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From The Edinburgh Review.

to extending Prussian influence over a neighbouring State, much less with the far-seeing design of making her treatment by the Dutch a pretext for entering the land to overrun it with a Prussian army. If any such thought entered Frederick's subtle mind, it gained no utterance. And it was after he had passed away that events occurred which brought about the event then unforeseen, the invasion of Holland by Prussia, the excuse being mainly the ill-treatment of the Stadtholderess by Dutch officers, successors of those who had welcomed her with every demonstration of loyalty twenty years before.*

A PRUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN HOLLAND.* "You are happy in going to be settled in a country where you will find all the pleasures of royalty with none of its inconveniences." With these words the great Frederick in the peaceful days of his later reign dismissed the niece whom the young Prince of Orange had come to Berlin to claim as his bride. For at that time (1766) the political horizon in the United Provinces was fair. The struggles against Spanish bigotry and French ambition, in which prince and people had nobly responded to each other's call, were not so long past that the benefits of the compact could be forgotten under which To tell how this change came about a few scattered trading communities had would be to write the internal history of won a place in the councils of Europe. the Netherlands during the eventful The Dutch were grateful to the line of epoch that preceded the great turningrulers whose energy and tact had prepoint in modern history, the French Revserved the nation against external foesolution. Such a task would be altogether whilst maintaining its internal liberties. beyond our scope. It is sufficient here to On their part the Princes of Orange had indicate, as one main cause of the unpoplittle of kingly honour or power wanting ularity that in 1780 had begun to attach to their position. Commanding by hered-itself to the Stadtholder, the connection itary right all land and sea forces, and holding all the chief executive powers; these functions confirmed and renewed in the elder branch of the house of Orange first, by the five chief provinces; then extended to the junior, so adding the two others it had separately administered; then granted to successors by the female line; and finally to heirs adopted in default of any born: it might well seem that of the Stadtholders the Netherlands, though professedly only the first servants of a free State, held dignities as honourable and as sure of continuance as those of any royalty in the world.

Such was, no doubt, Frederick's view when he parted from his neice. The Prussian reigning house was the natural marriage mart for princes in those days. Princesses had abounded in it when Frederick was young, and had been disposed of freely to the first fitting suitor by the thrifty court. And there is small reason to believe that this young lady was despatched from Berlin with any special view

of Dutch affairs with our own unhappy war with America. Long jealous of our growing maritime supremacy, Holland was not a whit less ready than France to aid the new foes of our own kindred, whom an obstinate ministry and bigoted king

had forced into rebellion. The time had

The political details of these transactions are related with inimitable vivacity in the despatches of Sir James Harris, then British minister at the Hague, which were published in 1844 by his grandson in the second volume of the "Malmesbury Correspondence." In fact, Sir James Harris had been throughout the moving spirit whose energy and courage kept life in the Stadtholder's party, and eventually defeated the cabal of the patriots and the French. The Prussian court refused to act without the support of England, which was extorted with considerable difficulty from Mr. Pitt.

But in August 1787 the two governments of St. James and Potsdam agreed on six preliminary points: to act

as mediators by mutual consent; to resist all foreign interference; to disarm and dissolve the Free Corps,

and restore the Prince of Orange to all his rights as Stadtholder; to march a Prussian army into Holland, England agreeing to prepare forty ships of the line to support it; and finally, in the event of any power disapproving of this intervention, to defend each other and accomplish it by force of arms. A secret convention embodying these articles was signed between Prussia and England on the 2nd October, 1787. But the whole operation was no more than the fulfilment of * Der Preussische Feldzug in Holland, 1787. Von the policy of which Sir James Harris was the real FREIHERR VON TROSCHKE. Berlin: 1875.

author.

some historical importance in itself, and not without its bearing on the military questions of our own day; yet one which the din and clash of the greater wars that speedily followed that of 1787 have caused to be almost forgotten save by a few students of military problems.

come, it was thought in the United Prov- | tervention of Prussian arms in her neighinces, when the Dutch flag should once bour's territory. For this was an event of more sweep the seas of those intrusive islanders, and strike terror far inland from the coast where it flaunted. And in the conduct of the operations that followed the declaration of war it came to be thought, whether with truth or not, that the Stadtholder, himself of British blood by his mother's side, was not hearty in the The Stadtholder's difficulties were much national cause. The anti-Orange party, increased by the conduct of Austria in which before the American war had dwin- 1785 in contesting the right of the Dutch dled into a mere faction, grew rapidly in to occupy the strong places on their own importance. Its leaders in the various frontier in the Netherlands, and to close provinces skilfully used the opportunity the navigation of the Scheldt; the doing of the hour; and the Prince of Orange, of which was, according to the limited on his part, did so little to counteract the commercial notions of the day, the most popular cry against his sluggishness, that pressing point for Amsterdam policy to when peace came in 1783, it failed to carry out. The emperor Joseph II., rebring back with it his former constitu- versing the whole policy of his house in tional powers, dependent as these were on foreign as well as in internal matters, had a friendly majority in the legislature. The at this time patched up a temporary friendpatriotic party, the name assumed by those ship with France, and let it be known to who advocated war à outrance against the Dutch that he could only be moved England, had grown to be a formidable on the points in dispute by her mediabody in the States and in their General tion. This led the patriotic party to inAssembly. Each exercise of the heredi- sist once more on the value of what they tary prerogatives of the house of Orange declared to be the purposely neglected was closely watched, criticised, and con-alliance with France; and their attacks tested. The rising tide of revolutionary brought further unpopularity on the Prince feeling in France naturally gave strength of Orange, who from hereditary training, to popular sentiment against a prince in a as well as by his marriage, was strongly land so near. And despite the rigid opposed to French predominance in Euroefforts to adhere to the constitutional pean politics. The continued differences forms, which he did his best to maintain on important points of policy between much later even when the opposition was the Stadtholder and those who now had put forcibly down by Prussian bayonets, the majority in several of the provinces, the Prince of Orange found his task of and especially in Holland whose voice in administration becoming yearly more and the federation was nearly as powerful as more difficult. In truth the strange union that of the other six united, led to deterof personal sovereignty with republican mined opposition to his administration on freedom which hard circumstances had minor questions. The prince had so far made possible for several generations, lost sight of the wise advice given him by was now becoming weakened in the ab- Frederick the Great, never to forget his sence of the external pressure which was true position of chief servant rather than probably necessary to its continued main- ruler of the States, as to introduce certain tenance. It would be interesting to specu- semi-royal observances on which the palate on what the internal history of Hol-triots fastened offence, and so used them land might have been, had not the general to diminish his influence with the masses. convulsions of the revolutionary and Napo- Thus it was observed that the officers of leonic eras that succeeded, settled the his guard now bore the arms of Orange question decisively by superior forces. on their caps, instead of those of the But we are here concerned chiefly to trace United Netherlands as their predecessors the actual facts that led to the special in- | had done. Then the main gate of the pal.

ace at the Hague had been of late years | States. Here two small towns, Hattem reserved entirely for princely use. Like and Elburg, where the patriotic party had other free peoples, the Dutch were peculiarly sensitive as to any right of way being taken from them; and the restriction, when once brought clearly to public notice in the growing agitation, gave dire offence. And to these disputes there came to be added a more serious difference still, one of some real constitutional importance, as to the right to the command of the palace guard. The deputies of the provinces asserted an hereditary claim to appoint to it, granted to them expressly to secure the independence of their deliberations against a populace supposed from its local conditions to be subservient to the ruling house. Worsted on all these points, William V. not only showed his personal annoyance by suddenly ceasing to wear his own military uniform in public, but declined to reside any longer in a capital where he considered himself subject to insult. He withdrew altogether from the Hague, and dwelt for a time chiefly at his château of Loo in the province of Gelderland, where his party was still in a decided majority.

His retreat at this crisis, however, naturally gave increased strength to the opposition in Holland; and if Holland should decide to cast his authority off, he could hardly be deemed the actual Stadtholder of the Netherlands any longer. Yet she, powerful as her superiority in wealth and population made her, and in despite of her contribution of more than half the charges of the Federation, was for some months overborne in the votes of the States-General, where Utrecht (excepting only its capital), Zealand, Friesland, and Gelderland were faithful to the prince. Parties in each had been formed against him, and were in active correspondence with the patriots at Amsterdam; but the governments still adhered to their allegiance.

There was a sort of armed truce during the summer of 1786, in which the more cautious spirits were striving to patch up the difference, while the more far-seeing prepared for the armed struggle that was inevitable. This was presently broken by the warmth of party-spirit in Gelderland, the most Orange in opinion of the seven

gained the upper hand in the municipalities, refused further obedience to the decrees of the provincial legislature or States, declaring it incompetent to act in the absence of their deputies. The States then called upon the Prince of Orange in his capacity of captain-general of the province to use armed force in defence of their prerogative. Nothing loth to act under constitutional powers, William marched on the recusant towns with such troops as he had at hand, acting, as his party put the matter, in his magisterial rather than his strictly military capacity. But his opponents did not wait his coming. Protesting against the violence intended, they left their homes to go a few miles into the neighbouring province of Overyssel, where feeling was strong against the Stadtholder; thus giving the appearance of the first call for armed forces as coming from the Orange side. Holland then decided on action from which there could hardly be any appeal but to the sword. She had temporized hitherto, according to such Prussian writers as Baron Troschke, chiefly because her leaders were endeavouring to get back from distant parts of the United Provinces the regiments quartered there, but raised and paid by her. The proceedings in Gelderland caused caution and concealment to be laid aside; and on September 22nd the province by its States directed that the Prince of Orange should be suspended from his functions of captain-general of Holland. The glorious federation that had astonished the world hardly less by the firmness of its union than the gallantry of its actions seemed at once to be dissolved by this daring step. Order and counter-order from either side contended for observance; and the hour had at last come when constitutional forms were strained till they broke, and personal choice for prince or province became a hard duty to be incumbent upon all. Out of the general confusion of the few months that followed, the truth appeared that if the prince trusted to the armed power at his command for the restoration of his hereditary rights, his trust would be in vain. The troops he

On June 28th, 1787, the Princess of Orange, unaccompanied by her husband, was on her way to their château near the Hague. To reach this it was necessary to pass a cordon of posts formed by some of the provincial troops of Holland. But she had no armed escort with her. The prince himself had not been in any way outlawed, or officially declared the enemy of the province, which had simply by its legislature suspended him from his military offices. Nevertheless, a certain local commission of defence, formed no doubt of warm partisans of the popular cause, took on itself to consider the journey as either dangerous or illegal, and after roughly stopping the cortège, finally sent it back. It was a time of much hot blood on either side; and there is little doubt that the Prussian story is true, and that the officer charged personally with the unpleasant business behaved with great and needless violence. He is said, on his being refused admission to the princess's chamber, to have forced his way in with drawn sword, and remained until she left; and his subsequent act of suicide when his party succumbed to Prussian intervention, seems to show him either consciously guilty, or despairing of clearing his name of the charge laid on it.

had had under him were raised, as he him- | side no less able than willing to give him self had been appointed their command- the mastery over his adversaries. er, by separate provincial commissions. Known to the outside world as one national army, the Dutch regiments were constitutionally far more distinctly separate levies than those bodies of cantonal militia which the Swiss are now slowly striving to weld into a federal force. Holland had no sooner openly pronounced against the prince, than her allies in the patriotic party in the Assembly, Groeningen and Overyssel, gave direct orders to their own regiments not to use arms against any other province of the federation. Zealand and Friesland presently followed the example, seeking the neutrality favoured by weaker spirits in all such national crises. Utrecht was paralyzed from action on either side; for although her Orange-governed States had moved their sittings from the hostile capital, so important was the latter to the province that its defection made it useless to count on the regiments siding with the Stadtholder. There remained, therefore, for him to rely on no more than his faithful Gelderland, with its handful of three thou sand or four thousand troops, a force quite inadequate to do more than for the present guard his own person. Even the Swiss contingent of the army which had lately obeyed him did so no longer. There had long been, it should here be noticed, such a body in federal pay, raised chiefly in the canton of Berne, and quartered along the defensive southern frontier of the seven provinces which, at first held for reasons of a strictly military character, had grown to be the common care and property of all in peace as well as war. These regiments, having never known orders come to them except through the prince, might have been thought certain for his cause. But though mercenaries, the Swiss soldiers never forgot that they had come to a land which professed freedom as full as that won by their own forefathers. And when private instructions came from Berne that they were to remain strictly neutral in the political conflict in the Netherlands, they made it known that neither party could reckon on their services for putting down the other. The patriots, in fact, felt for the time that matters were going their own way; and they were occupied in Holland with fresh proposals for striking at the hereditary powers of the Stadtholder, when a sudden act of violence by partisans on their side at once forced on open hostilities, and brought an ally to the prince's

The report of this act of violence no sooner reached the Hague than Prussia came upon the scene. Thulemeier, the ambassador, who was previously conducting, conjointly with the French plenipotentiary, an attempt at the difficult task of reconciling the prince with the recusant provinces, and had never ceased to show perfect deference to the claim of sovereign rights maintained by each of the latter, now took an altogether different tone. The injured princess was the sister of his king, Frederick William II., who had not long succeeded to the throne of what was already recognized as one of the most powerful, if not the very foremost, of the military monarchies of Europe. Moreover the sympathies of the king had all along been privately much more on the side of the Prince of Orange than those of his predecessor were, so far as had been known, in the earlier difficulties in his day of the Stadtholder with the provinces. If far more humane and liberal in his administration of home affairs than the great Frederick, his successor was certainly wanting in that breadth, or, as it might by some be judged, coldness of

view which caused his uncle to regard his great work, that he should take for with the utmost equanimity any troubles analysis a single study of the science, on of his friends or neighbours that did not a theatre so peculiar as Holland, in order chance to touch the welfare of Prussia. to show how far the usual principles are to And although revolution at that time, it be modified in a land of marshes, canals, should be observed, could certainly not in and inundations. And certainly this exthe abstract have been so repulsive and ample was very ready to his hand, the detestable a thing in the eyes of a German chief materials for dissecting it being ruler of the ordinary type, such as Freder- found in the German archives, and the invaick William, as it became but a few years sion conducted throughout with success later when identified with the Phrygian and credit by his own national army. It cap, the guillotine, the abolition of royalty, seems to us, however, altogether a mistaken and all the excesses of the Reign of Ter- view to put it in the first class of military ror; still personal and family sentiment, achievements. Nor is the attempt to be no doubt, made the prospect of interven- justified by the historical fact that the tion on fair excuse a pleasant one politically same country which was overrun with at Berlin. The only difficulties anticipated comparative ease by a single Prussian were those of a military nature, and these corps in 1787, had resisted the whole were at first overrated, as the events to be efforts of Spain and of France in precednarrated prove; but even estimating them ing centuries. For in the first place, the at their worst, the Prussian court was con- art of war had been altogether changed fident in the invincibility of soldiers brought since the era when Alva led his fanatic up under the eye of the great master of legions against the Protestant rebels of war himself: and the order was unhesitat- the Netherlands; or to come lower down ingly given to collect a force sufficient to in history, when the horsemen of Louis enforce compliance with the ambassador's XIV., the maison du roi at their head, demands, and to march it, or so much of swam the Rhine at Tollhuys to comit as must get across the Rhine, forthwith mence their campaign against the same into the duchy of Cleves. Mobilization, obstinate foes. The progress in wealth with all its elaborate machinery, was in and civilization, which, while it makes those days a thing unknown. Such stand- countries seemingly more powerful as ing armies as States chose to maintain well as prosperous, in reality puts them distinct from the militia which all had, in more than ever (as the world is discoversome form or other, inherited from feudaling rather late) at the mercy of a stronger days, were supposed to be fully ready for war at all times; just as our own army affected to be until the necessity for its reorganization was lately forced on us. The war-bureau, then very recently formed at Berlin, to replace as far as possible the personal supervision to which the great king had trusted, found no difficulty in moving twenty-six thousand troops speedily to the required points; and it was believed that full occasion would be found for all their services before Prussian honour, now pledged to the Stadtholder's side, could be vindicated.

We suspect that if the difficulties of the undertaking were much over-estimated then, they are certainly not less so in the narrative of Baron Troschke. No doubt this writer is supported to some extent by the example of his great countryman, Clausewitz, who has left an elaborate narrative of this campaign, as one of special importance to be studied. But Clausewitz was writing with a special view to theory, being in fact a military teacher and critic first, and an historian only so far as served his main purpose. It was natural, as no branch of warfare is neglected in

and not less civilized invader, had operated in Holland as much as elsewhere. The rude energy of the measures of defence by wide inundations which baffled the Grand Monarque in 1672 were hardly likely to be fully repeated in the more crowded Netherlands of a century later; and if they had been adopted, it may be doubted whether even this means of defence would have proved as effectual against the improved facilities for the attack which the Prussians could have brought to bear. Nevertheless, the prestige of former heroic resistance no doubt magnified the apparent difficulties of the invader. But in this campaign that we are about to notice a new and decisive element was to act on his side. The war. was, in fact, not a national struggle, but an act of armed intervention; and the Prussians were therefore to be aided in what should have been the most difficult part of their task, not merely by the moral support of the Stadtholder and his party, but by the material possession through the hands of his supporters of some of the most important strategic points that had to be gained for their purpose. This

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