swedes, and they fled precipitately to winter quarters behind the cannon of Stralsund. Thus terminated the memorable campaign of 1757, the most memorable of the Seven Years' War. The Austrian army was almost annihilated; but the spirit of the strife was not subdued in any breast.

The returning sun of spring was but the harbinger of new woes for war-stricken Europe. England, being essentially a maritime power, could render Frederic but little a.s.sistance in troops; but the cabinet of St.

James was lavish in voting money. Encouraged by the vigor Frederic had shown, the British cabinet, with enthusiasm, voted him an annual subsidy of three million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Austria was so exhausted in means and in men, that notwithstanding the most herculean efforts of the queen, it was not until April of the year 1758 that she was able to concentrate fifty thousand men in the field, with the expensive equipments which war demands. Frederic, aided by the gold of England, was early on the move, and had already opened the campaign by the invasion of Moravia, and by besieging Olmutz.

The summer was pa.s.sed in a series of incessant battles, sweeping all over Germany, with the usual vicissitudes of war. In the great battle of Hockkirchen Frederic encountered a woful defeat. The battle took place on the 14th of October, and lasted five hours. Eight thousand Austrians and nine thousand Prussians were stretched lifeless upon the plain.

Frederic was at last compelled to retreat, abandoning his tents, his baggage, one hundred and one cannon, and thirty standards. Nearly every Prussian general was wounded. The king himself was grazed by a ball; his horse was shot from under him, and two pages were killed at his side.

Again Vienna blazed with illuminations and rang with rejoicing, and the queen liberally dispensed her gifts and her congratulations. Still nothing effectual was accomplished by all this enormous expenditure of treasure, this carnage and woe; and again the exhausted combatants retired to seek shelter from the storms of winter. Thus terminated the third year of this cruel and wasting war.

The spring of 1759 opened brightly for Maria Theresa. Her army, flushed by the victory of the last autumn, was in high health and spirits. All the allies of Austria redoubled their exertions; and the Catholic States of Germany with religious zeal rallied against the two heretical kingdoms of Prussia and England. The armies of France, Austria, Sweden and Russia were now marching upon Prussia, and it seemed impossible that the king could withstand such adversaries. More fiercely than ever the storm of war raged. Frederic, at the head of forty thousand men, early in June met eighty thousand Russians and Austrians upon the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort. For seven hours the action lasted, and the allies were routed with enormous slaughter; but the king, pursuing his victory too far with his exhausted troops, was turned upon by the foe, and was routed himself in turn, with the slaughter of one half of his whole army. Twenty-four thousand of the allies and twenty thousand Prussians perished on that b.l.o.o.d.y day.

Frederic exposed his person with the utmost recklessness. Two horses were shot beneath him; several musket b.a.l.l.s pierced his clothes; he was slightly wounded, and was rescued from the foe only by the almost superhuman exertions of his hussars. In the darkness of the night the Prussians secured their retreat.

We have mentioned that at first Frederic seemed to have gained the victory. So sanguine was he then of success that he dispatched a courier from the field, with the following billet to the queen at Berlin:--

"We have driven the enemy from their intrenchments; in two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory."

Hardly two hours had elapsed ere another courier was sent to the queen with the following appalling message:--

"Remove from Berlin with the royal family. Let the archives be carried to Potsdam, and the capital make conditions with the enemy."

In this terrible battle the enemy lost so fearfully that no effort was made to pursue Frederic. Disaster never disheartened the Prussian king.

It seemed but to rouse anew his energies. With amazing vigor he rallied his scattered forces, and called in reenforcements. The gold of England was at his disposal; he dismantled distant fortresses and brought their cannon into the field, and in a few days was at the head of twenty-eight thousand men, beneath the walls of his capital, ready again to face the foe.

The thunderings of battle continued week after week, in unintermitted roar throughout nearly all of Germany. Winter again came. Frederic had suffered awfully during the campaign, but was still unsubdued. The warfare was protracted even into the middle of the winter. The soldiers, in the fields, wading through snow a foot deep, suffered more from famine, frost and sickness than from the bullet of the foe. In the Austrian army four thousand died, in sixteen days of December, from the inclemency of the weather. Thus terminated the campaign of 1759.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

MARIA THERESA.

From 1759 to 1780.

Desolations of War.--Disasters of Prussia.--Despondency of Frederic.-- Death of the Empress Elizabeth.--Accession of Paul III.--a.s.sa.s.sination of Paul III.--Accession of Catharine.--Discomfiture of the Austrians.-- Treaty of Peace.--Election of Joseph to the Throne of the Empire.--Death of Francis.--Character of Francis.--Anecdotes.--Energy of Maria Theresa.--Poniatowski.--Part.i.tion of Poland.--Maria Theresa as a Mother.--War With Bavaria.--Peace.--Death of Maria Theresa.--Family of the Empress.--Accession of Joseph II.--His Character.

The spring of 1760 found all parties eager for the renewal of the strife, but none more so than Maria Theresa. The King of Prussia was, however, in a deplorable condition. The veteran army, in which he had taken so much pride, was now annihilated. With despotic power he had a.s.sembled a new army; but it was composed of peasants, raw recruits, but poorly prepared to encounter the horrors of war. The allies were marching against him with two hundred and fifty thousand men. Frederic, with his utmost efforts, could muster but seventy-five thousand, who, to use his own language, "were half peasants, half deserters from the enemy, soldiers no longer fit for service, but only for show."

Month after month pa.s.sed away, during which the whole of Prussia presented the aspect of one wide field of battle. Frederic fought with the energies of desperation. Villages were everywhere blazing, squadrons charging, and the thunders of an incessant cannonade deafened the ear by night and by day. On the whole the campaign terminated in favor of Frederic; the allies being thwarted in all their endeavors to crush him.

In one battle Maria Theresa lost twenty thousand men.

During the ensuing winter all the continental powers were again preparing for the resumption of hostilities in the spring, when the British people, weary of the enormous expenditures of the war, began to be clamorous for peace. The French treasury was also utterly exhausted.

France made overtures to England for a cessation of hostilities; and these two powers, with peaceful overtures, addressed Maria Theresa. The queen, though fully resolved to prosecute the war until she should attain her object, thought it not prudent to reject outright such proposals, but consented to the a.s.sembling of a congress at Augsburg.

Hostilities were not suspended during the meeting of the congress, and the Austrian queen was sanguine in the hope of being speedily able to crush her Prussian rival. Every general in the field had experienced such terrible disasters, and the fortune of war seemed so fickle, now lighting upon one banner and now upon another, that all parties were wary, practicing the extreme of caution, and disposed rather to act upon the defensive. Though not a single pitched battle was fought, the allies, outnumbering the Prussians, three to one, continually gained fortresses, intrenchments and positions, until the spirit even of Frederic was broken by calamities, and he yielded to despair. He no longer hoped to be able to preserve his empire, but proudly resolved to bury himself beneath its ruins. His despondency could not be concealed from his army, and his bravest troops declared that they could fight no longer.

Maria Theresa was elated beyond measure. England was withdrawing from Prussia. Frederic was utterly exhausted both as to money and men; one campaign more would finish the work, and Prussia would lie helpless at the feet of Maria Theresa, and her most sanguine antic.i.p.ations would be realized. But the deepest laid plans of man are often thwarted by apparently the most trivial events. One single individual chanced to be taken sick and die. That individual was Elizabeth, the Empress of Russia. On the 5th of January, 1762, she was lying upon her bed an emaciate suffering woman, gasping in death. The departure of her last breath changed the fate of Europe.

Paul III., her nephew, who succeeded the empress, detested Maria Theresa, and often inveighed bitterly against her haughtiness and her ambition. On the contrary, he admired the King of Prussia. He had visited the court of Berlin, where he had been received with marked attention; and Frederic was his model of a hero. He had watched with enthusiastic admiration the fort.i.tude and military prowess of the Prussian king, and had even sent to him many messages of sympathy, and had communicated to him secrets of the cabinet and their plans of operation. Now, enthroned as Emperor of Russia, without reserve he avowed his attachment to Frederic, and ordered his troops to abstain from hostilities, and to quit the Austrian army. At the same time he sent a minister to Berlin to conclude an alliance with the hero he so greatly admired. He even asked for himself a position in the Prussian army as lieutenant under Frederic.

The Swedish court was so intimately allied with that of St. Petersburg, that the cabinet of Stockholm also withdrew from the Austrian alliance, and thus Maria Theresa, at a blow, lost two of her most efficient allies. The King of Prussia rose immediately from his despondency, and the whole kingdom shared in his exultation and his joy. The Prussian troops, in conjunction with the Russians, were now superior to the Austrians, and were prepared to a.s.sume the offensive. But again Providence interposed. A conspiracy was formed against the Russian emperor, headed by his wife whom he had treated with great brutality, and Paul III. lost both his crown and his life, in July 1762, after a reign of less than six months.

Catharine II., wife of Paul III., with a b.l.o.o.d.y hand took the crown from the brow of her murdered husband and placed it upon her own head. She immediately dissolved the Prussian alliance, declared Frederic an enemy to the Prussian name, and ordered her troops, in cooperation with those of Austria, to resume hostilities against Frederic. It was an instantaneous change, confounding all the projects of man. The energetic Prussian king, before the Russian troops had time so to change their positions as to cooperate with the Austrians, a.s.sailed the troops of Maria Theresa with such impetuosity as to drive them out of Silesia.