LETTER LXVI.
Berlin.
No condition in life can be more active, and at the same time have less variety in it, than that of a Prussian officer in the time of peace. He is continually employed in the same occupation, and continually occupied in the same place. There is no rotation of the troops as in the British service. The regiments which were placed in Berlin, Magdeburg, Schweidnitz, and the other garrisons at the conclusion of the war, remain there still. It is dreaded, that if they were occasionally moved from one garrison to another, the foreigners in the service, who are exceedingly prone to desertion, might then find opportunities, which according to the present plan they cannot: for however desirous a Prussian soldier may be to desert, the thing is almost impossible. The moment a man is missing, a certain number of cannons are fired, which announce the desertion to the whole country. The peasants have a considerable reward for seizing a deserter, and are liable to severe penalties if they harbour, or aid him in making his escape, and parties from the garrisons are sent after him in every direction.
As none of the soldiers are ever allowed to go without the walls of the town, it requires great address to get over this first difficulty; and when they have been so far fortunate, many chances remain against their escaping through the Prussian dominions; and even when they arrive safe in any of the neighbouring states,
Nunc eadem fortuna viros tot casibus actos
Insequitur.
For there they will probably be obliged to inlist again as soldiers; so that on the whole, however unhappy they may be, it is absurd to attempt desertion in any other way than by killing themselves, which method, as I am told, begins to prevail.
In consequence of their remaining constantly in the same place, conversing always with the same people, and being employed uniformly in the same business, the Prussian officers acquire a staid, serious appearance, exceedingly different from the gay, dissipated, degagé air of British or French officers. Their only amusement, or relaxation from the duties of their profession, seems to be walking on the parade, and conversing with each other. The inferior officers, thus deprived of opportunities of mixing in general society, and not having time for study, can have no very extensive range of ideas. Their knowledge, it must be confessed, is pretty much confined to that branch of tactics in which they are so much employed; and many of them at length seem to think, that to stand firm and steady, to march erect, to wheel to the right and left, and to charge and discharge a firelock, if not the sole use of human creatures, is at least the chief end of their creation.