[NTW III AAR] Für König und Vaterland! [A Prussian Account] [Updated: 24/02/2022]
Late March, 1806
It had been a particularly cold winter in Groß Döbern and a still frigid wind nipped at my exposed face and hands as I made the walk back to my family home, reddening them just as much as prolonged periods in the sun, the thin jacket and trousers I had chosen to clad myself in doing little to keep the chill of a late March away from me.
“Napoleon erklärt den Krieg, lesen Sie alles darüber!” Came the shrill yelling of a paper boy, looking much worse than myself as he stood and called out, the street icy underfoot and his shoes inadequate to the task of warmth, but perhaps even more worrying and far more threatening were the words that he shouted. Oh yes.
“Come here lad,” I implored him, pressing coin into his gelid hand, “for your troubles.”
“Thank you, Herr Zamoyski.”
I made no further comment, but turned all my attention to the paper that I now held before me, opening it wide and allowing a reflexive intake of breath as I studied the headline and the words written below.
Please permit me to take you back some way, my dear reader, so that I my explain how the state of Prussia had landed where it now had... and what this could mean for our future.
In the July of eighteen-six the warmonger Napoléon Bonaparte had forced the Emperor of Austria to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire, forming in its place a Rheinbund – a confederation of minor German states, a shield against his enemies and a great source of manpower and money for the Emperor of the French.
Our monarch had foreseen what was to happen and, although France annexed Bavaria, while Austria went on to claim and occupy northern Italy and Switzerland, entreaties of alliance and cooperation between my own fatherland and the members of the coalition against Napoléon were refused and even rebuked!
Prussia however had not stood idle, with France on our very doorstep, and those smaller states about us affixed with the rot of neutrality, King Wilhelm began mobilisation of an army to face whatever threats may come; even my own home of Upper Silesia was soon providing battalions of infantry, squadrons of cavalry, and a particular formation of light infantry that I would in time become as familiar with as my own name.
The die was cast not long before I purchased that same paper I then held, a British army under Arthur Wellesley landing on the coast and retaking Hanover from its large French garrison, setting in motion diplomatic overtures between his monarch and our own. In time the King of Great Britain formed with us a pact of alliance, those war-hawks of Russia and Austria spending little time pleading their own case to the König, all readily accepted.
Prince Louis Ferdinand was given command of an army, volunteers flocking to fill the ranks, Napoléon declaring war against this coalition of nations.
Had the French not made one mistake, there would have been far fewer volunteers and many more conscripts, but they did...
Reply With Quote
