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Updated: June 27, 2025
The childhood of little Fritz unfolded amid conditions that must have given to life a rather somber aspect. After the close of the war Captain Schiller moved his little family to Lorch, a village some thirty miles east of Stuttgart, where he was employed by the Duke of Wuerttemberg in recruiting soldiers for mercenary service abroad.
But the youth had no stomach for the doctrine that he was in the world for the sake of Wuerttemberg.
In this ambition he was not disappointed, for in the War of the Third Coalition he received important assistance from these three states, all of which were in turn liberally rewarded for their services, the rulers of Bavaria and Wuerttemberg being proclaimed kings. The year 1806 was epochal in German history.
As soon as war broke out with France our comrades from Switzerland, according to him, should break into Baden and Wuerttemberg, should there tear up the tracks and confiscate the contents of the postal and railroad treasuries. And this man, who urged me to do all that, was, as I said, in the employ of the Prussian police.
The German right, opposing the British, was under command of General von Kluck; General von Buelow and General von Hausen commanded the German center opposing the Franco-Belgian forces between the Sambre and Namur and the Meuse. The Grand Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg operated between Charleroi and the French border fortress of Maubeuge.
In their despair the prisoners, especially the officers among them, sent petitions to Duke Alexander of Wuerttemberg, to the Tzar, to the Grand Duke Constantine, and to the Ladies of the Russian Court. The Tzar and his brother Constantine came and visited the hospitals. They were struck by what they saw, and ordered relief.
At this the mask was thrown off. "Get his passport!" yelled the dealer on the floor. The other two began to draw weapons and started toward Kirtley. He was almost unnerved. His genial Wuerttemberg friend a spy! It was the Secret Service. As he stepped back, thunderstruck, his hand grazed the big pepper can which had been left on the side table. It sent an inspiration whizzing through his brain.
The young student, dreaming the dreams of youth and pining for freedom and action, had more than once felt his gorge rise to the choking-point as he found himself forced to plod on among the dull, oppressive, unheroic facts of life; and those acts of official villainy against which Moor draws the sword he had himself seen flourishing unavenged in his native Wuerttemberg.
Such was the political system that had afflicted Wuerttemberg during Schiller's childhood. It furnished him with his dramatic 'mythology', as it has been called. The name may be allowed to pass, only it should be remembered that this mythology was simply history.
Many more cases resembling these two were observed by von Scherer, and other army surgeons reported instances of the like effect of cold. Surgeon General von Schmetter had remained with the Crown Prince of Wuerttemberg in Wilna, while the army marched to Moscow.
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