Bring the war into our own borders? Bring the King of Prussia on our own throats!"--and stopping short in their enlistments and preparations; in vain for Austrian Officials to urge them.
Watching there, with awe-struck eye, while the 12,000 bombs flew into Prag.
The Battle of Kolin has reversed all that; and the poor old Reich is again bent on business in the Execution way. Drumming, committeeing, projecting, and endeavoring, with all her might, in all quarters; and, from and after the event of Kolin, holding visible Encampment, in the Nurnberg Country; fractions of actual troops assembling there. "On the Plains of Furth, between Furth and Farrenbach, east side the River Regnitz, there was the Camp pitched," says my Anonymous Friend; who gives me a cheerful Copperplate of the thing: red pennons, blue, and bright mixed colors; generals, tents; order-of-battle, and respective rallying points: with Bamberg Country in front, and the peaks of the Pine Mountains lying pleasantly behind: a sight for the curious.
[J.F.S. (whom I named ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG long since; who has boiled down, with great diligence, the old Newspapers, and gives a great many dates, notes, &c., without Index), i. 211, 224 (the Copperplate).] It is the same ground where Mayer was careering lately; neighboring nobility and gentry glad to come in gala, and dance with Mayer. Hither, all through July, come contingents straggling in, thicker and thicker; "August 8th," things now about complete, the Bishop of Bamberg came to take survey of the Reichs-Heer (Bishop's remarks not given); August 10th, came the young reigning Duke of Hildburghausen (Duke's grand-uncle is to be Commander), on like errand; August 11th) the Reichs-Heer got on march. Westward ho!--readers will see towards what.
A truly ELENDE, or miserable, Reichs Execution Army (as the MISprinter had made it); but giving loud voice in the Gazettes;and urged by every consideration to do something for itself.
Prince of Hildburghausen--a general of small merit, though he has risen in the Austrian service, and we have seen him with Seckendorf in old Turk times--has, for his Kaiser's sake, taken the command;sensible perhaps that glory is not likely to be rife here;but willing to make himself useful. Kaiser and Austria urge, everywhere, with all their might: Prince of Hessen-Darmstadt, who lay on the Weissenberg lately, one of Keith's distinguished seconds there and a Prussian Officer of long standing, has, on Kaiser's order, quitted all that, and become Hildburghausen's second here, in the Camp of Furth; thinking the path of duty lay that way,--though his Wife, one of the noble women of her age, thought very differently. [Her Letter to Friedrich, "Berlin, 30th October, 1757," <italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xxvii. ii. 135.]
A similar Kaiser's order, backed by what Law-thunder lay in the Reich, had gone out against Friedrich's own Brothers, and against every Reichs Prince who was in Friedrich's service; but, except him of Hessen-Darmstadt, none of them had much minded. [In Orlich, <italic> Furst Moritz von Anhalt Dessau <end italic> (Berlin, 1842), pp. 74, 75, Prince Moritz's rather mournful Letter on the subject, with Friedrich's sharp Answer.] I did not hear that his strategic talent was momentous: but Prussia had taught him the routine of right soldiering, surely to small purpose;and Friedrich, no doubt, glanced indignantly at this small thing, among the many big ones.
From about the end of June, the Reichs Army kept dribbling in:
the most inferior Army in the world; no part of it well drilled, most of it not drilled at all; and for variety in color, condition, method, and military and pecuniary and other outfit, beggaring description. Hildburghausen does his utmost; Kaiser the like.
The number should have far exceeded 50,000; but was not, on the field, of above half that number: 25,000; add at least 8,000Austrian troops, two regiments of them cavalry; good these 8,000, the rest bad,--that was the Reichs Execution Army; most inferior among Armies; and considerable part of it, all the Protestant part, privately wishing well to Friedrich, they say. Drills itself multifariously in that Camp between Furth and Farrenbach, on the east side of Regnitz River. Fancy what a sight to Wilhelmina, if she ever drove that way; which I think she hardly would.
The Baireuth contingent itself is there; the Margraf would have held out stiff on that point; but Friedrich himself advised compliance. Margraf of Anspach--perverse tippling creature, ill with his Wife, I doubt--has joyfully sent his legal hundreds;will vote for the Reichs Ban against this worst of Germans, whom he has for Brother-in-law. Dark days in the heart of Wilhelmina, those of the Camp at Furth. Days which grow ever darker, with strange flashings out of empyrean lightning from that shrill true heart;no peace more, till the noble heroine die!--This ELENDE Reichs-Heer, miserable "Army of the Circles," is mockingly called "the Hoopers, Coopers (TONNELIERS)," and gets quizzing enough, under that and other titles, from an Opposition Public. Far other from the French and Austrians; who are bent that it should do feats in the world, and prove impressive on a robber King. Thus too, "for Deliverance of Saxony," to co-operate with Reichs-Heer in that sacred object, thanks to the zeal of Pompadour, Prince de Soubise has got together, in Elsass, a supplementary 30,000 (40,330 said Theory, but Fact never quite so many): and is passing them across the Rhine, in Frankfurt Country, all through July, while the drilling at Furth goes on. With these, Soubise, simultaneously getting under way, will steer northeastward;join the Reichs-Heer about Erfurt, before August end; and--and we shall see what becomes of the combined Soubise and Reichs Army after that!