So much for the Baron’s friend. Now for the Baron himself, who relates all this, be it observed, with a most commendable solemnity, implying conviction of the supernatural nature of his comrade’s adventure. “With reference to this unnatural occurrence,” he says, “I frequently met my friend during the war and the early years of the peace, but never without that incident recurring to me, and the more so, as from that day forward, melancholy settled upon Von L.’s manly and handsome countenance. He strove, with indifferent success, as it appeared to me, to combat his depression by dissipation and worldly pleasures; but the expression of his dark eye was ever one of severe mental suffering. He never married or partook of the peaceful joys of domestic existence. During the War of Liberation he distinguished himself by daring courage and reckless exposure of his life, was repeatedly wounded, and died suddenly at the age of thirty, in the full bloom and strength of manhood. He is still well remembered as a gallant officer and thorough soldier.
“Whilst on a visit to the town of N., a few years ago, my evening walk frequently led me, in company with a much esteemed friend, to the churchyard where Von L., after his short and melancholy career, had at last found repose. During one of these walks, my companion related to me the following story:—At the hour of twelve, upon three successive nights, the sentry, whose lonely post was adjacent to the cemetery, had challenged the rounds, as they approached through the deep shadow of an arched gateway. To his question, ‘Who makes the rounds?’ was each time replied, in deep sepulchral tones, ‘Captain von L.’ and at the same instant the visionary patrol vanished. So runs the guard-room tale.” Which the Baron is sufficiently reasonable to treat as such, although he assures his readers that, even after an interval of three-and-thirty years, he does not write down the details of his melancholy friend’s adventure with the mysterious aquaria without something very like a shudder. In a collection of Mahrchen this very German story might have been accepted as an endurable fragment of imaginative diablerie, but coming thus in the semi-historical autobiography of a hero of Leipzig and Waterloo, and Knight of the Iron Cross, it certainly subjects the writer to the application of the uncomplimentary French proverb already cited.
As a boy—and during his German and French campaigns, he was but a boy—Baron von Rahden showed an odd mixture of the manly and the childish. Cool and brave in the fight, bearing wounds and hardship with courage and fortitude, the loss of a trinket made him weep; an elder comrade’s rebuke rendered him down-cast and unhappy as a whipped school-boy. Scarcely had he joined his regiment, when he was admitted to the intimacy of a Lieutenant Patzynski, an experienced officer and crack duellist. It was a mode amongst the young officers, when sitting round the punchbowl, to enter into contracts of brotherhood. The process was exceedingly simple. The glasses clattered together, an embrace was given, and thenceforward the partakers in the ceremony addressed each other in the second person singular, in sign of intimacy and friendship. Emboldened by the patronage of the formidable Patzynski, and heated by a joyous repast, Von Rahden one day approached Lieutenant Merkatz, who was considerably his senior both in rank and years, and proffered him the fraternal embrace. “With the greatest pleasure, my dear boy,” replied Merkatz, who had observed with some disgust the forward bearing of the unfledged subaltern, “but on one condition. You shall address me as Sie, and I will call you Er.” The former being the most respectful style of address, the latter slighting and even contemptuous, only used to servants and inferiors. Cowed by this unkind, if not undeserved reproof, Von Rahden retreated in confusion. Subsequently he met many unpleasant slights and rebuffs from Merkatz; but they did him good, and his persecutor eventually became his warm friend. This, however, was not till the recruit had proved his manhood in many a hot fight and sharp encounter. “Forward,” said the stern Prussian soldier on the field of Lutzen, when, borne back bleeding from the foremost line of skirmishers, he met Von Rahden hurrying to replace him. “Forward, boy! Yonder will you find brothers!” In the smoke of the battle, not in the fumes of the orgie, were the esteem and friendship of Germany’s tried defenders to be conquered. After the battle of Kulm, Von Rahden bought a French watch, part of a soldier’s plunder; and his pride and delight in this trinket were, according to his own confession, something quite childish. His comrades, with whom he was a favourite, bore with his exultation. Merkatz alone showed a disposition to check it. He had assumed the character of a surly Mentor, resolved, apparently, to cure his young comrade of his follies, and drill him into a man. He now assured Von Rahden that if he did not leave off playing with, and displaying, his watch, he would knock it out of his hand the very first opportunity. This soon presented itself. Whilst bivouacking in the mountains of Bohemia, the two officers chanced one night to be seated near each other at the same fire, and Von Rahden, forgetting his companion’s menace, repeatedly pulled out his watch, until Merkatz, with a blow of a stick, shivered it to pieces. “Although, in general, when my comrades’ jokes displeased me, I was ready enough to answer them with my sabre, on this occasion I was so astonished and grieved, that I burst into tears, and retreated to my couch in the corner of the hut, where I sobbed myself to sleep.” This whimpering young gentleman, however, was the same, who, only a few days previously, in the hottest moment of the battle of Kulm, had led his men, encouraging them by voice and deed, up to the very musket-muzzles of the parapeted Frenchmen, and who, twice already, had been wounded amidst the foremost of the combatants. At the fight of May, too, although that was somewhat later, his bravery was such as to attract the notice of Prince Augustus of Prussia. The men of his battalion were weary and exhausted by a hard day’s combat, when, suddenly and unexpectedly, they were again ordered forward into a fierce fire of artillery. They murmured and hesitated, and for a moment refused to advance. “Upon this occasion, I was fortunate enough to contribute, by boyish and joyous humour, for which the men all liked me, and by my contempt of danger, in restoring courage and confidence. Shot and shell flew about us, and the younger soldiers were hard to keep in their ranks. I ran forward thirty or forty paces to the front, and several shells happening to fall close to me without bursting, I laughed at and cut jokes upon them. At last the men laughed too, and came willingly forward. Such little incidents occur in far less time than it takes to tell of them. So it was here; but we had effected what we wanted—the men were in better humour. I had no idea that Prince Augustus had observed my behaviour, which was certainly rather juvenile; and when I saw him standing near me, I was ashamed and drew back; but he called out to me, and said, in a loud voice, ‘Very good! very good! Lieutenant Rahden,’ and then spoke a few words to Count Reichenbach. From that day I found great favour with our illustrious general of brigade. The first proof of it was the Iron Cross.”
Von Rahden’s final reconciliation with Merkatz took place under the enemy’s fire. It was the day after Montmirail, and Blucher’s corps d’armée, after gallantly protecting Ziethen’s beaten troops from Gronchy’s cavalry, itself retreated towards Etoges. At about half a league from that place, whilst marching along a road that ran between vineyards, the French tirailleurs attacked them, and cavalry patrols came in to inform the Field-marshal that Etoges was occupied by the enemy. But the Baron shall tell the story himself.
“In darkness, surrounded by foes, ignorant of the ground we manœuvred upon, a handful of men against a powerful force, and our old Father Blucher, with the elite of his generals, in danger of being taken—all this made up an alarming picture. But the greater the need, the prompter the deed. In an instant it was decided to throw out skirmishers into the vineyards, whilst the battalions, formed close and compact round the Field-marshal, should cut their way along the road. Count Reichenbach gave his orders accordingly; and his adjutant, Lieutenant Merkatz, who sat chilled and weary upon his horse, turned mechanically to me, and desired me to extend my skirmishers on the left of the road. This was beyond a joke: I had been skirmishing the whole day, perpetually under fire, and hard at work since nine in the morning. Tired to death, I had been heartily glad to rejoin my battalion, and now I was ordered out again into the cold dark night, and on the most uncertain service. All my old grudge against Merkatz recurred to me, and, as it was not my turn for the duty, I answered him in loud and marked tones, ‘Order out somebody else, and don’t be too lazy to ride to the next company.’ When, however, Count Reichenbach turned round, and with some displeasure desired me to speak less loud in the neighbourhood of the General-in-chief, I became more complying, and only argued that my large cloak, which I carried rolled over my shoulder, would hinder me in the vineyards. ‘Give me the cloak here,’ replied Merkatz: ‘I am freezing upon my horse.’ What could I do? Time pressed: so venting my ill humour in a few grumbling words, I threw my cloak to the adjutant, and hurried with my skirmishers to the vineyard. I had taken but a few steps, however, when an arm was thrown round me. It was that of Merkatz. ‘Listen, Rahden,’ said he; ‘before we part, perhaps for ever, become my brother for life, and let us forget all past unkindness.’ I replied by a hearty embrace, for I had long esteemed Merkatz as one of the bravest of my comrades, and, elated at the atonement he now made me for having refused my friendship at the commencement of the previous campaign, I pressed forward cheerfully into the fight.”
The French cavalry had been several hours in possession of Etoges, had removed the railings from the wells, and sawn the timbers of a bridge which crossed a broad and muddy stream. As soon as the Prussians set foot on it, it broke down, and an awful confusion ensued. The panic was aggravated by the darkness, and by the fire of the enemy, who blazed at the Allies from behind trees and houses. In attempting to jump the stream, Von Rahden fell in, and all his efforts only sank him deeper in the mud. A number of soldiers, who had also missed the leap, struggled beside him, involuntarily wounding each other with their fixed bayonets. Von Rahden gave himself up for lost. “I uttered a short prayer, gave one thought to my distant home, and awaited the death blow. My senses had already half left me, when I heard a well-known voice exclaim, ‘Lieutenant, where are you?’ With a last effort I raised myself, and saw Schmidt, my sergeant of skirmishers, peering down into the ditch. He held out his musket. I seized it with the grasp of desperation, and the brave fellow dragged me up. Barefoot, and covered with mud, I followed in the stream of fugitives. So great was the hurry and disorder of the flight, that if the enemy had sent a single squadron after us, thousands of prisoners must have been taken. It seems incomprehensible that they did not pursue; but I think I may safely affirm, that a young Russian officer, whose name I do not know, saved the army by his presence of mind. In a loud voice, he shouted several times, ‘Barabanczek! Barabanczek!’ which means a drummer. A number of drummers and buglers gathered around him and beat and blew a charge. The French did not suspect the stratagem; and supposing that reinforcements were coming up under cover of the night, they would not risk, by a pursuit, the advantage they had already gained. My friend, Merkatz, was amongst the prisoners taken upon that disastrous evening; but he soon managed to escape, leaving behind him, however, his own horse, and my warm and much prized cloak.”
A terrible campaign was that of 1813-14; and the man who had made it, from Lutzen to Paris, might well style himself a veteran, though his whole military career were comprised in the short ten months of its duration. What incessant fighting! not occasional battles, with long intervals, varied by insignificant skirmishes, but a rapid succession of pitched and bloody fields. No rest or relaxation, or pleasant repose in comfortable quarters, but short rations and the bivouac’s hard couch as sole solace for the weary and suffering soldier. The hardships of the allied armies are briefly, but frequently and impressively adverted to by the Baron von Rahden. As if the ravages of lead and steel were insufficient, disease and exposure added their quota to the harvest of death. “Although in the height of summer,” says the Baron, speaking of the month of August, 1813, “we had had, for three days past, uninterrupted rains, and the fat black soil was so soaked, that our progress was painfully difficult. We could bivouac only in meadows, and on the uncut corn. In fallow or stubble fields we must have lain in mud. We were very ill fed; the commissariat stores were far in rear, detained in the mountain passes, and for several days our only nourishment consisted of wild fruits, potatoes and turnips, which the men dug up in the fields. Our clothes and equipment, to the very cartouch-boxes, were wet through, and not a ray of sun, a tree or house, or even a bivouac fire, was there for warmth or shelter.” With vermin also, bequeathed to them often by their Cossack allies, the Prussians were grievously tormented. “In our camp, by Chlumetz, in Bohemia, where we passed some days, we had rain and other bivouac calamities to put up with. The straw served out to us had already been slept upon; and the consequence was, an invasion of our clothes and persons by certain small creeping things of a very unpleasant description. Whether they were of Austrian or Russian extraction I am unable to state; nor did it much matter: we succeeded to them. Looking out of my hut one morning, I saw a man issue from one of the straw-built sheds occupied by the soldiers, and run, wringing his hands, to an adjacent wood. I followed him, to prevent mischief, and recognised an old friend and fellow cadet, Von P. He was in the greatest despair. The soldiers had turned him out of their temporary abode. The poor fellow swarmed with vermin. I succeeded in calming him, fetched him clean linen, and after a careful examination of his clothes in a neighbouring oat-field, he returned with me to my hut, which he thenceforward inhabited. Should the Russian commandant of the Polish fortress of Czenstochau chance to read these pages, and remember the above incident, let him give a friendly thought to his old brother in arms, who will soon again have to speak of the brave Von P., of the Second Silesian Regiment.” If, in the rugged Bohemian mountains, hardships were to be anticipated, in the plains of Champagne things might have been expected to go better. If possible, they went worse. “To speak plainly,” says the Baron, referring to the campaign in France, which commenced very early in the year, “filth and ordure were our couch; rain, ice, and snow, our covering; half-raw cow’s flesh, mouldy biscuits, and sour wine lees, our nourishment; for heart and mind, the sole relaxation was shot, and blow, and stab. Some one has said, ‘Make war with angels for twenty years and they will become devils.’ To that I add, ‘Six months of such a life as we then led, and men would turn into beasts.’” Little wonder if soldiers thus situated greedily seized each brief opportunity of enjoyment. The cellars of Ai and Epernay paid heavy tribute to the thirsty Northern warriors. We are told of one instance where a whole division of the allied army was unable to march, and an important military operation had to be suspended, in consequence of a Pantagruelian debauch at a chateau near Chalons, where champagne bottles, by tens of thousands, were emptied down Prussian and Muscovite gullets. The sacking of their cellars, however, was not the only evil endured at the hands of the invaders by the unlucky vine-growers. Wood was scarce, the nights were very cold, and the sticks upon which the vines were trained, were pulled up and used as fuel. Sometimes, in a single night, many hundreds of thousands of these echalas were thus destroyed, every one of them being worth, owing to the hardness and rarity of the wood required for them, at least two sous. Their second visit to France hardly entered into the anticipations of the reckless destroyers, or they would perhaps have had more consideration for that year’s vintage.
From a host of anecdotes of Baron von Rahden’s brother-officers, we select the following as an interesting and characteristic incident of Prussian camp-life three-and-thirty years ago. It is told in what the Baron calls his poetical style:
“My captain, a Pole by birth, was brave as steel, but harsh and rough as the sound of his name. He was deficient in the finer feelings of the heart, in philanthropy, and in a due appreciation of the worth of his fellow-men. Although a good comrade to us young officers, he was a tyrant to his inferiors. His envy and jealousy of his superiors he barely concealed under an almost exaggerated courtesy. Such was Captain von X.
“It was the eve of the battle of Leipzig, and a violent gust of wind had overthrown the fragile bivouac-huts, at that time our only protection from the cold and wet of the October nights. The rain fell in torrents, and, in all haste, the soldiers set to work to reconstruct their temporary shelter. The more cunning and unscrupulous took advantage of the prevailing confusion to consult their own advantage, without respect to the rights of others. The objects which they coveted, and occasionally pillaged, would, under other circumstances, have been of little worth: they consisted of straw, branches, and stakes, invaluable in the construction of our frail tenements. As in duty bound, our military architects first built up the captain’s hut, within which he took refuge, after ordering me to remain outside and preserve order. As junior officer of the company, this fatigue-duty fairly fell to me, in like manner as the first turn for an honourable service belonged to the senior; but, nevertheless, I felt vexed at the captain’s order, and could not help wishing him some small piece of ill luck. My wish was very soon realized.