CHAPTER I

Girlish fancies—Enthusiasm for heroism—Education—Entering society—At Marienbad—Love at first sight.

At seventeen I was a very highly-strung girl. I should hardly realise this to-day, if it were not for the diaries so carefully laid away. In them I find again my long-lost enthusiasms, thoughts, and feelings now utterly forgotten, convictions of which now not a vestige remains, and sympathies which have long been dead and buried. I catch a glimpse of the emptiness and silliness which filled my pretty little head. But, as I painfully learn from my mirror, of the prettiness little trace is left, although the old portraits assure me that it once existed.

I can imagine what an envied little creature the Countess Martha Althaus must have been, pretty, popular, and petted. These quaint little red diaries, however, recorded more of sadness than of joy in her life. I think now, “How could I have been so silly not to realise how singularly blessed I was with privileges?” Perhaps I was 4only expressing an unbalanced sentimentality, and I tried to express it in somewhat poetic prose. Imagine my discontent when I wrote:—

O Joan of Arc! heroic, heavenly virgin! If only I too might have waved the oriflamme of France, crowned my king, and died for my fatherland!

Alas! this modest ambition was never gratified.

Again, I longed to be torn in the arena by lions like the Christian martyrs. But the heroics were not for me. I must frankly admit that my life was a commonplace failure, and the glories for which my soul thirsted were for ever closed to me.

Often the little red book exclaimed, “Oh that I had been born a boy!” Then I should have been able to win fame. But feminine heroes are few. How seldom we have Gracchi for sons, and not often may we hope to carry our husbands on our backs through the Weinsberg Gates, or to be a queen and hear the sabre-swinging Magyars shout, “Long live Maria Theresa, our King!” A man need only gird on the sword and dash to fame and laurels, to capture a throne like Cromwell, or a world-empire like Napoleon.

My highest type of manhood was always a military hero. I had slight respect for mere poets, scholars, and discoverers. The heroes of many battles were the object of my adoration and devotion. Were they not the chief pillars of the state, 5the makers of history, the builders of empires? Did they not tower in God-like grandeur over all other heroes, as did the Alps and Himalayas over mere grass and valley flowers?

From all this it need not be concluded that I possessed an heroic nature. My enthusiasms and passions naturally took their bent from my education and environment. My father was an Austrian General, who had fought under “Father Radetzky” at Custozza, and therefore adored him. I listened untiringly to the unending stories of this campaign. My dear father actually pitied other men who had not had these proud and glorious experiences, and I always regretted that I, being a girl, would never have these magnificent opportunities; and, having heard some mention of the question of the equal rights of women, I felt sure that the only additional right I should ever keenly desire would be the right to go to war. How charmed I was with the story of Semiramis or Catherine II. when I read: “She made war upon this or that neighbouring kingdom, or she conquered this or that people.”

The history books are responsible for this warlike ideal of the young. That the God of Battles has constantly decreed wars stamps itself upon the mind from the first, and one early accepts the belief that war is necessary to regulate nations, and is almost a law of nature, like tornadoes and earthquakes, which from time to time cannot be 6avoided. History does not cover up the wickedness, the sorrow, the anguish of it all, but presents it as a part of the inevitable, bringing advantage to the nation, through the sacrifice of the happiness and life of the few. That there is no nobler death than that of the soldier martyr is the clear and unanimous verdict of all our school histories and texts. Long lists of battles are given, and entrancing tales and poems of glory and heroism are told, for must not patriotism be taught, must not every boy grow to be a defender of his country? So he must be made a war-enthusiast early. His spirit must be hardened long before he questions through his natural sympathies why we inflict these horrors and sufferings upon others. Such doubts

must be carefully repressed.

History as it is taught aims to warp the inborn, divine impulse to hate barbarism and inhumanity. The tale is so told as to belittle that part of the story which appeals to the sympathies.

And the same books, the same subjects, the same system, encouraging a like admiration for war and military heroics, are given to the girls—delightful pictures for the tender souls, who otherwise are taught that they must be gentle and mild. The frightful stories of carnage and rapine from Bible days, from Macedonian and Punic times down to the Thirty Years’ War and Napoleon, repeat the horrors of the thing until the senses become 7callous. To read of cities burnt and the people put to the sword with the victims trodden under foot was a keen enjoyment, and to heap one horror upon the other blunted the perceptions till war no longer could be regarded from the point of view of humanity, but was received as something quite special, mysterious, majestic, and sanctified.

The girls could readily see that war alone could give the highest honour and dignity, so they learn all the military and glorifying odes, and they become, like the Spartan mothers of old, the women who present battle-flags and regimental colours, and are the admired and happy belles during the ball season, when they receive the attentions of the brass-buttoned officer’s corps.

As a child I had tutors and a governess at home, and was not reared in a convent, as was often the case with children of my position. My mother had died early, and the four children were watched over by an elderly aunt. We spent our winters in Vienna, and our summers on the estate in Lower Austria. Having a good memory and being ambitious, I was the delight of my teachers. Since I was denied the career of an heroic female warrior, I made it my enthusiasm to extol all who had helped to make the world’s history through war. I mastered the French and English languages perfectly. I learned all that was considered 8necessary for girls in natural history, physics, and astronomy, but in the reading of history I knew no limit. The ponderous records of wars and nations I fetched from my father’s library and spent with them my leisure hours.

On March 10, 1857, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. “Already seventeen” I set down under this date. This “already” was a bit of symbolism, and undoubtedly was meant to signify “and as yet I have done nothing immortal.”

The Season was approaching, and it was arranged that I should be introduced into society, but the prospect did not fill me with the keenest pleasure. I felt that my aims were higher than ballroom conquests. I could not have explained to myself what were the triumphs for which I longed. I was hardly aware of the romantic attitude which possessed me. I was full of glowing dreams and aspirations, such as swell the hearts of youths and maidens, and fill them with a longing to work out their ideals in all sorts of ways. It is at this age that the love of knowledge, action, travel, adventure, show themselves, and are perhaps only an unrecognised activity of the soul filled with desire to express itself.

Aunt Marie was ordered to try the waters at Marienbad during the summer, and found it convenient to take me. My coming-out in society was not to take place till the following winter, and 9this trip to the fashionable springs gave me a little preliminary practice in dancing and conversation, so that I could wear off some of the shyness before my first season.

Naturally at my first ball I had no eyes for anything but the brilliant military uniforms which were present in such array. But of all the splendid Hussars, Count Arno Dotzky was the most dazzling, and with him I danced the cotillion and several waltzes.

The acquaintance quickly ripened into an attachment, and we were betrothed on my eighteenth birthday, after which I was presented at court.

CHAPTER II

Marriage—The first-born—War rumours—The ultimatum.

After our marriage we took an Italian journey, having been granted a long leave of absence. Retirement from the army was never mentioned between us. We both possessed handsome fortunes; but my husband loved the military service, and I was proud of my elegant Hussar, and looked forward to his certain promotion. He would rise unquestionably to the rank of major, colonel, or even general. Who knew but he might be even called to the highest rank, and add his name to the history of his country, great as a conqueror!

The little red book contains a break just at the happy honeymoon time, and that is a pity. Oh for a little breath of those happy days to come back to me from between the leaves, in which I had wasted so much ink recording odd peevishnesses and bad humours! Still, my memory recalls those joys like an old half-forgotten fairy-tale. What could have been added to my overflowing 11heart?—for I had love, riches, rank, health, everything. My dashing Hussar, whom I loved with my whole soul, was a manly, noble-hearted man, with a most cultivated and merry nature. It might have been otherwise, for our acquaintance had been so short, and it was not our own discretion and wise choosing which brought us all this happiness. But the little red-bound book bore no entry for a long time.

Wait a moment! Here I find a joyous event noted—my delight at becoming a mother. A New Year’s gift—a son was born to us, the 1st of January 1859. The diary was resumed to note with pride and astonishment this all-absorbing event, as though we were the first to whom such a happiness had ever come. The journal teemed with comments on the mystical and sacred event. The future world had to be informed as to the marvel of “maternal love,” it was mine to magnify the office of motherhood. Was it not the greatest theme of art and literature, of song and story?

I cultivated this ideal most carefully, collecting poems, baby songs, and illustrations from journals and picture galleries. As in one direction school books foster and develop an admiration for war heroes, so through my collections I developed from hero-worship to baby-worship. My charming little man was to me the mightiest wonder of the world. Ah, my son, my grown-up manly Rudolf, 12the love of you in my maturer years eclipsed in colour the hours of childish wonder and worship. The love of my young motherhood is insignificant in comparison to what I feel for you to-day, even as is the babe himself in swaddlings besides the full-grown man.

How proud the father was of his tiny heir, as he planned for him the sunniest, fairest future. “What shall he be?” This was the great question that we discussed as we hung over the cradle together, and we always decided unanimously—a soldier, of course. Sometimes the mother would protest: “Suppose he should be killed in battle?” “Nonsense,” the father would answer; “at the appointed time each one meets his end.” Besides, Ruru was not to be the only son, but being the first he must be what his father and grandfather were, the noblest of all—a soldier. So it was settled, and so the joke was persisted in, and on his third-month birthday he was promoted to the rank of a corporal.

On that same day a great foreboding came over me, something that made me fly with a heavy heart to my little note-book. Dark clouds had arisen in the political horizon, and the fears and suspicions were daily growing into comments wherever people met together.

“Trouble in Italy is brewing” was the frequent remark. I had no time now for heroics and 13politics, so it hardly touched me. But on the 1st of April Arno said to me:—

“Do you know, darling, it will soon break out?”

“What will break out?”

“The war with Sardinia.”

I was terrified. “My God, that will be terrible. And must you go?”

“I hope so.”

“How can you say that? Hope to leave your wife and baby?”

“When duty calls.”

“Of course we can reconcile ourselves—but to hope—which means desire—to wish for such a bitter duty——”

“Bitter? Why, a jolly, dashing war like that would be glorious! You are a soldier’s wife, never forget that.”

I threw myself into his arms.

“Oh my darling husband. I can be content, and brave besides. How often I have envied the heroes of history and longed to be one of its heroines. What a glorious feeling it must be to go into battle! If I could only be at your side, fight, conquer, or even fall!”

“Such nonsense, little wife; but brave you are. Your place is here by the cradle of our little one, whom you must raise to be some day a defender of his country. Women must keep the fireside 14warm. It is to save our homes and wives from the attacks of the enemy and secure peace, that we men must go to war.”

Why, I do not know, but these words, or similar ones which I had so often read with enthusiasm, this time struck me as mere shallow phrases. Where was the advancing army—were the barbarous hordes at the door? A political tension between the Cabinets of two nations seemed an intangible enemy. What was the pressing need of protecting wife and child and home? Much as my husband spoke enthusiastically of going to war for that, I failed to see it. Was it a mere burning desire to rush into adventure, with a promise of excitement, promotion, and distinction? “Yet,” I concluded, “it is a noble, honourable ambition to delight in the brave discharge of duty.”

I poured out my feelings into the little note-book, denouncing Louis Napoleon as an intriguer.... Austria cannot long look on.... War must come.... No, Sardinia will soon give in, and peace be maintained. Thus I commented on the course of events. My husband’s eyes sparkled at the continued increase of the danger.

My father also gloried in the prospect, and retold the stories of the Radetzky campaigns, and discussed the impending ones, as to how the enemy would be easily routed, and all the advantages which would be “ours.” Of the terrible 15sacrifices nothing was said. I was made to feel quite ashamed of my meanness when I found myself thinking thus: “Ah, how can any victory recompense the dead, the crippled, the widowed? How would it be if the enemy conquered?”

I was contemptuously crushed by my military friends if I ventured such a remark. Was it not most unpatriotic to have the shadow of a doubt about our certain victory? Is not the duty of a soldier to feel himself invincible, and must not a soldier’s wife share this conviction with him?

My husband’s regiment was quartered in Vienna. The view of the Prater from my window promised a wonderful spring. The air was warm and delicious with violets, the sprouting buds seemed earlier than in years before. How joyfully I might have looked forward to the coming weeks of delightful driving, for we had purchased a fine carriage and a four-in-hand team of dashing Hungarian horses—but oh, if only the war-clouds had not hung over all that!

Coming home from a parade on the morning of April 19, my husband broke the spell with the exclamation: “Thank God, at last this uncertainty is at an end. The ultimatum has been sent.”

“And what does that mean?” I trembled.

“It means that the last word of the diplomats has been uttered—the last word that precedes the declaration of war. Sardinia is called to 16disarm. This she’ll not do, and we will soon march over the border.”

“Good God! Perhaps she may disarm.”

“Then that would end the quarrel.”

I fell on my knees. Silently and fervently a prayer cried out in my soul: “Peace, peace!”

“My silly child, what are you doing?” said Arno, raising me. The news had shaken my nerves, and I began to cry.

“Martha, Martha, you make me angry. How can you forget that you are a general’s daughter, a first lieutenant’s wife, and,” he concluded with a smile, “the mother of a corporal?”

“No, no,” I faltered, “I scarcely understand myself.... I used to thirst for military glory, but now, when I think that on a single ‘yes’ or ‘no’ thousands may bleed and die—die in these beautiful days of spring—it came over me that the word ‘Peace’ must be pronounced, that we must all pray for it, and I fell on my knees.”

“To inform the good Lord of the condition of affairs, you dear little goose!”

The house-door bell rang. I dried my eyes. My father came in with a rush. “My children,” he cried out of breath, “have you heard the great news—the ultimatum?”

“I have just told it to my wife.”

“Tell me, father dear,” I asked anxiously, “can the war be prevented by the ultimatum?”

17“I never heard of an ultimatum preventing a war. It would be very wise of the wretched Italian rabble if they would yield and not risk another Novara. Ah, if good Father Radetzky had not died last year, even at ninety he would have routed this foreign scum. And I would have marched with him. But the puppies have not had enough of it. They need a second lesson. We shall get a handsome piece of Piedmont territory, and I look forward to the entry of our troops into Turin.”

“But, papa, you speak as if the war were already declared, and you were glad of it. Oh, if Arno must also go!”

“That he will, and I envy him.”

“But think of my terror at his danger!”

“Danger, what of that? Many a man comes home from war. Look at my campaigns, my wounds, and yet I am alive, for I was not destined to die.”

Such fatalistic notions!

“And if my regiment should not be ordered out——” began Arno.

I exclaimed joyously, “Oh, would that be possible?”

“In that case I shall apply for an exchange.”

“That can easily be settled,” my father assured him. “A good friend of mine, Hess, commands the corps.”

18Admiring both husband and father—yet anxiety sickened my heart. But I must control myself. Was not my husband a hero? And I sprang up and exclaimed, “Arno, I am proud of you.”

Kissing my hands, he turned to my father, “Father-in-law, I am glad that you have trained your daughter to be a brave soldier’s wife.”

Turin, April 26.—The ultimatum is rejected. The die is cast. War is declared.

CHAPTER III

Last hours—Public glad at prospect of war—The sad parting.

The news was a bitter blow to me, and threw me into despair, although I had been prepared for the catastrophe. Arno tried to comfort me.

“My darling, take courage. Things are not so bad and will soon be over. Then we shall be doubly happy. You will break my heart with your weeping, and make me sorry that I engaged to go. But think, if I remained at home and my comrades went, you would be ashamed of me. I must pass the baptism of fire to feel myself a man and a soldier. Only think how happy you will be to see a third star on my collar, or perhaps even the cross on my breast.”

I leaned on his shoulder and wept the more. Empty stars and crosses were but poor pay for the terrible possibility that a ball might shatter that beloved breast. Arno gently relieved himself from my embrace, saying:—

“Now, dear child, I must go to the Colonel. 20Have your little cry, and be brave and cheerful when I return. In this hard hour my dear little wife should not dishearten and discourage me. Good-bye, sweetheart.”

His last words helped me to collect myself. Yes, I must not damp his courage, I must inspire his sense of duty. We women must prove our patriotism by our sympathy, and must urge our soldiers to fame on the battle-field.