The life and adventures of Ernst Moritz Arndt, the singer of the German fatherland

Preface

1 HAVE been asked to prefix a few pages of introduction to this book, which resembles my own " Life and Times of Stein," recently published, so far that it might almost as appropriately bear for a second title, " Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age."

The Napoleonic age is only now beginning to be studied from a political point of view. It has not hitherto been understood that the wars which filled it concealed a great European revolution, in which the most important ideas of the present age first took shape. It has been overlooked that the conquests and reconquests and the territorial redistributions brought about, particularly in Germany, by those wars are important for their own sake, and not merely as incidents in a military romance. It has also been overlooked that the European Revolution, which was involved in Napoleon's fall, had a character of its own, and was by no means a mere extension to all Europe of the ideas of the French Revolution. If we try to analyse and trace to their origin the most important movements that have occupied the Continent since the fall of Napoleon, we shall not find iv Preface.

ourselves led back nearly so much as is supposed to 1789 ; we shall rather be arrested by the German War of Liberation, by the Spanish rising of 1808, and by the reconstruction of the Prussian State after Tilsit, Beside " the immortal ideas of 1789," of which we have heard so much, there were immortal ideas of 1808 and of 1813, which have been scarcely less influential.

The cause which has prevented us from clearly seeing this has been the bewildering abundance of military incident which fills the period. Neither historians nor their readers have much attention to bestow upon the political consequences of the campaigns, because the campaigns themselves are so absorbing. Napoleon might seem, by a second Eighteenth of Brumaire, to have established the same sort of despotism over the history of his age that he established over the age itself. We are so occupied in praising or denouncing him that we can scarcely attend to anything else.

In my opinion it is better to denounce than to praise him, but it would be better still for writers on the period to disregard him more than they do. We may be quite sure, in the first place, that we enormously exaggerate the effect of his personal qualities in creating his empire ; but even if it were otherwise, why should an individual be allowed to eclipse states and nations ? If Napoleon were the greatest man that ever lived, he would still be less great than Prussia or Germany ; and yet, as the history of this period has hitherto been written, this individual, with his fifty years of life, has been allowed to throw those great secular growths wholly into the shade. How he overthrew the Prussian State in a few weeks (not

Preface. v

much less quickly, in fact, than he himself was overthrown in 1 815) is related with profuse rhetoric of admiration ; but what this Prussian State was which he overthrew, the French and most of the English historians of the time are ignorant to an incredible degree. What is really interesting in the campaign of 1806 is not Napoleon, but Prussia. By what exact combination of skill and luck Napoleon won a battle or two is of trifling importance, compared to the question by what secret disease the Monarchy of Frederick the Great had been so far undermined that it could not abide the shock.

All this I have discussed at length elsewhere. But a difficulty arises when, after arriving at the conclusion that the Napoleonic age, considered politically, deserves to be known much better than it is, we inquire how is a knowledge of it to be generally diffused ?

That popular knowledge of history, which is none the less important because specialists may think that it cannot but be superficial, must always be imparted by means of personal narrative. States and governments, not persons, are indeed, as I hold, the real subject of history, and the specialist may think that the prominence which has commonly been given to individuals in historical narrative is unphilosophical But it is one question how history ought to be written for the purposes of science, and another by what means some useful knowledge of it may be generally diffused. The mass of mankind, those who have little leisure for reading, and no motive for it but amusement, will not read any more about states and governments than can vi Preface.

be presented to them in biographies of famous men. If, therefore, we wish to give currency to a truer view of the Napoleonic age, and to turn popular attention towards that aspect of it which has hitherto been overlooked, namely, the permanent changes which it made in European politics, and away from its mere passing brawls, which were so incredibly noisy, w T e must evidently begin by giving prominence to the persons through whose lives this aspect of the age can be contemplated.

I have myself been led by this consideration to write the life of Stein on a large scale, and for the same reason I have heard with interest of the proposal to collect and edit the various autobiographical writings of Arndt.

The English reader of this book will find himself contemplating an aspect of the Napoleonic age which is likely to be somewhat new to him. He will neither look at it, as he has often done, from England, watching the wars from a distance, and from the heart of a society which was only made more insular and more narrow in its notions by the prodigious revolutions which it witnessed ; nor, on the other hand, will he watch it from the camp of Napoleon or of Wellington, where the absorbing tumult of war distracts the attention from permanent changes and results. He will watch it in the main from Germany, but not, as he has so often done before, through the eyes of some mere philosopher or recluse poet, of Goethe or Schiller or Jean Paul, but through the eyes of one who felt intensely the pressure of his time, who himself joined and suffered in the

Preface. vii

struggle of his country against Napoleon. In this biography, therefore, the reader can without trouble, and not without pleasure, make himself acquainted with the Napoleonic age as it appeared to an ordinary civilian, who, though himself but a minor actor in the play, knew personally many of the principal actors and without often taking a share in great events was sometimes a spectator of them, and generally mixed in the crowd which met to discuss them on the morrow. He will not be required to study intricate matters of legislation or diplomacy, but he will be introduced to the difficulties, the abuses, the miseries, which made necessary the vast internal and external changes out of which modern Germany has risen.

This book, in fact, may serve the purpose for which the historical novel was invented, and in a better way.

When a Scott relates the adventures of some young lover or soldier playing a minor part in one of the great scenes of history, it is supposed that his reader imbibes history unconsciously, and catches the character of an age without the trouble of studying its documents. But the theory of the historical novel is open to many objections, which have led Gervinus to pronounce upon it the damning sentence that it "does not satisfy the taste for art nor yet cultivate the taste for history." How can the novelist teach history unless he knows it himself? Yet it is greatly to underrate the difficulty of acquiring a true knowledge of history to suppose that a novelist is at all likely to have it. From such writings, in fact, we do not commonly catch the character of an age, but only the character of a particular novelist's imagiviii Preface.

nation ; to them the famous words are eminently applicable :

But in a candid biography like this of Arndt's we really do catch in some degree the spirit of an age. Here we see, not what a poet living in some other age fancied may have been the feelings of a German living under Napoleon's tyranny, but what the feelings of such a German actually were.

I think these memoirs, simple and modest as they are, have a right to live. Arndt never imagined himself to be a great man, nor supposed either that anything he had done deserved, on its own account, to be recorded, or that any of his thoughts deserved to be remembered for their wisdom or depth. But he led such a life, and had such a character, that his autobiography necessarily, as I said, has the value of a historical novel. His life reflects his time, because it was decisively influenced by it. Nine out of ten Professors in Greifswald or any other German University led substantially the same sort of life under Napoleon that they would have led earlier in the Holy Roman Empire, or later in the German Confederation. They gave their lectures, wrote their treatises, read, smoked, and in due time departed to another state of existence. But Arndt struggled with Napoleon as closely and continually as any German prince or soldier. Napoleon, who possibly never heard his name, determined the complexion of his whole life. And moreover

Preface, ix

Arndt's character was a remarkably clear mirror for his time to reflect itself in. He was all candour, warmth, and cheerfulness. He has no peculiarity which might have coloured his view of things. He has the Homeric ballad-singer's freedom of narrative and description. He sees and enjoys everything, and he does not seem tempted to alter or improve or philosophise too much upon what he sees.

Hence it is that not only the persons and occurrences of his age, but the general character by which it is distinguished from the ages before and after it, is faithfully reflected in his narrative. There is, indeed, a family likeness among all the famous writers of the Napoleonic period.

The romances in verse and prose of Scott, the Eastern tales of Byron, the romantic ballads of Uhland, the war-songs of Korner and Schenkendorf, and the " Hermannsschlacht " of Kleist, represent in literature that strongly-marked time. Now in Arndt's life and character may be seen what the influences were which gave those writings their common character. A society so disturbed with perpetual change that a quiet professor leads almost the life of a Robin Hood, would produce a literature full of incident and stirring adventure, a literature inclining towards the ballad and romance. But there is something more special in this literature, there is a great idea working in it, and whence this idea came we see in a moment when we follow such a life as Arndt's. It might seem at first sight as if those poets aimed at nothing but fantastic wildness and variety, so outlandish are the scenes to which they take us, so x Preface.

extravagant are the topics, taken from the wildest fancies both of the East and the West, which they treat. But it was no mere accident which just at that moment opened such a rich vein of romance, nor was it a caprice of taste which caused the public to take pleasure again in fancies which the eighteenth century seemed to have outgrown. Reaction, no doubt, had much to do with it, and the French Revolution, which saves the students of that age so much trouble in seeking causes, had also much to do with it. But another cause began to operate in the very middle of the Napoleonic age, which was more directly adapted to produce the precise result than any of those which are usually alleged. For what this group of writers make it their especial business to describe is nations. We say of Scott that he " discovered Scotland." In fact, the mine upon which he was so lucky as to light was a new nation, or rather two nations, which had hitherto been scarcely known. He revealed to us the Highland clans, barbarians in the midst o r civilisation ; he revealed also the Lowland Scotch, by marking with rich detail and humour their national peculiarities. Among the various points of difference which critics have noted between Scott and Shakespeare, this is the most important, that what he paints is not so much the individual, nor even the class, but rather the tribe or clan, that the differences for which he has an eye are those which are produced by distinct locality and distinct history. The Oriental poems of which the same age was so fruitful are evidently suggested by the same idea. Byron undertakes to describe "the clime of the East, the land of the Sun !" He seems to say, " If

Preface. xi

you want quaint ways of life, if you want national peculiarities, come with me ; I can show you people as wild as the wildest Highlanders. As Scott has shown you how the North differs from the South, I will show you how the East differs from the West." And there is the same idea, though here we have another aspect of it, at the bottom of the war-songs and ballads of the German poets of the same time. They too are thinking of a nation, of national character and national peculiarities ; only they do not contemplate a foreign nation and amuse their fancy with its peculiarities, but they become for the first time conscious of their own nationality, and of the preciousness of it.

Now of course it would be easy to show that this poetry of nationalities had been growing up gradually for a long time. Gotz v. Berlichingen (1773) is as intensely, though not so passionately, German as the " Hermannsschlacht " of Kleist : Macpherson had preceded Scott by as many years. But Arndt's life will show us what the influence was which gave this bent to all poetic imaginations in the latter years of the war. It was Napoleon's attack on the principle of nationality ; it was the imminent danger of the absorption of all nations in a universal Empire. He himself, the singer of the "German Fatherland," has told us that the feeling which that song expresses was originally excited by the disasters of Germany in 1805-6. Before that, he tells us, he had rather felt as a Swede, but then "my Swedish particularism died within me, the heroes of Sweden in my heart became now mere echoes of the past ; when Germany, through her discord, xii Preface.

had ceased to exist, my heart recognised her as one and united !'

The history of Europe from 1808 to 18 14 is the history of the revival of the principle of nationality in one nation after another. In 1808 the signal is given by Spain, Tyrol follows in 1809, Russia in 1812, Germany in 1813. Such a movement was the most poetical that can be imagined ; the idea of the Nation, which animates the classical literatures, and had been cherished in the more primitive peoples of modern Europe, but had long been obscured in some of the greatest of European countries, particularly Germany and Italy, now revived. The conception of a great corporate Person with a lifetime of many centuries, with a strongly-marked character, expressing itself in usages, religion and laws, in literature, popular songs and proverbs, and also in the fixed physical type, was of a nature, when it suddenly seized upon the imagination, to give birth to a whole new literature, because it was at once so comprehensive and so picturesque. To embody it properly a multitude of characters, exhibiting many variations of a common type, must be drawn, local usages and scenery must be described ; in fact, such a literature must deal freely with all that is most amusing, interesting, and romantic. And as in the nationality the great and humble, the king and the subject, the philosopher and the peasant, meet> so the literature which is inspired by this idea will be the most popular and the most various that can be conceived.

These are the characteristics of the kind of literature which flourished just then, and which we connect with

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the name of Scott, though the causes which created it were more strongly at work on the Continent than in England. On the Continent those causes have produced y besides the popular literature we have spoken of, a vast revival of interest in national antiquities, a new study of Germanic and Slavonic history ; for it is easy to show that the modern enthusiasm for national history has been by no means inspired merely by scientific curiosity, but was directly aroused by the struggle of the nations with Napoleon.

Arndt's personal contribution to this literature cannot be called contemptible, when we consider the vast popularity some of his lyrics have had. He, however, always speaks of it with a modesty which seems quite unaffected. But when we turn over his biography we may feel that though others worked the nationality vein much more industriously, yet the impulse which set them to work may be traced most clearly here. Here we may see how Napoleon's Empire roused by reaction the idea of nationality in an individual's mind ; then how, when his wanderings began, he passed from nation to nation, seeing all under the fresh influence of this idea. He had evidently a natural pleasure in noting the characteristics of different races, and now when all such distinctions, the result of local separateness, distinct institutions, distinct traditions, were in danger of being effaced, and all angles were rubbed down in the mill of a uniform military bureaucracy, his natural eye for nationalities is sharpened. This gives to his ramblings in Sweden, Germany, Poland, Russia and other countries an interest they would not otherwise have. He has a xiv Preface.

regretful pleasure in the variety of the human family ; he is the poet of the tribe. He seems to preach to us that though local influences may be narrowing, though local opinions may be of the nature of prejudice, and though local attachments may threaten human affairs with stagnation, yet on the other hand the human being would cease to be poetical, cease to be interesting, if by military coercion, or any other sort of pressure, he could be unrooted from his locality and his traditions, and from being a hand-made product, representing all the individual thoughts of those whose care shaped him, could become a machine-made fabric, the exact counterpart of countless others turned out from the same factory.

For all these reasons these simple Memoirs seem to me worth looking at, even at this distance of time. They may serve as a sort of Erckmann-Chatrian novel for Germany, showing us the side of the Napoleonic age which history for the most part overlooks ; and at the same time they have the advantage over every novel that they are true, and also that they make us acquainted with an interesting and a celebrated man.

J. R. SEELEY.

March, 1879.

The following Memoir consists mainly of a translation of Arndt's autobiography, abridged in many places, and occasionally enlarged by quotations from his letters and other writings. Of his life in Russia, and during the War of Liberation he has given a double account, viz., that in the Autobiography, and another in his " Wanderings with Stein." In the chapters on these subjects, therefore, those which seemed the most suitable passages in both books have been selected. The account of the later years of his life is drawn from the numerous biographies, especially those of Schenkel, Langenberg, and Baur. Hoefer's " Arndt und die Universitat Greifswald," Arndt's " Nothgedrungener Bericht aus meinem Leben," and his " Briefe an eine Freundin."

Acknowledgment is due to Professor Seeley for the translations of " Der Gott der Eisen wachsen Hess," and the lines on the deaths of Arndt's wife and mother. The other verses are kindly contributed by another friend.

CHAPTER X.— Return to Germany

Death of Chazot. — Horrible scenes in Wilna. — Konigsberg. — Enthusiasm. — Landwehr and Landsturm. — Song of the German Fatherland. — Soldiers' Catechism. — Leaves Konigsberg for Kalisch 227

CHAPTER XL— The War of Liberation.

Dresden. — Korner's house. — Arming the people. — The Central Administration. — Deaths of Kutasoff and Moreau. — Visit to Berlin and Rtigen.^-Death of Scharnhorst. — At Reichenbach. — The armistice. — Leipzig after the battle. — Follows the advance of the Allies to Frankfort. — Abdication of Napoleon .... 260

CHAPTER XII.— After the War

The Central Administration at Frankfort. — A visit to the Upper Rhine and Strasburg. — Stein at Frankfort. — Hardenberg. — A visit to Nassau. — Fraulein vom Stein. — On foot to Berlin. — The Congress of Vienna 299

CHAPTER XIII.— The Year 1815

Return of Napoleon. — Arndt goes to the Rhine. — Mutiny of the Saxon troops. — Battle of Waterloo.— Stein and Goethe in Cologne. — The terms of peace. — The^^Waj£hmaj\. " — A visit to Berlin, Rugen, etc.— Sequel to the "History of Serfdom." . . . 324

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Contents, xix

CHAPTER XVII.— During his Suspension

Home Life. — Intercession of Stein.—" The Question of the Netherlands." — Death of Stein and Niebuhr.— Death of Wilibald. — " Recollections." — Restoration 401

CHAPTER XVIII.— The Frankfort Parliament. Dahlmann. — French Revolution. — Parliament at Frankfort. — Arndt's Election. — At Frankfort. — Correspondence with King of Prussia. — Arndt goes to Berlin with offer of the Crown to King. — Break-up of the Parliament • . . 418

CHAPTER XIX.— Last Years

Returns to Bonn. — Resigns his Professorship. — "Pro populo Germanico." — Marriage of his daughter. — Tercentenary of University of Greifswald. — Poems. — 90th Birthday. — Death and Funeral. — Monument 44°

LIFE OF E. M. ARNDT.

Chapter I. Childhood

Life at Schoritz and Dumsewitz.

It was at the close of the year 1769, the day after Christmas Day, that I first saw the light of this world. And indeed, I may say that I was well-born, high-born, and born under good auspices. Well-born, for I came into the world so strong and healthy that I could run alone at nine months old — an example which some of my sons have followed. High-born, for my birth-place was a house of very aristocratic appearance, newly-built and handsome, and approached by a magnificent flight of stone steps. Its hall and rooms were adorned with stories from the Greek mythology, in which all Olympus appeared, headed by Jupiter and Juno with their eagle and peacock. Born under good auspices, for faith and superstition alike attribute to a child born during one of the great feasts, gifts of a wonderful kind ; such as the power of telling fortunes and seeing ghosts.

I

My mother however, as a good Christian, did not attach any importance to such omens. Yet she battled gallantly for the significant name of Ernst, against my father, who would have preferred to name me Philip, after my godfather, and she conquered, as in such combats ladies generally do. Seriously speaking, however, truth forces me to confess that I sprang from a very lowly stock, and that my father, like the father of Horace, was nothing more than a freedman. His name was Ludvvig Nikolaus Arndt, and at the time of my birth he was the steward of the so-called Schoritz estates. My mother was Friederike Wilhelmine Schumacher. My birthplace, Schoritz,* was the most important place on the property, which consisted of half a dozen farms, large and small, and a few hamlets. My father was a kind of manager, and went by the name of "Herr Inspektor," while his underlings were dignified with the title of secretaries. This estate and a great part of the neighbouring peninsula of Zudar had formerly been a fief belonging to the noble family of the Von Kahlden of Riigen. About the middle of the eighteenth century a rich Herr von Kahlden built a fine house at Schoritz ; but at the time of the Seven Years' War, he sold his estate to General Count von Lowen, the Swedish Governor of Pomerania and Riigen. He acquired instead other large properties in Pomerania, but his circumstances were much reduced by the war and his own mismanagement; and now at Schoritz, the beautiful

* In the island of Riigen, which, together with Swedish Pomerania, was made Swedish territory by the Peace of Westphalia, and remained so until the year 1815.

mt. i— io.] A Ghost. 3

house and grounds of which were his creation, he played the part which superstition commonly assigns to those who have suffered great and heavy misfortunes, and it was through him I first learned to know the hot and cold sensations of ghostly fear. For, nightly, clad in a grey dressing-gown and white night-cap, with a pair of pistols under his arm, he was in the habit of making the round of his former domain, passing slowly between the two barns over the causeway which led to the house into the subterranean regions and cellars, and gliding out through the garden-door, examining the bee-hives, and then vanishing. This was the principal ghost ; but there was another terror with which the wonder-loving servant-folk used to excite our young imaginations ; namely, a pair of huge golden water-snakes, who were said to live in the great pond behind the barn, and were accused of sucking the cows.

General von Lovven had sold the estate to Count Malte Putbus, who was a member of one of the principal and oldest noble houses of the whole Swedish-Pomeranian district; indeed, some said he was descended from the old reigning family of the island. He was Hereditary-Marshal of the Principality of Riigen, and President of the Province of Stralsund.

My father, born in the year 1740, was one of the younger members of a large family. He was the son of a shepherd, a serf on the estate of Putbus and Darsband, The father of this shepherd, according to a family tradition, was a Swede by birth, who, coming into the country as a subordinate officer in the Swedish army, had married the daughter of a peasant of Putbus.

1 — 2

My father was kept steadily to school, for the shepherd was in tolerably easy circumstances for one in his position, and he was helped in his youth by his elder brother, Hinrich, who was much his senior, and who had accumulated a little property. He enjoyed the instructions of Jahn, schoolmaster and clerk of Vilmnitz, near Putbus, a fine old man whom I can remember in my childhood, and who was reckoned an excellent organist and arithmetic master. In this school my father learnt to write well and to be quick at figures ; so that his master, the Count, made him his " forest ranger," as they used to call it in Riigen ; and as he was a fine active lad, he took him with him on journeys and made use of him in business. Then the Seven Years' War broke out, and the Count obtained a post in the Swedish army, which crossed the seas to join the many enemies of Frederick the Great. The Count, aware of the capabilities and integrity of the young man, not only employed him as his secretary, but sent him on many dangerous and critical expeditions, such as fetching money from Hamburg. Later, he took him with him on several journeys to Stockholm. My father's life was spent in this manner from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year, and it was an excellent school for him. From residence in great cities, and intercourse with foreigners, though only as a servant, he acquired the manners of an educated man. In the first years of his service he obtained such favour with his master that he emancipated him, and employed him when at home in Putbus, as steward and secretary, until he made him inspector of the Schoritz property.

jet. i— 10.] Schoritz. 5

My mother, born in the year 1748, was the daughter of a village innkeeper and small landowner, in the parish of Lanken, nearly a mile* from Putbus. She also had received a better education than might have been expected from the position of her parents, having been taught with the children of a rich farmer named Bukert, at Garftitz, near Lanken. There she learned the rudiments of many things that were unusual at that time, so that she was considered an educated woman. She belonged to a family remarkable for their intellectual gifts, and especially for their talents in harp-playing, singing, and painting. But she was the crown of all — earnest, pious, thoughtful, and fearless. She never lost her calmness and presence of mind in any misfortunes. I see her still, with her beautiful large blue eyes, and her broad massive forehead, as if she were yet in bodily presence before me.

Schoritz was a pretty spot, lying on the shores of a bay which nearly separates the peninsula of Zudar from the rest of the island. The house was new and handsome, and there was a large flower-garden and several orchards. Close by was a little headland, which was often turned into an island by high tides in stormy weather. It was planted with birches and oaks, and we used to play there in summer-time. The farm was bounded towards the east by a splendid oak wood, in which thousands of rooks had their nests. A little farther on was the great wood of Krewe. I have pleasant recollections of those early days ; and among them, especially, of the many nice things brought us