In the Year '13: A Tale of Mecklenburg Life

by Fritz Reuter

The times changed. Distress teaches men to pray, but it also teaches them to defend themselves. Schill and the Duke of Brunswick started forth; the whole of Low Germany began to stir; no one knew where the movement came from; no one knew where it would lead to.

Schill marched straight through Mecklenburg to Stralsund. By Buonaparte's command the Mecklenburgers resisted his passage at Damgoren and Tribsees. They were beaten, for they fought wretchedly. A whole company of tall Mecklenburg grenadiers were taken prisoners by one of Schill's Hussars. "Boys," he cried to them, "are you already prisoners." "No," said their brave corporal, "no one has said anything to us." "Well then, come along with me." And they went along with him. Was it cowardice? Was it fear? Whoever saw my fellow-countrymen in 1813 and in 1814; whoever has heard anything of the Strelitz regiment of Hussars, will judge otherwise. No, it was not cowardice; it was unwillingness to fight against that which, in their secret hearts, they hoped and longed for. A movement was beginning in Mecklenburg; and when Prussia broke forth, Mecklenburg was the first state in Germany that followed its example. Thus it was and thus it must ever be.

And times changed again. Providence had stripped the French of their shining snake-skin during their winter in Russia, He, who before had gone about like a master, now came back like a beggar, and implored pity from the Germans; and this noble gift of God's, pity, was stronger than our bitter hatred. No one would raise his hand against him whom God had stricken--pity made us forget his offences. Hardly however was the stiff and frozen snake thawed again in his warm German bed, than his sting once more appeared, and oppression began anew. But the spectre in Germany had become a shadow, and the shadow had got flesh and bone, and had got a name, and the name was shouted out in the streets. "Down with the man-butcher!"--that was the war-cry.

But the war-cry was no passing cry. Not a pack of ragged young fellows--not the orators of the streets first took it up. No! the best and wisest met together; not for conspiracy with knife and poison, but for confederacy with hand and deed against committed wrong; the elders spoke, the young ones got the weapons. Not in the open street did the first fire shoot up to heaven--we Low Germans suffer no bonfires to be lit in our streets; but each one lighted a fire at his own hearth, and neighbour came to neighbour and warmed himself at its glow. Not from a fire made of fir-wood and straw, that leaves behind it only a heap of ashes, did the smoke rise towards the sky--we Low Germans are a hard wood that burns slowly, but that gives out heat; and in those days the whole of Low Germany was one huge charcoal furnace, that smouldered and glowed--quiet and silent--till the charcoal was one red-hot mass; and, when it was free from smoke and flame, we threw our iron into the glowing embers, and forged our weapons by its heat. And hatred of the French was the whetstone on which we sharpened them. What followed is known to every child; or, if there is one to whom it is not known, it is the duty of his father to impress it upon him, so that he may never forget it.

In our parts, too, the charcoal-furnace smouldered and smoked, and the French scented it in the air; they felt, at every step, that the ground on which they marched shook beneath their feet like a quicksand. They had to learn that the officials and magistrates, formerly so humble, were beginning to oppose and assert themselves; they saw that the townspeople and peasants were becoming refractory, and they laid their hands still more heavily on the country. This was not the best way to soothe the rebellious spirit; the people became more and more fractious, the commands of the French were purposely misunderstood, and where things had gone smoothly before, there was now a mere mockery of obedience. The people defended themselves by all manner of devices, and the French, who must assuredly have felt that their rule was soon coming to an end, carried off all they could get. The soldier knew that his officer was doing no better.

But when their rule actually ended, they were far from expecting an open revolt. If, however, they could have read what was written on all faces--for example, on the face of Witte the baker, who, after putting the Miller's horse and cart into his barn, was now leaning over his half-door smoking his tobacco-pipe, and spitting, and looking, with his teeth set, in the direction of the French--they would have taken care not to bend the bow too far. At any rate, the Frenchman who at that moment passed by the baker and snatched the silver-topped meerschaum pipe out of his mouth, and, in his insolence, walked on quietly smoking it as if nothing had happened; at any rate he would have made off a little faster. For the baker had scarcely felt it snatched from his mouth, when he rushed out at the door, picked up a stone as big as his fist, and hurled it with such force at the Frenchman, that, striking him at the back of the neck, it levelled him with the ground.

And, when the Herr Amtshauptmann arrived with his troop of women at the market-place, a fight was going on between the baker's assistants and the French, and the French and the neighbours, with weapons both sharp and blunt, which was not stopped till an officer came and separated them.

The baker was dragged off to the Rathhaus with a broken head, for having dared to raise his hand against "la grande nation;" and whatever he might say as to the "grande nation's" having raised its hand against his pipe, it was of no use--they dragged him along all the same.

At the Rathhaus the French judge was sitting hearing Miller Voss's case about the lost Frenchman; the valise with the money was lying on the table; the colonel, von Toll, and my father as Burmeister, were present. My father had told the story as far as he knew it quite truthfully, only he had been silent as to the watchmaker having frightened the French chasseurs away at his command; for he thought, "Why should I mention it? The watchmaker will tell it himself, or, if he does not, it will come out in Mamsell Westphalen's evidence." But with the Miller things were going badly; he, of all those who were concerned, was the last who had seen the Frenchman; he had wanted to take the Frenchman to the mill with him, and the fellow was no longer to be found. What spoke well for him was, that he had been very drunk at the time, that he had delivered up the money of his own accord, and that he had at once said that the chasseur's horse was in the baker's stable. When he had done this, and guessed from my father's questions that the fact of his having been drunk might be of use to him, he made the very most of it, and to all questions he only replied that he knew nothing further, for he had been dead drunk; but if they chose to ask Friedrich, he would know all about it.

So stood the matter, when the fight with Witte the baker began out in the market-place. My father was just rushing out at the door to set things to rights, when Witte was dragged in. He still exchanged occasional blows with his guards, mingling "bougres" and "sacrés" with "rogues and vagabonds." His entrance into the court did not increase its stillness; he cursed, he swore, and my father had enough to do, only to get him a little quieter.