Veritas (Atto Melani) (45 page)

His words had gradually risen to an exultant cry and all around the King and his unsheathed sword the soldiers were applauding and laughing and weeping with emotion. Joseph then turned with a
smile to the infantry soldier who just a moment earlier had been bewailing the lack of reinforcements: “Thou dost not wish more troops, dost thou?”

“God’s will! My liege,” he replied, raising his fist with tears in his eyes, “would you and I alone, without more help, could fight these foul French curs!”

“But was Prince Eugene there?” I asked the Abbot, deeply stirred.

Atto had broken off for a moment, wearied by his long narrative, and was sipping a glass of water. He put the glass down on the table but did not answer me.

“That night, the night before the final battle, no one slept, neither the imperial troops or the French,” he went on. “Now entertain conjecture of a time when creeping murmur
and the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp through the foul womb of night the hum of either army stilly sounds, that the fixed sentinels almost receive the secret
whispers of each other’s watch: fire answers fire, and through their paly flames each battle sees the other’s umber’d face; steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
piercing the night’s dull ear, and from the tents the armourers, accomplishing the knights, with busy hammers closing rivets up, give dreadful note of preparation. Proud of their numbers and
secure in soul, the confident and over-lusty French do the low-rated imperials play at dice; and chide the cripple tardy-gaited night who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp so tediously
away.

Nor does Joseph sleep. The officers offer him their company but he refuses and leaves his tent: “I and my bosom must debate awhile, and then I would no other company.”

He borrows from a field assistant a hooded cloak that conceals his face and explores the camp, pretending to be an ordinary captain.

The poor condemned imperials are exhausted. Their gesture sad investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats presenteth them unto the gazing moon so many horrid ghosts. But the royal captain of
this ruin’d band, he who soon shall be Joseph the Victorious, walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, goes forth and visits all his host, bids them good morrow with a modest smile and
calls them brothers, friends and countrymen. A largess universal like the sun his liberal eye doth give to every one, thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all, behold, as may unworthiness
define, a little touch of Joseph in the night.

Still hidden in his hood, he lingers with a group of infantry soldiers. One of them says: “Tomorrow perhaps we will die, but the King of Romans need not fear anything: he is surely asleep
calmly in his tent. He will fight as well, but is not as we are.”

Then Joseph replies: “I think the King is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man. Therefore when he
sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are.”

Then as dawn approaches, he is left all by himself: “Upon the King! let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins lay on the King! We must bear all.
O hard condition, twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath of every fool, whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! What infinite heart’s-ease must kings neglect, that private
men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, but
poison’d flattery? O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts; possess them not with fear; take from them now the sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers pluck their hearts from
them. Not today, O Lord, O, not today, think not upon the fault my forebear, Charles the Fifth, made in compassing the sacred crown imperial! He did make expiation, abdicating and becoming then a
monk. And every day I have the holy mass said for his soul, and churches and monasteries have I and my good father had erected so the abject stain of moneylenders’ loot shall be washed clean
from the imperial crown. O why is it not dawn? The day, my friends, and every other thing await my nod. Tomorrow will I trot a mile and leave in my grim wake a road paved with French
faces.”

The voice of Abbot Melani, almost a new Homer, was trembling with weariness and passion.

Dawn breaks, finally they fight. Yet another assault on the stronghold is beaten back. But it is clear that Landau is about to yield. Their spirits are as broken as their bodies, all that every
soldier wants is to put an end to the combat, and to seize the neck of the French enemy and cut his throat, and rape his wife and burn and sack his house. As in every real war, man is turned to
beast, and the beast goes in search of men.

Then Joseph appeared alone, on a horse, before the walls of the citadel, as close to the wall as he could get while remaining out of shooting-range. Unsheathing his sword he cried out:

“Therefore, you men of Landau, take pity of your town and of your people, whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace o’erblows the
filthy and contagious clouds of heady murder, spoil and villainy. If not, why, in a moment look to see the blind and bloody soldier with foul hand defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking
daughters; your fathers taken by the silver beards, and their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls, your naked infants spitted upon pikes, whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
do break the clouds!”

At the top of the ramparts Governor Melac appeared on horseback. He listened in silence. Terror had gouged dark furrows in his face.

“What say you then,” concluded the King of the Romans. “Will you yield, and this avoid, or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d?”

On 9th September Melac raised the white flag. The next day came the capitulation, which was followed by the exchange of prisoners. By 11th September it was all over.

As promised, Joseph held his soldiers back: the city’s inhabitants had not a hair of their heads harmed. An imperial soldier who had stolen a pyx from a church was immediately hanged by
order of the King himself, who attended the execution impassively, even though the condemned man was one of his dearest soldiers. The mothers, who the night before had heard Joseph’s
threatening words, and in the darkness of their homes had swooned, clutching their babies to their breasts, knelt down to kiss the imperial insignia. The French evacuated the city the next day;
Melac, defeated, had to parade past the King of the Romans: “Great King” was the salutation addressed to him by the French governor, grateful to him for having spared them the terrible
violence that frenzied troops always wreak after every siege.

Marsili had predicted that, as a result of his astute moves, Landau would yield within a week. But thanks to his brilliance and to the greatness of the young monarch, it had taken even less
time: four days had sufficed.

Atto paused. He had run out of breath. In my collection of writings on Emperor Joseph, I had found several accounts and panegyrics on his deeds at Landau, but unfortunately they were all in
German and written in the Teutonic style, with an abundance of boring details and a total lack of anecdotal matter. Abbot Melani’s tale, by contrast, had catapulted me into the feverish heart
of the battle and revealed the spirit of my own sovereign.

I could hardly believe the admiration and even the love for the young Caesar that breathed forth from the old castrato’s words. Until then I had never heard him glorify any other monarch
than his own Sun King!

“Signor Uncle, at this hour you should be asleep,” Domenico told him.

On his return to Vienna, Atto started up again, paying no attention to his nephew’s words, great festivities were held. In the city a great procession was immediately formed, making its
way to the church of St Stephen, where a solemn
Te Deum
was celebrated. In the New Market Square a column was solemnly erected in honour of St Joseph, protector of Austria. Even Leopold
and his wife, those august parents with whom the young King of the Romans had always had difficult relations, were radiant at the triumph of the imperial arms.

Before that victory, Joseph had just been a promising crown prince. After Landau, and thanks to the help of Marsili, he became a hero.

“But before that there was already a hero,” observed Atto. “His name was Eugene of Savoy, the victor of the great Battle of Zenta, the scourge of the Turks. Now in the contest
for glory there was an adversary with an unassailable advantage: he was handsome, and he had a crown on his head.”

In Vienna Leopold’s ministers were furious. They knew very well that Joseph could not wait to drive them all out and replace them with his own trusted men. The only way to stop him was to
put pressure on his father Leopold. The manoeuvre proved successful. The following year, 1703, when Joseph asked his father if he could go back to war, permission was denied. The ministers’
pressure on Leopold had worked. Eugene, too, who was still resentful at having been put in the shade by Joseph, had done his discreet best to make sure that the King of the Romans did not return to
the war. Hostilities continued in the Rhine area, and soon there came bad news: the French had besieged Landau and finally reconquered it.

“So Prince Eugene had a hand in it! But it’s absurd,” I remarked. “Were he and the others not afraid that losing the war might be worse than giving honour and glory to
Joseph?”

“The powerful are always ready to destroy the world in order to keep their own positions,” answered Atto. “And at that moment, with a weak emperor like Leopold, no one was more
powerful than his ministers, starting with Prince Eugene.”

This brought us up to 1704. The military season was already well under way, autumn was just round the corner and the forces of the Empire and its allies wanted at all costs to close the year
with an important victory. They decided to stake everything on Landau, to recapture it from the enemy. On 1st September the young King of the Romans finally arrived. In the end, and only after much
tribulation, his father Leopold had agreed to let him depart for the front. On the battlefield he was greeted by Eugene of Savoy and the commander of the Anglo-Dutch allied troops, the famous
Marlborough, great friend of Eugene. Now that the hero of the siege of two years earlier had arrived, they were no longer at centre stage. They were sent to the river Lauter, to provide cover for
the operations, while the Margrave of Baden greeted Joseph before Landau with twenty-seven battalions and forty-four squadrons.

Once again the leader of the besieged French garrison, Laubanie, offered not to aim his cannons at those places where Joseph would be lodging or visiting, and once again the King of the Romans
answered that he was perfectly safe, and would go wherever he wanted without telling anyone.

“Joseph the Victorious never knew it perhaps, but in that second siege of Landau the rule of checkmate was once again respected,” said Atto, “and in the noblest
manner.”

“What do you mean?”

“A certain Count Raueskoet, one of Joseph’s hunting companions, presented himself at Versailles, explaining that in his preparations for battle, Joseph used to go hunting close to
the French lines without any escort. It would be child’s play to capture him. His Majesty scornfully rejected the proposal and immediately expelled the traitor from France, and even warned
the imperial troops of Raueskoet’s treachery. Remember, boy: checkmate yes; assassination among sovereigns and princes of equal rank, never.”

The battle began, even harder and bloodier than the two that had preceded it. This time winter came early, they fought in the cold, in the rain, in the mud. On 27th September the French tried to
effect a sortie, but unsuccessfully. Four days later the imperial heavy artillery (carried to the front through the mire with great difficulty and heavy losses of men) began to pound Landau. A hail
of fire was unleashed upon the fortress, but the French held out tenaciously. Eugene of Savoy was furious: Landau should have been taken in five or six weeks, he wrote to Vienna from his tent:
instead things were dragging out while the French went on the rampage in Italy.

“But maybe there was a more serious reason for his agitation,” said Atto. “He and Marlborough had been pushed to one side by Joseph. They had lost their place of
honour.”

In the end the bloodshed was horrific, the fortress of Landau only yielded after nine weeks of relentless cannon fire and assaults. The commander Laubanie lost his sight in both eyes, and would
die two years later from his wounds, which never healed. The French garrison surrendered, once again throwing their arms down at Joseph’s feet. The young heir to the throne had shown that he
could retrieve the situation with his presence alone. His first victory had made him a young hero, with his second he had become a model for all soldiers. Winter had come, the military campaign of
1704 had concluded with an important victory, the English and Dutch allies could go back home satisfied. In Vienna the victory bells rang out again, and Eugene nursed dark, malicious thoughts of
resentment. And suppose Joseph were to become the new rising star of the war, effacing the legend of Prince Eugene, which had been spreading throughout Europe? But the year after the recapture of
Landau, things changed. Emperor Leopold, Joseph’s father, died. It was not wise for the new young sovereign to leave Vienna and to set out for war, since he did not yet have any male heirs
(his little son, Leopold Joseph, had died in infancy). Eugene remained commander-in-chief of military operations, and the fate of the war lay in his hands for the next three years.

The silent contest between the Sovereign and his general started up again in 1708. The Queen of England asked that Eugene should be sent to fight in Spain, where Charles, Joseph’s brother,
was unable to get the better of the French armies of Philip of Anjou, the grandson of the Most Christian King who had ascended to the Spanish throne. The imperial troops in the Iberian peninsula
were captained by Guido Starhemberg, on whom fortune did not always smile. Eugene chafed at the bit: he knew he was superior to Starhemberg, and in his place could win great glory and honour.