Military memoirs are a popular class of literature. If few non-military men make them their chief study, still fewer do not upon occasion willingly take them up and dip with pleasure into their animated pages. The meekest and most pacific, those in whose composition no spark of the belligerent and pugnacious is discernible, yet dwell with interest upon the strivings, dangers, and exploits of more martial spirits. Even the softer sex, whilst gracefully shuddering at the bloodshed and horrors of war, will ofttimes seriously incline to read of the disastrous chances, moving accidents, and hair-breadth 'scapes that checker a soldier's career. The poetical and the picturesque of military life appeal to the imagination, and act as counterpoise to the massacres and sufferings that painfully shock the feelings. Amidst the wave and rustle of silken banners, the glitter and clash of steel, the clang of the brazen trumpet, and hurra of the flushed victor, the blood that buys the triumph and soaks the turf vanishes or is overlooked; the moans of those who die upon the field, linger in hospital, or pine in stern captivity, are faintly heard, if not wholly drowned. The pomp and pageantry of war, the high aspirations and heroic deeds of warriors, too often make us forget the countless miseries the strife entails—the peaceful peasant's ravaged homestead, the orphan's tears, the widow's desolation.
Although the public mind dwells upon military matters less in England than in France and Germany, neither of these countries has, during the thirty years' peace, been more prolific than our own in books of a military character. We speak not of strategical works, but of the pleasant and sometimes valuable narratives of individual adventure that have flowed in abundance from the pens of soldiers of every class and grade. Not a branch of the service, from the amphibious corps of the marines to the aristocratic cohorts of the guards, but has paid tribute, in many cases a most liberal one, to the fund of military literature. The sergeant and the general, the lieutenant and the lieutenant-colonel, the showy hussar and the ponderous dragoon, the active rifleman and the stately grenadier—men of all ranks and arms—have, upon hanging up the sabre, taken up the pen, and laboured more or less successfully to add their mite to the stores of history and stock of entertainment. The change from the excitement and bustle of active service to the monotony and inertion of peacetime, is indeed great, and renders occupation essential to stave off ennui. In ruder days than the present, the dice-box and pottle-pot were almost sole resources. In the rare intervals of repose afforded by a more stirring and warlike age, the soldier knew no other remedies, against the tædium vitæ that assailed him. When "wars were all over, and swords were all idle," "the veteran grew crusty as he yawned in the hall," and he drank. Now it is otherwise. Refinement has driven out debauchery, and the unoccupied militaire, superior in breeding and education to his brother in arms of a former century, often fills up his leisure by telling of the battles, sieges, and fortunes he has passed; reciting them, not, like Othello, verbally and to win a lady's favour, but in more permanent black and white, for the instruction and amusement of his fellows.
Whilst paying a well-merited tribute to the talents of our English military authors, we willingly acknowledge the claims of men, who, although born in another clime, and speaking a different tongue, are yet allied to us by blood, have fought under the same standard, and bled in the same cause. One of these, a German officer who shared the reverses and triumphs of the three eventful years, 1813 to 1815, beginning at Lutzen and ending with Waterloo, has recently published a volume of memoirs. It contains much of interest, and well deserves a notice in our pages.
William Baron von Rahden is a native of Silesia. His father, an officer in the Prussian service, was separated from his wife, after ten years' wedlock, by one of those divorces so easily procurable in Germany, and returned to Courland, his native country, leaving his children to their mother's care. At the age of six years, William, the second son, was adopted by a Silesian nobleman, a soldier by profession, who had served under Frederick the Great, and who, although he had long left the service, still retained in full force his military feelings and characteristics. The apartments of his country house were hung with portraits of his warlike ancestors; the officers of the neighbouring garrison were his constant guests. Thus it is not surprising that young Rahden's first associations and aspirations were all military, and that he eagerly looked forward to the day when he should don the uniform and signalise himself amongst his country's defenders. His wishes were early gratified. When only ten years old, he was sent to the military school at Kalisch.
The novitiate of a Prussian officer at the commencement of the present century was a severe ordeal, the road to rank any thing but a flowery path, and it was often with extreme unwillingness that the noble families of South Prussia yielded their sons to the tender mercies of the Kalisch college. The boys had frequently to be hunted out in the forests, where, through terror of the drill or in obedience to their parents, they had sought refuge, and when caught they were conducted in troops to their destination. On reaching the Prosna, a little river near Kalisch, they were stripped naked, their hair was cut close, and they were then driven into the water, whence, after a thorough washing, they emerged upon the opposite bank, there to be metamorphosed into Prussian warriors. The same operation, with the exception of the bath in the Prosna, was undergone by the willing recruits. Baron von Rahden gives a humorous account of the equipment of these infant soldiers, and of his own appearance in particular.
"The little lad of ten years old, broader than he was long, with his closely cropped head, upon the hinder part of which a bunch of hair was left, whereto to fasten a tail eight or ten inches long, and with a stiff stock over which his red cheeks puffed out like cushions, was altogether a most comical figure. The old uniform coats originally blue, but now all faded and threadbare, with facings of a brick-dust colour and great leaden buttons, never fitted the young bodies to which they were allotted; they were always either too long and broad, or too narrow and short. The same was the case with the other portions of the uniform, which were handed down from one generation of cadets to another, without reference to any thing but the number affixed to them. I got No. 24; I was heir to some lanky long-legged urchin, into whose narrow garments I had to squeeze my unwieldy figure. A yellow waistcoat of immoderate length, short white breeches, fastened a great deal too tight below the knee, grey woollen stockings and half-boots, composed the costume, which was completed by a little three-cornered hat, pressed low down over the eyes, with the view of imparting somewhat of the stern aspect of a veteran corporal to the red and white face of the juvenile wearer."
Such was the clothing of Prussia's future defenders. Their fare was of corresponding quality; abundant, but coarse in the extreme. The harsh and unswerving enactments of the great Frederic had as yet been but little amended. Moreover, by the system of military economy existing in 1804, both food and raiment were lawfully made a source of profit to the captain of this company of cadets. The director of the establishment Major Von Berg, was an excellent man, zealous for the improvement of his pupils, and striving his utmost to instil into them a military spirit. Under his superintendence strict discipline was maintained, and instruction advanced apace.
The year 1806 brought the French into Prussia. Marshal Ney visited Kalisch, and placed a score of cadets in the newly-formed Polish regiments. In due time the others, as they were given to understand, were to be similarly disposed of. Young Rahden wrote to his adopted father, begging to be removed from the college, lest he should be made to serve with the enemies of his country. But the old officer looked further forward than the impatient boy; he knew that it was no time for the youth of Prussia to abandon the military career; that the day would come when their country would claim their services. His reply was prompt, brief, and decided. "I will not take you home," he wrote; "for then you will learn nothing. Be a Polish or a French cadet, I care not; only become an honourable soldier, and all that is in my power will I do for you. But do not come to me like our young officers from Jena; for if you do, you will get neither bread nor water, but a full measure of disgrace. Your faithful father, T." This letter made a strong impression upon Von Rahden, and he nerved himself to endure what he now viewed as inevitable. For another year he remained at Kalisch, until, in December 1807, news came of the approach of Prince Ferdinand of Pless, who had thrown himself, with a few thousand men, between the French army, then on its march to Poland, and the Bavarians and Wurtembergers under Jerome Buonaparte. This intelligence caused universal alarm in the college of Kalisch, now become French.
"On the broad road in front of our barracks, large bodies of Polish boors, in coarse linen frocks, were drilled for the service of Napoleon by officers in Prussian uniforms; certainly a singular mixture. At the cry—'The Prussians are coming!' they all ran away, the officers the very first, and this might have given me an inkling of the reasons and motives of my father's severe letter. Under cover of the general confusion, a Prussian artilleryman muffled me and six other Silesian cadets in the linen frocks of the recruits, and hurried us off through field and forest, over bog and sand, to the Prince of Pless, whom we fell in with after thirty-six hours' wanderings. We were all weary to death. Nevertheless, five of my companions were immediately placed amongst the troops, who continued their route without delay; only myself and a certain Von M——, still younger than me, were left behind, as wholly unable to proceed. Of what passed during the next six weeks, I have not the slightest recollection. I afterwards learned that I had been seized with a violent nervous fever, the result of fatigue and excitement, and that I was discovered by a Bavarian officer in a Jew tavern near Medzibor, close to the frontier. The uniform beneath my smock-frock, and a small pocket-book, told my name and profession, and under a flag of truce I was sent into Breslaw, then besieged, to my mother, whom I had not seen for seven years."
After two years passed in idleness, young Von Rahden was attached as bombardier to the artillery at Glatz, and found himself under the command of a certain Lieutenant Holsche, an officer of impetuous bravery, but somewhat rough and hasty, and apt to show slight respect to his superiors. At that time, 1809, the Duke of Brunswick was recruiting at Nachod in Bohemia, within two German miles of Glatz, his famous black corps, the death's-head and memento mori men—the Corps of Revenge, as it was popularly called in Germany. Numbers of Prussians, officers of all arms, left their homes in Silesia, where they vegetated on a scanty half-pay, to swell his battalions; and even from the garrison of Glatz officers and soldiers daily deserted to him, eager to exchange inaction for activity. Subsequently, many of these were tried and severely punished for their infringement of discipline, and over-eagerness in the cause of oppressed Germany, but the year 1813 again found them foremost in the ranks of their country's defenders.