“Mémoires militaries du
Baron Seruzier, colonel d’artillerie légère, commandant de la legion d’honneur
etc.”, redigés par le Miere de Corvey, officier supérieur en retraite etc. (Paris
1823)
translated by Geert van Uythoven
A contemporary German review of the above
work.
“Did the author want to deceive the public,
was his memory abandoning him, or finally is it the fault of the editor (who
expanded the 40-page manuscript of Baron Seruzier to a book of 344 pages), that
these memoirs have the appearance of war historical fiction? These questions will
be asked by the person reading them. Involuntary, one is reminded to our
story-telling gifted Münchhausen.
Then these memoirs –although containing
many details to enhance its trustworthiness-- as for example the parts about Major
Schill and that describing the taking prisoner of General Blücher, are as
everyone will notice completely untrue. Should the mistrust caused by such
parts, by lack of proof, not lead to a critical comparison of the remaining chapters
of this book? And should it not completely be placed in the fiction category because
of the depictions we already learned about?
According to opinions requested from Paris,
this book is treated as a novel over there.
According to the statements of the author,
nearly everything worth mentioning that took place during the latest years of
war has been the result of the activities of this hero.
The often described and repeated deception
of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz should be set up by him.
Very adventurous and novelistic the capture
of General Blücher is being told. This faith of arms he has accomplished as
well, capturing the General beside his two sons in the vicinity of the Prussian
Holland village during May 1807.
He also destroyed Major Schill. According
to these memoirs, Stralsund was raided by chef d’escadron Seruzier on 20
March 1809. Schill’s troops were massacred, and Schill himself shot by a
certain Brigadier Beckmann. So Schill should have been shot during
March, when he was still in Berlin, leaving this city not earlier then 29 April
as is commonly known. On 31 May, the real date Schill died, Seruzier however
stood at the Donau. On the 21st and 22nd of that same month he had, according
to this memoirs, the opportunity to perform new faiths of arms during the
battle of Aspern.
In July 1809, he has aided Napoleon by facilitating
the crossing of the Donau. Taking prisoner the Austrian General Krasmer, who is
completely unknown, and capturing Brinsdorf castle, which no one knows, etc.
The above should suffice to prove what the
reader has to expect from this work.”
Source: ‘Militair-Wochenblatt’, 9. Jahrgang (Berlin 1824),
No. 409, p.3002
© Geert van Uythoven