March-June, 1743.

compensation to right and to left. This notion he, by obscure channels, put into the head of Baron von Haslang, Bavarian Embassador at London, where it germinated rapidly and came to fruit; was officially submitted to Lord Carteret in his own house, in two highly artistic forms, one evening; and sets the Diplomatic Heads all wagging upon it16-with great hope at one time, till rumor of it got abroad into the Orthodox imagination, into the Gazetteer world, and raised such a clamor in those months as seldom was. "Secularize, hah! One sees the devilish heathen spirit of you, and what kind of Kaiser, on the religious side, we now have the happiness of having!" So that Kaiser Karl had to deny utterly, "Never heard of such a thing!" Carteret himself had, in politeness, to deny; much more, and for dire cause, had Haslang himself, over the belly of facts, "Never in my dreams, I tell you!" and to get ambiguous certificate from Carteret, which the simple could interpret to that effect.17

It was only in whispers that the name of Friedrich was connected with this fine scheme, and all parties were glad to get it soon buried again. A bright idea, but had come a century too soon. Of another Carteret Negotiation with Kaiser Karl, famed as "Conferences of Hanau," which had almost come to be a Treaty, but did not; and then, failing that, of a famous Carteret "Treaty of Worms," which did come to perfection in these same localities shortly afterward, and which were infinitely interesting to our Friedrich, both the Treaty and the Failure of the Treaty, we propose to speak elsewhere in due time.

As to Friedrich's own endeavors and industries, at Regensburg and elsewhere, for effective mediation of Peace; for the Reich to mediate, and have " Army of Mediation;" for a "Union of Swabian Circles" to do it; for this and then for that to do it -as to Friedrich's own efforts and strugglings that way, in all likely and in some unlikely quarters, they were, and continued to be, earnest, incessant, but without result, like the spurring of horses really dead some time ago, of which no reader wishes the details, though the fact has to be remembered. And so, with slight indication for Friedrich's sake-being intent on the stage

16 Adelung, iii., b, 84, 90, "January-March, 1743."

17 Carteret's Letter (ibid., iii., b, 190).

27th June, 1743.

of events—we must leave that shadowy, hypothetic region as a wood in the background; the much foliage and many twigs and boughs of which do authentically take the trouble to be there, though we have to paint it in this summary manner.

CHAPTER V.

BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN, AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER.

BRITANNIC Majesty with his Yarmouth, and martial Prince of Cumberland, arrived at Hanover May 15th, soon followed by Carteret from the Hague1-a Majesty prepared now for battle and for treaty alike; kind of earthly Jove, Arbiter of Nations, or victorious Hercules of the Pragmatic, the sublime little man. At Herrenhausen he has a fine time, grandly fugling about, negotiating with Wilhelm of Hessen and others, commanding his Pragmatic Army from the distance, and then, at last, dashing off rather in haste, he- It is well known what enigmatic Exploit he did at least the Name of it is well known! Here, from the Imbroglios, is a rough Account, parts of which are introducible for the sake of English readers.

Battle of Dettingen.

"After some five leisurely weeks in Herrenhausen, George II. (now an old gentleman of sixty), with his martial Fat Boy, the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret, his Diplomatist in Chief, quitted that pleasant sojourn rather on a sudden for the actual Seat of War. By speedy journeys they got to Frankfurt Country; to Hanau, June 19th; whence, still up the Mayn, twenty or thirty miles farther up, to Aschaffenburg, where the Pragmatic Army, after some dangerous manoeuvring on the opposite or south bank of the River, has lain encamped some days, and is in questionable posture, whither his Majesty in person has hastened up; and, truly, if his Majesty's head contain any good counsel, there is great need of it here just now.

Captains and men were impatient of that long loitering, hanging idle about Frankfurt all through May, and they have at length started real business, with more valor than discretion, it is feared. They are

1 Biographia Britannica (Kippis's, § Carteret), iii., 277.

27th June, 1743.

some 40 or 44,000 strong: English, 16,000; Hanoverians, the like number; and of Austrians" (by theory 20,000)," say, in effect, 12,000, or even 8000—all paid by England. They have Hanau for Magazine; they have rear-guard of 12,000" (the 6000 Hessians and 6000 new Hanoverians), "who at last are actually on march thither, near arriving there: Forward!' said the Captaincy" (said Stair, chiefly, it was thought): 'Shall the whole summer waste itself to no purpose?' and are up the River thus far, not on the most considerate terms.

"What this Pragmatic Army means to do? That is, and has been, a great question for all the world, especially for Noailles and the French, not to say for the Pragmatic itself! Get into Lorraine?' think the French: Get into Alsace, and wrest it from us for behoof of her Hungarian Majesty'—plundered goods, which indeed belong to the Reich and her, in a sense!—Els-sass (Alsace, Outer-seat), with its RoadFortress (Strasburg), plundered from the Holy Romish Reich by Louis XIV. in a way no one can forget; actually plundered, as if by highway robbery, or by highway robbery and attorneyism combined, on the part of that great Sovereign. 'To Strasburg? To Lorraine perhaps? Or to the Three Bishoprics' (Metz, Toul, Verdun-readers recollect that Siege of Metz, which broke the great heart of Karl V.? who raged and fired as man seldom did, with 50,000 men, against Guise and the intrusive French for six weeks; sound of his cannon heard at Strasburg on winter nights, 300 years ago-to no purpose; for his Captains of the Siege, after trial and second trial, solemnly shook their heads; and the great Kaiser, breaking into tears, had to raise the Siege of Metz, and went his way, never to smile more in this world; and Metz, and Toul, and Verdun remain with the French ever since)-To the Three Bishoprics, possibly enough!'

"Or they may purpose for the Donau Countries, where Broglio is crackling off like trains of gunpowder, and lend hand to Prince Karl, thereby inclosing Broglio between two fires?' This, according to present aspects, is the likeliest. And, perhaps, had provenders and arrangements been made beforehand for such a march, this had been the feasiblest: and, to my own notion, it was some wild hope of doing this without provenders or prearrangements that had brought the Pragmatic into its present quarters at Aschaffenburg, which are for the military mind a mystery to this day.

Early in the Spring the French Government had equipped Noailles with 70,000 men, to keep watch and patrol about in the Rhine-Mayn Countries, and look into those points, which he has been vigilantly doing, posted of late on the south or left bank of the Mayn, and is especially vigilant since June 14th, when the Pragmatic Army got on march across the Mayn, at Höchst, and took to offering him battle on his own

27th June, 1743.

south side of the River. Noailles-though his Force" (still 58,000, after that Broglio Detachment of 12,000) “was greatly the stronger— would not fight; preferred cutting off the Enemy's supplies, capturing his river-boats, provision-convoys from Hanau, and settling him by hunger, as the cheaper method. Impetuous Stair was thwarted by flat protest of his German colleagues, especially by D'Ahremberg, in forcing battle on those rash terms: 'We Austrians absolutely will not!' said D'Ahremberg at last; and withdrew, or was withdrawing, he, for his part, across the River again; so that Stair also was obliged to recross the River in indignant humor, and now lies at Aschaffenburg, suffering the sad alternative, short diet namely, which will end in famine soon, if these counsels prevail.

“Stair and D'Ahremberg do not well accord in their opinions, nor, it seems, is any body in particular absolute Chief; there are likewise heats and jealousies between the Hanoverian and the English troops ('Are not we come for all your goods?' Yes, damn you, and for all our chattels too!'); and, withal, it is frightfully uncertain whether a high degree of intellect presides over these 44,000 fighting men, which may lead them to something, or a low degree, which can only lead them to nothing! The blame is all laid on Stair: 'too rash,' they say. Possibly enough, too rash. And possibly enough withal, even to a sound military judgment, in such unutterable puddle of jarring imbecilities, 'rashness,' headlong courage, offered the one chance there was of success ? Who knows, had all the 44,000 been as rash as Stair and his English, but luck and sheer hard fighting might have favored him, as skill could not, in those sad circumstances! Stair's plan was, ' Beat Noailles, and you have done every thing: provisions, opulent new regions, and all else shall be added to you!' Stair's plan might have answered had Stair been the master to execute it, which he was not. D'Ahremberg's also, who protested,' Wait till your 12,000 join, and you have your provisions,' was the orthodox plan, and might have much to for itself. But the two plans collapsing into one, that was the clearly fatal method! Magnanimous Stair never made the least explanation to an undiscerning Public or Parliament; wrapped himself in strict silence, and accepted in a grand way what had come to him.2 Clear it is, the Pragmatic Army had come across again at Aschaffenburg, Sunday, June 16th, and was found there by his Majesty on the Wednesday following, with its two internecine plans fallen into mutual death-a Pragmatic Army in truly dangerous circumstances.

say

2 His Papers, to voluminous extent, are still in the Family Archives; not inaccessible, I think, were the right student of them (who would be a rare article among us!) to turn up.

27th June, 1743.

"The English, who were in and round Aschaffenburg itself, Hanoverians and Austrians encamping farther down, had put a battery on the Bridge of Aschaffenburg, hoping to be able to forage thereby on the other side of the Mayn; whereupon Noailles had instantly clapped a redoubt, under due cover of a wood, at his end of the Bridge: 'No passage this way, gentlemen, except into the cannon's throat!' so that Marshal Stair, reconnoitring that way, 'had his hat shot off,' and rapidly drew back again. Nay, before long, Noailles, at the Village of Seligenstadt, some eight miles farther down, throws two wooden or pontoon bridges over;3 can bring his whole Army across at Seligenstadt; prohibits all manner of supply to us from Hanau or our Magazines by his arrangement there." (Notable little Seligenstadt, "City of the Blessed," where Eginhart and Emma, ever since Charlemagne's time, lie waiting the Resurrection: that is the place of these Noailles contrivances!) “Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post twenty miles farther up the river (Miltenberg the name of it), and will prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Franken or the Neckar Country. We had forgotten, or our collapse of plans had done it, that 'an army moves on its stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that we have nothing to live upon in these parts!

"Such has the unfortunate fact turned out to be when Britannic Majesty arrives, and it can now be discovered clearly by any eyes, however flat to the head. And a terrible fact it is. Discordant Generals accuse one another; hungry soldiers cannot be kept from plundering for the horses there is unripe rye in quantity; but what is there for the men? My poor traditionary friends of the Grey Dragoons were wont (I have heard) to be heart-rending on this point in after years! Famine being urgent, discipline is not possible, nor existence itself. For a week longer, George, rather in obstinate hope than with any reasonable plan or exertion, still tries it; finds, after repeated Councils of War, that he will have to give it up, and go back to Hanau where his living is. Wednesday night, 26th June, 1743, that is the final resolution inevitably come upon, without argument; and about one on Thursday morning, the Army (in two columns, Austrians to van-ward well away from the River, English as rear-guard close on it) gets in motion to execute said resolution—if the Army can.

"If the Army can; but that is like to be a formidably difficult business, with a Noailles watching every step of you to-day and for ten days back, in these sad circumstances. Eyes in him like a lynx, they say; and great skill in war, only too cautious. Hardly is the Army gone from Aschaffenburg when Noailles, pushing across by the Bridge,

3 Sketch of Plan at p. 532.