The Crown-Prince's hopes were set, with all eagerness, on getting to the Rhine-Campaign next ensuing; nor did the King refuse, for a long while, but still less did he consent; and in the end there came nothing of it. From an early period of the year, Friedrich Wilhelm sees too well what kind of campaigning the Kaiser will now make; at a certain Wedding-dinner where his Majesty was,--precisely a fortnight after his Majesty's arrival in Berlin,--Seckendorf Junior has got, by eavesdropping, this utterance of his Majesty's: "The Kaiser has not a groschen of money. His Army in Lombardy is gone to twenty-four thousand men, will have to retire into the Mountains. Next campaign [just coming], he will lose Mantua and the Tyrol. God's righteous judgment it is: a War like this! Comes of flinging old principles overboard,--of meddling in business that was none of yours;" and more, of a plangent alarming nature. [Forster, ii. 144 (and DATE it from Militair-Lexikon, ii. 54).]
Friedrich Wilhelm sends back his Ten Thousand, according to contract; sends, over and above, a beautiful stock of "copper pontoons" to help the Imperial Majesty in that River Country, says Fassmann;--sends also a supernumerary Troop of Hussars, who are worth mentioning, "Six-score horse of Hussar type," under one Captain Ziethen, a taciturn, much-enduring, much-observing man, whom we shall see again: these are to be diligently helpful, as is natural; but they are also, for their own behoof, to be diligently observant, and learn the Austrian Hussar methods, which his Majesty last year saw to be much superior. Nobody that knows Ziethen doubts but he learnt; Hussar-Colonel Baronay, his Austrian teacher here, became too well convinced of it when they met on a future occasion. [ Life of Ziethen (veridical but inexact, by the Frau von Blumenthal, a kinswoman of his;English Translation, very ill printed, Berlin, 1803), p. 54.]
All this his Majesty did for the ensuing campaign: but as to the Crown-Prince's going thither, after repeated requests on his part, it is at last signified to him, deep in the season, that it cannot be: "Won't answer for a Crown-Prince to be sharer in such a Campaign;--be patient, my good Fritzchen, I will find other work for thee." [Friedrich's Letter, 5th September, 1735; Friedrich Wilhelm's Answer next day ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii.
part 3d, 93-95).] Fritzchen is sent into Preussen, to do the Reviewings and Inspections there; Papa not being able for them this season; and strict manifold Inspection, in those parts, being more than usually necessary, owing to the Russian-Polish troubles.
On this errand, which is clearly a promotion, though in present circumstances not a welcome one for the Crown-Prince, he sets out without delay; and passes there the equinoctial and autumnal season, in a much more useful way than he could have done in the Rhine-Campaign.
In the Rhine-Moselle Country and elsewhere the poor Kaiser does exert himself to make a Campaign of it; but without the least success. Having not a groschen of money, how could he succeed?
Noailles, as foreseen, manoeuvres him, hitch after hitch, out of Italy; French are greatly superior, more especially when Montemar, having once got Carlos crowned in Naples and put secure, comes to assist the French; Kaiser has to lean for shelter on the Tyrol Alps, as predicted. Italy, all but some sieging of strong-places, may be considered as lost for the present.
Nor on the Rhine did things go better. Old Eugene, "the shadow of himself," had no more effect this year than last: nor, though Lacy and Ten Thousand Russians came as allies, Poland being all settled now, could the least good be done. Reich's Feldmarschall Karl Alexander of Wurtemberg did "burn a Magazine" (probably of hay among better provender) by his bomb-shells, on one occasion.
Also the Prussian Ten Thousand--Old Dessauer leading them, General Roder having fallen ill--burnt something: an Islet in the Rhine, if I recollect, "Islet of Larch near Bingen," where the French had a post; which and whom the Old Dessauer burnt away. And then Seckendorf, at the head of thirty thousand, he, after long delays, marched to Trarbach in the interior Moselle Country; and got into some explosive sputter of battle with Belleisle, one afternoon,--some say, rather beating Belleisle; but a good judge says, it was a mutual flurry and terror they threw one another into.
[ OEuvres de Frederic, i. 168.] Seckendorf meant to try again on the morrow: but there came an estafette that night: "Preliminaries signed (Vienna, 3d October, 1735);--try no farther!" ["Cessation is to be, 5th November for Germany, 15th for Italy; Preliminaries" were, Vienna, "3d October," 1735 (Scholl, ii. 945).] And this was the second Rhine-Campaign, and the end of the Kaiser's French War. The Sea-Powers, steadily refusing money, diligently run about, offering terms of arbitration; and the Kaiser, beaten at every point, and reduced to his last groschen, is obliged to comply. He will have a pretty bill to pay for his Polish-Election frolic, were the settlement done! Fleury is pacific, full of bland candor to the Sea-Powers; the Kaiser, after long higgling upon articles, will have to accept the bill.
