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Kleist's Berliner Abendblätter and the Peninsular War
Author(s) -
Hibberd John
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0483.00201
Subject(s) - battle , newspaper , censorship , history , politics , spanish civil war , peninsula , sign (mathematics) , classics , art history , art , literature , humanities , ancient history , political science , law , archaeology , mathematical analysis , mathematics
Kleist's reports on the Peninisular War in the Berliner Abendblätter began dramatically with news of the battle of Busaco which threw doubt on the truthfulness of the French press and gave hope that the Napoleonic armies were not invincible. Thereafter censorship ensured that his items on Spain and Portugal would not arouse French anger, and they have invariably been dismissed as uninteresting. But in early 1811, when his paper had all but been killed off by the Prussian authorities, he increased his coverage of the war and often anticipated the other Berlin newspapers with news from the Peninsula. Events there were relevant to the political future of Prussia and Germany as well as to the reform of the Prussian military. But Kleist's hope of a clear sign of change in the fortunes of Napoleon proved vain. He indicated that the French were facing problems but could do no more than other Berlin papers to encourage anti‐French fervour. Yet he expected his readers to hope for what, in 1810–11, would have seemed a turn of events as extraordinary as any in his fiction of this time.