Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/273

Rh view which caused his uncle to regard with the utmost equanimity any troubles of his friends or neighbours that did not chance to touch the welfare of Prussia. And although revolution at that time, it should be observed, could certainly not in the abstract have been so repulsive and detestable a thing in the eyes of a German ruler of the ordinary type, such as Frederick William, as it became but a few years later when identified with the Phrygian cap, the guillotine, the abolition of royalty, and all the excesses of the Reign of Terror; still personal and family sentiment, no doubt, made the prospect of intervention on fair excuse a pleasant one politically at Berlin. The only difficulties anticipated were those of a military nature, and these were at first overrated, as the events to be narrated prove; but even estimating them at their worst, the Prussian court was confident in the invincibility of soldiers brought up under the eye of the great master of war himself: and the order was unhesitatingly given to collect a force sufficient to enforce compliance with the ambassador's demands, and to march it, or so much of it as must get across the Rhine, forthwith into the duchy of Cleves. Mobilization, with all its elaborate machinery, was in those days a thing unknown. Such standing armies as States chose to maintain distinct from the militia which all had, in some form or other, inherited from feudal days, were supposed to be fully ready for war at all times; just as our own army affected to be until the necessity for its reorganization was lately forced on us. The war-bureau, then very recently formed at Berlin, to replace as far as possible the personal supervision to which the great king had trusted, found no difficulty in moving twenty-six thousand troops speedily to the required points; and it was believed that full occasion would be found for all their services before Prussian honour, now pledged to the Stadtholder's side, could be vindicated.

We suspect that if the difficulties of the undertaking were much over-estimated then, they are certainly not less so in the narrative of Baron Troschke. No doubt this writer is supported to some extent by the example of his great countryman, Clausewitz, who has left an elaborate narrative of this campaign, as one of special importance to be studied. But Clausewitz was writing with a special view to theory, being in fact a military teacher and critic first, and an historian only so far as served his main purpose. It was natural, as no branch of warfare is neglected in his great work, that he should take for analysis a single study of the science, on a theatre so peculiar as Holland, in order to show how far the usual principles are to be modified in a land of marshes, canals; and inundations. And certainly this example was very ready to his hand, the chief materials for dissecting it being found in the German archives, and the invasion conducted throughout with success and credit by his own national army. It seems to us, however, altogether a mistaken view to put it in the first class of military achievements. Nor is the attempt to be justified by the historical fact that the same country which was overrun with comparative ease by a single Prussian corps in 1787, had resisted the whole efforts of Spain and of France in preceding centuries. For in the first place, the art of war had been altogether changed since the era when Alva led his fanatic legions against the Protestant rebels of the Netherlands; or to come lower down in history, when the horsemen of Louis XIV., the maison du roi at their head, swam the Rhine at Tollhuys to commence their campaign against the same obstinate foes. The progress in wealth and civilization, which, while it makes countries seemingly more powerful as well as prosperous, in reality puts them more than ever (as the world is discovering rather late) at the mercy of a stronger and not less civilized invader, had operated in Holland as much as elsewhere. The rude energy of the measures of defence by wide inundations which baffled the Grand Monarque in 1672 were hardly likely to be fully repeated in the more crowded Netherlands of a century later; and if they had been adopted, it may be doubted whether even this means of defence would have proved as effectual against the improved facilities for the attack which the Prussians could have brought to bear. Nevertheless, the prestige of former heroic resistance no doubt magnified the apparent difficulties of the invader. But in this campaign that we are about to notice a new and decisive element was to act on his side. The war was, in fact, not a national struggle, but an act of armed intervention; and the Prussians were therefore to be aided in what should have been the most difficult part of their task, not merely by the moral support of the Stadtholder and his party, but by the material possession through the hands of his supporters of some of the most important strategic points that had to be gained for their purpose. This