Cardinal Fleury.—The Emperor of Austria Urges the Pragmatic Sanction.—He Promises His Two Daughters to the Two Sons of the Queen of Spain.—France, England and Spain Unite Against Austria.—Charles VI. Issues Orders to Prepare for War.—His Perplexities.—Secret Overtures to England.—The Crown of Poland.—Meeting of the Polish Congress.—Stanislaus Goes to Poland.—Augustus III. Crowned.—War.—Charles Sends an Army to Lombardy.—Difficulties of Prince Eugene.—Charles's Displeasure with England.—Letter to Count Kinsky.—Hostilities Renewed.
The young King of France, Louis XV., from amidst the orgies of his court which rivaled Babylon in corruption, was now seventeen years of age, and was beginning to shake off the trammels of guardianship and to take some ambitious part in government. The infamous regent, the Duke of Orleans, died suddenly of apoplexy in 1723. Gradually the king's preceptor, Fleury, obtained the entire ascendency over the mind of his pupil, and became the chief director of affairs. He saw the policy of reuniting the Bourbons of France and Spain for the support of each other. The policy was consequently adopted of cultivating friendly relations between the two kingdoms. Cardinal Fleury was much disposed to thwart the plans of the emperor. A congress of the leading powers had been assembled at Soissons in June, 1728, to settle some diplomatic questions. The favorite object of the emperor now was, to obtain from the European powers the formal guarantee to support his decree of succession which conveyed the crown of Austria to his daughters, in preference to those of his brother Joseph.
The emperor urged the Pragmatic Sanction strongly upon the congress, as the basis upon which he would enter into friendly relations with all the powers. Fleury opposed it, and with such influence over the other plenipotentiaries as to secure its rejection. The emperor was much irritated, and intimated war. France and England retorted defiance. Spain was becoming alienated from the emperor, who had abandoned her cause, and was again entering into alliance with France. The emperor had promised his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to Carlos, son of the Queen of Spain, and a second daughter to the next son, Philip. These were as brilliant matches as an ambitious mother could desire. But while the emperor was making secret and solemn promises to the Queen of Spain, that these marriages should be consummated, which would secure to the son of the queen the Austrian, as well as the Spanish crown, he was declaring to the courts of Europe that he had no such plans in contemplation.
The Spanish queen, at length, annoyed, and goaded on by France and England, sent an ambassador to Vienna, and demanded of the emperor a written promise that Maria Theresa was to be the bride of Carlos. The emperor was now brought to the end of his intrigues. He had been careful heretofore to give only verbal promises, through his ministers. After his reiterated public denials that any such alliance was anticipated, he did not dare commit himself by giving the required document. An apologetic, equivocal answer was returned which so roused the ire of the queen, that, breaking off from Austria, she at once entered into a treaty of cordial union with England and France.
It will readily be seen that all these wars and intrigues had but little reference to the welfare of the masses of the people. They were hardly more thought of than the cattle and the poultry. The only purpose they served was, by unintermitted toil, to raise the wealth which supported the castle and the palace, and to march to the field to fight battles, in which they had no earthly interest. The written history of Europe is only the history of kings and nobles—their ambitions, intrigues and war. The unwritten history of the dumb, toiling millions, defrauded of their rights, doomed to poverty and ignorance, is only recorded in the book of God's remembrance. When that page shall be read, every ear that hears it will tingle.
The frail connection between Austria and Spain was now terminated. England, France and Spain entered into an alliance to make vigorous war against Charles VI. if he manifested any hostility to any of the articles of the treaty into which they had entered. The Queen of Spain, in her spite, forbade the subjects of the emperor from trading at all with Spain, and granted to her new allies the exclusive right to the Spanish trade. She went so far in her reconciliation with England as to assure the king that he was quite welcome to retain the rock of Gibraltar which he held with so tenacious a grasp.
In this treaty, with studied neglect, even the name of the emperor was not mentioned; and yet the allies, as if to provoke a quarrel, sent Charles VI. a copy, peremptorily demanding assent to the treaty without his having taken any part whatever in the negotiation.
This insulting demand fell like a bomb-shell in the palace at Vienna. Emperor, ministers, courtiers, all were aroused to a frenzy of indignation. "So insulting a message," said Count Zinzendorf, "is unparalleled, even in the annals of savages." The emperor condescended to make no reply, but very spiritedly issued orders to all parts of the empire, for his troops to hold themselves in readiness for war.
And yet Charles was overwhelmed with anxiety, and was almost in despair. It was a terrible humiliation for the emperor to be compelled to submit, unavenged, to such an insult. But how could the emperor alone, venture to meet in battle England, France, Spain and all the other powers whom three such kingdoms could, either by persuasion or compulsion, bring into their alliance? He pleaded with his natural allies. Russia had not been insulted, and was unwilling to engage in so distant a war. Prussia had no hope of gaining any thing, and declined the contest. Sardinia sent a polite message to the emperor that it was more for her interest to enter into an alliance with her nearer neighbors, France, Spain and England, and that she had accordingly done so. The treasury of Charles was exhausted; his States were impoverished by constant and desolating wars. And his troops manifested but little zeal to enter the field against so fearful a superiority of force. The emperor, tortured almost beyond endurance by chagrin, was yet compelled to submit.
The allies were quite willing to provoke a war with the emperor; but as he received their insults so meekly, and made no movement against them, they were rather disposed to march against him. Spain wanted Parma and Tuscany, but France was not willing to have Spain make so great an accession to her Italian power. France wished to extend her area north, through the States of the Netherlands. But England was unwilling to see the French power thus aggrandized. England had her aspirations, to which both France and Spain were opposed. Thus the allies operated as a check upon each other.
The emperor found some little consolation in this growing disunion, and did all in his power to foment it. Wishing to humble the Bourbons of France and Spain, he made secret overtures to England. The offers of the emperor were of such a nature, that England eagerly accepted them, returned to friendly relations with the emperor, and, to his extreme joy, pledged herself to support the Pragmatic Sanction.
It seems to have been the great object of the emperor's life to secure the crown of Austria for his daughters. It was an exceedingly disgraceful act. There was no single respectable reason to be brought forward why his daughters should crowd from the throne the daughters of his elder deceased brother, the Emperor Joseph. Charles was so aware of the gross injustice of the deed, and that the ordinary integrity of humanity would rise against him, that he felt the necessity of exhausting all the arts of diplomacy to secure for his daughters the pledged support of the surrounding thrones. He had now by intrigues of many years obtained the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction from Russia, Prussia, Holland, Spain and England. France still refused her pledge, as did also many of the minor States of the empire. The emperor, encouraged by the success he had thus far met with, pushed his efforts with renewed vigor, and in January, 1732, exulted that he had gained the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction from all the Germanic body, with the exception of Bavaria, Palatine and Saxony.
And now a new difficulty arose to embroil Europe in trouble. When Charles XII., like a thunderbolt of war, burst upon Poland, he drove Augustus II. from the throne, and placed upon it Stanislaus Leczinski, a Polish noble, whom he had picked up by the way, and whose heroic character secured the admiration of this semi-insane monarch. Augustus, utterly crushed, was compelled by his eccentric victor to send the crown jewels and the archives, with a letter of congratulation, to Stanislaus. This was in the year 1706. Three years after this, in 1709, Charles XII. suffered a memorable defeat at Pultowa. Augustus II., then at the head of an army, regained his kingdom, and Stanislaus fled in disguise. After numerous adventures and fearful afflictions, the court of France offered him a retreat in Wissembourg in Alsace. Here the ex-king remained for six years, when his beautiful daughter Mary was selected to take the place of the rejected Mary of Spain, as the wife of the young dauphin, Louis XV.
In the year 1733 Augustus II. died. In anticipation of this event Austria had been very busy, hoping to secure the elective crown of Poland for the son of Augustus who had inherited his father's name, and who had promised to support the Pragmatic Sanction. France was equally busy in the endeavor to place the scepter of Poland in the hand of Stanislaus, father of the queen. From the time of the marriage of his daughter with Louis XV., Stanislaus received a handsome pension from the French treasury, maintained a court of regal splendor, and received all the honors due to a sovereign. All the energies of the French court were now aroused to secure the crown for Stanislaus. Russia, Prussia and Austria were in natural sympathy. They wished to secure the alliance of Poland, and were also both anxious to destroy the republican principle of electing rulers, and to introduce hereditary descent of the crown in all the kingdoms of Europe. But an election by the nobles was now indispensable, and the rival powers were, with all the arts known in courts, pushing the claims of their several candidates. It was an important question, for upon it depended whether warlike Poland was to be the ally of the Austrian or of the French party. Poland was also becoming quite republican in its tendencies, and had adopted a constitution which greatly limited the power of the crown. Augustus would be but a tool in the hands of Russia, Prussia and Austria, and would cooperate with them in crushing the spirit of liberty in Poland. These three great northern powers became so roused upon the subject, that they put their troops in motion, threatening to exclude Stanislaus by force.
This language of menace and display of arms roused France. The king, while inundating Poland with agents, and lavishing the treasure of France in bribes to secure the election of Stanislaus, assumed an air of virtuous indignation in view of the interference of the Austrian party, and declared that no foreign power should interfere in any way with the freedom of the election. This led the emperor to issue a counter-memorial inveighing against the intermeddling of France.
In the midst of these turmoils the congress of Polish nobles met to choose their king. It was immediately apparent that there was a very powerful party organized in favor of Stanislaus. The emperor was for marching directly into the kingdom with an army which he had already assembled in Silesia for this purpose, and with the bayonet make up for any deficiency which his party might want in votes. Though Prussia demurred, he put his troops in motion, and the imperial and Russian ambassadors at Warsaw informed the marshal of the diet that Catharine, who was now Empress of Russia, and Charles, had decided to exclude Stanislaus from Poland by force.
These threats produced their natural effect upon the bold warrior barons of Poland. Exasperated rather than intimidated, they assembled, many thousands in number, on the great plain of Wola, but a few miles from Warsaw, and with great unanimity chose Stanislaus their king. This was the 12th of September, 1733. Stanislaus, anticipating the result, had left France in disguise, accompanied by a single attendant, to undertake the bold enterprise of traversing the heart of Germany, eluding all the vigilance of the emperor, and of entering Poland notwithstanding all the efforts of Austria, Russia and Prussia to keep him away. It was a very hazardous adventure, for his arrest would have proved his ruin. Though he encountered innumerable dangers, with marvelous sagacity and heroism he succeeded, and reached Warsaw on the 9th of September, just three days before the election. In regal splendor he rode, as soon as informed of his election, to the tented field where the nobles were convened. He was received with the clashing of weapons, the explosions of artillery, and the acclamations of thousands.
But the Poles were not sufficiently enlightened fully to comprehend the virtue and the sacredness of the ballot-box. The Russian army was now hastening to the gates of Warsaw. The small minority of Polish nobles opposed to the election of Stanislaus seceded from the diet, mounted their horses, crossed the Vistula, and joined the invading array to make war upon the sovereign whom the majority had chosen. The retribution for such folly and wickedness has come. There is no longer any Poland. They who despise the authority of the ballot-box inevitably usher in the bayonets of despotism. Under the protection of this army the minority held another diet at Kamien (on the 5th of October), a village just outside the suburbs of Warsaw, and chose as the sovereign of Poland Augustus, son of the deceased king. The minority, aided by the Russian and imperial armies, were too strong for the majority. They took possession of Warsaw, and crowned their candidate king, with the title of Augustus III. Stanislaus, pressed by an overpowering force, retreated to Dantzic, at the mouth of the Vistula, about two hundred miles from Warsaw. Here he was surrounded by the Russian troops and held in close siege, while Augustus III. took possession of Poland. France could do nothing. A weary march of more than a thousand miles separated Paris from Warsaw, and the French troops would be compelled to fight their way through the very heart of the German empire, and at the end of the journey to meet the united armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Poland under her king, now in possession of all the fortresses.
Though Louis XV. could make no effectual resistance, it was not in human nature but that he should seek revenge. When shepherds quarrel, they kill each other's flocks. When kings quarrel, they kill the poor peasants in each other's territories, and burn their homes. France succeeded in enlisting in her behalf Spain and Sardinia. Austria and Russia were upon the other side. Prussia, jealous of the emperor's greatness, declined any active participation. Most of the other powers of Europe also remained neutral. France had now no hope of placing Stanislaus upon the throne; she only sought revenge, determined to humble the house of Austria. The mercenary King of Sardinia, Charles Emanuel, was willing to serve the one who would pay the most. He first offered himself to the emperor, but upon terms too exorbitant to be accepted. France and Spain immediately offered him terms even more advantageous than those he had demanded of the emperor. The contract was settled, and the Sardinian army marched into the allied camp.
The King of Sardinia, who was as ready to employ guile as force in warfare, so thoroughly deceived the emperor as to lead him to believe that he had accepted the emperor's terms, and that Sardinia was to be allied with Austria, even when the whole contract was settled with France and Spain, and the plan of the campaign was matured. So utterly was the emperor deluded by a fraud so contemptible, in the view of every honorable mind, that he sent great convoys of grain, and a large supply of shot, shells and artillery from the arsenals of Milan into the Sardinian camp. Charles Emanuel, dead to all sense of magnanimity, rubbed his hands with delight in the successful perpetration of such fraud, exclaiming, "An virtus an dolos, quis ab hoste requirat."
So cunningly was this stratagem carried on, that the emperor was not undeceived until his own artillery, which he had sent to Charles Emanuel, were thundering at the gates of the city of Milan, and the shot and shells which he had so unsuspectingly furnished were mowing down the imperial troops. So sudden was the attack, so unprepared was Austrian Lombardy to meet it, that in twelve weeks the Sardinian troops overran the whole territory, seized every city and magazine, with all their treasures, leaving the fortress of Mantua alone in the possession of the imperial troops. It was the policy of Louis XV. to attack Austria in the remote portions of her widely-extended dominions, and to cut off province by province. He also made special and successful efforts to detach the interests of the German empire from those of Austria, so that the princes of the empire might claim neutrality. It was against the possessions of Charles VI., not against the independent States of the empire, that Louis XV. urged war.
The storms of winter were now at hand, and both parties were compelled to abandon the field until spring. But during the winter every nerve was strained by the combatants in preparation for the strife which the returning sun would introduce. The emperor established strong defenses along the banks of the Rhine to prevent the passage of the French; he also sent agents to all the princes of the empire to enlist them in his cause, and succeeded, notwithstanding the remonstrances of many who claimed neutrality, in obtaining a vote from a diet which he assembled, for a large sum of money, and for an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men.
The loss of Lombardy troubled Charles exceedingly, for it threatened the loss of all his Italian possessions. Notwithstanding the severity of the winter he sent to Mantua all the troops he could raise from his hereditary domains; and ordered every possible effort to be made to be prepared to undertake the offensive in the spring, and to drive the Sardinians from Lombardy. In the beginning of May the emperor had assembled within and around Mantua, sixty thousand men, under the command of Count Merci. The hostile forces soon met, and battle after battle thundered over the Italian plains. On the 29th of June the two armies encountered each other in the vicinity of Parma, in such numbers as to give promise of a decisive battle. For ten hours the demoniac storm raged unintermitted. Ten thousand of the dead covered the ground. Neither party had taken a single standard or a single prisoner, an event almost unparalleled in the history of battles. From the utter exhaustion of both parties the strife ceased. The Sardinians and French, mangled and bleeding, retired within the walls of Parma. The Austrians, equally bruised and bloody, having lost their leader, retired to Reggio. Three hundred and forty of the Austrian officers were either killed or wounded.
The King of Sardinia was absent during this engagement, having gone to Turin to visit his wife, who was sick. The morning after the battle, however, he joined the army, and succeeded in cutting off an Austrian division of twelve hundred men, whom he took prisoners. Both parties now waited for a time to heal their wounds, repair their shattered weapons, get rested and receive reinforcements. Ten thousand poor peasants, who had not the slightest interest in the quarrel, had now met with a bloody death, and other thousands were now to be brought forward and offered as victims on this altar of kingly ambition. By the middle of July they were again prepared to take the field. Both parties struggled with almost superhuman energies in the work of mutual destruction; villages were burned, cities stormed, fields crimsoned with blood and strewn with the slain, while no decisive advantage was gained. In the desperation of the strife the hostile battalions were hurled against each other until the beginning of January. They waded morasses, slept in drenching storms, and were swept by freezing blasts. Sickness entered the camp, and was even more fatal than the bullet of the foe. Thousands moaned and died in their misery, upon pallets of straw, where no sister, wife or mother could soothe the dying anguish. Another winter only afforded the combatants opportunity to nurse their strength that they might deal still heavier blows in another campaign.
While the imperial troops were struggling against Sardinia and France on the plains of Lombardy, a Spanish squadron landed a strong military force of French and Spaniards upon the peninsula of southern Italy, and meeting with no force sufficiently powerful to oppose them, speedily overran Naples and Sicily. The Spanish troops silenced the forts which defended the city of Naples, and taking the garrison prisoners, entered the metropolis in triumphal array, greeted by the acclamations of the populace, who hated the Austrians. After many battles, in which thousands were slain, the Austrians were driven out of all the Neapolitan States, and Carlos, the oldest son of Philip V. of Spain, was crowned King of Naples, with the title of Charles III. The island of Sicily was speedily subjugated and also attached to the Neapolitan crown.
These losses the emperor felt most keenly. Upon the Rhine he had made great preparations, strengthening fortresses and collecting troops, which he placed under the command of his veteran general, Prince Eugene. He was quite sanguine that here he would be abundantly able to repel the assaults of his foes. But here again he was doomed to bitter disappointment. The emperor found a vast disproportion between promise and performance. The diet had voted him one hundred and twenty thousand troops; they furnished twelve thousand. They voted abundant supplies; they furnished almost none at all.
The campaign opened the 9th of April, 1734, the French crossing the Rhine near Truerbuch, in three strong columns, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Austrians to resist them. Prince Eugene, by birth a Frenchman, reluctantly assumed the command. He had remonstrated with the emperor against any forcible interference in the Polish election, assuring him that he would thus expose himself, almost without allies, to all the power of France. Eugene did not hesitate openly to express his disapprobation of the war. "I can take no interest in this war," he said; "the question at issue is not important enough to authorize the death of a chicken."
Eugene, upon his arrival from Vienna, at the Austrian camp, found but twenty-five thousand men. They were composed of a motley assemblage from different States, undisciplined, unaccustomed to act together and with no confidence in each other. The commanders of the various corps were quarreling for the precedence in rank, and there was no unity or subordination in the army. They were retreating before the French, who, in numbers, in discipline, and in the materiel of war, were vastly in the superiority. Eugene saw at once that it would be folly to risk a battle, and that all he could hope to accomplish was to throw such embarrassments as he might in the path of the victors.
The young officers, ignorant, impetuous and reckless, were for giving battle, which would inevitably have resulted in the destruction of the army. They were so vexed by the wise caution of Eugene, which they regarded as pusillanimity, that they complained to the emperor that the veteran general was in his dotage, that he was broken both in body and mind, and quite unfit to command the army. These representations induced the emperor to send a spy to watch the conduct of Eugene. Though deeply wounded by these suspicions, the experienced general could not be provoked to hazard an engagement. He retreated from post to post, merely checking the progress of the enemy, till the campaign was over, and the ice and snow of a German winter drove all to winter quarters.
While recruiting for the campaign of 1735, Prince Eugene wrote a series of most earnest letters to his confidential agent in London, which letters were laid before George II., urging England to come to the help of the emperor in his great extremity. Though George was eager to put the fleet and army of England in motion, the British cabinet wisely refused to plunge the nation into war for such a cause, and the emperor was left to reap the bitter fruit of his despotism and folly. The emperor endeavored to frighten England by saying that he was reduced to such an extremity that if the British cabinet did not give him aid, he should be compelled to seek peace by giving his daughter, with Austria in her hand as her dowry, to Carlos, now King of Naples and heir apparent to the crown of Spain. He well knew that to prevent such an acquisition of power on the part of the Spanish monarch, who was also in intimate alliance with France, England would be ready to expend any amount of blood and treasure.
Charles VI. waited with great impatience to see the result of this menace, hardly doubting that it would bring England immediately to terms. Bitter was his disappointment and his despair when he received from the court of St. James the calm reply, that England could not possibly take a part in this war, and that in view of the great embarrassments in which the emperor was involved, England would take no offense in case of the marriage of the emperor's second daughter to Carlos. England then advised the emperor to make peace by surrendering the Netherlands.
The emperor was now greatly enraged, and inveighed bitterly against England as guilty of the grossest perfidy. He declared that England had been as deeply interested as he was in excluding Stanislaus from the throne of Poland; that it was more important for England than for Austria to curb the exorbitant power of France; that in every step he had taken against Stanislaus, he had consulted England, and had acted in accordance with her counsel; that England was reaping the benefit of having the father-in-law of the French king expelled from the Polish throne; that England had solemnly promised to support him in these measures, and now having derived all the advantage, basely abandoned him. There were bitter charges, and it has never been denied that they were mainly true. The emperor, in his indignation, threatened to tell the whole story to the people of England. It is strange that the emperor had found out that there were people in England. In no other part of Europe was there any thing but nobles and peasants.
In this extraordinary letter, addressed to Count Kinsky, the imperial ambassador in London, the emperor wrote:
"On the death of Augustus II., King of Poland, my first care was to communicate to the King of England the principles on which I acted. I followed, in every instance, his advice.... England has never failed to give me promises, both before and since the commencement of the war, but instead of fulfilling those promises, she has even favored my enemies.... Let the king know that I never will consent to the plan of pacification now in agitation; that I had rather suffer the worst of extremities than accede to such disadvantageous proposals, and that even if I should not be able to prevent them, I will justify my honor and my dignity, by publishing a circumstantial account of all the transaction, together with all the documents which I have now in possession.... If these representations fail, means must be taken to publish and circulate throughout England our answer to the proposal of good offices which was not made till after the expiration of nine months. Should the court of London proceed so far as to make such propositions of peace as are supposed to be in agitation, you will not delay a moment to circulate throughout England a memorial, containing a recapitulation of all negotiations which have taken place since 1710, together with the authentic documents, detailing my just complaints, and reclaiming, in the most solemn manner, the execution of the guaranties."
One more effort the emperor made, and it was indeed a desperate one. He dispatched a secret agent, an English Roman Catholic, by the name of Strickland, to London, to endeavor to overthrow the ministry and bring in a cabinet in favor of him. In this, of course, he failed entirely. Nothing now remained for him but to submit, with the best grace he could, to the terms exacted by his foes. In the general pacification great interests were at stake, and all the leading powers of Europe demanded a voice in the proceedings. For many months the negotiations were protracted. England and France became involved in an angry dispute. Each power was endeavoring to grasp all it could, while at the same time it was striving to check the rapacity of every other power. There was a general armistice while these negotiations were pending. It was, however, found exceedingly difficult to reconcile all conflicting interests. New parties were formed; new combinations entered into, and all parties began to aim for a renewal of the strife. England, exasperated against France, in menace made an imposing display of her fleet and navy. The emperor was delighted, and, trusting to gain new allies, exerted his skill of diplomacy to involve the contracting parties in confusion and discord.
Thus encouraged, the emperor refused to accede to the terms demanded. He was required to give up the Netherlands, and all his foreign possessions, and to retire to his hereditary dominions. "What a severe sentence," exclaimed Count Zinzendorf, the emperor's ambassador, "have you passed on the emperor. No malefactor was ever carried with so hard a doom to the gibbet."
The armies again took the field. Eugene, again, though with great reluctance, assumed the command of the imperial forces. France had assembled one hundred thousand men upon the Rhine. Eugene had but thirty thousand men to meet them. He assured the emperor that with such a force he could not successfully carry on the war. Jealous of his reputation, he said, sadly, "to find myself in the same condition as last year, will be only exposing myself to the censure of the world, which judges by appearance, as if I were less capable, in my old age, to support the reputation of my former successes." With consummate generalship, this small force held the whole French army in check.
Anxiety Of Austrian Office-Holders.—Maria Theresa.—The Duke Of Lorraine.—Distraction Of The Emperor.—Tuscany Assigned To The Duke Of Lorraine.—Death Of Eugene.—Rising Greatness Of Russia.—New War With The Turks.—Condition Of The Army.—Commencement Of Hostilities.—Capture Of Nissa.—Inefficient Campaign.—Disgrace Of Seckendorf.—The Duke Of Lorraine Placed In Command.—Siege Of Orsova.—Belgrade Besieged By The Turks.—The Third Campaign.—Battle Of Crotzka.—Defeat Of The Austrians.—Consternation In Vienna.—Barbarism Of The Turks.—The Surrender Of Belgrade.
The emperor being quite unable, either on the Rhine or in Italy, successfully to compete with his foes, received blow after blow, which exceedingly disheartened him. His affairs were in a desperate condition, and, to add to his grief, dissensions filled his cabinet; his counsellors mutually accusing each other of being the cause of the impending ruin. The Italian possessions of the emperor had been thronged with Austrian nobles, filling all the posts of office and of honor, and receiving rich salaries. A change of administration, in the transference of these States to the dominion of Spain and Sardinia, "reformed" all these Austrian office-holders out of their places, and conferred these posts upon Spaniards and Sardinians. The ejected Austrian nobles crowded the court of the emperor, with the most passionate importunities that he would enter into a separate accommodation with Spain, and secure the restoration of the Italian provinces by giving his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to the Spanish prince, Carlos. This would seem to be a very simple arrangement, especially since the Queen of Spain so earnestly desired this match, that she was willing to make almost any sacrifice for its accomplishment. But there was an inseparable obstacle in the way of any such arrangement.
Maria Theresa had just attained her eighteenth year. She was a young lady of extraordinary force of character, and of an imperial spirit; and she had not the slightest idea of having her person disposed of as a mere make-weight in the diplomacy of Europe. She knew that the crown of Austria was soon to be hers; she understood the weakness of her father, and was well aware that she was far more capable of wearing that crown than he had ever been; and she was already far more disposed to take the reins of government from her father's hand, than she was to submit herself to his control. With such a character, and such anticipations, she had become passionately attached to the young Duke of Lorraine, who was eight years her senior, and who had for some years been one of the most brilliant ornaments of her father's court.
The duchy of Lorraine was one of the most extensive and opulent of the minor States of the German empire. Admirably situated upon the Rhine and the Meuse, and extending to the sea, it embraced over ten thousand square miles, and contained a population of over a million and a half. The duke, Francis Stephen, was the heir of an illustrious line, whose lineage could be traced for many centuries. Germany, France and Spain, united, had not sufficient power to induce Maria Theresa to reject Francis Stephen, the grandson of her father's sister, the playmate of her childhood, and now her devoted lover, heroic and fascinating, for the Spanish Carlos, of whom she knew little, and for whom she cared less. Ambition also powerfully operated on the very peculiar mind of Maria Theresa. She had much of the exacting spirit of Elizabeth, England's maiden queen, and was emulous of supremacy which no one would share. She, in her own right, was to inherit the crown of Austria, and Francis Stephen, high-born and noble as he was, and her recognized husband, would still be her subject. She could confer upon him dignity and power, retaining a supremacy which even he could never reach.
The emperor was fully aware of the attachment of his daughter to Francis, of her inflexible character; and even when pretending to negotiate for her marriage with Carlos, he was conscious that it was all a mere pretense, and that the union could never be effected. The British minister at Vienna saw very clearly the true state of affairs, and when the emperor was endeavoring to intimidate England by the menace that he would unite the crowns of Spain and Austria by uniting Maria and Carlos, the minister wrote to his home government as follows:
"Maria Theresa is a princess of the highest spirit; her father's losses are her own. She reasons already; she enters into affairs; she admires his virtues, but condemns his mismanagement; and is of a temper so formed for rule and ambition, as to look upon him as little more than her administrator. Notwithstanding this lofty humor by day, she sighs and pines all night for her Duke of Lorraine. If she sleeps, it is only to dream of him; if she wakes, it is but to talk of him to the lady in waiting; so that there is no more probability of her forgetting the very individual government, and the very individual husband which she thinks herself born to, than of her forgiving the authors of her losing either."
The empress was cordially coöperating with her daughter. The emperor was in a state of utter distraction. His affairs were fast going to ruin; he was harassed by counter intreaties; he knew not which way to turn, or what to do. Insupportable gloom oppressed his spirit. Pale and haggard, he wandered through the rooms of his palace, the image of woe. At night he tossed sleepless upon his bed, moaning in anguish which he then did not attempt to conceal, and giving free utterance to all the mental tortures which were goading him to madness. The queen became seriously alarmed lest his reason should break down beneath such a weight of woe. It was clear that neither reason nor life could long withstand such a struggle.
Thus in despair, the emperor made proposals for a secret and separate accommodation with France. Louis XV. promptly listened, and offered terms, appallingly definite, and cruel enough to extort the last drop of blood from the emperor's sinking heart. "Give me," said the French king, "the duchy of Lorraine, and I will withdraw my armies, and leave Austria to make the best terms she can with Spain."
How could the emperor wrest from his prospective son-in-law his magnificent ancestral inheritance? The duke could not hold his realms for an hour against the armies of France, should the emperor consent to their surrender; and conscious of the desperation to which the emperor was driven, and of his helplessness, he was himself plunged into the deepest dismay and anguish. He held an interview with the British minister to see if it were not possible that England might interpose her aid in his behalf. In frantic grief he lost his self control, and, throwing himself into a chair, pressed his brow convulsively, and exclaimed, "Great God! will not England help me? Has not his majesty with his own lips, over and over again, promised to stand by me?"
The French armies were advancing; shot and shell were falling upon village and city; fortress after fortress was surrendering. "Give me Lorraine," repeated Louis XV., persistently, "or I will take all Austria." There was no alternative but for the emperor to drink to the dregs the bitter cup which his own hand had mingled. He surrendered Lorraine to France. He, however, succeeded in obtaining some slight compensation for the defrauded duke. The French court allowed him a pension of ninety thousand dollars a year, until the death of the aged Duke of Tuscany, who was the last of the Medici line, promising that then Tuscany, one of the most important duchies of central Italy, should pass into the hands of Francis. Should Sardinia offer any opposition, the King of France promised to unite with the emperor in maintaining Francis in his possession by force of arms. Peace was thus obtained with France. Peace was then made with Spain and Sardinia, by surrendering to Spain Naples and Sicily, and to Sardinia most of the other Austrian provinces in Italy. Thus scourged and despoiled, the emperor, a humbled, woe-stricken man, retreated to the seclusion of his palace.
While these affairs were in progress, Francis Stephen derived very considerable solace by his marriage with Maria Theresa. Their nuptials took place at Vienna on the 12th of February, 1736. The emperor made the consent of the duke to the cession of Lorraine to France, a condition of the marriage. As the duke struggled against the surrender of his paternal domains, Cartenstein, the emperor's confidential minister, insultingly said to him, "Monseigneur, point de cession, point d'archiduchesse." My lord, no cession, no archduchess. Fortunately for Francis, in about a year after his marriage the Duke of Tuscany died, and Francis, with his bride, hastened to his new home in the palaces of Leghorn. Though the duke mourned bitterly over the loss of his ancestral domains, Tuscany was no mean inheritance. The duke was absolute monarch of the duchy, which contained about eight thousand square miles and a population of a million. The revenues of the archduchy were some four millions of dollars. The army consisted of six thousand troops.
Two months after the marriage of Maria Theresa, Prince Eugene died quietly in his bed at the age of seventy-three. He had passed his whole lifetime riding over fields of battle swept by bullets and plowed by shot. He had always exposed his own person with utter recklessness, leading the charge, and being the first to enter the breach or climb the rampart. Though often wounded, he escaped all these perils, and breathed his last in peace upon his pillow in Vienna.
His funeral was attended with regal honors. For three days the corpse lay in state, with the coat of mail, the helmet and the gauntlets which the warrior had worn in so many fierce battles, suspended over his lifeless remains. His heart was sent in an urn to be deposited in the royal tomb where his ancestors slumbered. His embalmed body was interred in the metropolitan church in Vienna. The emperor and all the court attended the funeral, and his remains were borne to the grave with honors rarely conferred upon any but crowned heads.
The Ottoman power had now passed its culminating point, and was evidently on the wane. The Russian empire was beginning to arrest the attention of Europe, and was ambitious of making its voice heard in the diplomacy of the European monarchies. Being destitute of any sea coast, it was excluded from all commercial intercourse with foreign nations, and in its cold, northern realm, "leaning," as Napoleon once said, "against the North Pole," seemed to be shut up to barbarism. It had been a leading object of the ambition of Peter the Great to secure a maritime port for his kingdom. He at first attempted a naval depot on his extreme southern border, at the mouth of the Don, on the sea of Azof. This would open to him the commerce of the Mediterranean through the Azof, the Euxine and the Marmora. But the assailing Turks drove him from these shores, and he was compelled to surrender the fortresses he had commenced to their arms. He then turned to his western frontier, and, with an incredible expenditure of money and sacrifice of life, reared upon the marshes of the Baltic the imperial city of St. Petersburg. Peter I. died in 1725, leaving the crown to his wife Catharine. She, however, survived him but two years, when she died, in 1727, leaving two daughters. The crown then passed to the grandson of Peter I., a boy of thirteen. In three years he died of the small-pox. Anna, the daughter of the oldest brother of Peter I., now ascended the throne, and reigned, through her favorites, with relentless rigor.
It was one of the first objects of Anna's ambition to secure a harbor for maritime commerce in the more sunny climes of southern Europe. St. Petersburg, far away upon the frozen shores of the Baltic, where the harbor was shut up with ice for five months in the year, presented but a cheerless prospect for the formation of a merchant marine. She accordingly revived the original project of Peter the Great, and waged war with the Turks to recover the lost province on the shores of the Euxine. Russia had been mainly instrumental in placing Augustus II. on the throne of Poland; Anna was consequently sure of his sympathy and coöperation. She also sent to Austria to secure the alliance of the emperor. Charles VI., though his army was in a state of decay and his treasury empty, eagerly embarked in the enterprise. He was in a continued state of apprehension from the threatened invasion of the Turks. He hoped also, aided by the powerful arm of Russia, to be able to gain territories in the east which would afford some compensation for his enormous losses in the south and in the west.
While negotiations were pending, the Russian armies were already on the march. They took Azof after a siege of but a fortnight, and then overran and took possession of the whole Crimea, driving the Turks before them. Charles VI. was a very scrupulous Roman Catholic, and was animated to the strife by the declaration of his confessor that it was his duty, as a Christian prince, to aid in extirpating the enemies of the Church of Christ. The Turks were greatly alarmed by these successes of the Russians, and by the formidable preparations of the other powers allied against them.
The emperor hoped that fortune, so long adverse, was now turning in his favor. He collected a large force on the frontiers of Turkey, and intrusted the command to General Seckendorf. The general hastened into Hungary to the rendezvous of the troops. He found the army in a deplorable condition. The treasury being exhausted, they were but poorly supplied with the necessaries of war, and the generals and contractors had contrived to appropriate to themselves most of the funds which had been furnished. The general wrote to the emperor, presenting a lamentable picture of the destitution of the army.
"I can not," he said, "consistently with my duty to God and the emperor, conceal the miserable condition of the barracks and the hospitals. The troops, crowded together without sufficient bedding to cover them, are a prey to innumerable disorders, and are exposed to the rain, and other inclemencies of the weather, from the dilapidated state of the caserns, the roofs of which are in perpetual danger of being overthrown by the wind. All the frontier fortresses, and even Belgrade, are incapable of the smallest resistance, as well from the dilapidated state of the fortifications as from a total want of artillery, ammunition and other requisites. The naval armament is in a state of irreparable disorder. Some companies of my regiment of Belgrade are thrust into holes where a man would not put even his favorite hounds; and I can not see the situation of these miserable and half-starved wretches without tears. These melancholy circumstances portend the loss of these fine kingdoms with the same rapidity as that of the States of Italy."
The bold Commander-in-chief also declared that many of the generals were so utterly incapable of discharging their duties, that nothing could be anticipated, under their guidance, but defeat and ruin. He complained that the governors of those distant provinces, quite neglecting the responsibilities of their offices, were spending their time in hunting and other trivial amusements. These remonstrances roused the emperor, and decisive reforms were undertaken. The main plan of the campaign was for the Russians, who were already on the shores of the Black sea, to press on to the mouth of the Danube, and then to march up the stream. The Austrians were to follow down the Danube to the Turkish province of Wallachia, and then, marching through the heart of that province, either effect a junction with the Russians, or inclose the Turks between the two armies. At the same time a large Austrian force, marching through Bosnia and Servia, and driving the Turks out, were to take military possession of those countries and join the main army in its union on the lower Danube.
Matters being thus arranged, General Seckendorf took the command of the Austrian troops, with the assurance that he should be furnished with one hundred and twenty-six thousand men, provided with all the implements of war, and that he should receive a monthly remittance of one million two hundred thousand dollars for the pay of the troops. The emperor, however, found it much easier to make promises than to fulfill them. The month of August had already arrived and Seckendorf, notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, had assembled at Belgrade but thirty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry. The Turks, with extraordinary energy, had raised a much more formidable and a better equipped army. Just as Seckendorf was commencing his march, having minutely arranged all the stages of the campaign, to his surprise and indignation he received orders to leave the valley of the Danube and march directly south about one hundred and fifty miles into the heart of Servia, and lay siege to the fortress of Nissa. The whole plan of the campaign was thus frustrated. Magazines, at great expense, had been established, and arrangements made for floating the heavy baggage down the stream. Now the troops were to march through morasses and over mountains, without suitable baggage wagons, and with no means of supplying themselves with provisions in so hostile and inhospitable a country.
But the command of the emperor was not to be disobeyed. For twenty-eight days they toiled along, encountering innumerable impediments, many perishing by the way, until they arrived, in a state of extreme exhaustion and destitution, before the walls of Nissa. Fortunately the city was entirely unprepared for an attack, which had not been at all anticipated, and the garrison speedily surrendered. Here Seckendorf, having dispatched parties to seize the neighboring fortress, and the passes of the mountains, waited for further orders from Vienna. The army were so dissatisfied with their position and their hardships, that they at last almost rose in mutiny, and Seckendorf, having accomplished nothing of any moment, was compelled to retrace his steps to the banks of the Danube, where he arrived on the 16th of October. Thus the campaign was a total failure.
Bitter complaints were uttered both by the army and the nation. The emperor, with the characteristic injustice of an ignoble mind, attributed the unfortunate campaign to the incapacity of Seckendorf, whose judicious plans he had so ruthlessly thwarted. The heroic general was immediately disgraced and recalled, and the command of the army given to General Philippi. The friends of General Seckendorf, aware of his peril, urged him to seek safety in flight. But he, emboldened by conscious innocence, obeyed the imperial commands and repaired to Vienna. Seckendorf was a Protestant. His appointment to the supreme command gave great offense to the Catholics, and the priests, from their pulpits, inveighed loudly against him as a heretic, whom God could not bless. They arraigned his appointment as impious, and declared that, in consequence, nothing was to be expected but divine indignation. Immediately upon his arrival in Vienna the emperor ordered his arrest. A strong guard was placed over him, in his own house, and articles of impeachment were drawn up against him. His doom was sealed. Every misadventure was attributed to negligence, cupidity or treachery. He could offer no defense which would be of any avail, for he was not permitted to exhibit the orders he had received from the emperor, lest the emperor himself should be proved guilty of those disasters which he was thus dishonorably endeavoring to throw upon another. The unhappy Seckendorf, thus made the victim of the faults of others, was condemned to the dungeon. He was sent to imprisonment in the castle of Glatz, where he lingered in captivity for many years until the death of the emperor.
Charles now, in accordance with the clamor of the priests, removed all Protestants from command in the army and supplied their places with Catholics. The Duke of Lorraine, who had recently married Maria Theresa, was appointed generalissimo. But as the duke was young, inexperienced in war, and, as yet, had displayed none of that peculiar talent requisite for the guidance of armies, the emperor placed next to him, as the acting commander, Marshal Konigsegg. The emperor also gave orders that every important movement should be directed by a council of war, and that in case of a tie the casting vote should be given, not by the Duke of Lorraine, but by the veteran commander Konigsegg. The duke was an exceedingly amiable man, of very courtly manners and winning address. He was scholarly in his tastes, and not at all fond of the hardships of war, with its exposure, fatigue and butchery. Though a man of perhaps more than ordinary intellectual power, he was easily depressed by adversity, and not calculated to brave the fierce storms of disaster.
Early in March the Turks opened the campaign by sending an army of twenty thousand men to besiege Orsova, an important fortress on an island of the Danube, about one hundred miles below Belgrade. They planted their batteries upon both the northern and the southern banks of the Danube, and opened a storm of shot and shell upon the fortress. The Duke of Lorraine hastened to the relief of the important post, which quite commanded that portion of the stream. The imperial troops pressed on until they arrived within a few miles of the fortress. The Turks marched to meet them, and plunged into their camp with great fierceness. After a short but desperate conflict, the Turks were repulsed, and retreating in a panic, they broke up their camp before the walls of Orsova and retired.
This slight success, after so many disasters, caused immense exultation. The Duke of Lorraine was lauded as one of the greatest generals of the age. The pulpits rang with his praises, and it was announced that now, that the troops were placed under a true child of the Church, Providence might be expected to smile. Soon, however, the imperial army, while incautiously passing through a defile, was assailed by a strong force of the Turks, and compelled to retreat, having lost three thousand men. The Turks resumed the siege of Orsova; and the Duke of Lorraine, quite disheartened, returned to Vienna, leaving the command of the army to Konigsegg. The Turks soon captured the fortress, and then, ascending the river, drove the imperial troops before them to Belgrade. The Turks invested the city, and the beleaguered troops were rapidly swept away by famine and pestilence. The imperial cavalry, crossing the Save, rapidly continued their retreat. Konigsegg was now recalled in disgrace, as incapable of conducting the war, and the command was given to General Kevenhuller. He was equally unsuccessful in resisting the foe; and, after a series of indecisive battles, the storms of November drove both parties to winter quarters, and another campaign was finished. The Russians had also fought some fierce battles; but their campaign was as ineffective as that of the Austrians.
The court of Vienna was now in a state of utter confusion. There was no leading mind to assume any authority, and there was irremediable discordance of counsel. The Duke of Lorraine was in hopeless disgrace; even the emperor assenting to the universal cry against him. In a state almost of distraction the emperor exclaimed, "Is the fortune of my empire departed with Eugene?" The disgraceful retreat to Belgrade seemed to haunt him day and night; and he repeated again and again to himself, as he paced the floor of his apartment, "that unfortunate, that fatal retreat." Disasters had been so rapidly accumulating upon him, that he feared for every thing. He expressed the greatest anxiety lest his daughter, Maria Theresa, who was to succeed him upon the throne, might be intercepted, in the case of his sudden death, from returning to Austria, and excluded from the throne. The emperor was in a state of mind nearly bordering upon insanity.
At length the sun of another spring returned, the spring of 1739, and the recruited armies were prepared again to take the field. The emperor placed a new commander, Marshal Wallis, in command of the Austrian troops. He was a man of ability, but overbearing and morose, being described by a contemporary as one who hated everybody, and who was hated by everybody in return. Fifty miles north of Belgrade, on the south bank of the Danube, is the fortified town of Peterwardein, so called as the rendezvous where Peter the Hermit marshaled the soldiers of the first crusade. This fortress had long been esteemed one of the strongest of the Austrian empire. It was appointed as the rendezvous of the imperial troops, and all the energies of the now exhausted empire were expended in gathering there as large a force as possible. But, notwithstanding the utmost efforts, in May but thirty thousand men were assembled, and these but very poorly provided with the costly necessaries of war. Another auxiliary force of ten thousand men was collected at Temeswar, a strong fortress twenty-five miles north of Peterwardein. With these forces Wallis was making preparations to attempt to recover Orsova from the Turks, when he received positive orders to engage the enemy with his whole force on the first opportunity.
The army marched down the banks of the river, conveying its baggage and heavy artillery in a flotilla to Belgrade, where it arrived on the 11th of June. Here they were informed that the Turkish army was about twenty miles below on the river at Crotzka. The imperial army was immediately pressed forward, in accordance with the emperor's orders, to attack the foe. The Turks were strongly posted, and far exceeded the Austrians in number. At five o'clock on the morning of the 21st of July the battle commenced, and blazed fiercely through all the hours of the day until the sun went down. Seven thousand Austrians were then dead upon the plain. The Turks were preparing to renew the conflict in the morning, when Wallis ordered a retreat, which was securely effected during the darkness of the night. On the ensuing day the Turks pursued them to the walls of Belgrade, and, driving them across the river, opened the fire of their batteries upon the city. The Turks commenced the siege in form, and were so powerful, that Wallis could do nothing to retard their operations. A breach was ere long made in one of the bastions; an assault was hourly expected which the garrison was in no condition to repel. Wallis sent word to the emperor that the surrender of Belgrade was inevitable; that it was necessary immediately to retreat to Peterwardein, and that the Turks, flushed with victory, might soon be at the gates of Vienna.
Great was the consternation which pervaded the court and the capital upon the reception of these tidings. The ministers all began to criminate each other. The general voice clamored for peace upon almost any terms. The emperor alone remained firm. He dispatched another officer, General Schmettan, to hasten with all expedition to the imperial camp, and prevent, if possible, the impending disaster. He earnestly pressed the hand of the general as he took his leave, and said—
"Use the utmost diligence to arrive before the retreat of the army; assume the defense of Belgrade, and save it, if not too late, from falling into the hands of the enemy."
The energy of Schmettan arrested the retreat of Wallis, and revived the desponding hopes of the garrison of Belgrade. Bastion after bastion was recovered. The Turks were driven back from the advance posts they had occupied. A new spirit animated the whole Austrian army, and from the depths of despair they were rising to sanguine hopes of victory, when the stunning news arrived that the emperor had sent an envoy to the Turkish camp, and had obtained peace by the surrender of Belgrade. Count Neuperg having received full powers from the emperor to treat, very imprudently entered the camp of the barbaric Turk, without requiring any hostages for his safety. The barbarians, regardless of the flag of truce, and of all the rules of civilized warfare, arrested Count Neuperg, and put him under guard. He was then conducted into the presence of the grand vizier, who was arrayed in state, surrounded by his bashaws. The grand vizier haughtily demanded the terms Neuperg was authorized to offer.
"The emperor, my master," said Neuperg, "has intrusted me with full powers to negotiate a peace, and is willing, for the sake of peace, to cede the province of Wallachia to Turkey provided the fortress of Orsova be dismantled."
The grand vizier rose, came forward, and deliberately spit in the face of the Count Neuperg, and exclaimed,
"Infidel dog! thou provest thyself a spy, with all thy powers. Since thou hast brought no letter from the Vizier Wallis, and hast concealed his offer to surrender Belgrade, thou shalt be sent to Constantinople to receive the punishment thou deservest."
Count Neuperg, after this insult, was conducted into close confinement. The French ambassador, Villeneuve, now arrived. He had adopted the precaution of obtaining hostages before intrusting himself in the hands of the Turks. The grand vizier would not listen to any terms of accommodation but upon the basis of the surrender of Belgrade. The Turks carried their point in every thing. The emperor surrendered Belgrade, relinquished to them Orsova, agreed to demolish all the fortresses of his own province of Media, and ceded to Turkey Servia and various other contiguous districts. It was a humiliating treaty for Austria. Already despoiled in Italy and on the Rhine, the emperor was now compelled to abandon to the Turks extensive territories and important fortresses upon the lower Danube.