Yes, mes amies, I have in my temporary prosession, as a loan home, the "Trenck and Fritz: The Documents" book by the esteemed Gustav Volz.
This consists of a lengthy text in which Volz skewers Trenck's various claims similar to Koser skewing Henri de Catt, and then of the documents themselves which he refers to in the text already. I only had time to read the text. Overall summary: Trenck is a lying lying who lies, but both Fritz and the Austrians did weird stuff (unmentioned by Trenck) 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 1745, and Maupertuis in 1748.
Trenck is recorded as being part of the army fighting the second Silesian War on 15th August 1744. He's also participating in the batlte 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 Cousin Austrian Trenck. 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. 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.
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). Also the Trenck estate Groß-Scharlach in East Prussia gets confiscated and only returned in 1752 to his brother Ludwig when Ludwig petitions for it.
Trenck, as we know, ends up in Vienna. And now it gets 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 1752, 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 1752: 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?
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. Instead, he joins the Austrian army, rank of Rittmeister, in the Hungarian Kürassierregiment Cordova.
1749: Renewed and even more strict order to arrest known deserters abroad.
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 Cornett 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.
Night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested. However, earlier that same day, Reimer, his wife and his secretary attended a party at the Austrian resident's where they met and talked to Trenck, who had no idea of his impending doom.
Abramson, the Austrian resident, learns from Trenck's servant of Trenck's arrest and immeditely, 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. 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. 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 of Braunschweig.
(While he's at it, Volz also skewers the story Trenck tells 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 1747should 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.
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.
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), 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. Finckenstein tells him 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 the Austrians to say anything about Fritz in either written or oral form ever. Exit Trenck from Madgeburg to Prague.
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 concide 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 was by her secetary, not her. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.) 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. Volz, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
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 they didn't leave him to rot.
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: could explain the pardon offer. Like I said - who, other than Peter, gets pardoned for desertion from the Prussian army? Yes, Trenck is offering to bring his Austrian inheritance money along, but a few taxes more aren't that crucial, surely.
Trenck!
This consists of a lengthy text in which Volz skewers Trenck's various claims similar to Koser skewing Henri de Catt, and then of the documents themselves which he refers to in the text already. I only had time to read the text. Overall summary: Trenck is a lying lying who lies, but both Fritz and the Austrians did weird stuff (unmentioned by Trenck) 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 1745, and Maupertuis in 1748.
Trenck is recorded as being part of the army fighting the second Silesian War on 15th August 1744. He's also participating in the batlte 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 Cousin Austrian Trenck. 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. 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.
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). Also the Trenck estate Groß-Scharlach in East Prussia gets confiscated and only returned in 1752 to his brother Ludwig when Ludwig petitions for it.
Trenck, as we know, ends up in Vienna. And now it gets 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 1752, 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 1752: 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?
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. Instead, he joins the Austrian army, rank of Rittmeister, in the Hungarian Kürassierregiment Cordova.
1749: Renewed and even more strict order to arrest known deserters abroad.
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 Cornett 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.
Night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested. However, earlier that same day, Reimer, his wife and his secretary attended a party at the Austrian resident's where they met and talked to Trenck, who had no idea of his impending doom.
Abramson, the Austrian resident, learns from Trenck's servant of Trenck's arrest and immeditely, 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. 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. 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 of Braunschweig.
(While he's at it, Volz also skewers the story Trenck tells 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 1747should 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.
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.
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), 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. Finckenstein tells him 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 the Austrians to say anything about Fritz in either written or oral form ever. Exit Trenck from Madgeburg to Prague.
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 concide 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 was by her secetary, not her. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.) 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. Volz, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
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 they didn't leave him to rot.
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: could explain the pardon offer. Like I said - who, other than Peter, gets pardoned for desertion from the Prussian army? Yes, Trenck is offering to bring his Austrian inheritance money along, but a few taxes more aren't that crucial, surely.