War with the Turk going on there; Russia and Austria both doing their best against the Turk. The Russians had hardly finished their Polish-Election fighting, when they decided to have a stroke at the Turk,--Turk always an especial eye-sorrow to them, since that "Treaty of the Pruth," and Czar Peter's sad rebuff there:--Munnich marched direct out of Poland through the Ukraine, with his eye on the Crimea and furious business in that quarter. This is his second Campaign there, this of 1737; and furious business has not failed. Last year he stormed the Lines of Perecop, tore open the Crimea; took Azoph, he or Lacy under him; took many things:
this year he had laid his plans for Oczakow;--takes Oczakow,--fiery event, blazing in all the Newspapers, at Reinsberg and elsewhere. Concerning which will the reader accept this condensed testimony by an eye-witness?
"OCZAKOW, 13th JULY, 1737. Day before yesterday, Feldmarschall Munnich got to Oczakow, as he had planned,"--strong Turkish Town in the nook between the Black Sea and the estuary of the Dnieper;--"with intention to besiege it. Siege-train, stores of every sort, which he had set afloat upon the Dnieper in time enough, were to have been ready for him at Oczakow. But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were coming. Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth the Turks have burnt:
not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he must attempt, nevertheless.
"On his right, by the sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens, palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow commences firing with what artillery he has.
Much outfired by the Turks inside;--his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper flotilla come soon. July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all night; Turks extremely furious:
about an hour before daybreak, we notice burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on fire yonder,'--and, praise to Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in quenching it again. Munnich turns out, in various divisions; intent on trying something, had he the least engineer furniture;--hopes desperately there may be promise for him in that internal burning still visible.
"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall know better;Munnich himself is to the right: Could not one try it by scalade;keep the internal burning free to spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musket-shot, General Keith!' orders Munnich's Aide-de-Camp cantering up. 'I have been this good while within it,' answers Keith, pointing to his dead men. Aide-de-Camp canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musket-shot, General Keith, and quit any covert you have!' Keith does so; sends, with his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such a waste of human life. Aide-de-Camp canters up a third time: 'Feldmarschall Munnich is for trying a scalade; hopes General Keith will do his best to co-operate!' 'Forward, then!' answers Keith; advances close to the glacis; finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours;his men, under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's scalade going off ineffectual in like manner:--till at length Keith's men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great confusion out of shot-range. Munnich gives himself up for lost. And indeed, says Mannstein, had the Turks sallied out in pursuit at that moment, they might have chased us back to Russia. But the Turks did not sally. And the internal conflagration is not quenched, far from it;--and about nine A.M.
their Powder-Magazine, conflagration reaching it, roared aloft into the air, and killed seven thousand of them," [Mannstein, pp. 151-156.]--So that Oczakow was taken, sure enough; terms, life only:
and every remaining Turk packs off from it, some "twenty thousand inhabitants young and old" for one sad item.--A very blazing semi-absurd event, to be read of in Prussian military circles,--where General Keith will be better known one day.
Russian War with the Turk: that means withal, by old Treaties, aid of thirty thousand men from the Kaiser to Russia. Kaiser, so ruined lately, how can he send thirty thousand, and keep them recruited, in such distant expedition? Kaiser, much meditating, is advised it will be better to go frankly into the Turk on his own score, and try for slices of profit from him in this game.
Kaiser declares war against the Turk; and what is still more interesting to Friedrich Wilhelm and the Berlin Circles, Seckendorf is named General of it. Feldzeugmeister now Feldmarschall Seckendorf, envy may say what it will, he has marched this season into the Lower-Donau Countries,--going to besiege Widdin, they say,--at the head of a big Army (on paper, almost a hundred and fifty thousand, light troops and heavy)--virtually Commander-in-Chief; though nominally our fine young friend Franz of Lorraine bears the title of Commander, whom Seckendorf is to dry-nurse in the way sometimes practised.
Going to besiege Widdin, they say. So has the poor Kaiser been advised. His wise old Eugene is now gone; [Died 30th April, 1736.]