ting, for the last
three weeks,--where thinks the reader?--in the Fortress of Gratz among
the Hills of Styria; a State-Prisoner, not likely to get out soon!
Seckendorf led forth, in 1737, "such an Army, for number, spirit and
equipment," say the Vienna people, "as never marched against the Turk
before;" and it must be owned, his ill success has been unparalleled.
The blame was not altogether his; not chiefly his, except for his rash
undertaking of the thing, on such terms as there were. But the truth
is, that first scene we saw of him,--an Army all gone out trumpeting and
drumming into the woods to FIND its Commander-in-Chief,--was an emblem
of the Campaign in general. Excellent Army; but commanded by nobody in
particular; commanded by a HOFKRIEGSRATH at Vienna, by a Franz Duke
of Tuscany, by Feldmarschall Seckendorf, and by subordinates who were
disobedient to him: which accordingly, almost without help of the Turk
and his disorderly ferocity, rubbed itself to pieces before long. Roamed
about, now hither now thither, with plans laid and then with plans
suddenly altered, Captain being Chaos mainly; in swampy countries, by
overflowing rivers, in hunger, hot weather, forced marches; till it was
marched gradually off its feet; and the clouds of chaotic Turks, who
did finally show face, had a cheap pennyworth of it. Never was such a
campaign seen as this of Seckendorf in 1737, said mankind. Except
indeed that the present one, Campaign of 1738, in those parts, under a
different hand, is still worse; and the Campaign of 1739, under still a
different, will be worst of all!--Kaiser Karl and his Austrians do not
prosper in this Turk War, as the Russians do,--who indeed have got
a General equal to his task: Munnich, a famed master in the art of
handling Turks and War-Ministries: real father of Russian Soldiering,
say the Russians still. [See MANNSTEIN for Munnich's plans with the
Turk (methods and devices of steady Discipline in small numbers VERSUS
impetuous Ferocity in great); and Berenhorst (_Betrachtungen uber die
Kriegskunst,_ Leipzig, 1796), a first-rate Authority, for examples and
eulogies of them.]

Campaign 1737, with clouds of chaotic Turks now sabring on the skirts of
it, had not yet ended, when Seckendorf was called out of it; on polite
pretexts, home to Vienna; and the command given to another. At the
gates of Vienna, in the last days of October, 1737, an Official Person,
waiting for the Feldmarschall, was sorry to i