Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846
The second Silesian regiment suffered terribly at the great battle of Leipzig. Von Rahden's battalion, in particular, was reduced at the close of the last day's fight to one hundred and twenty effective men, commanded by a lieutenant, the only unwounded officer. Kleist's division, of which it formed part, had sustained severe losses in every action since the truce, and after Leipzig it was found to have melted down to one-third of its original strength. Disease also broke out in its ranks. To check this, to recruit the numbers, and repose the men, the division was sent into quarters. Von Rahden's regiment went to the duchy of Meiningen, and his battalion was quartered in the town of that name. The friendly and hospitable reception here given to the victors of Kulm and Leipzig was well calculated to make them forget past hardships and sufferings. The widowed Duchess of Meiningen gave frequent balls and entertainments, to which officers of all grades found ready admittance. The reigning duke was then a boy; his two sisters, charming young women, were most gracious and condescending. In those warlike days, the laurel-wreath was as good a crown as any other, and raised even the humble subaltern to the society of princes.
"It chanced one evening," says the Baron, "that our major, Count Reichenbach, stood up to dance a quadrille with the Princess Adelaide of Meiningen. His toilet was not well suited to the ball-room; his boots were heavy, the floor was slippery, and he several times tripped. At last he fairly fell, dragging his partner with him. His right arm was in a sling, and useless from wounds received at Lutzen, and some short time elapsed before the princess was raised from her recumbent position by the ladies and gentlemen of the court, and conducted into an adjoining apartment. With rueful countenance, and twisting his red mustache from vexation, Count Reichenbach tried to lose himself in the crowd, and to escape the annoyance of being stared at and pointed out as the man who had thrown down the beautiful young princess. It was easy to see that he would rather have stormed a dozen hostile batteries than have made so unlucky a debût in the royal ball-room. In a short quarter of an hour, however, when the fuss caused by the accident had nearly subsided, the princess reappeared, looking more charming than ever, and sought about until she discovered poor Count Reichenbach, who had got into a corner near the stove. With the most captivating grace, she invited him to return to the dance, saying, loud enough for all around to hear, 'that she honoured a brave Prussian soldier whose breast was adorned with the Iron Cross, and whose badly-wounded arm had not prevented his fighting the fight of liberation at Leipzig, and that with all her heart she would begin the dance again with him.' The Count's triumph was complete; the court prudes and parasites, who a moment before had looked down upon him from the height of their compassion, now rivalled each other in amiability. With a well-pleased smile the Count stroked his great beard, led the princess to the quadrille, and danced it in first-rate style." The reader will have recognised our excellent Queen Dowager in the heroine of the charming trait which an old soldier thus bluntly narrates. The kind heart and patriotic spirit of the German Princess were good presage of the benevolence and many virtues of the English Queen. "When, in May 1836," continues Captain Von Rahden, "I was presented, as captain in the Dutch service, to the Princess Adelaide, then Queen of England, at St James's Palace, her majesty perfectly remembered the incident I have here narrated to my readers. To her inquiries after Count Reichenbach, I unfortunately had to reply that he was long since dead."
In January 1814, the Baron's regiment left Meiningen, crossed the Rhine, joined the great Silesian army under old Blucher, and began the campaign in France. The actions of Montmirail, Méry sur Seine, La Ferté sous Jouarre, and various other encounters, followed in rapid succession. Hard knocks for the Allies, many of them. But all Napoleon's brilliant generalship was in vain; equally in vain did his young troops emulate the deeds of those iron veterans whose bones lay bleaching on the Beresina's banks, and in the passes of the Sierra Morena. The month of February was passed in constant fighting, and was perhaps the most interesting period of the campaigns of 1813-14. On the 13th, the Prussian advanced guard, Ziethen's division, was attacked by superior numbers and completely beaten at Montmirail. Von Rahden's battalion was one of those which had to cover the retreat of the routed troops, and check the advance of the exulting enemy. Retiring slowly and in good order, the rearmost of the whole army, it reached the village of Etoges, when it was assailed by a prodigious mass of French cavalry. But the horsemen could make no impression on the steady ranks of Count Reichenbach's infantry.
"Here the hostile dragoons, formed in columns of squadrons and regiments, charged us at least twelve or fifteen times, always without success. Each time Count Reichenbach let them approach to within fifty or sixty paces, then ordered a halt, formed square, and opened a heavy and well-sustained fire, which quickly drove back the enemy. As soon as they retired, I and my skirmishers sprang forward, and peppered them till they again came to the charge, when we hurried back to the battalion. Count Reichenbach himself never entered the square, but during the charges took his station on the left flank, which could not fire, because it faced the road along which our artillery marched. Our gallant commander gave his orders with the same calm coolness and precision as on the parade ground. His voice and our volleys were the only sounds heard, and truly that was one of the most glorious afternoons of Count Reichenbach's life. Our western neighbours love to celebrate the deeds of their warriors by paint-brush and graver; our heroes are forgotten, but for the occasional written reminiscences of some old soldier, witness of their valiant deeds. And truly, if Horace Vernet has handed Colonel Changarnier down to posterity for standing inside his square whilst it received the furious but disorderly charge of semi-barbarous horse, he might, methinks, and every soldier and true Prussian will share my opinion, find a far worthier subject for his pencil in Count Reichenbach, awaiting outside his square the formidable attacks of six thousand French cavalrymen.
"It became quite dark, and the enemy ceased to charge. Pity it was! for such was the steadiness and discipline of our men, that the defence went on like some well-regulated machine, and might have been continued for hours longer, or till our last cartridge was burnt. The count seemed unusually well pleased. Twirling his mustache with a satisfied chuckle, he offered several officers and soldiers a dram from a little flask which he habitually carried in his holster, and turned to me with the words, 'Well done, my dear Rahden, bravo!' On hearing this praise, short and simple as it was, I could have embraced my noble commander for joy, and with feelings in my heart which only such men as Reichenbach know how to awaken, I resumed my place on the right of the battalion, which now marched away."
Gradually the Allies approached Paris. On the 28th March, at the village of Claye, only five leagues from the capital, Kleist's division came to blows with the French troops under General Compan, who had marched out to meet them. As usual, Von Rahden was with the skirmishers, as was also another lieutenant of his battalion, a Pole of gigantic frame and extraordinary strength, who here met his death. He was rushing forward at the head of his men, when a four-pound shot struck him in the breast. It went through his body, passing very near the heart, but, strange to say, without causing instant death. For most men, half an ounce of lead in the breast is an instant quietus; but so prodigious was the strength and vitality of this Pole, that he lingered, the baron assures us, full six-and-thirty hours.
"We now followed up the French infantry, which hastily retreated to a farm-yard surrounded by lofty linden and chestnut trees, and situated on a small vine-covered hill. When half-way up the eminence, we saw, upon the open space beneath the trees, several companies of the enemy in full parade uniform, with bearskin caps, large red epaulets upon their shoulders, and white breeches, form themselves into a sort of phalanx, which only replied to our fire by single shots. Presently even these ceased. Scheliha and myself immediately ordered our men to leave off firing; and Scheliha, who spoke French very intelligibly, advanced to within thirty paces of the enemy and summoned them to lay down their arms, supposing that they intended to yield themselves prisoners. They made no reply, but stood firm as a wall. Scheliha repeated his summons: a shot was fired at him. This served as a signal to our impatient followers, who opened a murderous fire upon the dense mass before them. We tried a third time to get the brave Frenchmen to yield; others of our battalions had come up, and they were completely cut off; but the sole reply we received was a sort of negative murmur, and some of them even threatened us with their muskets. Within ten minutes they all lay dead or wounded upon the ground; for our men were deaf alike to commands and entreaties, and to the voice of mercy. Most painful was it to us officers to look on at such a butchery, impotent to prevent it." It afterwards appeared that these French grenadiers, who belonged to the Jeune Garde, had left Paris that morning. By some mismanagement their stock of ammunition was insufficient, and having expended it, they preferred death, with arms in their hands, to captivity.
At eight o'clock on the thirtieth, Kleist's and York's corps, now united, passed the Ourcq canal, and marched along the Pantin road towards Paris. Upon that morning they saw old Blucher for the first time for more than a month. He seemed on the brink of the grave, and wore a woman's bonnet of green silk to protect his eyes, which were dangerously inflamed. He was on horseback, but was soon obliged to return to his travelling carriage in rear of the army, and to give up the command to Barclay de Tolly. "Luckily," says the baron, "the troops knew nothing of the substitution." Although it would probably hardly have mattered much, for there was little more work to do. For that year this was the last day's fight. After some flank movement which took up several hours, the allied infantry attacked the village of La Villette, but were repulsed by the artillery from the adjacent barrier. The brigade batteries loitered in the rear, and Prince Augustus, vexed at their absence, sent an aide-de-camp to bring them up. One of them was commanded by Lieutenant Holsche, Von Rahden's former instructor at the artillery school, of whom we have already related an anecdote. Although an undoubtedly brave and circumspect officer, on this occasion he remained too far behind the infantry; and Captain Decker,49 who was dispatched to fetch him, was not sorry to be the medium of conveying the Prince's sharp message, the less so as he had observed a certain nonchalance and want of deference in the artillery lieutenant's manner of receiving the orders of his superiors. At a later period, Baron Von Rahden heard from Decker himself the following characteristic account of his reception by the gallant but eccentric Holsche.
"I came up to the battery," said Decker, "at full gallop. The men were dismounted, and their officer stood chatting with his comrades beside a newly-made fire. 'Lieutenant Holsche,' said I, rather sharply, 'his Royal Highness is exceedingly astonished that you remain idle here, and has directed me to command you instantly to advance your battery against the enemy.'
"'Indeed?' was Holsche's quiet reply, 'his Royal Highness is astonished!' and then, turning to his men with the same calmness of tone and manner, 'Stand to your horses! Mount! Battery, march!'
"I thought the pace commanded was not quick enough, and in the same loud and imperious voice as before, I observed to Lieutenant Holsche that he would not be up in time; he had better move faster. 'Indeed! not quick enough?' quietly answered Holsche, and gave the word, 'March, march!' We now soon got over the ground and within the enemy's fire, and, considering my duty at an end, I pointed out to the Lieutenant the direction he should take, and whereabouts he should post his battery. But Holsche begged me in the most friendly manner to go on and show him exactly where he should halt. I naturally enough complied with his request. The nearer we got to the French, the faster became the pace, until at last we were in front of our most advanced battalions. The bullets whizzed about us on all sides; I once more made a move to turn back, and told Holsche he might stop where he was. With the same careless air as before, he repeated his request that I would remain, in order to be able to tell his Royal Highness where Lieutenant Holsche and his battery had halted! What could I do? It was any thing but pleasant to share so great a danger, without either necessity or profit; and certainly I might very well have turned back, but Holsche, by whose side I galloped, fixed his large dark eyes upon my countenance, as though he would have read my very soul. We were close to our own skirmishers; on we went, right through them, into the middle of the enemy's riflemen, who, quite surprised at being charged by a battery, retired in all haste. It really seemed as if the artillery was going over to the enemy. At two hundred paces from the French columns, however, Holsche halted, unlimbered, and gave two discharges from the whole battery, with such beautiful precision and astounding effect, that he sent the hostile squadrons and battalions to the right about, and even silenced some of the heavy guns within the barriers. That done he returned to me, and begged me to inform the Prince where I had left Lieutenant Holsche and his battery. 'Perhaps,' added he, 'his Royal Highness will again find occasion to be astonished; and I shall be very glad of it.' And truly the Prince and all of us were astonished at this gallant exploit; it had been achieved in sight of the whole army, and had produced a glorious and most desirable result."
For this feat Holsche was rewarded with the Iron Cross of the first class. He had already at Leipzig gained that of the second, and on receiving it his ambition immediately aspired to the higher decoration. Many a time had he been heard to vow, that if he obtained it, he would have a cross as large as his hand manufactured by the farrier of his battery, and wear it upon his breast. To this he pledged his word. The manner in which he kept it is thus related by his old friend and pupil.
"We were on our march from Paris to Amiens, when we were informed, one beautiful morning, that our brigade battery, under Lieutenant Holsche, was in cantonments in the next village. The music at our head, we marched through the place in parade time, and paid Holsche military honours as ex-commandant of the Straw-bonnet, which title he still retained. Intimate acquaintance and sincere respect might well excuse this little deviation from the regulations of the service. Our hautboys blew a favourite march, to which Holsche himself had once in Glatz written words, beginning: —
'Natz, Natz, Annemarie,
Da kommt die Glätzer Infanterie.'
In his blue military frock, with forage cap and sword, Holsche stood upon a small raised patch of turf in front of his quarters, gravely saluting in acknowledgment of the honours paid him, which he received with as proud a bearing as if he was legitimately entitled to them. This did not surprise us, knowing him as we did, but not a little were we astonished when we saw an Iron Cross of the first class, as large as a plate, fastened upon his left breast. The orders for the battle of Paris and the other recent fights in France had just been distributed; Holsche was amongst the decorated, and the jovial artilleryman took this opportunity to fulfil his oft-repeated vow. Only a few hours before our arrival he had had the cross manufactured by his farrier."
This dashing but wrong-headed officer soon afterwards became a captain, and subsequently major, but his extravagances, and especially his addiction to wine, got him into frequent trouble, until at last he was put upon the retired list as lieutenant-colonel, and died at Schweidnitz in Silesia.
At six in the evening of the 30th March, the last fight of the campaign was over, and aides-de-camp galloped hither and thither, announcing the capitulation of Paris. Right pleasant were such sounds to the ears of the war-worn soldiers. Infantry grounded their arms, dragoons dismounted, artillerymen leaned idly against their pieces; Langeron alone, who had begun the storm of Montmartre, would not desist from his undertaking. Officers rode after him, waving their white handkerchiefs as a signal to cease firing, but without effect. The Russians stormed on; and if Langeron attained his end with comparatively small loss, the enemy being already in retreat, there were nevertheless four or five hundred men sacrificed to his ambition, and that he might have it to say that he and his Russians carried Montmartre by storm. Whilst the rest of the troops waited till he had attained his end, and congratulated each other on the termination of the hardships and privations of the preceding three months, a Russian bomb-carriage took fire, the drivers left it, and its six powerful horses, scorched and terrified by the explosion of the projectiles, ran madly about the field, dragging at their heels this artificial volcano. The battalions which they approached scared them away by shouts, until the unlucky beasts knew not which way to turn. At last, the shells and grenades being all burnt out, the horses stood still, and, strange to say, not one of them had received the slightest injury.
Terrible was the disappointment of Kleist's and York's divisions, when they learned on the morning subsequent to the capitulation that they were not to enter Paris; but, after four-and-twenty hours' repose in the faubourg Montmartre, where they had passed the previous night, were to march from the capital into country quarters. Their motley and weather-beaten aspect was the motive of this order – a heart-breaking one for the brave officers and soldiers who had borne the heat and burden of the day during a severe and bloody campaign, and now found themselves excluded on the earthly paradise of their hopes. They had fought and suffered more than the Prussian and Russian guards; but the latter were smart and richly uniformed, whilst the poor fellows of the line had rubbed off and besmirched in many a hard encounter and rainy bivouac what little gilding they ever possessed. So long as fighting was the order of the day, they were in request; but it was now the turn of parades, and on these they would cut but a sorry figure. So "right about" was the word, and Amiens the route. A second day's respite was allowed them, however; and although they were strictly confined to their quarters, lest they should shock the sensitiveness of the Parisian bourgeoisie by their ragged breeks, long beards, and diversity of equipment, some of the officers obtained leave to go into Paris. Von Rahden was amongst these, and, after a dinner at Véry's, where his Silesian simplicity and campaigning appetite were rather astonished by the exiguity of the plats placed before him, whereof he managed to consume some five-and-twenty, after admiring the wonders of the Palace Royal, and the rich uniforms of almost every nation with which the streets were crowded, he betook himself to the Place Vendôme to gaze at the fallen conqueror's triumphant column. It was surrounded by a mob of fickle Parisians, eager to cast down from its high estate the idol they so recently had worshipped. One daredevil fellow climbed upon the Emperor's shoulders, slung a cord round his neck, dragged up a great ship's cable and twisted it several times about the statue. The rabble seized the other end of the rope, and with cries of "à bas ce canaille!" tugged furiously at it. Their efforts were unavailing, Napoleon stood firm, until the Allied sovereigns, who, from the window of an adjacent house, beheld this disgraceful riot, sent a company of Russian grenadiers to disperse the mob. The masses gave way before the bayonet, but not till the same man who had fastened the rope, again climbed up, and with a white cloth shrouded the statue of the once adored Emperor from the eyes of his faithless subjects. It is well known that, a few weeks later, the figure was taken down by order of the Emperor Alexander, who carried it away as his sole trophy, and gave it a place in the winter palace at St Petersburg. When Louis XVIII. returned to Paris, a broad white banner, embroidered with three golden lilies, waved from the summit of the column; but this in its turn was displaced, by the strong south wind that blew from Elba in March 1815, when Napoleon re-entered his capital. A municipal deputation waited upon him to know what he would please to have placed on the top of the triumphant column. "A weathercock" was the little corporal's sarcastic reply. Since that day, the lilies and the tricolor have again alternated on the magnificent column, until the only thing that ought to surmount it, the statue of the most extraordinary man of modern, perhaps of any, times, has resumed its proud position, and once more overlooks the capital which he did so much to improve and embellish.
"I now wandered to the operahouse," says the baron, "to hear Spontini's Vestale. The enormous theatre was full to suffocation; in every box the Allied uniforms glittered, arms flashed in the bright light, police spies loitered and listened, beautiful women waved their kerchiefs and joined in the storm of applause, as if that day had been a most glorious and triumphant one for France. The consul Licinius, represented, if I remember aright, by the celebrated St Priest, was continually interrupted in his songs, and called upon for the old national melody 'Vive Henri Quatre,' which he gave with couplets composed for the occasion, some of which, it was said, were improvisations. In the midst of this rejoicing, a rough voice made itself heard from the upper gallery. 'A bas l'aigle imperial!' were the words it uttered, and in an instant every eye was turned to the Emperor's box, whose purple velvet curtains were closely drawn, and to whose front a large and richly gilt eagle was affixed. The audience took up the cry and repeated again and again – 'A bas l'aigle imperial!' Presently the curtains were torn asunder, a fellow seated himself upon the cushioned parapet, twined his legs round the eagle, and knocked, and hammered, till it fell with a crash to the ground. Again the royalist ditty was called for, with ad libitum couplets, in which the words 'ce diable à quatre' were only too plainly perceptible; the unfortunate consul had to repeat them till he was hoarse, and so ended the great comedy performed that day by the 'Grande Nation.' Most revolting it was, and every right-thinking man shuddered at such thorough Gallic indecency."
Baron Von Rahden tells the story of his life well and pleasantly, without pretensions to brilliancy and elegance of style, but with soldierly frankness and spirit. We have read this first portion of his memoirs with pleasure and interest, and may take occasion again to refer to its lively and varied contents.