Austrian Trenck

[mildred_of_midgard]

selenak's write-up of Franz von der Trenck's, aka Austrian Trenck's, memoirs. Not to be confused with his cousin Friedrich von der Trenck, aka Prussian Trenck.

[ETA: According to 21st century historian Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, these memoirs were probably not written by Trenck.]

Civvies, you can't handle the truth, and I'm gonna tell it to you anyway. Yes, imagine me being played by Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men". I'm that kind of character. Also, I hope you weren't expecting anything about my no good cousin here, because he's Sir Not Mentioned In These Memoirs. Look, I'm writing them in the last two years of my life, when frankly I had other things to worry about than a kid I hadn't even met yet. Such as a death sentence hanging over my head, which only the fact MT felt she owed me kept me from.

So: Dad was a Prussian who fought for the HRE and got rewarded with some nice estate. I was born in Italy as the third son, and travelled with him all over Italy and Croatia as a kid. But before that could happen, I nearly died a couple of times. Starting with my birth. Didn't make a sound, and if the midwife hadn't bathed me in hot wine till I cried, I'd have died. This set up a theme. When I was six months, the baby chair I was sitting on burned through and I fell on the hot coals beneath it. Still got the scars. Not the last time I was burned alive. When I was nearly four, I went after Dad's gun and shot with it and the bullet riccochet and hit me in my leg. And then there was the time when I fell in the frozen river and had to be fished out of the ice. Oh yeah, and when I was five I had my older brothers organized to raid the local market for apples. You better believe I was the toughest, meanest kid on the block. Nothng much changed.

As I grew up, I started to get into duels, big time. Once my two brothers came at me at the same time with swords, but naturally I fought them off. We'd have killed each other if Dad hadn't intervened. P.S. They died years later and far from me, in case you're wondering. Love ya, dead bros! Anyway, in between all of this, I got an education by Jesuits. Don't stereotype me, I'm fluent in seven languages, what with the travelling all across the HRE with Dad. When I wasn't fighting with people, I was having sex. Which I'll have lots off throughout this volume. Occasionally even with girls I fell in love with. "Girls" because the oldest whose age gets mentioned when I meet her is twenty. Most I say were 14. Look, they don't have syphilis at that age!

So for some reason, Old Seckendorff when I offered to join the Austrian Army wasn't keen on young me. Your loss, says I, and go to the Russians to fight for them instead. Good times were had by all, specially since my late mother was related to the Duke of Curland, i.e. the Czarina Anna's guy. I got to fight the Turks, which the Russians were always intermittendly at war with, and got myself Turkish slave girls. (Age 14.) They were pretty wild when I got them, but I tamed them and they were really devoted to me. Meant to take them with me for when I was back to the estate, but by then I had joined the Austrian army after all and MT isn't keen on her officers owning slave girls, so I had to set them free. They were totally crushed.

Anyway, before that happened, I got into major arguments with everyone in the Russian army, or so it felt. I was right, of course. Field Marshal Münnich first protected me (once from an execution in Kiev), but when I started an affair with his wife (age unknown), he wasn't so keen anymore. So it was back to the motherland for me. By then, MT had gotten on the throne, and almost immediately, it was invasion time, first from Prussia, then from everyone else! My kinda odds. I offered her a regiment of Pandurs, to be recruited and financed by me and hence irregulars. She gratefully accepted.

So I set out to kick mainly Bavarian and French butt. I wasn't to fight Prussians directly until relatively late in this tale, though I'm told Fritz said that if he ever captured me, I'd get hanged. I refuse to believe this, because we all know how the wise King of Prussia respects law, especially international law, right? (Yes, I really say this in my memoirs.)

Now, I know what my enemies claim. And look, naturally, if towns didn't surrender, or hand over their war contributions as ordered, they were razed. How do you think I was financing this regiment? But it's absolutely untrue that I raided a church and then made the priests buy back the sacred chalices, MT. I'd never do that! I was raised by Jesuits just like you!

Very occasionally, one of my guys might have gotten out of line, and then I had to hang him. My Pandurs, being brave like me, died with their pipes in their mouths, smoking. Impressed the hell out of the watching population. Another time, some 60 plus years old hag came to me and said my guys had threatened to rape her. I went to investigate, and they said they didn't mean it, they had just threatened it because she wouldn't serve them food, and why should they want to rape a 60 plus years hag when they had pretty young things to have sex with? I could totally see their point. No hanged Pandurs then.

There was that one time I nearly died, but not because of anything the enemy did but because when we had conquered a fortress, I checked out the magazines full of gunpowder, with a torch, as you do, and the whole thing exploded. I ran away with all my clothes on fire, and since no one dared approach me, I had to put out the fire myself in the next ditch. I had third degree burns and was wrapped in bandages, but you better believe I went on to wage war the next day, because no one in this story is tougher than me!

Also more inventive when it comes to new tactics. One time, I told all the farmers in the Bavarian countryside where I was currently besieging a place to bring me cats, every cat they could get their hands on. Which they did. I was planning to bind explosives on the tails of those cats and release them in the direction of the town I was besieging, but wouldn't you know it, those guys surrendered, and I couldn't try out my new tactic.

Gotta say some nice things about Prince Karl of Lorraine, though. Karl is MT's brother-in-law, one of the main commanders in both Silesian wars, and currently one of the few people rooting for my survival. The King of Prussia makes fun of him a lot, but look here, Fritz, Karl and I kicked French butt way before you did! We were the first Germans to invade France for at least a century or several, seeing as since Louis XIV, we got invaded by the French, not vice versa. In Straßburg, me and General Nadasty fought one Marquis du Chatelet, whom we were sort of impressed by for not surrendering and still managing to avoid capture when we won (he got himself and his guys out of town in a secret exit).

Now, I know my Pandurs get constantly accused of atrocities, but a) the French did the same thing when they were invading the Austrian heartlands earlier, b) cutting noses and ears off totally works as a method of keeping men from joining your enemies, and c) we left the Cardinal de Rohan's possession untouched. No prince of the Church got plundered by me, MT, I swear!

As for bribery accusations. Untrue! Look, what occasionally happened was that stuff like this: I had a sweet thing going with a merchant's wife, age unmentioned, so I kept her house from plundering. The merchant had this really rich friend who heard about it, and he invited me into his house, showed me all his worldly goods and asked to be spared of plundering. Which, since he showed me such hospitality and respect, I did. He then gave me a thank you gift, as you would!

Finally we had to stop kicking French butt because the King of Prussia was at it again, and we were needed in Bohemia and Silesia. Since my guys had already been looking forward to sacking Paris, I had to motivate them anew. I said: Look, it's all Fritz' fault that you don't get to visit Paris! Let's avenge ourselves on him, yeah?" I also promised them they could keep any bits of Prussian uniforms they could get their hands on. They gave a mighty cheer, and eastwards we went.

Now, new-to-me General Taun had this strategy where he didn't go for direct battle but led Fritz a merrry chase and within three months forced him to leave Bohemia. To give credit where due: that impressed the hell outta me. Though I resent that the Prussian newspapers claim we were afraid of their King. ME! That's such vile slander, that is. Oh, and speaking of the Prussian media: they kept saying their lot was killing or capturing my Pandurs. According to them, I shouldn't have had any left thrice. (BTW, I had to recruit some more between France and Bohemia, that's true, but not after. The newly recruited did admittedly include Turks, BUT I SWEAR THEY ARE ALL CHRISTIANS, MT!) Meanwhile, they don't mention that people deserted from the Prussian army in droves. I counted as much as 6000 during one campaign, because they came our way, muwahaha. Oh, and don't get me started with how Cosel is an unimportant fortress when we capture it, but if the Prussians retrieve it, it suddenly becomes instrumental to their war effort.

When did I have time to read so much Prussian media, you might wonder? Glad you asked. A goddam Prussian canon ball hit way too close to me, and most of it ended up in one of my legs. Which meant months and months of lying still. They had to bind me for the first part, because I wanted to get up again and fight! Goddam doctors even said it would be better to remove that leg, but I said NO WAY, they better repair it. It's sort of alright now, but then I do a lot of enforced lying around again these days. Back then, I also started to write these memoirs.

When I was better, we did that raid of Fritz' camp at Soor. Where we got our hands on his war chest, his secret war documents, his clothing, his brother AW's and his brother Heinrich's clothing and on his main paper-pusher Eichel. Just imagine, if that had happened earlier! As it is, I'm just having fun imagining the three royal brothers stuck with no wardrobe to change into. No wonder he send a messenger to get his stuff back. (Yes, the dogs, too.)

Anyway, about that raid: people later were on my case for doing that instead of battling Fritz, but see, this WAS battling Fritz! Think of the war chest! (Which Karl got the full sum of, I swear, your highness!) Also, my enemies later claimed I had captured Fritz and he paid me to release him. Look, if I'd captured Fritz, you better believe I'd never stop talking about it and would have delivered him to MT personally. But that was one of the things I actually was accused of at my trial. Along with war atrocities. And mistreating some of the people serving under me. Now, no one reading my memoirs so far can surely believe any of this is true, amirite? I just acted like anyone else. Only braver.

I'm currently between trials, and stuck with some Cappuchins who talked me into changing my will so I'm leaving some 15 000 Ducats to that Bavarian town we razed to the ground. No, still not mentioning my cousin and supposed heir. I'm busy composing a memo to my Queen-Empress. Your Majesty: thanks for saving me from execution after the last trial and giving me a new one. Just in case the new one shouldn't find me innocent, though, remember, I did it all for you, and would do it again, because you rock, your cause is just, and if you let me, I'll have another go at Fritz any time you like! Yours truly, Franz von der Trenck. The rest of you: you can't handle the truth!

selenak later verifies a detail:

Remember when I read Austrian Trenck's memoirs and found out the infamous raid of Fritz' camp by Austrian Trenck and his Pandurs at Soor didn't just led to dognapping, Eichel kidnapping and them taking the war chest, but also the clothing of Fritz, Heinrich and AW? I just checked out something else in the AW biography and came across one bit I must have overlooked before, where Ziebura tells the same story and adds that the one exception to the clothing situation was one unrobbed wagon in which there'd been AW's bed sheets and underwear. Then she adds a direct quote from AW, from a letter to Ferdinand (still a child and hence not present) dated October 5th, where AW makes fun of the situation: "Now the King and Heinrich are wearing my shirts and are sleeping on cushions made of my sheets."

mildred_of_midgard adds:

AW was rather larger than Fritz and Heinrich, was he not? Now I'm imagining them drowning in overlarge shirts!

selenak:

He was! And they must have done!

Incidentally, finding this detail verified I must say my trust in Austrian Trenck's veracity is a bit heightened, at least when he's not denying having plundered churches to MT. :)