LETTER LXV.

Berlin.

The day after the reviews, the King, attended by his nephew, the Prince of Prussia, and the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, set out for Magdeburg, where there is a camp of 15,000 men. He afterwards will proceed to Silesia, and his new acquired dominions in Poland, and is not expected at Potsdam for six weeks at least.

His Majesty makes the same circuit twice every year.—Surely no King in Europe can have such a thorough knowledge of his dominions and subjects as this monarch.—His absence from Berlin has made but little relaxation in the duty, and none in the discipline of the troops. The reviews were scarcely over, when field-days began. There are 1500 or 2000 of the troops belonging to this garrison, exercised in the park almost every morning, besides those who appear on the parade for the ordinary guards.

A review, such as that which I endeavoured to describe, is undoubtedly one of the finest shows that can be exhibited: but when a spectator of sensibility reflects on the means by which these poor fellows are brought to this wonderful degree of accuracy, he will pay a severe tax for this splendid exhibition.—The Prussian discipline on a general view is beautiful; in detail it is shocking.

When the young rustic is brought to the regiment, he is at first treated with a degree of gentleness; he is instructed by words only how to walk, and to hold up his head, and to carry his firelock, and he is not punished, though he should not succeed in his earliest attempts:—they allow his natural aukwardness and timidity to wear off by degrees:—they seem cautious of confounding him at the beginning, or driving him to despair, and take care not to pour all the terrors of their discipline upon his astonished senses at once. When he has been a little familiarised to his new state, he is taught the exercise of the firelock, first alone, and afterwards with two or three of his companions. This is not entrusted to a corporal or serjeant; it is the duty of a subaltern officer. In the park at Berlin, every morning may be seen the Lieutenants of the different regiments exercising with the greatest assiduity, sometimes a single man, at other times three or four together; and now, if the young recruit shows neglect or remissness, his attention is roused by the officer’s cane, which is applied with augmenting energy, till he has acquired the full command of his firelock.—He is taught steadiness under arms, and the immobility of a statue;—he is informed, that all his members are to move only at the word of command, and not at his own pleasure;—that speaking, coughing, sneezing, are all unpardonable crimes; and when the poor lad is accomplished to their mind, they give him to understand, that now it is perfectly known what he can do, and therefore the smallest deficiency will be punished with rigour. And although he should destine every moment of his time, and all his attention, to cleaning his arms, taking care of his clothes, and practising the manual exercise, it is but barely possible for him to escape punishment; and if his captain happens to be of a capricious or cruel disposition, the ill-fated soldier loses the poor chance of that possibility.

As for the officers, they are not indeed subjected to corporal punishment, but they are obliged to bestow as unremitting attention on duty as the men. The subalterns are almost constantly on guard, or exercising the recruits: the Captain knows, that he will be blamed by his Colonel, and can expect no promotion, if his company be not as perfect as the others: the Colonel entirely loses the King’s favour if his regiment should fail in any particular: the General is answerable for the discipline of the brigade, or garrison, under his immediate command. The King will not be satisfied with the General’s report on that subject, but must examine every thing himself; so that from his Majesty, down to the common centinel, every individual is alert. And as the King, who is the chief spring and primum mobile of the whole, never relaxes, the faculties of every subordinate person are kept in constant exertion: the consequence of which is, that the Prussian army is the best disciplined, and the readiest for service at a minute’s warning, of any now in the world, or perhaps that ever was in it. Other monarchs have attempted to carry discipline to the same degree of perfection, and have begun this plan with astonishing eagerness. But a little time and new objects have blunted their keenness, and divided their attention. They have then delegated the execution to a commander in chief, he to another of inferior rank, and thus a certain degree of relaxation having once taken place, soon pervades the whole system; but the perseverance of the King of Prussia is without example, and is perhaps the most remarkable part of his extraordinary character.

That degree of exertion which a man of a vigorous mind is capable of making on some very important occasion, the King of Prussia has made for thirty years at a stretch, without permitting pleasure, indolence, disgust, or disappointment, to interrupt his plan for a single day.—And he has obliged every person through the various departments of his government to make, as far as their characters and strength could go, the same exertions.—I leave you to judge in what manner such a man must be served, and what he is capable of performing.