The Radiant Republic

The day after the fighting at Dessau ended, the whole Duchy of Anhalt submitted to the powerful French army and, like its weak ruler, Duc de Léopold III d'Anhalt-Dessau, chose to abandon further resistance. However, under the terms of the alliance between France and the Electorate of Saxony, the entire duchy—together with Léopold III d'Anhalt-Dessau himself—would be handed over to Dresden for disposal.

Thus, on the following morning, 3,000 Saxon troops in white uniforms, guided by the “Black Lion Banner,” marched to the beat of drums and re-entered the city of Dessau amid the cheers of the populace, taking over the city’s defenses from the French gendarmerie. German women dressed in festive finery tossed bouquets from the windows along the street—most of them paper flowers folded from colored paper, for only the nobility could afford fresh blooms grown in hothouses. Meanwhile, in fighting 65 kilometres northwest of Dessau, thanks to the heavy fire support of 4 French gunboats, 20,000 troops of the Electorate of Saxony succeeded in forcing the capitulation of Magdeburg, which was defended by only 1,000 Prussian soldiers.

Before the Franco-Saxon Coalition could begin the decisive Battle of Potsdam, Elector Friedrich August I, from his palace in Dresden, impatiently proclaimed that he had brought the Duchy of Anhalt and the Duchy of Magdeburg back under the protection of the Electorate of Saxony. The former rulers of these two duchies would be deposed on the charge of “casting their lot with the Kingdom of Prussia and betraying the Saxon alliance,” and the Elector would support new rulers to assume power.

As for the Landgraviate of Hesse, which was under the control of the Army of the Rhine and the French gendarmerie, the Saxon sovereign stated that he would respect André’s arrangements. The French commander, for his part, planned to dismember this loyal hound of Prussia, and to use four-fifths of Hessian territory to compensate the many German princes who, because of the arrival of the French, had been forced to relinquish lands west of the Rhine—chiefly the small principalities under the protection of the Electorate of Saxony and the Duchy of Bavaria.

On the very day General Lefebvre took Dessau, General Nansouty and his cavalry had already crossed the Elbe first from the upper reaches, then seized the town of Roßlau on the north bank—the first Prussian town to fall to the Elbe Army Group. The fighting at Roßlau was extremely easy: with the support of a horse artillery battery, the light cavalry captured an unprepared Prussian infantry regiment, seized several guns, and took large quantities of supplies and baggage.

However, the Elbe Army Group’s raiding phase formally ended after Roßlau. Berlin was about to receive—or had perhaps already received—the terrifying news that a French army, after a 600-kilometre forced march, had crossed the Elbe and surged deep into Prussian territory.

...

After nightfall, Berlin was cold; but the Prussian Court Theatre on Unter den Linden was packed to the rafters, buzzing with excitement. At this moment, the Royal Orchestra of Berlin was performing a newly staged light opera—an entertaining form of small-scale opera with a strong flavor of everyday life, its melodies drawn from popular music of the day, easy to understand, and most often presented in a single act.

When King Wilhelm II of Prussia entered the royal box with Queen Friederike Louise, the entire audience rose to its feet at once, cheering thunderously, while Wilhelm II and Louise repeatedly waved their acknowledgements to the spectators and the orchestra. The commotion lasted nearly ten minutes before the theatre finally returned to order.

Compared with her husband’s high spirits, Queen Louise—once the daughter of Comte de Ludwig IX of Hesse-Darmstadt—valued quiet and did not like noisy public occasions, and she especially loathed this obscene court theatre. That was because most of Wilhelm II’s mistresses came from the actresses here. One of them, a Frenchwoman named Marianne, was particularly beautiful and provocative.

Inside the box, when the Queen took the programme from an attendant, the first thing she saw was Marianne’s name listed as the female lead. She shook with anger at once, threw the programme onto the floor, and told her maid to prepare to leave. Fortunately, her daughter-in-law, Princess Louise (sharing the same name with her mother-in-law), noticed the situation in time. She hurried closer, gently took her mother-in-law’s arm from the left, and added a sweet smile; only then was the small family incident defused.

Because the Russian heir, Alexander I Pavlovich, had left St Petersburg a week earlier and was traveling by carriage to visit the courts of Europe, and was now about to reach Stettin, the capital of West Pomerania, Crown Prince Wilhelm III had been ordered to set out for Stettin early this morning to welcome the Russian Grand Duke Alexander. Even at the fastest pace, he would not return to Berlin until the latter half of the night.

It must be noted that Alexander I Pavlovich’s status as Russia’s heir was deliberately marked in official diplomatic dispatches issued by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Privy Council to Russian missions across Europe—by order of the reigning Empress Catherine II, Alexander’s grandmother. This meant that Catherine II had completely given up on her disobedient son, Paul I Petrovich.

Yet when the Crown Princess picked up the programme the Queen had thrown down and glanced over it, she unexpectedly noticed a familiar song: “Farewell to the Women of France.” The lead singer was Marianne, the French opera actress now on stage; and the lyricist and composer was also a Frenchman—an enemy who had humiliated her and her husband, the House of Hohenzollern, and all of Prussia: André Franck.

The Crown Princess looked uneasily at Wilhelm II and found his expression calm and untroubled, without the slightest displeasure. In truth, she had no need to worry. As heirs to enlightened monarchy, Europe’s royal nobility had long refused to judge art by the friend-or-foe distinction. In earlier years, when the French philosophe Voltaire visited Sanssouci, he improvised a poem at a banquet that savagely mocked Prussian autocracy and conservatism—yet Frederick the Great still chatted and laughed with the guests throughout, never once losing his temper.

“The moment of parting has arrived; you stare into my eyes, uneasy.

I catch the scent of home, while thunderclouds gather in the distance.

A misty blue current trembles; worry rises at the temples.

Supreme honor calls to us; the wind rises from the marching of the ranks.

...”

On the stage, Marianne—dressed as a German peasant woman—sang with feeling in French. At the most intense passages, crystalline tears rolled down her cheeks; the melody, striking straight to the heart, stirred a powerful resonance in the audience, as if they had returned to the Seven Years’ War, to the scenes of seeing loved ones off to the battlefield.

Soon, more than half the Prussian nobles in the theatre stood and joined in the chorus:

“Farewell, father’s land—remember us.

Farewell, beloved eyes—we shall not flinch from the line.

Farewell, beloved eyes. Farewell, farewell! Farewell, farewell!

...”

At this time, Talleyrand was also present, seated in a box with a rather poor view. The Comtesse beside him, draped in a purple fur cloak, was likewise humming the same “Farewell to the Women of France” that Marianne was singing on stage. From time to time, the glamorous noblewoman would turn her head and ask her French lover whether he knew the lyricist and composer.

“Of course,” Talleyrand said lazily after taking a sip of Champagne. “In fact, André Franck is the sovereign I now serve—and the supreme commander of 200,000 French troops.”

“So that’s how it is!” The Comtesse’s eyes shone with delight, her face alight with infatuation. “My dear—when your sovereign, that most exalted French Marshal, visits Berlin, you must introduce me.”

Talleyrand had long grown used to this. He casually ran his hand over the Comtesse’s full breast, then chuckled under his breath. “Of course. In fact, that day will not be far off.”

Last night, Talleyrand had received top-secret intelligence relayed by MI6: the Elbe Army Group had successfully arrived before Leipzig. If nothing unexpected happened, it would take Dessau today, cross the Elbe, and continue north. The head of intelligence had suggested that Talleyrand go to ground or leave Berlin to avoid Prussian reprisals, but he refused. He declared that he wanted to see with his own eyes the look of utter dismay on Wilhelm II and all the Prussian nobles who had once despised him.

Thirty minutes into the performance at the Court Theatre, a royal aide-de-camp hurried into the King’s box. After this Prussian major whispered a sentence into Wilhelm II’s ear, the Prussian monarch’s face changed abruptly. He rose at once and left the royal box without looking back, abandoning the Queen and the Crown Princess.

Perhaps because his mind was elsewhere, Wilhelm II even struck his head against the doorframe on the way out. Talleyrand, watching from the box opposite, took in the entire scene, delighted beyond measure. He bit hard at his mistress’s neck, then toyed with his golden cane, idly inventing several new tricks.

When the King returned to the Berlin City Palace, he received a more detailed military briefing: Andréan France had struck first, launching an offensive against Prussia and her loyal allies. An aged War Minister—stooped, with a deeply wrinkled, orange-peel face—began to report the latest dispatches to Wilhelm II.

“It is reported that the Landgraviate of Hesse fell to the French ten days ago. Because French agents sealed off the news, we did not learn of it until this morning. In the south, the Duchy of Anhalt surrendered yesterday at noon; the Duchy of Magdeburg is unlikely to hold out past this afternoon. Apart from the French surprise attack without a declaration of war, there is evidence that the Elector of Saxony has also gone over to the French, because the besiegers of Magdeburg are entirely Saxon troops. We suspect André has concluded an anti-Prussian military alliance with August I...

“As to enemy strength: by the intelligence now in hand, it should be the strongest formation under the French Command Headquarters—the Army of the Meuse—with total strength not less than 45,000 men. Artillery is estimated at 140 guns; cavalry numbers are unknown. In addition, at least 30,000 Saxon troops and their dependents have taken part in the offensive and occupied Hesse, Anhalt, and Magdeburg...

“Without doubt, once the French cross the Elbe, they will take Zerbst and Belzig—both undefended towns—then continue north to attack Potsdam and Berlin. Only hours ago, Field Marshal Wichard von Möllendorf ordered the main body of the Grand Prussian Army, 80,000 strong, to concentrate and move to Potsdam, and to establish a defensive position around Michendorf and Nuthetal, about three leagues—roughly fourteen kilometres—south of the city, ready to block the French advance on Berlin.”

“Michendorf?” Wilhelm II found the small town on the map, then turned and pressed the War Minister. “Why does Field Marshal Möllendorf not organize the defense at Niemegk, twelve leagues away?”

No one in the room—civil or military—wished to answer such a foolish question. Wilhelm II plainly imagined the movement of tens of thousands of men as far simpler than it was. Moreover, the region around Niemegk offered no defensible terrain; the French could easily slip past on either flank, step outside the Prussian blocking line, and continue their march on Berlin. To fight at Michendorf would, first, allow terrain to slow the French greatly; and second, buy time for Prussia to mobilize and concentrate more forces, enabling a major counteroffensive to encircle or expel the invaders.

Prince Heinrich of Prussia, the King’s brother, gestured to the diplomatic adviser Lucchesini. Lucchesini understood; yet after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped forward and said to the King, “Your Majesty, André’s envoy is still in Berlin. Should I consult with Comte de Talleyrand, and seek to end this war by negotiation?”

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At these words, Wilhelm II flew into a rage. He sprang up from his chair and shouted, “Negotiate? Damn it—how? Shall we imitate the Secret Treaty of Valmy—sign a humiliating pact beneath the walls of Berlin, pay a vast sum of money, cede a great swathe of land, and then abandon three loyal allies to be handled at Dresden’s pleasure?”

After drawing a breath, the King’s anger rose again at the thought of that French cripple. He summoned the aide waiting outside the door and barked, “Go—find that French nobleman named Talleyrand in the Court Theatre. Arrest him. Throw him into a Berlin prison, and prepare to let him face the punishment of our laws.”

Alvensleben shook his head. He did not immediately try to reason with a monarch blinded by fury; instead, he stepped out first, intercepted the aide outside, and instructed him in a low voice: “Remember: His Majesty’s order is only protective house arrest. Confine the French envoy to his apartment building and do not allow him to go out at will—but continue supplying food, cakes, and wine as usual. Also, post more men to protect Talleyrand from Berlin mobs.”

Wilhelm II’s final order was given to Crown Prince Wilhelm III and Queen Louise: they were to follow the ministers of the Privy Council and depart Berlin early tomorrow morning, heading east to East Prussia and Königsberg to avoid the flames of war. He himself would go south at once to Potsdam to join Field Marshal Möllendorf.

On the night of February sixteenth, King Wilhelm II and the Prussian high command held an emergency military conference at the Potsdam palace of Sanssouci. Because Berlin, from top to bottom, had displayed astonishing ignorance of the French invasion before the fall of Dessau, the war’s outbreak found every measure improvised and rushed.

Several senior generals and veteran feldmarschälle could not be assembled in time. Perhaps there was also a simpler reason: commanders already eighty years of age could not endure long travel and a night without sleep, and simply chose to make themselves unavailable. Of course, such defiance would have been unthinkable in the era of Frederick the Great.

That night, those present were Wilhelm II and the civilian officials and military advisers of his inner circle. The long-serving Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marquis de Haugwitz, and the former ambassador to France, Comte de Görtz, urged an immediate general offensive: to concentrate all forces and fight a decisive pitched battle against the French and their auxiliaries—the Saxons—on the open ground south of Potsdam, rather than continue to lose time. If the war dragged on, they argued, Prussia’s international standing would suffer severe damage and the people would endure the ravages of war.

Another faction, led by the old Prince of Hohenlohe and General Rudolf—men who had taken part in last year’s invasion of France—held to the belief that “the cunning André would never send only 40,000 French troops.” They insisted that a second, even a third French army corps must have joined the invasion of Prussia. Moreover, they were convinced the French had already adopted a defensive posture and most wanted to lure the Prussian army into an early attack, only to envelop and smash it.

Thus, General Rudolf emphasized that Prussia must hold to positional defense, buying time to recruit and concentrate more reserve and militia forces, thereby achieving an overwhelming numerical superiority over the French invaders and the Saxon army. These generals also proposed requesting reinforcements from the Duchy of Brunswick and the Electorate of Hanover in the north, and from the Austrians in the south. Victory, they argued, mattered more than national pride.

But that last remark provoked fierce backlash from the civilian officials, who mocked the old Prince of Hohenlohe and General Rudolf for having spent too long in French prisoner-of-war camps—“they’ve grown stupid, and their courage has shrunk.” They insisted that such timid fear of the French aggressors would only make the entire Prussian people suffer.

These exchanges swiftly escalated into an open clash between civilians and generals. Soon it moved from insults to sleeves being rolled up, as both sides prepared to come to blows. Only the timely intervention of King Wilhelm II and Field Marshal Möllendorf stopped the conference from turning into an outright brawl.

The meeting also included those who tried to stand between the extremes, such as the long-legged General Blücher, who had successfully escaped French captivity. He believed the French, having come from afar, would certainly attack and must be guarded against seriously; yet he also considered that Brandenburg, Potsdam, and Berlin lay on the North German Plain, lacking the mountainous defensibility of eastern France. Pure strategic defense, therefore, might not suffice against the ferocious French and their auxiliaries, and responses had to vary with the shifting battlefield situation.

In truth, Blücher was merely a bold cavalry commander—energetic, daring, eager to act. Yet because he lacked a shrewd, intelligent chief of staff to support him, his proposals and methods were afterward often proven rash, crude, unrealistic, and at times even absurd.

Seeing the discord on display, General Blücher declared that unity in war mattered more than any other power. His words sounded clever, but they missed the point entirely. By definition, the “military conference” at Sanssouci could itself be taken as a synonym for indecision. This dispute dissolved into chaos, and ended in mutual compromise.

In overall disposition, Prussia initially deployed 115,000 troops around Brandenburg, Potsdam, and Berlin (French and Saxon forces together totaled 120,000). Of these, General Blücher commanded 55,000 men to defend the southern approaches to Potsdam; whether to fight a decisive battle would depend on circumstances. The old Prince of Hohenlohe held 40,000 men as a reserve in Brandenburg. General Rudolf was responsible for Berlin’s defense with only 10,000 city troops. King Wilhelm II, Field Marshal Möllendorf, and the civilian advisory council remained at Sanssouci under the protection of 10,000 men, directing the whole from the center.

Strictly speaking, the Prussian deployment was not wrong. Whether to hold positional defense or to seek battle could both be workable approaches. The flaw lay in General Blücher’s insistence on “adapting on the spot,” which demanded officers with high command skill, soldiers with strong combat proficiency, and robust communications and logistics. The Prussian army, by this time, had fallen too far behind to sustain the new style of war that had emerged after 1792.

Even after the disastrous defeat of the 1792 invasion of France, Prussia’s civil and military leadership had not engaged in serious self-examination. They still fantasized about the zenith of Frederick the Great, living under his lingering shadow and recalling the old terror of Rossbach, as though the war of 1792 had never happened.

At the Russians’ urging, Wilhelm II and his generals and subjects hastily declared war on France again. Yet they were utterly ignorant of the fact that the French had struck first and invaded; they had made no preparations at all. They failed to grasp that the nature of European war had fundamentally changed since 1792. War was no longer a gentleman’s duel between kings for land, population, and honor, but a struggle to the death between opposing creeds. André was certain that if he lost, he would have only suicide or exile; therefore in every war he fought with everything he had, without pause or mercy.

In such total war, a commander should value: the soldiers’ fervor and willingness to sacrifice; the initiative and mobility of officers; and powerful communications and logistics.

In all these, the Prussians had achieved none. Wages had been in arrears for half a year, and forced recruitment in the short term had depressed morale. The residual authority of Frederick the Great still prevented open mutiny, but fear of the French remained constant. Veterans who had been taken prisoner would, from time to time, recall the overwhelming French artillery barrages, and this in turn influenced the mood of the new recruits.

French soldiers, by contrast, were sustained not only by the revolutionary creed of liberty, equality, and sacrifice, but also by ample rations and pay; by the welfare policy of land in exchange for military service; and by a promotion system that rewarded merit and battlefield achievement regardless of birth. All this kept their morale high as ever, filled them with confidence in victory, and made them fearless on the battlefield.

Moreover, the Prussian officer corps—once the object of envy across Europe—had, in reality, become a retirement home for men in their seventies and eighties. Among the Prussian decision-makers present at the conference, the youngest commander, General Blücher, was already fifty-three; meanwhile, in the French camp, generals under thirty were everywhere. They were vigorous, and like their young supreme commander, possessed a rough Frankish temperament, full of hunger for victory and aggression. They not only studied new strategic and tactical theories well, but could also work through the night without fatigue.

In the use of new military technology, Prussian civilian officials, citing lack of funds and severe shortages, had still not erected the French-invented semaphore system from Berlin City Hall to the command headquarters at Sanssouci. On the Elbe Army Group’s side, accompanying French mechanical engineers had already extended the signal stations from before Leipzig to every forward battlefield north of the Elbe, thereby coordinating perfectly the operational deployments of all French formations, including the Saxons.

On tactics, as Colonel Scharnhorst, the Prussian chief of operations, put it: “The Prussian army is an antique displayed in Europe’s military museum. Its organization and order exist for formal battle on the plain—square against square—where the decisive factor is marching in perfect alignment until within forty or fifty paces, then firing volleys... In the war of 1792, these tactics were proven long obsolete.”

Although many French units, lacking the drill of the Prussian army, could not match it in rigid maneuver, they were far superior in fighting as skirmishers. Under swarming skirmish screens, with good weapons and savage artillery support, Prussia’s line formations were no match for France’s mobile battalion columns.

While the Elbe Army Group headquarters could grasp the front-line situation quickly, the military direction from Sanssouci was in disarray, with repeated blunders. A concentration order issued by Field Marshal Möllendorf on the morning of the sixteenth was canceled by Wilhelm II that evening. The King feared an empty Brandenburg would invite French exploitation, so he approved only half the force—about 40,000 men—to defend south of Potsdam, reinforced by 15,000 city troops arriving from Berlin (a reserve force akin to France’s National Guard), for a total of 55,000.

Yet when the main French force advanced rapidly to the town of Niemegk, less than 50 kilometres from Potsdam, Prussian intelligence from west of the Elbe indicated that the would-be threat to Brandenburg consisted of only 20,000 weak Saxon troops. Wilhelm II and his staff hastily revised their plan again, ordering Field Marshal Möllendorf to move most of the remaining 40,000 men in Brandenburg to defensive positions around Michendorf and Nuthetal, more than 50 kilometres away.

In less than two days, the Potsdam headquarters received another unconfirmed report: large French forces had been sighted near Zossen and Wildau, southeast of Berlin. The 30,000 reinforcements from Brandenburg, not yet settled in their new positions, were driven on again—hungry, thirsty, exhausted—forced into a rapid march by officers cracking whips and shouting curses, to block a French force of unknown strength 40 kilometres away.

In mid-February, just as the Prussians began mobilizing, the distribution of the 120,000-strong French Elbe Army Group under General Moncey (including 20,000 Saxons) was as follows:

The First Column (left wing), 25,000 men—20,000 French and 5,000 Saxons—supported by several inland gunboats. Commanded by General Hoche, it set out from Magdeburg on the Elbe; its advance elements had reached the town of Genthin, and its direction of attack would be Brandenburg, 30 kilometres to the east.

The Second Column (center), 55,000 men—45,000 French and 10,000 Saxons—formed the main strength of the Army Group. Commanded personally by General Moncey, it advanced north, had already occupied the town of Niemegk, less than 50 kilometres from Potsdam and only 35 kilometres from the Prussian line at Michendorf.

The Third Column (right wing), 10,000 men—5,000 French and an equal number of Saxons—commanded by General Nansouty, with cavalry making up half the force. This column would at any moment bypass the Prussian positions around Michendorf and Nuthetal, sweep to the right into the southeast of Berlin, and while drawing the Prussian main body into movement, could also feint against Berlin and cut off Prussian forces attempting to flee.

The Fourth Column (reserve), 30,000 men, all French, commanded by General Lefebvre, who excelled in defense, stationed at the Dessau camp on the south bank of the Elbe and the Roßlau camp on the north bank. This reserve served not only as the Elbe Army Group’s general reserve, but also to guard against danger from the rear—such as the Duchy of Brunswick and the Electorate of Hanover to the northwest, the allied Electorate of Saxony to the south, and Austrian forces.

Beyond direct military confrontation, France and Prussia were also engaged in a diplomatic struggle.

Even though French forces had penetrated deep into Prussian territory, King Stanisław II of Poland still refused the alliance and expeditionary request brought by the French envoy, General Penduvas, and at the insistence of the Russian ambassador continued to maintain neutrality. Nevertheless, Penduvas’s mission was not without gain: Generals Kościuszko and Dąbrowski decided to send the newly formed Free Polish Legion, 12,000 strong, to the Prussian Silesian front to support French operations in the west.

In Vienna, Schönbrunn rejected the Prussian ambassador’s request for military assistance, because Austria was then preoccupied with nibbling at the fertile lands of northern Italy, and had formed a military standoff—sporadic skirmishing—against two southern French armies along the Swiss and Savoyard directions, leaving it no time to attend to the northern front. Moreover, André’s envoy, at an opportune moment, offered terms: Austria would remain neutral in exchange for part of Prussia’s Lower Silesian province.

Thanks to the lobbying of Comte de Narbonne, and the firm opposition of the country’s merchant associations, the Electorate of Hanover ultimately refused to align with the Duchy of Brunswick and attack the French along the Rhine to relieve Prussian pressure on the Elbe front. By late February, just as 30,000 Brunswick troops had concentrated and were about to march south to the Rhine, grim news arrived from the Baltic.

The Swedes had suddenly entered the war, formally declaring war on Prussia, with the pretext that Prussia had seized Swedish Pomerania. In truth, even André himself did not know when his fortune had turned so completely that the Swedes had become so chivalrous and righteous...