Goethe gets serious

Recruitenauslesung in Buttstädter Rathaus (1779)

Indeed, it was in 1779 that Goethe, as a member of Carl August's council, really began to settle into the role of minister. As I mentioned in the last post, by the end of 1778 the demand of Prussia for soldiers led to a fraught political situation for Weimar, which led to Goethe’s appointment as chairman of the War Commission. In that appointment he replaced long-standing minister Jacob Friedrich Freiherr von Fritsch, who appears to have been one of the truly unassailable bureaucrats, which is shown by his appointment to the Secret Council in 1762, when he was only 29 years old. Effi Biedrzynski, in her book Goethes Weimar, has a nice try on von Fritsch, who naturally took it amiss when the youngster Goethe became one of the duke’s ministers and, later, when Goethe superseded him as head of the War Commission.

Goethe’s diary entries  for February 1779 are not the short, terse ones of preceding months; which I was able to Tweet. They include somewhat longer ruminations and self-assessment. For instance, the entry for Feb. 1, by which time the Prussian situation had become more serious, mentions “Conseil,” and then “Dumme Luft drinne, fataler Humor von Fr.” So, evidently Fritsch was not in a good mood. Moreover, Goethe writes that the duke talked too much at the session. They later met and Goethe advised him not to talk so much, to moderate his expression, and not to get into a heated discussion concerning matters that should not be addressed. But Goethe also adds some self-assessment, indicating a resolve to make the best of what he calls the “Militarischen Makaronis.” “Die Kr. Comm. werd ich gut versehen weil ich bey dem Geschäfft, gar keine Immagination habe, gar nichts hervorbringen will, nur das was da ist recht kenne, und ordentlich haben will.” Later in the month, sometime after Feb. 14, he writes: “Diese Zeit her hab ich meist gesucht mich in Geschäfften auf recht zu erhalten und bey allen Vorfällen fest zu seyn und ruhig.”

Hogarth, English Military Recruitment (1765)

Indeed in February and March Goethe reflects a lot on the work he has to do. Interestingly, there is no mention in the February entries of the letter that was discussed in the last post, which, according to Schöne, must have kept him up half the night composing. At the end of February, we begin to see how busy his official duties keep him. On February 26 and until the middle of March, he  traveled from one town to the next — Jena, Dornburg, Apoda, Buttstädt, Allstädt, and Ilmenau — on a recruitment tour (Auslesung der Mannschaft) for the duchy’s soldiery. As Nicholas Boyle writes, this activity took place in “a succession of draughty town halls and unoccupied castles … measuring heights and listening to excuses from the fit and newly married and pleas for admission by the sickly and unemployed.” And in between Goethe dictated the first three acts of the prose version of Iphigenie!

The drawing at the top of the post, made by Goethe during the days on the road, is traced bz Schöne to a scene by Hogarth, which Goethe is likely to have seen, and which, in much more satirical form, shows the recruitment and measurements of soldiers outside an English village inn.

Images: (Goethe-Nationalmuseum Weimar; Kunstsammlung Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttigen

Goethe as Minister of War Commission

 

This post is a follow-up to the previous one, concerning Goethe’s appointment as director of the Weimar “War Commission,” in particular the letter he drafted for Carl August in connection with demands made on Weimar by Frederick the Great for permission to harvest soldiers in the duchy for his army. Goethe's diary entries for this period are very illuminating. I would have Tweeted them, but they are too long, so I will instead quote here his reaction, in his diary, to his appointment and to his duties. One is dated January 13, 1779; a second “from 14th til the 23”; and a third one January 30. The appointment and the responsibility seem to have brought him to more personal considerations, which can also be seen in the long diary entries for the following months of February and March. One sees in these entries Goethe speaking in lapidary manner, which may be the start of the “quotable Goethe.” He also seems to undertaking some self-assessment.

January 13 notes, in connection with the first session of the Commission, that he is “Fest ruhig in meinen Sinnen, und scharf.” The pressure of the tasks is not unpleasant at all, which leads to the following: “Elender ist nichts als der Behagliche Mensch ohne Arbeit, das schönste der Gaben wird ihm eckeln.” (Nothing is more sordid as a contented man without work; the best gifts will revolt him.)  He refers to the difficulty of activating and maintaining the “Earthly machine.” For an active person (einen Handelnden), past history is not a guide, nor textbooks. Likewise prayers, except one for wisdom, a gift that the gods have denied humans. And then: “Klugheit theilen sie aus, dem Stier nach seinen Hörnern und der Kazze nach ihren Klauen, sie haben all Geschöpfe bewaffnet.” (All creatures have been armed, the bull with its horns, the cat with its claws.)

The following  entry (Vom 14 bis 25) mentions that he has immersed himself in the documents and that the matter is becoming clearer: the appearance in Weimar of the Prussian courier Reinbaben and the issue discussed in the previous post, namely, the Prussian demands and the courses open to Weimar, which will then be elaborated in the February 9 letter to Carl August. Among all this is only a single lament: “Wenig auf dem Eis!”

To be continued.

Goethe as Political Advisor

Friedrich and Feldherr Bernhard Rode

This post continues the subject of the preceding one, namely, Goethe’s acculturation to life in Weimar to the point where, as Herder would write in 1782 to Hamann, he was majordomo of the court: “Er ist also jetzt Wirklicher Geheimer Rat, Kammerpräsident, Präsident des Kriegscollegi, Aufseher des Bauwesens bis zum Wegbau hinunter, dabei auch Directeur des Plaisirs, Hofpoet, Verfasser von schönen Festivitäten …” etcetera etcetera.

It was in that year of 1782 that Goethe was tasked with overseeing the “household finances” of the duchy. This good bourgeois son of Frankfurt — even if now Geheimrat — would introduce many reductions, including in military expenditures. It’s strange now to think of a duchy as small as Weimar having a standing army, even if much of it consisted of poorly trained part-timers, and regular troops who performed guard duty at bridges and gates and the workhouse.

Albrecht Schöne

Albrecht Schöne (96 this year!) devotes a chapter of his book Der Briefschreiber Goethe to his appointment at the age of twenty-nine, in 1779, as director of the War Commission, replacing the very much senior von Fritsch in that capacity. I should say at this point that Albrecht Schöne is a Goethe scholar from whom I have learned a lot. I was fortunate to review this book a few years ago for the Goethe Yearbook. Its nine chapters treat individual letters written by Goethe, from the earliest in 1764 to Ludwig Ysenburg von Bari, to one written in the final year of his life, 1832, to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Each chapter includes the full text of the letter. The one discussed here was written to Carl August in February 1779.

Archduke Joseph by Georg Decker

Already in late 1778, in Schöne’s account, Weimar was under pressure to supply troops for Prussia’s military excursus (Auseinandersetzung) against Austria: the War of the Bavarian Succession (so-called Potato War). The Prussians were determined to stop the ambitions of Josef II for Habsburg expansion into Central Europe. A certain Lieutenant von Rheinbaben, emissary of General von Moellendorff, visited von Frisch in early December 1778 requesting permission to recruit soldiers in the duchy for Prussia (theils einige Recruten, theils die Erlaubniß, in den hiesigen Landen zu werben). Von Fritsch responded negatively (mit einem entschieden abwehrenden Schreiben), on the grounds of insufficient men fit for service.

The Prussians were not to be put off, and another emissary of the Prussian king arrived at the end of the month, who was likewise rebuffed. The situation became increasingly threatening by January 1799, when young Weimar males were press-ganged by Prussian hussars or kidnapped as alleged Prussian deserters. Moellendorf wrote again, expressing the king’s “deep consternation” that von Fritsch had not presented the duke with the king’s most amicable and ardent request, namely, to be allowed some recruits (Ersuchen einiger Rekruten auf das freundschaftlichste, aber inständigste, nochmahlen zu widerholen). So it went, with Carl August declining and the king, Frederick the Great, replying in a tone that was “ruthlessly conciliatory” (mit knocheharter Konzilianz).

Part of the problem for Weimar was that if the Prussians were granted this request, Austria would take it amiss and might invade. The duke had to respond to the king. What was his course of action to be? So, in this increasingly threatening situation, Goethe drafted a letter on February 9, 1779, addressed to Carl August —  “Gnädigster Herr” — outlining the courses of action open to the duke. Schöne reproduces the text of the letter and analyzes it in great detail, including grammatically. The main interest here, however, is Goethe as a political advisor.

Goethe begins by writing that one (he always use “man” here, meaning Carl August) has to weigh two unpleasant courses of action against the other (beyde unangenehme Seiten gegenwärtiger Lage … natürlich gegen einander stellen)  in order to calculate the options open to Weimar, without emotional exaggeration while appraising the facts on the ground (ein sachlich abwägedendes Kalkül ziehen und sich dann ohne emotionale Übertreibungen die eigenen Optionen vor Augen führen, also Weimars Handlungsspielräume anloten).

Entscheidungstheorie

It is in this carefully constructed letter that one comes to appreciate how much Goethe actually learned from his father and from his studies of the law, however much he dismissed them. The duke, after all, only twenty-one years of age, was dealing, with Great Powers: Prussia and Austria. It shows how much he depended on Goethe already, asking his counsel, and not only that of the older and experienced von Fritsch.  Schöne refers to the letter as “ein meisterliche[s] Lehrstück strategischen Denkens.” The seven-page letter, drafted overnight, was not only an example of princely education in the age of enlightened absolutism, but, for Schöne, it also represents a textbook example of political advice. To provide a larger overview, Schöne includes a tree diagram (in Anlehnung an Darstellungsweisen der Entscheidungtheorie) that lays out the pros and cons of the two options (one regarding Prussia, the other Austria). Represented here is only the former, with P representing Prussia and W Weimar. The numbers in parens refer to lines of the letter. (Click on image to enlarge.)

The contents of the letter is of course something we expect “professionals” to consider when advising clients. In the end the letter had no consequences, as the political situation calmed down. Schöne makes the point that the letter was a letter meant privately for the duke. It makes no reference to earlier secret discussions of the Commission concerning the matter at hand, and is not found in Goethe’s “amtliche Schriften,” but instead in Carl August’s cache of private letters from Goethe.