History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15 — Inside the Classic

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In Category - Social History

Authors: Carlyle, Thomas, 1795-1881 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Social problems; Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786 Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 78,158

Reading time 340 min

Text sections 9

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #2115

Carlyle's narrative of Frederick's 1744-1745 campaigns, structured around military movements and the interplay of diplomacy, with vivid set-pieces like the Fontenoy encounter and the retreat from Prague.

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This was the Year, this 1744, when Louis XV., urged by his Chateauroux, the high-souled unfortunate female, appeared in person at the head of his troops: "Go, Sire, go, MON CHOU (and I will accompany); show yourself where a King should be, at the head of your troops; be a second Louis-le-Grand!" Which he did, his Chateauroux and he; actually went to the Netherlands, with baggage-train immeasurable, including not cooks only, but play-actors with their thunder-barrels (off from Paris, May 3d), to the admiration of the Universe. [Adelung, iv. 113; Barbier, ii. 391, 394; Dulaure, _Hist. de Paris;_ &c.] Took the command, nominal-command, first days of June; and captured in no-time Menin, Ipres, Furnes, and the Fort of Knock, and as much of the Austrian Netherlands as he liked,--that is to say, saw Noailles and Saxe do it;--walking rapidly forward from Siege to Siege, with a most thundering artillery; old Marshal Wade and consorts dismally eating their victuals, and looking on from the distance, unable to attempt the least stroke in opposition. So that the Dutch Barrier, if anybody now cared for it, did go all flat; and the Balance of Power gets kicked out of its sacred pivot: to such purpose have the Dutch been hoisted! Terrible to think of;--had not there, from the opposite quarter, risen a surprising counterpoise; had not there been a Prince Karl, with his 70,000, pressing victoriously over the Rhine; which stayed the French in these sacrilegious procedures.

PRINCE KARL GETS ACROSS THE RHINE (20 JUNE-2 JULY, 1744).

Prince Karl, some weeks ago, at Heilbronn, joined his Rhine Army, which had gathered thither from the Austrian side, through Baiern, and from the Hither-Austrian or Swabian Winter-quarters; with full intent to be across the Rhine, and home upon Elsass and the Compensation Countries, this Summer, under what difficulties soever. Karl, or, as some whisper, old Marshal Traun, who is nominally second in command, do make a glorious campaign of it, this Year;--and lift the Cause of Liberty, at one time, to the highest pitch it ever reached. Here, in brief terms, is Prince Karl's Operation on the Rhine, much admired by military men:--

"STOCKSTADT, JUNE 20th, 1744. Some thirty and odd miles north of Mannheim, the Rhine, before turning westward at Mainz, makes one other of its many Islands (of which there are hundreds since the leap at Schaffhausen): one other, and I think the biggest of them all; perhaps two miles by five; which the Germans call KUHKOPF (Cowhead), from the shape it has,--a narrow semi-ellipse; River there splitting in two, one split (the western) going straight, the other bending luxuriantly round: so that the HIND-head or straight end of the Island lies towards France, and the round end, or cow-LIPS (so to speak) towards native Teutschland, and the woody Hills of the Berg-Strasse thereabouts. Stockstadt, chief little Town looking over into this Cowhead Island, lies under the CHIN: understand only farther that the German branch carries more than two-thirds of the River; that on the Island itself there is no town, or post of defence; and that Stockstadt is the place for getting over. Coigny and the French, some 40,000, are guarding the River hereabouts, with lines, with batteries, cordons, the best they can; Seckendorf, with 20,000 more ('Imperial' Old Bavarian Troops, revivified, recruited by French pay), is in his garrison of Philipsburg, ready to help when needed:"--not moulting now, at Wembdingen, in that dismal manner; new-feathered now into "Kaiser's Army;" waiting in his Philipsburg to guard the River there. "Coigny's French have ramparts, ditches, not quite unfurnished, on their own shore, opposite this Cowhead Island (ISLE DE HERON, as they call it); looking over to the hind-head, namely: but they have nothing considerable there; and in the Island itself, nothing whatever. 'If now Stockstadt were suddenly snatched by us,' thinks Karl;--'if a few pontoons were nimbly swung in?'

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Carlyle opens Volume 15 with Frederick II poised to intervene in the Second Silesian War, the narrative driven by the moment Prince Karl crosses the Rhine. The structure moves swiftly from diplomatic preliminaries to the march on Prague, then to the strains of maintaining conquests along the Moldau. Carlyle’s voice is that of a commentator who shapes events through rhythmic, almost conversational prose, punctuated by sharp asides and a keen eye for the physical landscape of war.

The volume is organized around a series of campaigns and retreats, each chapter a stage in Frederick’s strategic calculus. Carlyle does not simply recount battles; he dwells on the movement of armies, the geography of Bohemia and Silesia, and the recurring tension between Frederick’s intentions and the stubborn realities of terrain and enemy skill.

The Rhythm of Advance and Retreat

Carlyle’s narrative pulse is set by Frederick’s rapid marches and forced withdrawals. The capture of Prague is presented as a swift, almost effortless stroke, but the subsequent retreat behind the Sazawa and Elbe becomes a laborious counterpoint. The author lingers on the physical cost: “much labor in vain” is a refrain. The retreat of Einsiedel from Prague is treated as a distinct episode, a miniature of the larger strategic ebb. Carlyle’s prose mirrors this rhythm—long, winding sentences for the advance, clipped phrases for the retreat. He notes how Frederick “rushes swiftly up the Moldau Valley” only to find his French allies ungrateful, a structural irony that recurs throughout the volume.

The Set-Piece: Fontenoy’s Polite Exchange

The Battle of Fontenoy is rendered as a theatrical tableau, with Carlyle zeroing in on the famous exchange between Lord Charles Hay and the French guards. He quotes the dialogue—“We never fire first”—and notes the doffing of hats, a moment of courtesy amid carnage. The description is meticulous: the British column forming in the gap between Fontenoy and the Redoubt d’Eu, the cannon-shot at 400 yards, the trailing of heavy guns by hand. Carlyle’s source, Espagnac, is cited, and he adds a wry observation that no army before or since attempted such a passage. This set-piece exemplifies Carlyle’s method: he isolates a single, emblematic incident to illuminate the character of the war and its participants.

Recurring Images: The Landscape of War

Throughout the volume, Carlyle returns to the physical setting—the Moldau Valley, the Harz Mountains, the Silesian passes. These are not mere backdrops but active agents in the narrative. The “bushy hollows, water-courses” that shield the British column at Fontenoy are echoed in the “defiles” Frederick must navigate in Bohemia. Carlyle’s descriptions are precise: he notes the “blunt ridge” over which the French regiment first spots the British artillery, and the “900 yards” Voltaire measured between Fontenoy and the redoubt. This attention to terrain gives the military maneuvers a concrete, almost tactile quality, grounding abstract strategy in the mud and slopes of eighteenth-century Europe.

The Interplay of Diplomacy and Battle

Carlyle interleaves chapters on Frederick’s military actions with diplomatic missions and treaties. Valori’s electioneering mission to Dresden, the Union and Treaty of Warsaw, and the election of Grand-Duke Franz as Kaiser are woven into the campaign narrative. The structure suggests that battles are not isolated events but nodes in a network of alliances and betrayals. Carlyle’s treatment of the French—their promises to behave better, their accidents and delays—underscores the fragility of coalition warfare. The volume’s final chapters, on the Austrian-Saxon invasion of Silesia and the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, bring the military and diplomatic threads together, showing how Frederick’s victories on the field were shadowed by his inability to secure peace.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to Carlyle’s handling of time and space: the way he compresses weeks into a sentence or expands a single moment into a vivid scene. His narrative is not a neutral chronicle but a crafted interpretation, full of implied judgments and dramatic emphases. The excerpts reveal a historian who sees war as a series of movements, gestures, and accidents, and who invites his audience to watch over Frederick’s shoulder as he calculates his next move.

I have often returned to Volume Fifteen's stern battlefield weather, that grim retreat from Prague, and found myself recalling a quieter companion volume, where the same king's first readings are penciled in the margins. There is a gentle symmetry there, between the man of action and the young mind that shaped him. History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 12 — Reading Notes feels like a candle lit before the storm.