The Mysterious Trenck Affair: The Return
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rheinsbergCourtesy of Gustav Volz and a book called "Friedrich der Große und Trenck", aka "Trenck and Fritz: The Documents", we can now post an update and some clarification on the mysterious Trenck affair.
Said book consists of a lengthy text in which Volz skewers Trenck's various claims similar to Koser skewering Henri de Catt, and then of the documents themselves which he refers to in the text already. Overall summary: Trenck is a lying lying who lies, but both Fritz and the Austrians did weird stuff (unmentioned by Trenck in his memoirs) that makes the entire affair even more confusing.
In detail: Volz shows that Trenck's entry in the Prussian army and early promotions by Fritz as reported in the memoirs did not happen; according to the officer's list, he joined the army two years later than he claims to have done (1744 instead of 1742). (Volz also points out that Trenck's claim to have been buddies with Voltaire, La Mettrie and Maupertuis is nonsense, which was guessable. During Voltaire's 1743 visit, Trenck wasn't in Berlin, La Mettrie didn't move to Potsdam until 1748, and Maupertuis in 1745.
Trenck is recorded as being part of the army fighting the second Silesian War on 15th August 1744. He's also participating in the battle of Hohenfriedberg the next year on June 4th. But before the month of June is over, he gets arrested and locked up in Glatz, where he's recorded as being delivered as a prisoner on June 28th. Which means that his claim to have been with Fritz during the battle of Soor (September 30th) is completely invented.
So is Trenck a liar who had no contact with Fritz at all? This is where it gets intriguing and confusing.
Documented are: order by Fritz on June 28th to the commandant of Glatz, Generalmajor Fouqué, to keep Trenck prisoner, with the added comment in Fritz' own handwriting "be very strict to this scoundrel; he had wanted to become a Pandur at his uncle's."
"Uncle" refers to Austrian Trenck, who was, in fact, Prussian Trenck's cousin, not uncle. Prussian Generalauditor Pawlowsky confirms Trenck is in Glatz because of "illegal correspondance". Now, Trenck does mention (harmless) letters with Austrian Trenck as well as one forgery in the memoirs. We don't have the letters themselves but Volz points to a relation of Trenck's, the brother of his brother-in-law von Meyerentz, who says it happened thusly:
Austrian Trenck writes to Prussian Trenck, offering him to join the Austrian side. Prussian Trenck shows the letter to Fritz. Fritz says to report any further correspondance immediately. More letters arrive, but don't get reported. Fritz has one of his generals ask Trenck point blank whether there were more letters, and, should Trenck deny them, have him arrested at once. Thus it happened, according to the relative.
Meyerentz himself is, of course, not an unbiased witness; according to the Austrian Resident in Danzig, he did, in fact, have a grudge against Trenck. (I'll get to this.)
Trenck tries to flee a couple of times: while the memoirs beef this up, he did try and eventually, one year later (November 1746), succeed. Then on April 12th 1747, Trenck and Schell, one of the Glatz staff, who let his door unlocked and went with him are condemmed by a war tribunal for desertion in absentia and in effigy (yep, that again, ask Peter Keith).
(mildred_of_midgard: No one left Katte's door unlocked. :`-(
selenak: FW was scarier? Actually, I do have a theory, because glancing at the war tribunal sentence for both Trenck and Schell, I see that Schell isn't from Prussia. He's from "Müncherode in Swabia" according to the judgment. Google didn't give me a Müncherode in Swabia, but it did give me one in Thuringia, near Jena (at this point, belonging to the Dukedom Sachsen-Weimar, the one unborn great nephew Carl August will rule one day. Either way, it's not Prussia. At a guess: maybe Schell had the dubious joy of being forcibly recruited into Prussian service, like so many others. And thought this was a great opportunity for his very own "Fuck you, Fritz!" )
The Trenck estate Groß-Scharlach in East Prussia gets confiscated and only returned in 1752 to his brother Ludwig when Ludwig petitions for it. (The book also contains a petition by Trenck's mother earlier to get the estate back, which gets refused, whereas brother Ludwig suceeds. Sexism: it's a thing.)
1749: Renewed and even more strict order to arrest known deserters abroad from Prussia.
Trenck, as we know, ends up in Vienna. And now it gets really fascinating.
Trenck memoirs: So I met the Prussian Ambassador, Podewils (author of the MT: Hot or Not? report), who told me Fritz was only testing me and would have let me go after a year, and wants me to come back. I said no way, my loyal heart was too mishandled by him. And that was that.
Podewils report dated December 1750, adressed to Fritz: Guess whom I met? Yep, the Trenck boy. He said he only did a runner because he was told you'd have had him locked up for eternity. HE's really really sorry and asks you for a pardon. Also he just inherited 600 000 Taler from Austrian Trenck and if you let him return to East Prussia, he will, of course, bring that money along. If you pardon him, that is.
Fritz to Podewils, dated December 22nd 1750: I had absolutely reason to lock that boy up, but okay, he can come home. I'm just that nice. Provided he stays in East Prussia and never tries to join my army again.
Now this was the first reveal that really stunned me. I mean. Say what? Which other deserter - I mean, Peter Keith excepted - gets offered a pardon and a return by Fritz?
(mildred_of_midgard: During wartime, it wasn't uncommon. Asprey even says he offered a mass pardon for deserters in late 1744, as long as they returned within 6 months and rejoined the army. And I've seen sources saying that in the Seven Years' War, when manpower was at a premium, returning after deserting meant all was forgiven.
In 1750, yeah, that feels weird. That said, Prades was released from prison after the war, after having been imprisoned for espionage, and told to stay in Silesia, so Fritz telling him to stay in East Prussia and behave himself sounds maybe in character?
selenak: Yes, but Prades was a) a civilian, while Trenck had been a Prussian officer, b) a French citizen, not a Prussian citizen, and c) an actual member of the church - yes, he'd been temporarily excommunicated, but he had been accepted back into the Church. The "Abbé" wasn't just for show, and whether or not you could condemn clerics the same way as laymen was still not completely settled by universal law. Much as Fritz was into mocking Catholicism, a sizable part of his subjects, courtesy of Silesia, were now Catholics, and he needed goodwill to rebuild.
Now, Trenck was also an officer of the Austrian army and as Kaunitz himself (! saw this when having a quick look) told his people to argue a citizen of Austria, not Prussia anymore, but he'd been Prussian first. Mind you, I doubt Fritz would have been amused if, say, Uncle George had George Keith, Lord Marishal arrested at Versailles on the rationale that Keith was a British subject and deserter, then had him extradited to GB. Ahem. )
Back to 1750 and that amazing offer of a pardon:
Podewils to Fritz: It's a deal. He's really grateful and says just three or four weeks more to wrap up his business in Vienna, and then he comes home to Prussia.
For reasons Volz can't explain, after all this, Trenck does NOT go home to Prussia. Instead, he joins the Austrian army, rank of Rittmeister, in the Hungarian Kürassierregiment Cordova.
Trenck's mother Maria Charlotte dies in Danzig on December 25th 1753. On June 12th, 1754, the Prussian Resident in Danzig, Reimer, reports to the ministry that former Prussian Cornet Trenck is in town on family business and is mostly seen near or in the residence of Austrian Resident in Danzig, Abramson. He wants to know whether he should ignore Trenck's presence in Danzig or ask the city council of Danzig whether he can arrest him as a deserter.
This is a tricky business, not least because Trenck was now a member of the Austrian army, and Austria & Prussia were at least nominally at peace. Also Danzig = Free City.
Trenck's memoirs: That bastard Abramson and Reimer conspired against me and had me practically kidnapped.
Volz: Did not. Abramson was a total champ for you and did everything in his power to help you. And Reimer went out of his way to handle this delicate situation legally. Fritz was handed Reimer's request for directives on June 27th. On the 29th, Fritz ordered that Reimer was to petition the city of Danzig as discreetly as possible but without delay to hand over Trenck.
July 2nd: official petition by the Prussian ministry to the City of Danzig to hand over the deserter Trecnk, wanted for "enormous crimes" beyond desertion.
Danzig City Council: we're cool with that.
And here I'd like to insert some direct, not paraphrased quotes from the Austrian Resident, Herr Abramson, reporting to Austrian First Minister Kaunitz right then and there about how the unfolding disaster went down:
The Rittmeister (i.e. Trenck) showed no restraint whatsoever and told everyone his name, rank and service, he visited me day in and day out. Yesterday this officer showed up in the middle of the night around twelve, delivered a letter signed by the King in (!) Prussia‘s own hand to the City Council, and thus two officers and several grenadiers were sent to his quarters, which were at the boatsmen‘s guildhouse, to arrest him, and he was brought to a local prison via a Porte-Chaise. An hour later, this was told to me through his servant.
So, in the night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested. Earlier that same day, Prussian Resident Reimer, his wife and his secretary attended a party at the Austrian resident's where they met and talked to Trenck, who introduced himself by name and had no idea of his impending doom. (This is confirmed not just by Abramson's reports to Kaunitz but through documents caused by Trenck trying to sue the City of Danzig years later, who promptly collected witnesses and documents to demonstrate they had acted legally in allowing an extradition request and Trenck had brought his identification on himself.)
Abramson, that the same night, writes to the City Representatives, protesting, and asks for Trenck to be handed over to him. This first petition is denied. Abramson writes another one, asking for a delay until the Austrian and the Prussian court can come to terms re: Trenck; supposedly, negotiations have already started. Meanwhile, Abramson gives Kaunitz the latest update:
I do not know what on earth made the Baron of Trenck consider this journey, all the more so since I have reminded him of the danger he was in many times during my daily interactions with him. Still he believed himself safe, and did not want to show the least bit of caution. After his arrest, his servant, named Kayser, who along with a hunter and a footman of his is still here, has told me that he (Trenck) didn‘t have any money with him and that this had been the reason why he had to remain in Danzig for so long; he (Kayser) had advised him repeateadly to open up to me about this. But (Trenck) supposedly replied every time that he wasn‘t afraid of anything and was utterly safe here. By now I‘ve discovered that a brother of his brother-in-law, named v. Meyerentz, who is staying here as a Polish Lt. Colonel, has denounced him to Berlin as a revengfe for the refused payment of 200 Ducats which the Baron of Trenck owes him as well as due to various quarrels from their time in Vienna, thus causing this arrest. I‘ve written all of this with today‘s mail to the Marquis de La Puebla. I await the Empress-Queen‘s orders how to behave towards the city council from now on.
The Marquis de La Puebla was the official Austrian envoy in Berlin, more about him in a moment. Now, whether Abramson is correct in identifiying Meyerentz as the one who denounced Trenck to Reimer, who knows; ditto in what that says about the truthfulness of Meyrentz. But given Trenck's idea of discretion, his discovery was inevitable, I'd say.
Trenck himself writes a petition dated July 9th to the city officials asking for help and pointing out that the arrest goes against the freeness of the city of Danzig. (Not if the city fathers were asked first and agreed to it, though. ) However, on July 8th, the City Council has already signed off to agreeing to Fritz' extradition request. And it's off with Trenck to Prussia. The Commander of Berlin notifies Fritz on July 22nd that Trenck has arrived, and is told to transport him to Magdeburg immediately. Magdeburg at this point is commanded Generallietenant von Borcke, not, as Trenck claims in his memoirs, by EC's brother Ferd(inand) of Braunschweig, who takes over command of Magdeburg later.
(While he's at it, Volz also skewers the story Trenck tells in the memoirs that evil Austrians have warned Fritz, supposedly visiting East Prussia for military revue reasons, that Trenck was on his way; Fritz wasn't in East Prussia in 1754, and he learned about Trenck's presence in Danzig from Reimer.)
Far from conspiring with the Prussians, the Austrians actually continued to go on the mat for Trenck. No sooner is he in Magdeburg that the official Austrian envoy in Berlin, Count Puebla, officially protests against what's done to Trenck with the Prussian cabinet and says that Trenck having fallen out of favour with Fritz does not justify his arrest and treatment as a criminal. Fritz writes to his ministers to tell Count Puebla he's amazed that Trenck was accepted into the Austrian army to begin with, since a proper war tribunal has condemmed the guy first and made him infamous that way. He also asks that a copy of the war tribunal's judgment against Trenck from 1747 should be forwarded to Puebla, which it is.
So far, so Fritzian. And now comes another stunner. On November 1st that same year, Fritz makes a confidential request to the French envoy in Berlin (at this point, it's La Touche) and asks him whether the French government could do him a favour and take a Prussian prisoner of state and transport him overseas to their colonial possession. IN this document, the person in question is described as a young man of noble birth who has behaved badly against Fritz. Fritz wishes him far away from Prussia both due to his, the King's own interests, and those of Trenck's family. However, he doesn't want the guy to remain locked up overseas, far from it, no. The young man in question, says Fritz, knows how to use his sword, he has wit and courage, and could be really really useful if the French take him into their service - but in the colonies. Far from here.
(Exact quote: ""Il ny'a sera pas tout-à-fait inutile, vu que c'est proprement un homme d'épée, ne manquant pas d'esprit ni de bravoure.")
La Touche is down with that, but unfortunately, the ships on which this swashbuckling guy of wit, courage and bad behavior towards his King is to be transported on leave for St. Maurice in January 1755, but the winter in Prussia is so heavy that and early that Trenck can't be transported to France to be put on one of those ships. (Document No. 27.) (By the next year, 1756, the French government isn't in a mood to do Fritz favours anymore, and Fritz dosn't ask anyway.)
At which point, Volz says, yes, reader, I'm confused, too. How come Fritz is offering a pardon in 1750 and demands Trenck's extradition four years later, why, if he has him arrested and brought to Magdeburg, is he then ready to have him shipped off to the French colonies with basically a recommendation letter? But it's not really a paradox, reader: the pardon was offered before Trenck joined the Austrian army. Trenck joining the Austrian army after that one means Fritz would never forgive him again. Handing him over to the French would have meant a face saving way of defusing the diplomatic situation with the Austrian s in 1755, which was tense enough already, that's all.
(Comment by ours truly: I'm not sure I buy the last one, since "defusing the situation with the Austrians" and "Fritz" do not often appear in the same sentence, and certainly not in 1755/1756 when in his entire other correspondance he sounds rather gleeful about supposedly having isolated Austria diplomatically through his treaty with England.)
Trenck in Magdeburg: no tombstone with his name to sit on, says Volz, but his proof for this is just an indignant letter to a newspaper upon the publication of Trenck's memoirs, with the letter writer calling himself "A Brandenburg patriot" who says he was employed in Magdeburg fortress at that time and there was no tombstone.
Trenck then tries to flee a couple of times, and we get documents again, proving a certain Ruckard, who used to be Austrian Trenck's quartermaster with the Pandurs, is sending 1000 Taler bribery money to the guards. However, all of Trenck's escape attempts fail (the memoirs name more than can be proven, but he did, Volz admits, try several times, so definitely has earned his jailbreak king reputation), which leads to the order to have him chained.
Trenck becomes an Austrian-Prussian object of discussion again after the 7 Years War ends, and the peace treaty of Hubertusburg explicitly includes an article offering amnesty to both MT's and Fritz' subjects. There's a note from Vienna to the peace negotiator, Hofrat von Collenbach, that this clause should be extended to Trenck as well. As with Puebla's protest 9 years earlier, Fritz replies he doesn't understand why the Austrians would want to intervene for "a man of that type". (Document No. 36.) Things get moving again when the first Austrian post war envoy, Freiherr von Ried, arrives in Berlin. He asks Graf Finckenstein how to approach the Trenck subject without causing the King's displeasure, but really, MT wants Trenck released:
Le cas de Trenck est differént: S.M. L‘Impératrice, par un simple mouvement de pitíe, m‘a recommandé fortement de tacher d‘ effectuer sa liberté. Ma souveraine est bien éloignée de contredire S.M. Le Roi sur la conduite et la charactère de Trenck. Tout le monde connait que c‘est un mauvais garnement. Cependant à tout pécheur rémission! Si on considère la longueuer du temps qu‘ il est déjà en prison, et qu, lorsqu‘il fut arrété a Danzig, il était actuellement dans le service de L‘Impératrice, il pairait qu‘il ne devrait pas etre impossible de fléchir S.M. Le Roi.
At the same time, Ried writes to Kaunitz in German: Regarding Trenck, (...) it just depends on finding a good moment to petition the King. For now, I haven‘t achieved anything beyond making his imprisonment somewhat more bearable for him, and gotten permission to allow him to improve his conditions through third parties sending him money now and then. This man‘s regular behavior, however, is so badly that one can‘t take his party in public, for as soon as he sees the slightest hope to expect some help, he starts with his debaucheries. Not withstanding this, I still hope to free him; for those who have his fate in their hands are as much invested in his cause as I am.
(Debaucheries? He does write "Ausschweifungen", dear reader. Enquiring minds want to know what, other than Prades cleaning out everyone with card games, went down in Magdeburg prison if you weren't chained to the wall.)
Finckenstein tells Ried to wait for Fritz moving from Potsdam to Berlin for the carnival and ask nicely then. Ried does so. Fritz points him back to Finckenstein. Finckenstein gets another visit from Ried and asks Fritz himself. Fritz tells Finckenstein fine, but only because MT asked nicely and he wants to do her a favour. Under the condition Trenck never puts his foot on Prussian soil again and is forbidden by the Austrians to say anything about Fritz in either written or oral form ever. Exit Trenck from Madgeburg to Prague. (And later writes his memoirs, wherein he says a lot about Fritz, both negative and positive, down to dedicating the book to him.)
As for Trenck/Amalie, Volz points out Trenck gets the date of Ulrike's wedding festivities (where according to the memoirs Amalie and Trenck met) wrong and that the obvious reason is that he claims a three years love affair when his later entry into the army and the later wedding mean it can't have lasted nearly that long, if it ever did. Volz' main reason for not believing it ever did is that the same royal familiy who even brings up Barbarina in their letters never ever gossips about Trenck, this despite the fact Amalie with her sharp tongue at different points has various other family members very pissed off at her. And yet, never a "remember that Trenck guy?" kind of needling. No one mentions Trenck at all.
He does concede some of Trenck's poetry - yes, he published some - is adressed to Amalie but says this was standard for the day, and Trenck also adressed poems to EC. Yes, one of Trenck's daughters became Amalie's goddaughter, with Amalie accepting godmother status, but the accepting letter is in her secretary's handwriting, not hers. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.) Here, though, I have to slightly disagree with Volz' assessment that the letter sounds as if Amalie never met Trenck. Because this is the exact text:
Berlin, 116 mars 1771/ Je vous félicite, Monsieur, de la naissance de votre fille, et comme je me suis toujours intéressée à votre sort, j'accepte avec plaisir d'etre sa marraine, vous assurant que je prends part à tout les evenenments heureux qui vous surviennent, étant avec estime, Monsieur, votre affectionée, Amèlie.
"I've always taken an interest in your fate" would imply she at the very least knows who he is, and "I particpate in all the happy events you experience" would imply a previous acquaintance as well. This said, a love letter, this is not.
Lastly, the fact that Trenck in the first volume swears never to reveal the name of his high born lady, and in volume 3, when both Fritz and Amalie are dead, says "it was totally Amalie" makes the claim even less credible to Volz, who, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
Said letter first gets cited in Christopher Frey's essay "Friedrich von der Trencks Beziehung zu Prinzessin Amalie von Preußen sowie ein bisher unbekannter Brief Trencks. In: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 116. Band, Heft 1–2 (2008), S. 146–158.", and it's part of Frey's general theory that while Trenck undoubtedly lied a lot in his memoirs, and did commit treason, many of the lies are built around a true core. In this case, Frey believes the core to be that there was an actual relationship. He strongly disagrees with Volz on the interpretation of the letter by Amalie accepting becoming a godmother to Trenck's daughter Caroline; like me, he finds it does indicate not only knowledge of but at the very least sympathetic interest in Trenck. He further compares it with Joseph's neutral to cool letter responding to Trenck making him the godfather of his son and points out that this was how you'd expect Amalie to have reacted as well if Trenck was nothing but a stranger who had spend almost a decade as her brother's prisoner and was regarded as a traitor and deserter in Prussia. Why, argues Frey, would she not only accept becoming his daughter's godmother but talk about caring about his fate and wishing to take par in good things happening to him?
But the piece de resistance to Frey's essay is another letter. The letter in question was written by Trenck, dated April 5th 1787, to his wife (who was in Austria; Trenck was visiting relations in post-Fritz Berlin): "Nothing but bad news. On the evening before my departure, I dine with Princess Amalie alone, in close friendship. She holds my hand and presses it for half an hour without letting go, talks of nothing but the joy to contribute to my happiness. She orders me to bring you with your daughters to Berlin, she promises me to include Caroline in her will. She forces me to accept 100 Louisdor from her for my journey. I leave her in tears. I arrive in Köningsberg and find the news of her sudden death two days after my departure. I am struck by this in an indescribable way, and recognize the strangeness of my doomed destiny, and I doubt, she had time to even think of herself."
This fits with the decription Trenck gives in his memoirs (volume 3) about his last meeting with Amalie and unlike the memoirs was written only two weeks after the described event, not for a mass audience but for his wife, which is why Frey believes it to be true. He does not mention what to me seems obvious: Trenck is his only witness for this encounter with Amalie, and if he has promised his wife that the Princess would help before, he has to explain why she didn't if that encounter never happened. The problem with habitual liars: you can't take anything they say for granted without a second independent source.
This said, there's one detail here which could be an indication Trenck did indeed meet an aged Amalie: the pressing his hand for half an hour without letting go. Amalie at this point could hardly move her arms anymore, and if she managed a gesture, it usually took either the other party helping or herself eons to open her hands again. It should be added that royalty didn't shake hands as a greeting. Trenck would have kissed her hand by way of saying hello; if she clasped his, despite knowing her limitations, that was indeed a gesture indicating emotional closeness.
In conclusion: we know more than previously, but it's no less confusing. Especially the bit with the pardon and the French overseas handover that almost happened. And the Austrian championing of Trenck (who later did nothing but complain about lack of support from Vienna). So, my current take:
Spy or no spy: must have done some spying, otherwise I really fail to understand why the Austrians didn't leave him to rot.
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: far less likely than before, but still possible as far as Amalie is concerned. At the very least, I'd say she'd known and liked him before his first arrest. Fritz might have known Trenck pre-arrest as well, since the description he gives of Trenck to the French envoy when he tries to have him sent overseas mentions esprit, wit, always a priced trait for Fritz, but Trenck definitely wasn't, like Trenck claims in his memoirs, his favourite pre first arrest.
Also, I do wonder what exactly he did for the Austrians, or maybe I‘m too cynical and MT did just feel sorry for him. I mean, it‘s not like even if Prussian Trenck got letters from Austrian Trenck and wrote back „yep, on your side now!“, they got much out of this. And since he got arrested at the end of June, and Soor wasn‘t until the end of September, he can‘t have told them that Eichel and the war chest would be around, either...
Said book consists of a lengthy text in which Volz skewers Trenck's various claims similar to Koser skewering Henri de Catt, and then of the documents themselves which he refers to in the text already. Overall summary: Trenck is a lying lying who lies, but both Fritz and the Austrians did weird stuff (unmentioned by Trenck in his memoirs) that makes the entire affair even more confusing.
In detail: Volz shows that Trenck's entry in the Prussian army and early promotions by Fritz as reported in the memoirs did not happen; according to the officer's list, he joined the army two years later than he claims to have done (1744 instead of 1742). (Volz also points out that Trenck's claim to have been buddies with Voltaire, La Mettrie and Maupertuis is nonsense, which was guessable. During Voltaire's 1743 visit, Trenck wasn't in Berlin, La Mettrie didn't move to Potsdam until 1748, and Maupertuis in 1745.
Trenck is recorded as being part of the army fighting the second Silesian War on 15th August 1744. He's also participating in the battle of Hohenfriedberg the next year on June 4th. But before the month of June is over, he gets arrested and locked up in Glatz, where he's recorded as being delivered as a prisoner on June 28th. Which means that his claim to have been with Fritz during the battle of Soor (September 30th) is completely invented.
So is Trenck a liar who had no contact with Fritz at all? This is where it gets intriguing and confusing.
Documented are: order by Fritz on June 28th to the commandant of Glatz, Generalmajor Fouqué, to keep Trenck prisoner, with the added comment in Fritz' own handwriting "be very strict to this scoundrel; he had wanted to become a Pandur at his uncle's."
"Uncle" refers to Austrian Trenck, who was, in fact, Prussian Trenck's cousin, not uncle. Prussian Generalauditor Pawlowsky confirms Trenck is in Glatz because of "illegal correspondance". Now, Trenck does mention (harmless) letters with Austrian Trenck as well as one forgery in the memoirs. We don't have the letters themselves but Volz points to a relation of Trenck's, the brother of his brother-in-law von Meyerentz, who says it happened thusly:
Austrian Trenck writes to Prussian Trenck, offering him to join the Austrian side. Prussian Trenck shows the letter to Fritz. Fritz says to report any further correspondance immediately. More letters arrive, but don't get reported. Fritz has one of his generals ask Trenck point blank whether there were more letters, and, should Trenck deny them, have him arrested at once. Thus it happened, according to the relative.
Meyerentz himself is, of course, not an unbiased witness; according to the Austrian Resident in Danzig, he did, in fact, have a grudge against Trenck. (I'll get to this.)
Trenck tries to flee a couple of times: while the memoirs beef this up, he did try and eventually, one year later (November 1746), succeed. Then on April 12th 1747, Trenck and Schell, one of the Glatz staff, who let his door unlocked and went with him are condemmed by a war tribunal for desertion in absentia and in effigy (yep, that again, ask Peter Keith).
(
mildred_of_midgard: No one left Katte's door unlocked. :`-(selenak: FW was scarier? Actually, I do have a theory, because glancing at the war tribunal sentence for both Trenck and Schell, I see that Schell isn't from Prussia. He's from "Müncherode in Swabia" according to the judgment. Google didn't give me a Müncherode in Swabia, but it did give me one in Thuringia, near Jena (at this point, belonging to the Dukedom Sachsen-Weimar, the one unborn great nephew Carl August will rule one day. Either way, it's not Prussia. At a guess: maybe Schell had the dubious joy of being forcibly recruited into Prussian service, like so many others. And thought this was a great opportunity for his very own "Fuck you, Fritz!" ) The Trenck estate Groß-Scharlach in East Prussia gets confiscated and only returned in 1752 to his brother Ludwig when Ludwig petitions for it. (The book also contains a petition by Trenck's mother earlier to get the estate back, which gets refused, whereas brother Ludwig suceeds. Sexism: it's a thing.)
1749: Renewed and even more strict order to arrest known deserters abroad from Prussia.
Trenck, as we know, ends up in Vienna. And now it gets really fascinating.
Trenck memoirs: So I met the Prussian Ambassador, Podewils (author of the MT: Hot or Not? report), who told me Fritz was only testing me and would have let me go after a year, and wants me to come back. I said no way, my loyal heart was too mishandled by him. And that was that.
Podewils report dated December 1750, adressed to Fritz: Guess whom I met? Yep, the Trenck boy. He said he only did a runner because he was told you'd have had him locked up for eternity. HE's really really sorry and asks you for a pardon. Also he just inherited 600 000 Taler from Austrian Trenck and if you let him return to East Prussia, he will, of course, bring that money along. If you pardon him, that is.
Fritz to Podewils, dated December 22nd 1750: I had absolutely reason to lock that boy up, but okay, he can come home. I'm just that nice. Provided he stays in East Prussia and never tries to join my army again.
Now this was the first reveal that really stunned me. I mean. Say what? Which other deserter - I mean, Peter Keith excepted - gets offered a pardon and a return by Fritz?
(
mildred_of_midgard: During wartime, it wasn't uncommon. Asprey even says he offered a mass pardon for deserters in late 1744, as long as they returned within 6 months and rejoined the army. And I've seen sources saying that in the Seven Years' War, when manpower was at a premium, returning after deserting meant all was forgiven.In 1750, yeah, that feels weird. That said, Prades was released from prison after the war, after having been imprisoned for espionage, and told to stay in Silesia, so Fritz telling him to stay in East Prussia and behave himself sounds maybe in character?
selenak: Yes, but Prades was a) a civilian, while Trenck had been a Prussian officer, b) a French citizen, not a Prussian citizen, and c) an actual member of the church - yes, he'd been temporarily excommunicated, but he had been accepted back into the Church. The "Abbé" wasn't just for show, and whether or not you could condemn clerics the same way as laymen was still not completely settled by universal law. Much as Fritz was into mocking Catholicism, a sizable part of his subjects, courtesy of Silesia, were now Catholics, and he needed goodwill to rebuild.Now, Trenck was also an officer of the Austrian army and as Kaunitz himself (! saw this when having a quick look) told his people to argue a citizen of Austria, not Prussia anymore, but he'd been Prussian first. Mind you, I doubt Fritz would have been amused if, say, Uncle George had George Keith, Lord Marishal arrested at Versailles on the rationale that Keith was a British subject and deserter, then had him extradited to GB. Ahem. )
Back to 1750 and that amazing offer of a pardon:
Podewils to Fritz: It's a deal. He's really grateful and says just three or four weeks more to wrap up his business in Vienna, and then he comes home to Prussia.
For reasons Volz can't explain, after all this, Trenck does NOT go home to Prussia. Instead, he joins the Austrian army, rank of Rittmeister, in the Hungarian Kürassierregiment Cordova.
Trenck's mother Maria Charlotte dies in Danzig on December 25th 1753. On June 12th, 1754, the Prussian Resident in Danzig, Reimer, reports to the ministry that former Prussian Cornet Trenck is in town on family business and is mostly seen near or in the residence of Austrian Resident in Danzig, Abramson. He wants to know whether he should ignore Trenck's presence in Danzig or ask the city council of Danzig whether he can arrest him as a deserter.
This is a tricky business, not least because Trenck was now a member of the Austrian army, and Austria & Prussia were at least nominally at peace. Also Danzig = Free City.
Trenck's memoirs: That bastard Abramson and Reimer conspired against me and had me practically kidnapped.
Volz: Did not. Abramson was a total champ for you and did everything in his power to help you. And Reimer went out of his way to handle this delicate situation legally. Fritz was handed Reimer's request for directives on June 27th. On the 29th, Fritz ordered that Reimer was to petition the city of Danzig as discreetly as possible but without delay to hand over Trenck.
July 2nd: official petition by the Prussian ministry to the City of Danzig to hand over the deserter Trecnk, wanted for "enormous crimes" beyond desertion.
Danzig City Council: we're cool with that.
And here I'd like to insert some direct, not paraphrased quotes from the Austrian Resident, Herr Abramson, reporting to Austrian First Minister Kaunitz right then and there about how the unfolding disaster went down:
The Rittmeister (i.e. Trenck) showed no restraint whatsoever and told everyone his name, rank and service, he visited me day in and day out. Yesterday this officer showed up in the middle of the night around twelve, delivered a letter signed by the King in (!) Prussia‘s own hand to the City Council, and thus two officers and several grenadiers were sent to his quarters, which were at the boatsmen‘s guildhouse, to arrest him, and he was brought to a local prison via a Porte-Chaise. An hour later, this was told to me through his servant.
So, in the night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested. Earlier that same day, Prussian Resident Reimer, his wife and his secretary attended a party at the Austrian resident's where they met and talked to Trenck, who introduced himself by name and had no idea of his impending doom. (This is confirmed not just by Abramson's reports to Kaunitz but through documents caused by Trenck trying to sue the City of Danzig years later, who promptly collected witnesses and documents to demonstrate they had acted legally in allowing an extradition request and Trenck had brought his identification on himself.)
Abramson, that the same night, writes to the City Representatives, protesting, and asks for Trenck to be handed over to him. This first petition is denied. Abramson writes another one, asking for a delay until the Austrian and the Prussian court can come to terms re: Trenck; supposedly, negotiations have already started. Meanwhile, Abramson gives Kaunitz the latest update:
I do not know what on earth made the Baron of Trenck consider this journey, all the more so since I have reminded him of the danger he was in many times during my daily interactions with him. Still he believed himself safe, and did not want to show the least bit of caution. After his arrest, his servant, named Kayser, who along with a hunter and a footman of his is still here, has told me that he (Trenck) didn‘t have any money with him and that this had been the reason why he had to remain in Danzig for so long; he (Kayser) had advised him repeateadly to open up to me about this. But (Trenck) supposedly replied every time that he wasn‘t afraid of anything and was utterly safe here. By now I‘ve discovered that a brother of his brother-in-law, named v. Meyerentz, who is staying here as a Polish Lt. Colonel, has denounced him to Berlin as a revengfe for the refused payment of 200 Ducats which the Baron of Trenck owes him as well as due to various quarrels from their time in Vienna, thus causing this arrest. I‘ve written all of this with today‘s mail to the Marquis de La Puebla. I await the Empress-Queen‘s orders how to behave towards the city council from now on.
The Marquis de La Puebla was the official Austrian envoy in Berlin, more about him in a moment. Now, whether Abramson is correct in identifiying Meyerentz as the one who denounced Trenck to Reimer, who knows; ditto in what that says about the truthfulness of Meyrentz. But given Trenck's idea of discretion, his discovery was inevitable, I'd say.
Trenck himself writes a petition dated July 9th to the city officials asking for help and pointing out that the arrest goes against the freeness of the city of Danzig. (Not if the city fathers were asked first and agreed to it, though. ) However, on July 8th, the City Council has already signed off to agreeing to Fritz' extradition request. And it's off with Trenck to Prussia. The Commander of Berlin notifies Fritz on July 22nd that Trenck has arrived, and is told to transport him to Magdeburg immediately. Magdeburg at this point is commanded Generallietenant von Borcke, not, as Trenck claims in his memoirs, by EC's brother Ferd(inand) of Braunschweig, who takes over command of Magdeburg later.
(While he's at it, Volz also skewers the story Trenck tells in the memoirs that evil Austrians have warned Fritz, supposedly visiting East Prussia for military revue reasons, that Trenck was on his way; Fritz wasn't in East Prussia in 1754, and he learned about Trenck's presence in Danzig from Reimer.)
Far from conspiring with the Prussians, the Austrians actually continued to go on the mat for Trenck. No sooner is he in Magdeburg that the official Austrian envoy in Berlin, Count Puebla, officially protests against what's done to Trenck with the Prussian cabinet and says that Trenck having fallen out of favour with Fritz does not justify his arrest and treatment as a criminal. Fritz writes to his ministers to tell Count Puebla he's amazed that Trenck was accepted into the Austrian army to begin with, since a proper war tribunal has condemmed the guy first and made him infamous that way. He also asks that a copy of the war tribunal's judgment against Trenck from 1747 should be forwarded to Puebla, which it is.
So far, so Fritzian. And now comes another stunner. On November 1st that same year, Fritz makes a confidential request to the French envoy in Berlin (at this point, it's La Touche) and asks him whether the French government could do him a favour and take a Prussian prisoner of state and transport him overseas to their colonial possession. IN this document, the person in question is described as a young man of noble birth who has behaved badly against Fritz. Fritz wishes him far away from Prussia both due to his, the King's own interests, and those of Trenck's family. However, he doesn't want the guy to remain locked up overseas, far from it, no. The young man in question, says Fritz, knows how to use his sword, he has wit and courage, and could be really really useful if the French take him into their service - but in the colonies. Far from here.
(Exact quote: ""Il ny'a sera pas tout-à-fait inutile, vu que c'est proprement un homme d'épée, ne manquant pas d'esprit ni de bravoure.")
La Touche is down with that, but unfortunately, the ships on which this swashbuckling guy of wit, courage and bad behavior towards his King is to be transported on leave for St. Maurice in January 1755, but the winter in Prussia is so heavy that and early that Trenck can't be transported to France to be put on one of those ships. (Document No. 27.) (By the next year, 1756, the French government isn't in a mood to do Fritz favours anymore, and Fritz dosn't ask anyway.)
At which point, Volz says, yes, reader, I'm confused, too. How come Fritz is offering a pardon in 1750 and demands Trenck's extradition four years later, why, if he has him arrested and brought to Magdeburg, is he then ready to have him shipped off to the French colonies with basically a recommendation letter? But it's not really a paradox, reader: the pardon was offered before Trenck joined the Austrian army. Trenck joining the Austrian army after that one means Fritz would never forgive him again. Handing him over to the French would have meant a face saving way of defusing the diplomatic situation with the Austrian s in 1755, which was tense enough already, that's all.
(Comment by ours truly: I'm not sure I buy the last one, since "defusing the situation with the Austrians" and "Fritz" do not often appear in the same sentence, and certainly not in 1755/1756 when in his entire other correspondance he sounds rather gleeful about supposedly having isolated Austria diplomatically through his treaty with England.)
Trenck in Magdeburg: no tombstone with his name to sit on, says Volz, but his proof for this is just an indignant letter to a newspaper upon the publication of Trenck's memoirs, with the letter writer calling himself "A Brandenburg patriot" who says he was employed in Magdeburg fortress at that time and there was no tombstone.
Trenck then tries to flee a couple of times, and we get documents again, proving a certain Ruckard, who used to be Austrian Trenck's quartermaster with the Pandurs, is sending 1000 Taler bribery money to the guards. However, all of Trenck's escape attempts fail (the memoirs name more than can be proven, but he did, Volz admits, try several times, so definitely has earned his jailbreak king reputation), which leads to the order to have him chained.
Trenck becomes an Austrian-Prussian object of discussion again after the 7 Years War ends, and the peace treaty of Hubertusburg explicitly includes an article offering amnesty to both MT's and Fritz' subjects. There's a note from Vienna to the peace negotiator, Hofrat von Collenbach, that this clause should be extended to Trenck as well. As with Puebla's protest 9 years earlier, Fritz replies he doesn't understand why the Austrians would want to intervene for "a man of that type". (Document No. 36.) Things get moving again when the first Austrian post war envoy, Freiherr von Ried, arrives in Berlin. He asks Graf Finckenstein how to approach the Trenck subject without causing the King's displeasure, but really, MT wants Trenck released:
Le cas de Trenck est differént: S.M. L‘Impératrice, par un simple mouvement de pitíe, m‘a recommandé fortement de tacher d‘ effectuer sa liberté. Ma souveraine est bien éloignée de contredire S.M. Le Roi sur la conduite et la charactère de Trenck. Tout le monde connait que c‘est un mauvais garnement. Cependant à tout pécheur rémission! Si on considère la longueuer du temps qu‘ il est déjà en prison, et qu, lorsqu‘il fut arrété a Danzig, il était actuellement dans le service de L‘Impératrice, il pairait qu‘il ne devrait pas etre impossible de fléchir S.M. Le Roi.
At the same time, Ried writes to Kaunitz in German: Regarding Trenck, (...) it just depends on finding a good moment to petition the King. For now, I haven‘t achieved anything beyond making his imprisonment somewhat more bearable for him, and gotten permission to allow him to improve his conditions through third parties sending him money now and then. This man‘s regular behavior, however, is so badly that one can‘t take his party in public, for as soon as he sees the slightest hope to expect some help, he starts with his debaucheries. Not withstanding this, I still hope to free him; for those who have his fate in their hands are as much invested in his cause as I am.
(Debaucheries? He does write "Ausschweifungen", dear reader. Enquiring minds want to know what, other than Prades cleaning out everyone with card games, went down in Magdeburg prison if you weren't chained to the wall.)
Finckenstein tells Ried to wait for Fritz moving from Potsdam to Berlin for the carnival and ask nicely then. Ried does so. Fritz points him back to Finckenstein. Finckenstein gets another visit from Ried and asks Fritz himself. Fritz tells Finckenstein fine, but only because MT asked nicely and he wants to do her a favour. Under the condition Trenck never puts his foot on Prussian soil again and is forbidden by the Austrians to say anything about Fritz in either written or oral form ever. Exit Trenck from Madgeburg to Prague. (And later writes his memoirs, wherein he says a lot about Fritz, both negative and positive, down to dedicating the book to him.)
As for Trenck/Amalie, Volz points out Trenck gets the date of Ulrike's wedding festivities (where according to the memoirs Amalie and Trenck met) wrong and that the obvious reason is that he claims a three years love affair when his later entry into the army and the later wedding mean it can't have lasted nearly that long, if it ever did. Volz' main reason for not believing it ever did is that the same royal familiy who even brings up Barbarina in their letters never ever gossips about Trenck, this despite the fact Amalie with her sharp tongue at different points has various other family members very pissed off at her. And yet, never a "remember that Trenck guy?" kind of needling. No one mentions Trenck at all.
He does concede some of Trenck's poetry - yes, he published some - is adressed to Amalie but says this was standard for the day, and Trenck also adressed poems to EC. Yes, one of Trenck's daughters became Amalie's goddaughter, with Amalie accepting godmother status, but the accepting letter is in her secretary's handwriting, not hers. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.) Here, though, I have to slightly disagree with Volz' assessment that the letter sounds as if Amalie never met Trenck. Because this is the exact text:
Berlin, 116 mars 1771/ Je vous félicite, Monsieur, de la naissance de votre fille, et comme je me suis toujours intéressée à votre sort, j'accepte avec plaisir d'etre sa marraine, vous assurant que je prends part à tout les evenenments heureux qui vous surviennent, étant avec estime, Monsieur, votre affectionée, Amèlie.
"I've always taken an interest in your fate" would imply she at the very least knows who he is, and "I particpate in all the happy events you experience" would imply a previous acquaintance as well. This said, a love letter, this is not.
Lastly, the fact that Trenck in the first volume swears never to reveal the name of his high born lady, and in volume 3, when both Fritz and Amalie are dead, says "it was totally Amalie" makes the claim even less credible to Volz, who, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
Said letter first gets cited in Christopher Frey's essay "Friedrich von der Trencks Beziehung zu Prinzessin Amalie von Preußen sowie ein bisher unbekannter Brief Trencks. In: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 116. Band, Heft 1–2 (2008), S. 146–158.", and it's part of Frey's general theory that while Trenck undoubtedly lied a lot in his memoirs, and did commit treason, many of the lies are built around a true core. In this case, Frey believes the core to be that there was an actual relationship. He strongly disagrees with Volz on the interpretation of the letter by Amalie accepting becoming a godmother to Trenck's daughter Caroline; like me, he finds it does indicate not only knowledge of but at the very least sympathetic interest in Trenck. He further compares it with Joseph's neutral to cool letter responding to Trenck making him the godfather of his son and points out that this was how you'd expect Amalie to have reacted as well if Trenck was nothing but a stranger who had spend almost a decade as her brother's prisoner and was regarded as a traitor and deserter in Prussia. Why, argues Frey, would she not only accept becoming his daughter's godmother but talk about caring about his fate and wishing to take par in good things happening to him?
But the piece de resistance to Frey's essay is another letter. The letter in question was written by Trenck, dated April 5th 1787, to his wife (who was in Austria; Trenck was visiting relations in post-Fritz Berlin): "Nothing but bad news. On the evening before my departure, I dine with Princess Amalie alone, in close friendship. She holds my hand and presses it for half an hour without letting go, talks of nothing but the joy to contribute to my happiness. She orders me to bring you with your daughters to Berlin, she promises me to include Caroline in her will. She forces me to accept 100 Louisdor from her for my journey. I leave her in tears. I arrive in Köningsberg and find the news of her sudden death two days after my departure. I am struck by this in an indescribable way, and recognize the strangeness of my doomed destiny, and I doubt, she had time to even think of herself."
This fits with the decription Trenck gives in his memoirs (volume 3) about his last meeting with Amalie and unlike the memoirs was written only two weeks after the described event, not for a mass audience but for his wife, which is why Frey believes it to be true. He does not mention what to me seems obvious: Trenck is his only witness for this encounter with Amalie, and if he has promised his wife that the Princess would help before, he has to explain why she didn't if that encounter never happened. The problem with habitual liars: you can't take anything they say for granted without a second independent source.
This said, there's one detail here which could be an indication Trenck did indeed meet an aged Amalie: the pressing his hand for half an hour without letting go. Amalie at this point could hardly move her arms anymore, and if she managed a gesture, it usually took either the other party helping or herself eons to open her hands again. It should be added that royalty didn't shake hands as a greeting. Trenck would have kissed her hand by way of saying hello; if she clasped his, despite knowing her limitations, that was indeed a gesture indicating emotional closeness.
In conclusion: we know more than previously, but it's no less confusing. Especially the bit with the pardon and the French overseas handover that almost happened. And the Austrian championing of Trenck (who later did nothing but complain about lack of support from Vienna). So, my current take:
Spy or no spy: must have done some spying, otherwise I really fail to understand why the Austrians didn't leave him to rot.
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: far less likely than before, but still possible as far as Amalie is concerned. At the very least, I'd say she'd known and liked him before his first arrest. Fritz might have known Trenck pre-arrest as well, since the description he gives of Trenck to the French envoy when he tries to have him sent overseas mentions esprit, wit, always a priced trait for Fritz, but Trenck definitely wasn't, like Trenck claims in his memoirs, his favourite pre first arrest.
Also, I do wonder what exactly he did for the Austrians, or maybe I‘m too cynical and MT did just feel sorry for him. I mean, it‘s not like even if Prussian Trenck got letters from Austrian Trenck and wrote back „yep, on your side now!“, they got much out of this. And since he got arrested at the end of June, and Soor wasn‘t until the end of September, he can‘t have told them that Eichel and the war chest would be around, either...
