History of Friedrich II of Prussia VPart 3 out of 4
left;" Hay totally ignorant on which side first),--fired into, rather feebly, and wounded by those D'Auteroche people, while he was still advancing with shouldered arms;--upon which, and not till which, he did give it them: in liberal dose; and quite blew them off the ground, for that day. From all which, one has to infer, That the mutual salutation by hat was probably a fact; that, for certain, there was some slight preliminary talk and gesticulation, but in the Homeric style, by no means in the Espagnac-French,-- not chivalrous epigram at all, mere rough banter, and what is called "chaffing;"--and in short, that the French Mess-rooms (with their eloquent talent that way) had rounded off the thing into the current epigrammatic redaction; the authentic business-form of it being ruggedly what is now given. Let our Manuscript proceed. "D'Auteroche declining the first fire,"--or accepting it, if ever offered, nobody can say,--"the three Guards Regiments, Lord Charles's on the right, give it him hot and heavy, 'tremendous rolling fire;' so that D'Auteroche, responding more or less, cannot stand it; but has at once to rustle into discontinuity, he and his, and roll rapidly out of the way. And the British Column advances, steadily, terribly, hurling back all opposition from it; deeper and deeper into the interior mysteries of the French Host; blasting its way with gunpowder;--in a magnificent manner. A compact Column, slowly advancing,--apparently of some 16,000 foot. Pauses, readjusts itself a little, when not meddled with; when meddled with, has cannon, has rolling fire,--delivers from it, in fact, on both hands such a torrent of deadly continuous fire as was rarely seen before or since. 'FEU INFERNAL,' the French call it. The French make vehement resistance. Battalions, squadrons, regiment after regiment, charge madly on this terrible Column; but rush only on destruction thereby. Regiment This storms in from the right, regiment That from the left; have their colonels shot, 'lose the half of their people;' and hastily draw back again, in a wrecked condition. The cavalry-horses cannot stand such smoke and blazing; nor indeed, I think, can the cavaliers. REGIMENT DU ROI rushing on, full gallop, to charge this Column, got one volley from it [says Espagnac] which brought to the ground 460 men. Natural enough that horses take the bit between their teeth; likewise that men take it, and career very madly in such circumstances! MAP Chap. VIII, Book 15, PAGE 440 GOES ABOUT HERE-------- "The terrible Column with slow inflexibility advances; cannon (now in reversed position) from that Redoubt d'Eu ('Shame on you, Ingoldsby!'), and irregular musketry from Fontenoy side, playing upon it; defeated regiments making barriers of their dead men and firing there; Column always closing its gapped ranks, and girdled with insupportable fire. It ought to have taken Fontenoy and Redoubt d'Eu, say military men; it ought to have done several things! It has now cut the French fairly in two;--and Saxe, who is earnestly surveying it a hundred paces ahead, sends word, conjuring the King to retire instantly,--across the Scheld, by Calonne Bridge and the strong rear-guard there,--who, however, will not. King and Dauphin, on horseback both, have stood 'at the Justice (GALLOWS, in fact) of our Lady of the Woods,' not stirring much, occasionally shifting to a windmill which is still higher,--ye Heavens, with what intrepidity, all day!--'a good many country-folk in trees close behind them.' Country-folk, I suppose, have by this time seen enough, and are copiously making off: but the King will not, though things do look dubious. "In fact, the Battle hangs now upon a hair; the Battle is as good as lost, thinks Marechal de Saxe. His battle-lines torn in two in that manner, hovering in ragged clouds over the field, what hope is there in the Battle? Fontenoy is firing blank, this some time; its cannon-balls done. Officers, in Antoine, are about withdrawing the artillery,--then again (on new order) replacing it awhile. All are looking towards the Scheld Bridge; earnestly entreating his Majesty to withdraw. Had the Dutch, at this point of time, broken heartily in, as Waldeck was urging them to do, upon the redoubts of Antoine; or had his Royal Highness the Duke, for his own behoof, possessed due cavalry or artillery to act upon these ragged clouds, which hang broken there, very fit for being swept, were there an artillery-and-horse besom to do it,--in either of these cases the Battle was the Duke's. And a right fiery victory it would have been; to make his name famous; and confirm the English in their mad method of fighting, like Baresarks or Janizaries rather than strategic human creatures. [See, in Busching's It was fortuitous, I say; done like janizaries;" and so forth), a Criticism worth reading by soldiers.] "But neither of these contingencies had befallen. The Dutch- Austrian wing did evince some wish to get possession of Antoine; and drew out a little; but the guns also awoke upon them; whereupon the Dutch-Austrians drew in again, thinking the time not come. As for the Duke, he had taken with him of cannon a good few; but of horse none at all (impossible for horse, unless Fontenoy and the Redoubt d'Eu were ours!)--and his horse have been hanging about, in the Wood of Barry all this while, uncertain what to do; their old Commander being killed withal, and their new a dubitative person, and no orders left. The Duke had left no orders; having indeed broken in here, in what we called a spiritual white-heat, without asking himself much what he would do when in: 'Beat the French, knock them to powder if I can!'--Meanwhile the French clouds are reassembling a little: Royal Highness too is readjusting himself, now got '300 yards ahead of Fontenoy,'--pauses there about half an hour, not seeing his way farther. "During which pause, Duc de Richelieu, famous blackguard man, gallops up to the Marechal, gallops rapidly from Marechal to King; suggesting, 'were cannon brought AHEAD of this close deep Column, might not they shear it into beautiful destruction; and then a general charge be made?' So counselled Richelieu: it is said, the Jacobite Irishman, Count Lally of the Irish Brigade, was prime author of this notion,--a man of tragic notoriety in time coming. ["Thomas Arthur Lally Comte de Tollendal," patronymically "O'MuLALLY of TULLINDALLY" (a place somewhere in Connaught, undiscoverable where, not material where): see our dropsical friend (in one of his wheeziest states), Army-List author of it, Marechal de Saxe adopts it eagerly, King Louis eagerly: swift it becomes a fact. Universal rally, universal simultaneous charge on both flanks of the terrible Column: this it might resist, as it has done these two hours past; but cannon ahead, shearing gaps through it from end to end, this is what no column can resist;--and only perhaps one of Friedrich's columns (if even that) with Friedrich's eye upon it, could make its half-right- about (QUART DE CONVERSION), turn its side to it, and manoeuvre out of it, in such circumstances. The wrathful English column, slit into ribbons, can do nothing at manoeuvring; blazes and rages,-- more and more clearly in vain; collapses by degrees, rolls into ribbon-coils, and winds itself out of the field. Not much chased,-- its cavalry now seeing a job, and issuing from the Wood of Barry to cover the retreat. Not much chased;--yet with a loss, they say, in all, of 7,000 killed and wounded, and about 2,000 prisoners; French loss being under 5,000. "The Dutch and Austrians had found that the fit time was now come, or taken time by the forelock,--their part of the loss, they said, was a thousand and odd hundreds. The Battle ended about two o'clock of the day; had begun about eight. Tuesday, 11th May, 1745: one of the hottest half-day's works I have known. A thing much to be meditated by the English mind.--King Louis stept down from the Gallows-Hill of Our Lady; and KISSED Marechal de Saxe. Saxe was nearly dead of dropsy; could not sit on horseback, except for minutes; was carried about in a wicker bed; has had a lead bullet in his mouth, all day, to mitigate the intolerable thirst. Tournay was soon taken; the Dutch garrison, though strong, and in a strong place, making no due debate. "Royal Highness retired upon Ath and Brussels; hovered about, nothing daunted, he or his: 'Dastard fellows, they would not come out into the open ground, and try us fairly!' snort indignantly the Gazetteers and enlightened Public. [Old Newspapers.] Nothing daunted;--but, as it were, did not do anything farther, this Campaign; except lose Gand, by negligence VERSUS vigilance, and eat his victuals,--till called home by the Rebellion Business, in an unexpected manner! Fontenoy was the nearest approach he ever made to getting victory in a battle; but a miss too, as they all were. He was nothing like so rash, on subsequent occasions; but had no better luck; and was beaten in all his battles--except the immortal Victory of Culloden alone. Which latter indeed, was it not itself (in the Gazetteer mind) a kind of apotheosis, or lifting of a man to the immortal gods,--by endless tar-barrels and beer, for the time being? "Old Marechal de Noailles was in this Battle; busy about the redans, and proud to see his Saxe do well. Chivalrous Grammont, too, as we saw, was there,---killed at the first discharge. Prince de Soubise too (not killed); a certain Lord George Sackville (hurt slightly,--perhaps had BETTER have been killed!)--and others known to us, or that will be known. Army-Surgeon La Mettrie, of busy brain, expert with his tourniquets and scalpels, but of wildly blusterous heterodox tongue and ways, is thrice-busy in Hospital this night,--'English and French all one to you, nay, if anything, the English better!' those are the Royal orders:--La Mettrie will turn up, in new capacity, still blusterous, at Berlin, by and by. "The French made immense explosions of rejoicing over this Victory of Fontenoy; Voltaire (now a man well at Court) celebrating it in prose and verse, to an amazing degree (21,000 copies sold in one day); the whole Nation blazing out over it into illuminations, arcs of triumph and universal three-times-three:--in short, I think, nearly the heartiest National Huzza, loud, deep, long-drawn, that the Nation ever gave in like case. Now rather curious to consider, at this distance of time. Miraculous Anecdotes, true and not true, are many. Not to mention again that surprising offer of the first fire to us, what shall we say of the 'two camp-sutlers whom I noticed,' English females of the lowest degree; 'one of whom was busy slitting the gold-lace from a dead Officer, when a cannon-ball came whistling, and shore her head away. Upon which, without sound uttered, her neighbor snatched the scissors, and deliberately proceeded.' [De Hordt, A FRENCH OFFICER'S ACCOUNT (translated in Magazine, are many confused details and speculations on this subject).] A deliberate gloomy people;--unconquerable except by French prowess, glory to that same!" Britannic Majesty is not successful this season; Highland Rebellions rising on him, and much going awry. He is founding his National Debt, poor Majesty; nothing else to speak of. His poor Army, fighting never so well in Foreign quarrels,--and generally itself standing the brunt, with the co-partners looking on till it is time to run (as at Roucoux again next season, and at Lauffeld next),--can win nothing but hard knocks and losses. And is defined by mankind,--in phraseology which we have heard again since then! --as having "the heart of a Lion and the head of an Ass." [Old Pamphlets, SOEPIUS.] Portentous to contemplate!-- Cape Breton was besieged this Summer, in a creditable manner; and taken. The one real stroke done upon France this Year, or indeed (except at sea) throughout the War. "Ruin to their Fisheries, and a clear loss of 1,400,000 pounds a year." Compared with which all these fine "Victories in Flanders" are a bottle of moonshine. This was actually a kind of stroke;--and this, one finds, was accomplished, under presidency of a small squadron of King's ships, by ('New-England Volunteers," on funds raised by subscription, in the way of joint-stock. A shining Colonial feat; said to be very perfectly done, both scrip part of it, and fighting part; [Adelung, v. 32-35 ("27th June, 1745, after a siege of forty-nine days"): see "Gibson, THANKSGIVING SERMON (price fourpence);" &c. &c.: in the Old Newspapers, 1745, 1748, multifarious Notices about it, and then about the "repayment" of those excellent "joint-stock" people.] --and might have yielded, what incalculable dividends in the Fishery way! But had to be given up again, in exchange for the Netherlands, when Peace came. Alas, your Majesty! Would it be quite impossible, then, to go direct upon your own sole errand, the JENKINS'S-EAR one, instead of stumbling about among the Foreign chimney-pots, far and wide, under nightmares, in this terrible manner?--Let us to Silesia again. Chapter IX. THE AUSTRIAN-SAXON ARMY INVADES SILESIA, ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. Valori, who is to be of Friedrich's Campaign this Year, came posting off directly in rear of the glorious news of Fontenoy; found Friedrich at Camenz, rather in spirits than otherwise; and lodged pleasantly with Abbot Tobias and him, till the Campaign should begin. Two things surprise Valori: first, the great strength, impregnable as it were, to which Neisse has been brought since he saw it last,--superlative condition of that Fortress, and of the Army itself, as it gathers daily more and more about Frankenstein here:--and then secondly, and contrariwise, the strangely neglected posture of mountainous or Upper Silesia, given up to Pandours. Quite submerged, in a manner: Margraf Karl lies quiet among them at Jagerndorf, "eating his magazine;" General Hautcharmoi (Winterfeld's late chief in that Wurben affair), with his small Detachment, still hovers about in those Ratibor parts, "with the Strong Towns to fall-back upon," or has in effect fallen back accordingly; and nothing done to coerce the Pandours at all. While Prince Karl and Weissenfels are daily coming on, in force 100,000, their intention certain; force, say, about 100,000 regular! Very singular to Valori. "Sire, will not you dispute the Passes, then?" asks Valori, amazed: "Not defend your Mountain rampart, then?" "MON CHER; the Mountain rampart is three or four hundred miles long; there are twelve or twenty practicable roads through it. One is kept in darkness, too; endless Pandour doggery shutting out your daylight:--ill defending such a rampart," answers Friedrich. "But how, then," persists Valori; "but--?" "One day the King answered me," says Valori, "'MON AMI, if you want to get the mouse, don't shut, the trap; leave the trap open (ON LAISSE LA SOURICIERE OUVERTE)!'" Which was a beam of light to the inquiring thought of Valori, a military man of some intelligence. [See VALORI, i. 222, 224, 228.] That, in fact, is Friedrich's purpose privately formed. He means that the Austrians shall consider him cowed into nothing, as he understands they already do; that they shall enter Silesia in the notion of chasing him; and shall, if need be, have the pleasure of chasing him,--till perhaps a right moment arrive. For he is full of silent finesse, this young King; soon sees into his man, and can lead him strange dances on occasion. In no man is there a plentifuler vein of cunning, nor of a finer kind. Lynx-eyed perspicacity, inexhaustible contrivance, prompt ingenuity,--a man very dangerous to play with at games of skill. And it is cunning regulated always by a noble sense of honor, too; instinctively abhorrent of attorneyism and the swindler element: a cunning, sharp as the vulpine, yet always strictly human, which is rather beautiful to see. This is one of Friedrich's marked endowments. Intellect sun-clear, wholly practical (need not be specially deep), and entirely loyal to the fact before it; this--if you add rapidity and energy, prompt weight of stroke, such as was seldom met with-- will render a man very dangerous to his adversary in the game of war.--Here is the last of our Pandour Adventures for the present:-- "From May 12th, Friedrich had been gathering closer and closer about Frankenstein; by the end of the month (28th, as it proved) he intends that all Detachments shall be home, and the Army take Camp there. The most are home; Margraf Karl, at Jagerndorf, has not yet done eating his magazine; but he too must come home. Summon the Margraf home:--it is not doubted he will cut himself through, he and his 12,000; but such is the swarm of Pandours hovering between him and us, no estafette, or cleverest letter-bearer, can hope to get across to him. Ziethen with 500 Hussars, he must take the Letter; there is no other way. Ziethen mounts; fares swiftly forth, towards Neustadt, with his Letter; lodges in woods; dodges the thick-crowding Tolpatcheries (passes himself off for a Tolpatchery, say some, and captures Hungarian Staff-Officers who come to give him orders [Frau van Blumenthal, for most part): see Orlich (ii. 150); but also Ranke (iii. 245), Preuss, &c.]); is at length found out, and furiously set upon, 'Ziethen, Hah!'--but gets to Jagerndorf, Margraf Karl coming out to the rescue, and delivers his Letter. 'Home, then, all of us to-morrow!' And so, Saturday, 22d May, before we get to Neustadt on the way home, there is an authentic passage of arms, done very brilliantly by Margraf Karl against Pandours and others. "To right of us, to left, barring our road, the enemy, 20,000 of them, stand ranked on heights, in chosen positions; cannon- batteries, grenadiers, dragoons of Gotha and infinite Pandours: military jungle bristling far and wide. And you must push it heartily, and likewise cut the tap-root of it (seize its big guns), or it will not roll away. Margraf Karl shoots forth his steady infantry ('Silent till you see the whites of their eyes!'),--his cavalry with new manoeuvres; whose behavior is worthy of Ziethen himself:--in brief, the jungle is struck as by a whirlwind, the tap-root of it cut, and rolls simultaneously out of range, leaving only the Regiment of Gotha,, Regiment of Ogilvy and some Regulars, who also get torn to shreds, and utterly ruined. Seeing which, the Pandour jungle plunges wholly into the woods, uttering horrible cries (EN POUSSANT DES CRIS TERRIBLES), says Friedrich. [ specially BERICHTE VON DER AM 22 MAI, 1745 BEY NEUSTADT IN OBER- SCHLESIEN VORGEFALLENER ACTION (Seyfarth, Margraf Karl had the honor to gain his Cousin's approbation this day; and to prove himself, says the Cousin, (worthy of the grandfather he came from,'--my own great-grandfather; Great Elector, Friedrich-Wilhelm; whose style of motion at Fehrbellin, or on the ice of the Frische Haf (soldiers all in sledges, tearing along to be at the Swedes), was probably somewhat of this kind." ... "Some days ago, Winterfeld had been pushed out to Landshut, with Detachment of 2,000, to judge a little for himself which way the Austrians were coming, and to scare off certain Uhlans (the SAXON species of Tolpatchery), who were threatening to be mischievous thereabouts. The Uhlans, at sound of Winterfeld, jingled away at once: but, in a day or two, there came upon him, on the sudden, Pandour outburst in quite other force;--and in the very hours while Ziethen was struggling into Jagerndorf, and still more emphatically next day, while Margraf Karl was handling his Pandours,--Colonel Winterfeld, a hundred miles to westward lapped among the Mountains, chanced to be dealing again with the same article. Very busy with it, from 4 o'clock this morning; likely to give a good account of the job. Steadily defending Landshut and himself, against the grenadier battalions, cannon and furious overplus of Pandours (8,000 or 9,000, it is said, six to one or so in the article of cavalry), which General Nadasti, a scientific leader of men or Pandours, skilfully and furiously hurls upon Landshut and him, in an unexpected manner. Colonel Winterfeld had need of all his heart and energy, in the intricate ground; against the furious overplus well manoeuvred: but in him too there are manoeuvres; if he fall back here, it is to rush on double strong there; hour after hour he inexpugnably defends himself,--till General Stille, Friedrich's old Tutor, our worthy writing friend, whom we occasionally quote, comes up with help; and Nadasti is at once brushed home again, with sore smart of failure, and 'the loss of 600 killed,' among other items. [ rorgefallener Action, in Feldzuge, Seyfarth, OEuvres de Frederic, (who misdates, "23d May" for 22d).] Colonel Winterfeld was made Major-General next day, for this action. Colonel Winterfeld is cutting out a high course for himself, by his conduct in these employments; solidity, brilliant effectuality, shining through all he does; his valor and value, his rapid just insight, fiery energy and nobleness of mind more and more disclosing themselves,--to one who is a judge of men, and greatly needs for his own use the first- rate quality in that article." Friedrich has left the mouse-trap open;--and latterly has been baiting it with a pleasant spicing of toasted cheese. One of his Spies, reporting from Prince Karl's quarters, Friedrich has at this time discovered to be a Double-Spy, reporting thither as well. Double-Spy, there is an ugly fact;--perhaps not quite convenient to abolish it by hemp and gibbet; perhaps it could be turned to use, as most facts can? "Very good, my expert Herr von Schonfeld [that was the knave's name]; and now of all things, whenever the Prince does get across,--instant word to us of that! Nothing so important to us. If he should get BETWEEN us and Breslau, for example, what would the consequence be!" To this purport Friedrich instructs his Double-Spy; sends him off, unhanged, to Prince Karl's Camp, to blab this fresh bit of knowledge. "We likewise," says Friedrich, "ordered some repairs on the roads leading to Breslau;"--last turn of the hand to our bit of toasted fragrancy. And Prince Karl is actually striding forward, at an eager pace:--and Nadasti VERSUS Winterfeld, the other day, could Winterfeld have guessed it, was the actual vanguard of the march; and will be up again straightway! Whereupon Winterfeld too is called home; and all eyes are bent on the Landshut side. Prince Karl, under these fine omens, had been urgent on the Saxons to be swift; Saxons under Weissenfels did at last "get their cannon up," and we hear of them for certain, in junction with the Austrians, at Schatzlar, on the Bohemian side of the Giant- Mountains; climbing with diligence those wizard solitudes and highland wastes. In a word, they roll across into Silesia, to Landshut (29th May); nothing doubting but Friedrich has cowered into what retreats he has, as good as desperate of Silesia, and will probably be first heard of in Breslau, when they get thither with their sieging guns. No cautious sagacious old Feldmarschall Traun is in that Host at present; nothing but a Prince Karl, and a poor Duke of Weissenfels; who are too certain of several things;-- very capable of certainty, and also of doubt, the wrong way of the facts. Their force is, by strict count, 75,000; and they march from Landshut, detained a little by provender concerns, on the last day of May. [Orlich, ii. 146; Ranke, iii. 247; Stenzel, iv. 245.] May 28th, Friedrich had encamped at Frankenstein; May 30th, he sets forth northwestward, to be nearer the new scene; encamps at Reichenbach, that night; pushes forward again, next day, for Schweidnitz, for Striegau (in all, a shift northwest of some forty miles);--and from June 1st, lies stretched out between Schweidnitz and Striegau, nine miles long; well hidden in the hollows of the little Rivers thereabouts (Schweidnitz Water, Striegau Water), with their little knolls and hills; watching Prince Karl's probable place of egress from the Mountain Country opposite. His main Camp is from Schweidnitz to Jauernik, some five miles long; but he has his vanguard up as far as Striegau, Dumoulin and Winterfeld as vanguard, in good strength, a little way behind or westward of that Town and Stream; Nassau and his Division are screened in the Wood called Nonnenbusch (NUN'S BUSH), and there are outposts sprinkled all about, and vedettes watching from the hill-tops, from the Stanowitz Foxhill; the Zedlitz "Cowhill," "Winchill:" an Army not courting observation, but intent very much to observe. Nadasti has appeared again; at Freyburg, few miles off, on this side of the Mountains; goes out scouting, reconnoitring; but is "fired at from the growing corn," and otherwise hoodwinked by false symptoms, and makes little of that business. Friedrich's Army we will compute at 70,000. [General-Lieutenant Freiherr Leo von Lutzow, Schlacht von Hohenfriedbeg 21.] Not quite equal in number to Prince Karl's; and, in other particulars, willing and longing that Prince Karl would arrive, and try its quality. Friedrich's head-quarter is at Jauernik: he goes daily riding hither, thither; to the top of the Fuchsberg (FOXHILL at Stanowitz) with eager spy-glass; daily many times looks with his spy-glass to the ragged peaks about Bolkenhayn, Kauder, Rohnstock; expecting the throw of the dice from that part. On Thursday, 3d June: Do you notice that cloud of dust rising among the peaks over yonder? Dust-cloud mounting higher and higher. There comes the big crisis, then! There are the combined Weissenfels and Karl with their Austrian Saxons, issuing proudly from their stone labyrinth; guns, equipments, baggages, all perfectly brought through; rich Silesian plain country now fairly at their feet, Breslau itself but a few marches off:--at sight of all which, the Austrian big host bursts forth into universal field-music, and shakes out its banners to the wind. Thursday, 3d June, 1745; a dramatic Entry of something quite considerable on the Stage of History. Friedrich, with Nassau and generals round, stands upon the Fuchsberg,--his remarks not given, his looks or emotions not described to us, his thought well known,--and looks at it through his TUBUS (or spy-glass): There they are, then, and the big moment is come! Friedrich had seen the dust and the manoeuvring of them, deeper in the Hills, from this same Fuchsberg yesterday, and inferred what was coming; calculated by what roads or hill-tracks they could issue: and how he, in each case, was to deal with them; his march-routes are all settled, plank-bridges repaired, all privately is ready for these proud Austrian musical gentlemen, here in the hollow. Friedrich has been upon this Fuchsberg with his TUBUS daily, many times since Monday last: it is our general observatorium, says Stille, and commands a fine view into the interior of these Hills. A Fuchsberg which has become notable in the Prussian maps: "the Stanowitz Fuchsberg," east side of Striegau Water,--let no tourist mistake himself; for there are two or even three other Fuchsbergs, a mile or so northward on the western side of that Stream, which need to be distinguished by epithets, as the Striegau Fuchsberg, the Graben Fuchsberg, and perhaps still others: comparable to the FOUR Neisse rivers, three besides the one we know, which occur in this piece of Country! Our German cousins, I have often sorrowed to find, have practically a most poor talent for GIVING NAMES; and indeed much, for ages back, is lying in a sad state of confusion among them. Many confused things, rotting far and wide, in contradiction to the plainest laws of Nature; things as well as names! All the welcomer this Prussian Army, this young Friedrich leading it; they, beyond all earthly entities of their epoch, are not in a state of confusion, but of most strict conformity to the laws of Arithmetic and facts of Nature: perhaps a very blessed phenomenon for Germany in the long-run. Prince Karl with Weissenfels, General Berlichingen and many plumed dignitaries, are dining on the Hill-top near Hohenfriedberg: after having given order about everything, they witness there, over their wine, the issue of their Columns from the Mountains; which goes on all afternoon, with field-music, spread banners; and the oldest General admits he never saw a finer review- manoeuvre, or one better done, if so well. Thus sit they on the Hill-top (GALGENBERG, not far from the gallows of the place, says Friedrich), in the beautiful June afternoon. Silesia lying beautifully azure at their feet; the Zobtenberg, enchanted Mountain, blue and high on one's eastern horizon; Prussians noticeable only in weak hussar parties four or five miles off, which vanish in the hollow grounds again. All intending for Breslau, they, it is like;--and here, red wine and the excellent manoeuvre going on. "The Austrian-and-Saxon Army streamed out all afternoon," says a Country Schoolmaster of those parts, whose Day-book has been preserved, [In Lutzow, pp. 123-132.] "each regiment or division taking the place appointed it; all afternoon, till late in the night, submerging the Country as in a deluge," five miles long of them; taking post at the foot of the Hills there, from Hohenfriedberg round upon Striegau, looking towards the morrow's sunrise. To us poor country-folk not a beautiful sight; their light troops flying ahead, and doing theft and other mischief at a sad rate. On the other hand, the Austrian and Saxon gentlemen, from their Gallows-Hill at Hohenfriedberg, notice, four or five miles in the distance, opposite them, or a little to the left of opposite, a Body of Prussian horse and foot, visibly wending northward; like a long glittering serpent, the glitter of their muskets flashing back yonder on the afternoon sun and us, as they mount from hollow to height. Ten or twelve thousand of them; making for Striegau, to appearance. Intending to bivouac or billet there, and keep some kind of watch over us; belike with an eye to being rear-guard, on the retreat towards Breslau to-morrow? Or will they retreat without attempting mischief? Serenity of Weissenfels engages to seize the heights and proper posts, over yonder, this night yet; and will take Striegau itself, the first thing, to-morrow morning. Yes, your Serenities, those are Prussians in movement: Vanguard Corps of Dumoulin, Winterfeld;--Rittmeister Seydlitz rides yonder: --and it is not their notion to retreat without mischief. For there stands, not so far off, on the Stanowitz Fuchsberg, a brisk little Gentleman, if you could notice him; with his eyes fixed on you, and plans in the head of him now getting nearly mature. For certain, he is pushing out that column of men; and all manner of other columns are getting order to push out, and take their ground; and to-morrow morning--you will not find him in retreat! Such are the phenomena in that Striegau-Hohenfriedberg region, while the sun is bending westward, on Thursday, 3d June, 1745. "From Hohenfriedberg, which leans against the higher Mountains, there may be, across to Striegau northeast, which stands well apart from them, among lower Hills of its own, a distance of about five English miles. The intervening country is of flat, though upland nature: the first broad stage, or STAIR-STEP, so to speak, leading down into the general interior levels of Silesia in those parts. A tract which is now tolerably dried by draining, but was then marshy as well as bushy:--flat to the eye, yet must be imperceptibly convexed a little, for the line of watershed is hereabouts: walk from Hohenfriedberg to Striegau, the water on your left hand flows, though mainly in ditches or imperceptible oozings, to the north and west,--there to fall into an eastern fork of the Roaring Neisse [one of our three new Neisses, which is a very quiet stream here; runs close by the Mountain base, fed by many torrents, and must get its name, WUTHENDE or Roaring, from the suddenness of its floods]: into this, bound northward and westward, run or ooze all waters on your left hand, as you go to Striegau. Right hand, again, or to eastward, you will find all sauntering, or running in visible brooks into Striegau Water [little River notable to us], which comes circling from the Mountains, past Hohenfriedberg, farther south; and has got to some force as a stream before it reaches Striegau, and turns abruptly eastward;--eastward, to join Schweidnitz Water, and form with it the SECOND stair-step downwards to the Plain Country. Has its Fuchsbergs, Kuhbergs and little knolls and heights interspersed, on both sides of it, in the conceivable way. "So that, looking eastward from the heights of Hohenfriedberg, our broad stage or stair-step has nothing of the nature of a valley, but rather is a kind of insensibly swelling plain between two valleys, or hollows, of small depth; and slopes both ways. Both ways; but MORE towards the Striegau-Water valley or hollow; and thence, in a lazily undulating manner, to other hollows and waters farther down. Friedrich's Camp lies in the next, the Schweidnitz-Water hollow; and is five, or even nine miles long, from Schweidnitz northward;--much hidden from the Austrian-Saxon gentlemen at present. No hills farther, mere flat country, to eastward of that. But to the north, again, about Striegau, the hollow deepens, narrows; and certain Hills," much notable at present, "rise to west of Striegau, definite peaked Hills, with granite quarries in them and basalt blocks atop:--Striegau, it appears, is, in old Czech dialect, TRZIZA, which means TRIPLE HILL, the 'Town of the Three Hills.' [Lutzow, p. 28.] An ancient quaint little Town, of perhaps 2,000 souls: brown-gray, the stones of it venerably weathered; has its wide big market-place, piazza, plain- stones, silent enough except on market-days: nestles itself compactly in the shelter of its Three Hills, which screen it from the northwest; and has a picturesque appearance, its Hills and it, projected against the big Mountain range beyond, as you approach it from the Plain Country. "Hohenfriedberg, at the other corner of our battle-stage, on the road to Landshut, is a Village of no great compass; but sticks pleasantly together, does not straggle in the usual way; climbs steep against its Gallows-Hill (now called 'SIEGESBERG, Victory Hill,' with some tower or steeple-monument on it, built by subscription); and would look better, if trimmed a little and habitually well swept. The higher Mountain summits, Landshut way, or still more if you look southeastward, Glatz-ward, rise blue and huge, remote on your right; to left, the Roaring Neisse range close at hand, is also picturesque, though less Alpine in type." [Tourist's Note (1858).] ... And of all Hills, the notablest, just now to us, are those "Three" at Striegau. Those Three Hills of Striegau his Serenity of Weissenfels is to lay hold of, this night, with his extreme left, were it once got deployed and bivouacked. Those Hills, if he can: but Prussian Dumoulin is already on march thither; and privately has his eye upon them, on Friedrich's part!--For the rest, this upland platform, insensibly sloping two ways, and as yet undrained, is of scraggy boggy nature in many places; much of it damp ground, or sheer morass; better parts of it covered, at this season, with rank June grass, or greener luxuriance of oats and barley. A humble peaceable scene; peaceable till this afternoon; dotted, too, with six or seven poor Hamlets, with scraggy woods, where they have their fuel; most sleepy littery ploughman Hamlets, sometimes with a SCHLOSS or Mansion for the owner of the soil (who has absconded in the present crisis of things), their evening smoke rising rather fainter than usual; much cookery is not advisable with Uhlans and Tolpatchcs flying about. Northward between Striegau and the higher Mountains there is an extensive TEICHWIRTHSCHAFT, or "Pond- Husbandry" (gleaming visible from Hohenfriedberg Gallows-Hill just now); a combination of stagnant pools and carp-ponds, the ground much occupied hereabouts with what they name Carp-Husbandry. Which is all drained away in our time, yet traceable by the studious:--quaggy congeries of sluices and fish-ponds, no road through them except on intricate dams; have scrubby thickets about the border;--this also is very strong ground, if Weissenfels thought of defence there. Which Weissenfels does not, but only of attack. He occupies the ground nevertheless, rearward of this Carp-Husbandry, as becomes a strategic man; gradually bivouacking all round there, to end on the Three Hills, were his last regiments got up. The Carp-Husbandry is mainly about Eisdorf Hamlet:--in Pilgramshayn, where Weissenfels once thought of lodging, lives our Writing Schoolmaster. The Mountains lie to westward; flinging longer shadows, as the invasive troops continually deploy, in that beautiful manner; and coil themselves strategically on the ground, a bent rope, cordon, or line (THREE lines in depth), reaching from the front skirts of Hohenfriedberg to the Hills at Striegau again,--terrible to behold. In front of Hohenfriedberg, we say, is the extremity or right wing of the Austrian-Saxon bivouac, or will be when the process is complete; five miles to northeast, sweeping round upon Striegau region, will be their left, where mainly are the Saxons,--to nestle upon those Three Hills of Striegau: whitherward however, Dumoulin, on Friedrich's behalf, is already on march. Austrian-Saxon bivouac, as is the way in regulated hosts, can at once become Austrian-Saxon order-of-battle: and then, probably, on the Chord of that Arc of five miles, the big Fight will roll to-morrow; Striegau one end of it, Hohenfriedbcrg the other. Flattish, somewhat elliptic upland, stair-step from the Mountains, as we called it; tract considerably cut with ditches, carp-husbandries, and their tufts of wood; line from Striegau to Hohenfriedberg being axis or main diameter of it, and in general the line of watershed: there, probably, will the tug of war be. Friedrich, on his Fuchsberg, knows this; the Austrian-Saxon gentlemen, over their wine on the Gallows-Hill, do not yet know it, but will know. It was about four in the afternoon, when Valori, with a companion, waiting a good while in the King's Tent at Jauernik, at last saw his Majesty return from the Fuchsberg observatory. Valori and friend have great news: "Tournay fallen; siege done, your Majesty!" Valori's friend is one De Latour; who had brought word of Fontenoy ("important victory on the Scamander," as Friedrich indignantly defined it to himself); and was bid wait here till this Siege-of- Tournay consummation ("as helpful to me as the Siege of Pekin!") should supervene. They hasten to salute his Majesty with the glorious tidings, Hmph! thinks Friedrich: and we are at death-grips here, little to be helped by your taking Pekin! However, he lets wit of nothing. "I make my compliments; mean to fight to-morrow." [Valori, i. 228.] Valori, as old soldier and friend, volunteers to be there and assist:--Good. Friedrich, I presume, at this late hour of four, may bc snatching a morsel of dinner; his orderlies are silently speeding, plans taken, orders given: To start all, at eight in the evening, for the Bridge of Striegau; there to cross, and spread to the right and to the left. Silent, not a word spoken, not a pipe lighted: silently across the Striegau Water there. A march of three miles for the nearest, who are here at Jauernik; of nine miles for the farthest about Schweidnitz; at Schweidnitz leave all your baggage, safe under the guns there. To the Bridge of Striegau, diligently, silently march along; Bridge of Striegau, there cross Striegau Water, and deploy to right and to left, in the way each of you knows. These are Friedrich's orders. Late in the dusk, Dumoulin and Winterfeld, whom we saw silently on march some hours ago, have silently glided past Striegau, and got into the Three-Hill region, which is some furlong or so farther north:--to his surprise, Dumoulin finds Saxon parties posting themselves thereabouts. He attacks said Saxon parties; and after some slight tussle, drives them mostly from their Three Hills; mostly, not altogether; one Saxon Hill is precipitous on our hither side of it, and we must leave that till the dawn break. Of the other Heights Dumoulin takes good possession, with cannon too, to be ready against dawn;--and ranks himself out to leftward withal, along the plain ground; for he is to be right wing, had the other troops come up. These are now all under way; astir from Jauernik and Schweidnitz, silently streaming along; and Dumoulin bivouacs here,--very silent he: not so silent the Saxons; who are still marching in, over yonder, to westward of Dumoulin, their rear-guard groping out its posts as it best can in the dark. Elsewhere, miles and miles along the foot of the Mountains, Austrian-Saxon watch- fires flame through the ambrosial night; and it is an impressive sight for Dumoulin,--still more for the poor Schoolmaster at Pilgramshayn and others, less concerned than Dumoulin. "It was beautiful," says Stille, who was there, "to see how the plain about Rohnstock, and all over that way, was ablaze with thousands of watch-fires (TAUSEND UND ABER TAUSEND); by the light of these, we could clearly perceive the enemy's troops continually defile from the Hills the whole night through." [Cited in Seyfarth, i. 630.] Serenity of Weissenfels, after all, does not lodge at Pilgramshayn; far in the night, he goes to sleep at Rohnstock, a Schloss and Hamlet on that fork of Roaring Neisse, by the foot of the Mountains; three or four miles off, yet handy enough for picking up Striegau the first thing to-morrow. His Highness Prince Karl lies in Hausdorf, tolerable quarters, pretty much in the centre of his long bivouac; day's business well done, and bottle (as one's wont rather is) well enjoyed. Nadasti has been out scouting; but was pricked into by hussar parties, fired into from the growing corn; and could make out little, but the image of his own ideas. Nadasti's ultimate report is, That the Prussians are perfectly quiet in their camp; from Jauernik to Schweidnitz, watch-fires all alight, sentries going their rounds. And so they are, in fact; sentries and watch-fires,--but now nothing else there, a mere shell of a camp; the men of it streaming steadily along, without speech, without tobacco; and many of them are across Striegau Bridge by this time!-- It was past eleven, so close and continuous went this march, before Valori and his Latour, with their carriages and furnitures, could find an interval, and get well into it. Never will Valori forget the discipline of these Prussians, and how they marched. Difficult ways; the hard road is for their artillery; the men march on each side, sometimes to mid-leg in water,--never mind. Wholly in order, wholly silent; Valori followed them three leagues close, and there was not one straggler. Every private man, much more every officer, knows well what grim errand they are on; and they make no remarks. Steady as Time; and, except that their shoes are not of felt, silent as he. The Austrian watch-fires glow silent manifold to leftward yonder; silent overhead are the stars:--the path of all duty, too, is silent (not about Striegau alone) for every well- drilled man. To-morrow;--well, to-morrow? A grimmish feeling against the Saxons is understood to be prevalent among these men. Bruhl, Weissenfels himself, have been reported talking high,--"Reduce our King to the size of an Elector again," and other foolish things;--indeed, grudges have been accumulating for some time. "KEIN PARDON (No quarter)!" we hear has been a word among the Saxons, as they came along; the Prussians growl to one another, "Very well then, None!" Nay Friedrich's general order is, "No prisoners, you cavalry, in the heat of fight; cavalry, strike at the faces of them: you infantry, keep your fire till within fifty steps; bayonet withal is to be relied on." These were Friedrich's last general orders, given in the hollow of the night, near the foot of that Fuchsberg where he had been so busy all day; a widish plain space hereabouts, Striegau Bridge now near: he had lain snme time in his cloak, waiting till the chief generals, with the heads of their columns, could rendezvous here. He then sprang on horseback; spoke briefly the essential things (one of them the above);--"Had meant to be more minute, in regard to positions and the like; but all is so in darkness, embroiled by the flare of the Austrian watch-fires, we can make nothing farther of localities at present: Striegau for right wing, left wing opposite to Hohenfriedberg,--so, and Striegau Water well to rear of us. Be diligent, exact, all faculties awake: your own sense, and the Order of Battle which you know, must do the rest. Forward; steady: can I doubt but you will acquit yourselves like Prussian men?" And so they march, across the Bridge at Striegau, south outskirt of the Town,--plank Bridge, I am afraid;--and pour themselves, to right and to left, continually the livelong night. To describe the Battle which ensued, Battle named of Striegau or Hohenfriedberg, excels the power of human talent,--if human talent had leisure for such employment. It is the huge shock and clash of 70,000 against 70,000, placed in the way we said. An enormous furious SIMALTAS (or "both-at-once," as the Latins phrase it), spreading over ten square miles. Rather say, a wide congeries of electric simultaneities; all ELECTRIC, playing madly into one another; most loud, most mad: the aspect of which is smoky, thunderous, abstruse; the true SEQUENCES of which, who shall unravel? There are five accounts of it, all modestly written, each true-looking from its own place: and a thrice-diligent Prussian Officer, stationed on the spot in late years, has striven well to harmonize them all. [Five Accounts: 1. The Prussian Official Account, in 2. The Saxon, ib. 1103-1108. 3. The Austrian, ib. 1109-1115. 4. Stille's (ii. 125-133, of English Translation). 5. Friedrich's own, cited, is the harmonizer. Besides which, two of value, in Feldzuge, Cogniazzo, (Breslau, 1788-1791: strictly Anonymous at that time, and candid, or almost more, to Prussian merit;--still worth reading, here and throughout), ii. 123-135; &c. &c.] Well worth the study of military men;--who might make tours towards this and the other great battle- field, and read such things, were they wise. For us, a feature or two, in the huge general explosion, to assist the reader's fancy in conceiving it a little, is all that can be pretended to. Chapter X. BATTLE OF HOHENFRIEDBERG. With the first streak of dawn, the dispute renewed itself between those Prussians and Saxons who are on the Heights of Striegau. The two Armies are in contact here; they lie wide apart as yet at the other end. Cannonading rises here, on both sides, in the dim gray of the morning, for the possession of these Heights. The Saxons are out-cannonaded and dislodged, other Saxons start to arms in support: the cry "To arms!" spreads everywhere, rouses Weissenfels to horseback; and by sunrise a furious storm of battle has begun, in this part. Hot and fierce on both sides; charges of horse, shock after shock, bayonet-charges of foot; the great guns going like Jove's thunder, and the continuous tearing storm of small guns, very loud indeed: such a noise, as our poor Schoolmaster, who lives on this spot, thinks he will hear only once again, when the Last Trumpet sounds! It did indeed, he informs us, resemble the dissolution of Nature: "For all fell dark too;" a general element of sulphurous powder-smoke, streaked with dull blazes; and death and destruction very nigh. What will become of poor pacific mortals hereabouts? Rittmeister Seydlitz, Winterfeld his patron ride, with knit brows, in these horse-charges; fiery Rothenburg too; Truchsess von Waldburg, at the head of his Division,--poor Truchsess known in London society, a cannon-ball smites the life out of him, and he ended here. At the first clash of horse and foot, the Saxons fancied they rather had it; at the second, their horse became distressed; at the third, they rolled into disorderly heaps. The foot also, stubborn as they were, could not stand that swift firing, followed by the bayonet and the sabre; and were forced to give ground. The morning sun shone into their eyes, too, they say; and there had risen a breath of easterly wind, which hurled the smoke upon them, so that they could not see. Decidedly staggering backwards; getting to be taken in flank and ruined, though poor Weissenfels does his best. About five in the morning, Friedrich came galloping hitherward; Valori with him: "MON AMI, this is looking well! This will do, won't it?" The Saxons are fast sinking in the scale; and did nothing thenceforth but sink ever faster; though they made a stiff defence, fierce exasperation on both sides; and disputed every inch. Their position, in these scraggy Woods and Villages, in these Morasses and Carp-Husbandries, is very strong. It had proved to be farther north, too, than was expected; so that the Prussians had to wheel round a little (right wing as a centre, fighting army as radius) before they could come parallel, and get to work: a delicate manoeuvre, which they executed to Valori's admiration, here in the storm of battle; tramp, tramp, velocity increasing from your centre outwards, till at the end of the radius, the troops are at treble-quick, fairly running forward, and the line straight all the while. Admirable to Valori, in the hot whirlwind of battle here. For the great guns go, in horrid salvos, unabated, and the crackling thunder of the small guns; "terrible tussling about those Carp-ponds, that quaggy Carp-husbandry," says the Schoolmaster, "and the Heavens blotted out in sulphurous fire- streaked smoke. What had become of us pacific? Some had run in time, and they were the wisest; others had squatted, who could find a nook suitable. Most of us had gathered into the Nursery-garden at the foot of our Village; we sat quaking there,--our prayers grown tremulously vocal;--in tears and wail, at least the women part. Enemies made reconcilement with each other," says he, "and dear friends took farewell." [His Narrative, in Lutzow, UBI SUPRA.] One general Alleleu; the Last Day, to all appearance, having come. Friedrich, seeing things in this good posture, gallops to the left again, where much urgently requires attention from him. On the Austrian side, Prince Karl, through his morning sleep at Hausdorf, had heard the cannonading: "Saxons taking Striegau!" thinks he; a pleasant lullaby enough; and continues to sleep and dream. Agitated messengers rush in, at last; draw his curtains: "Prussians all in rank, this side Striegau Water; Saxons beaten, or nearly so, at Striegau: we must stand to arms, your Highness!"-- "To arms, of course," answers Karl; and hurries now, what he can, to get everything in motion. The bivouac itself had been in order of battle; but naturally there is much to adjust, to put in trim; and the Austrians are not distinguished for celerity of movement. All the worse for them just now. On Friedrich's side, so far as I can gather, there have happened two cross accidents. First, by that wheeling movement, done to Valori's admiration in the Striegau quarter, the Prussian line has hitched itself up towards Striegau, has got curved inward, and covers less ground than was counted on; so that there is like to be some gap in the central part of;--as in fact there was, in spite of Friedrich's efforts, and hitchings of battalions and squadrons: an indisputable gap, though it turned to rich profit for Friedrich; Prince Karl paying no attention to it. Upon such indisputable gap a wakeful enemy might have done Friedrich some perilous freak; but Karl was in his bed, as we say;--in a terrible flurry, too, when out of bed. Nothing was done upon the gap; and Friedrich had his unexpected profit by it before long. The second accident is almost worse. Striegau Bridge (of planks, as I feared), creaking under such a heavy stream of feet aud wheels all night, did at last break, in some degree, and needed to be mended; so that the rearward regiments, who are to form Friedrich's left wing, are in painful retard;--and are becoming frightfully necessary, the Austrians as yet far outflanking us, capable of taking us in flank with that right wing of theirs! The moment was agitating to a General-in-chief: Valori will own this young King's bearing was perfect; not the least flurry, though under such a strain. He has aides-de-camp, dashing out every-whither with orders, with expedients; Prince Henri, his younger Brother: galloping the fastest; nay, at last, he begs Valori himself to gallop, with orders to a certain General Gessler, in whose Brigade are Dragoons. Which Valori does,--happily without effect on Gessler; who knows no Valori for an aide-de-camp, and keeps the ground appointed him; rearward of that gap we talked of. Happily the Austrian right wing is in no haste to charge. Happily Ziethen, blocked by that incumbrance of the Bridge mending, "finds a ford higher up," the assiduous Ziethen; splashes across, other regiments following; forms in line well leftward; and instead of waiting for the Austrian charge, charges home upon them, fiercely through the difficult grounds, No danger of the Austrians outflanking us now; they are themselves likely to get hard measure on their flank. By the ford and by the Bridge, all regiments, some of them at treble-quick, get to their posts still in time. Accident second has passed without damage. Forward, then; rapid, steady; and reserve your fire till within fifty paces!-- Prinoe Ferdinand of Brunswick (Friedrich's Brother-in-law, a bright-eyed steady young man, of great heart for fight) tramps forth with his Division:--steady!--all manner of Divisions tramp forth; and the hot storm, Ziethen and cavalry dashing upon that right wing of theirs, kindles here also far and wide. The Austrian cavalry on this wing and elsewhere, it is clear, were ill off. "We could not charge the Prussian left wing, say they, partly because of the morasses that lay between us; and partly [which is remarkable] because they rushed across and charged us." [Austrian report, i. 1113.] Prince Karl is sorry to report such things of his cavalry; but their behavior was bad and not good. The first shock threw them wavering; the second,--nothing would persuade them to dash forth and meet it. High officers commanded, obtested, drew out pistols, Prince Karl himself shot a fugitive or two,--it was to no purpose; they wavered worse at every new shock; and at length a shock came (sixth it was, as the reporter counts) which shook them all into the wind. Decidedly shy of the Prussians with their new manoeuvres, and terrible way of coming on, as if sure of beating. In the Saxon quarter, certain Austrian regiments of horse would not charge at all; merely kept firing from their carbines, and when the time came ran. As for the Saxons, they have been beaten these two hours; that is to say, hopeless these two hours, and getting beaten worse and worse. The Saxons cannot stand, but neither generally will they run; they dispute every ditch, morass and tuft of wood, especially every village. Wrecks of the muddy desperate business last, hour after hour. "I gave my men a little rest under the garden walls," says one Saxon Gentleman, "or they would have died, in the heat and thirst and extreme fatigue: I would have given 100 gulden [10 pounds Sterling] for a glass of water." [ Geschichte, bayonet in back; inexorable, not to be resisted; slit off whole battalions of them (prisoners now, and quarter given); take all their guns, or all that are not sunk in the quagmires;--in fine, drive them, part into the Mountains direct, part by circuit thither, down upon the rear of the Austrian fight: through Hausdorf, Seifersdorf and other Mountain gorges, where we hear no more of them, and shall say no more of them. A sore stroke for poor old Weissenfels; the last public one he has to take, in this world, for the poor man died before long. Nobody's blame, he says; every Saxon man did well; only some Austrian horse-regiments, that we had among us, were too shy. Adieu to poor old Weissenfels. Luck of war, what else,--thereby is he in this pass. And now new Prussian force, its Saxons being well abolished, is pressing down upon Prince Karl's naked left flank. Yes;--Prince Karl too will have to go. His cavalry is, for most part, shaken into ragged clouds; infantry, steady enough men, cannot stand everything. "I have observed," says Friedrich, "if you step sharply up to an Austrian battalion [within fifty paces or so], and pour in your fire well, in about a quarter of an hour you see the ranks beginning to shake, and jumble towards indistinctness;" [ symptom to you! It was at this moment that Lieutenant-General Gessler, under whom is the Dragoon regiment Baireuth, who had kept his place in spite of Valori's message, determined on a thing,--advised to it by General Schmettau (younger Schmettau), who was near. Gessler, as we saw, stood in the rear line, behind that gap (most likely one of several gaps, or wide spaces, left too wide, as we explained); Gessler, noticing the jumbly condition of those Austrian battalions, heaped now one upon another in this part,--motions to the Prussian Infantry to make what farther room is needful; then dashes through, in two columns (self and the Dragoon-Colonel heading the one, French Chasot, who is Lieutenant-Colonel, heading the other), sabre in hand, with extraordinary impetus and fire, into the belly of these jumbly Austrians; and slashes them to rags, "twenty battalions of them," in an altogether unexampled manner. Takes "several thousand prisoners," and such a haul of standards, kettle-drums and insignia of honor, as was never got before at one charge. Sixty-seven standards by the tale, for the regiment (by most All-Gracious Permission) wears, ever after, "67" upon its cartridge-box, and is allowed to beat the grenadier march; [Orlich, ii. 179 (173 n., 179 n., slightly wrong); Militair-Lexikon, i. 212; many kettle-drums memory does not say. Prince Karl beats retreat, about 8 in the morning; is through Hohenfriedberg about 10 (cannon covering there, and Nadasti as rear-guard): back into the Mountains; a thoroughly well-beaten man. Towards Bolkenhayn, the Saxons and he; their heavy artillery and baggage had been left safe there. Not much pursued, and gradually rearranging himself; with thoughts,--no want of thoughts! Came pouring down, triumphantly invasive, yesterday; returns, on these terms, in about fifteen hours. Not marching with displayed banners and field-music, this time; this is a far other march. The mouse-trap had been left open, and we rashly went in!--Prince Karl's loss, including that of the Saxons (which is almost equal, though their number in the field was but HALF), is 9,000 dead and wounded, 7,000 prisoners, 66 cannon, 73 flags and standards; the Prussian is about 5,000 dead and wounded. [In Orlich (ii. 182) all the details.] Friedrich, at sight of Valori, embraces his GROS VALORI; says, with a pious emotion in voice and look, "My friend, God has helped me wonderfully this day!" Actually there was a kind of devout feeling visible in him, thinks Valori: "A singular mixture, this Prince, of good qualities and of bad; I never know which preponderates." [Valori, SOEPIUS.] As is the way with fat Valoris, when they come into such company. Friedrich is blamed by some military men, and perhaps himself thought it questionable, that he did not pursue Prince Karl more sharply. He says his troops could not; they were worn out with the night's marching and the day's fighting. He himself may well be worn out. I suppose, for the last four-and-twenty hours he, of all the contemporary sons of Adam, has probably been the busiest. Let us rest this day; rest till to-morrow morning, and be thankful. "So decisive a defeat," writes he to his Mother (hastily, misdating "6th" June for 4th), "has not been since Blenheim" [Letter in tolerably true); and "I have made the Princes sign their names," to give the good Mother assurance of her children in these perils of war. Seldom has such a deliverance come to a man. Chapter XI. CAMP OF CHLUM: FRIEDRICH CANNOT ACHIEVE PEACE. Friedrich marched, on the morrow, likewise to Bolkenhayn; which the enemy have just left; our hussars hanging on their rear, and bickering with Nadasti. Then again on the morrow, Sunday,--"twelve hours of continuous rain," writes Valori; but there is no down- pour, or distress, or disturbance that will shake these men from their ranks, writes Valori. And so it goes on, march after march, the Austrians ahead, Dumoulin and our hussars infesting their rear, which skilfully defended itself: through Landshut down into Bohemia; where are new successive marches, the Prussian quarterstaff stuck into the back of defeated Austria, "Home with you; farther home!"--and shogging it on,--without pause, for about a fortnight to come. And then only with temporary pause; that is to say, with intricate manoeuvrings of a month long, which shove it to Konigsgratz, its ultimatum, beyond which there is no getting it. The stages and successive campings, to be found punctually in the old Books and new, can interest only military readers. Here is a small theological thing at Landshut, from first hand:-- JUNE 8th, 1745. "The Army followed Dumoulin's Corps, and marched upon Landshut. On arriving in that neighborhood, the King was surrounded by a troop of 2,000 Peasants,"--of Protestant persuasion very evidently! (which is much the prevailing thereabouts),--"who begged permission of him 'to massacre the Catholics of these parts, and clear the country of them altogether.' This animosity arose from the persecutions which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination, when their churches used to be taken from them and given to the Popish priests,"--churches and almost their children, such was the anxiety to make them orthodox. The patience of these peasants had run over; and now, in the hour of hope, they proposed the above sweeping measure. "The King was very far from granting them so barbarous a permission. He told them, 'They ought rather to conform to the Scripture precept, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that despitefully used them; such was the way to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.' The peasants," rolling dubious eyes for a moment, "answered, His Majesty was right; and desisted from their cruel pretension." [ de Frederic, says another Witness, "as far as the sound of the cannon was heard, all round, the Protestants fell on their knees, praying for victory to the Prussians;" [In Ranke, iii. 259.] and at Breslau that evening, when the "Thirteen trumpeting Postilions" came tearing in with the news, what an enthusiasm without limit! Prince Karl has skill in choosing camps and positions: his Austrians are much cowed; that is the grievous loss in his late fight. So, from June 8th, when they quit Silesia,--by two roads to go more readily,--all through that month and the next, Friedrich spread to the due width, duly pricking into the rear of them, drives the beaten hosts onward and onward. They do not think of fighting; their one thought is to get into positions where they can have living conveyed to them, and cannot be attacked; for the former of which objects, the farther homewards they go, it is the better. The main pursuit, as I gather, goes leftward from Landshut, by Friedland,--the Silesian Friedland, once Wallenstein's. Through rough wild country, the southern slope of the Giant Mountains, goes that slow pursuit, or the main stream of it, where Friedrich in person is; intricate savage regions, cut by precipitous rocks and soaking quagmires, shaggy with woods: watershed between the Upper Elbe and Middle Oder; Glatz on our left,--with the rain of its mountains gathering to a Neisse River, eastward, which we know; and on their west or hither side, to a Mietau, Adler, Aupa and other many-branched feeders of the Elbe. Most complex military ground, the manoeuvrings on it endless,-- which must be left to the reader's fancy here. About the end of June, Karl and his Austrians find a place suitable to their objects: Konigsgratz, a compact little Town, in the nook between the Elbe and Adler; covered to west and to south by these two streams; strong enough to east withal; and sure and convenient to the southern roads and victual. Against which Friedrich's manoeuvres avail nothing; so that he at last (20th July) crosses Elbe River; takes, he likewise, an inexpugnable Camp on the opposite shore, at a Village called Chlum; and lies there, making a mutual dead-lock of it, for six weeks or more. Of the prior Camps, with their abundance of strategic shufflings, wheelings, pushings, all issuing in this of Chlum, we say nothing: none of them,-- except the immediately preceding one, called of Nahorzan, called also of Drewitz (for it was in parts a shifting entity, and flung the LIMBS of it about, strategically clutching at Konigsgratz),-- had any permanency: let us take Chlum (the longest, and essentially the last in those parts) as the general summary of them, and alone rememberable by us. ["Camp of Gross-Parzitz [across the Mietau, to dislodge Prince Karl from his shelter behind that stream], June 14th:" "Camp of Nahorzan, June 18th [and abstruse manoeuvrings, of a month, for Konigsgratz]: 20th July," cross Elbe for Chlum; and lie, yourself also inexpugnable, there. See Frederic, (ii. pp. 193, 194, 203, &c. &c.),--with an amplitude of inorganic details, sufficient to astonish the robustest memory!] Friedrich's purposes, at Chlum or previously, are not towards conquests in Bohemia, nor of fighting farther, if he can help it. But, in the mean while, he is eating out these Bohemian vicinages; no invasion of Silesia possible from that quarter soon again. That is one benefit: and he hopes always his enemies, under screw of military pressure with the one hand, and offer of the olive- branch with the other, will be induced to grant him Peace. Britannic Majesty, after Fontenoy and Hohenfriedberg, not to mention the first rumors of a Jacobite Rebellion, with France to rear of it, is getting eager to have Friedrich settled with, and withdrawn from the game again;--the rather, as Friedrich, knowing his man, has ceased latterly to urge him on the subject. Peace with George the Purseholder, does not that mean Peace with all the others? Friedrich knows the high Queen's indignation; but he little guesses, at this time, the humor of Bruhl and the Polish Majesty. He has never yet sent the Old Dessauer in upon them; always only keeps him on the slip, at Magdeburg; still hoping actualities may not be needed. He hopes too, in spite of her indignation, the Hungarian Majesty, with an Election on hand, with the Netherlands at such a pass, not to speak of Italy and the Middle Rhine, will come to moderate views again. On which latter points, his reckoning was far from correct! Within three months, Britannic Majesty and he did get to explicit Agreement (CONVENTION OF HANOVER, 26th August): but in regard to the Polish Majesty and the Hungarian there proved to be no such result attainable, and quite other methods necessary first! "Of military transactions in this Camp of Chlum, or in all these Bohemian-Silesian Camps, for near four months, there is nothing, or as good as nothing: Chlum has no events; Chlum vigilantly guards itself; and expects, as the really decisive to it, events that will happen far away. We are to conceive this military business as a dead-lock; attended with hussar skirmishes; attacks, defences, of outposts, of provision-wagons from Moravia or Silesia:--Friedrich has his food from Silesia chiefly, by several routes, 'convoys come once in the five days.' His horse-provender he forages; with Tolpatches watching him, and continual scufflings of fight: 'for hay and glory,' writes one Prussian Officer, 'I assure you we fight well!' Endless enterprising, manoeuvring, counter- manoeuvring there at first was; and still is, if either party stir: but here, in their mutually fixed camps, tacit mutual observances establish themselves; and amid the rigorous armed vigilantes, there are traits of human neighborship. As usual in such cases. The guard-parties do not fire on one another, within certain limits: a signal that there are dead to bury, or the like, is strictly respected. On one such occasion it was (June 30th, Camp- of-Nahorzan time) that Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick--Prince Ferdinand, with a young Brother Albert volunteering and learning his business here, who are both Prussian--had a snatch of interview with a third much-loved Brother, Ludwig, who is in the Austrian service. A Prussian officer, venturing beyond the limits, had been shot; Ferdinand's message, 'Grant us burial of him!' found, by chance, Brother Ludwig in command of that Austrian outpost; who answers: 'Surely;--and beg that I may embrace my Brothers!' And they rode out, those three, to the space intermediate; talked there for half an hour, till the burial was done. [Mauvillon, Luneburg, i. 118.] Fancy such an interview between the poor young fellows, the soul of honor each, and tied in that manner! "Trenck of the Life-guard was not quite the soul of honor. It was in the Nahorzan time too that Trenck, who had, in spite of express order to the contrary, been writing to his Cousin the indigo Pandour, was put under arrest when found out. 'Wrote merely about horses: purchase of horses, so help me God!' protests the blusterous Life-guardsman, loud as lungs will,--whether with truth in them, nobody can say. 'Arrest for breaking orders!' answers Friedrich, doubting or disbelieving the horses; and loud Trenck is packed over the Hills to Glatz; to Governor Fouquet, or Substitute; --where, by not submitting and repenting, by resisting and rebelling, and ever again doing it, he makes out for himself, with Fouquet and his other Governors, what kind of life we know! 'GARDEZ E'TROITEMENT CE DROLE-LA, IL A VOULU DEVENIR PANDOUR AUPRES DE SON ONCLE (Keep a tight hold of this fine fellow; he wanted to become Pandour beside his Uncle)!' writes Friedrich:--'Uncle' instead of 'Cousin,' all one to Friedrich. This he writes with his own hand, on the margin: 28th June, 1745; the inexorable Records fix that date. [Rodenbeck. iii. 381. Copy of the Warrant, once PENES ME.] Which I should not mention, except for another inexorable date (30th September), that is coming; and the perceptible slight comfort there will be in fixing down a loud- blustering, extensively fabulous blockhead, still fit for the Nurseries, to one undeniable premeditated lie, and tar-marking him therewith, for benefit of more serious readers." As shall be done, were the 30th of September come! Here is still something,--if it be not rather nothing, by a great hand! Date uncertain; Camp-of-Chlum time, pretty far on: ... "There are continual foragings, on both sides; with parties mutually dashing out to hinder the same. The Prussians have a detached post at Smirzitz; which is much harassed by Hungarians lurking about, shooting our sentry and the like. An inventive head contrives this expedient. Stuff a Prussian uniform with straw; fix it up, by aid of ropes and check-strings, to stand with musket shouldered, and even to glide about to right and left, on judicious pulling. So it is done: straw man is made; set upon his ropes, when the Tolpatches approach; and pensively saunters to and fro,--his living comrades crouching in the bushes near by. Tolpatches fire on the walking straw sentry; straw sentry falls flat; Tolpatches rush in, esurient, triumphant; are exploded in a sharp blast of musketry from the bushes all round, every wounded man made prisoner;--and come no more back to that post." Friedrich himself records this little fact: "slight pleasantry to relieve the reader's mind," says he, in narrating it. [ --Enough of those small matters, while so many large are waiting. June 26th, a month before Chlum, General Nassau had been detached, with some 8 or 10,000, across Glatz Country, into Upper Silesia, to sweep that clear again. Hautcharmoi, quitting the Frontier Towns, has joined, raising him to 15,000; and Nassau is giving excellent account of the multitudinous Pandour doggeries there; and will retake Kosel, and have Upper Silesia swept before very long. [Kosel, "September 5th:" Excellent, lucid and even entertaining Account of Nassau's Expedition, in the form of DIARY (a model, of its kind), in On the other hand, the Election matter (KAISERWAHL, a most important point) is obviously in threatening, or even in desperate state! That famed Middle-Rhine Army has gone to the--what shall we say? JULY 5th-19th, MIDDLE-RHINE COUNTRY. "The first Election-news that reaches Friedrich is from the Middle-Rhine Country, and of very bad complexion. Readers remember Traun, and his Bathyanis, and his intentions upon Conti there. In the end of May, old Traun, things being all completed in Bavaria, had got on march with his Bavarian Army, say 40,000, to look into Prince Conti down in those parts; a fact very interesting to the Prince. Traun held leftward, westward, as if for the Neckar Valley,--'Perhaps intending to be through upon Elsass, in those southern undefended portions of the Rhine?' Conti, and his Segur, and Middle-Rhine Army stood diligently on their guard; got their forces, defences, apparatuses, hurried southward, from Frankfurt quarter where they lay on watch, into those Neckar regions. Which seen to be done, Traun whirled rapidly to rightward, to northward; crossed the Mayn at Wertheim, wholly leaving the Neckar and its Conti; having weighty business quite in the other direction,--on the north side of the Mayn, namely; on the Kinzig River, where Bathyani (who has taken D'Ahremberg's command below Frankfurt, and means to bestir himself in another than the D'Ahremberg fashion) is to meet him on a set day. Traun having thus, by strategic suction, pulled the Middle- Rhine Army out of his and Bathyani's way, hopes they two will manage a junction on the Kinzig; after junction they will be a little stronger than Conti, though decidedly weaker taken one by one. Traun, in the long June days, had such a march, through the Spessart Forest (Mayn River to his left, with our old friends Dettingen, Aschaffenburg, far down in the plain), as was hardly ever known before: pathless wildernesses, rocky steeps and chasms; the sweltering June sun sending down the upper snows upon him in the form of muddy slush; so that 'the infantry had to wade haunch- deep in many of the hollow parts, and nearly all the cavalry lost its horse-shoes.' A strenuous march; and a well-schemed. For at the Kinzig River (Conti still far off in the Neckar country), Bathyani punctually appeared, on the opposite shore; and Traun and he took camp together; July 5th, at Langen-Selbord (few miles north of Hanau, which we know);--and rest there; calculating that Conti is now a manageable quantity;--and comfortably wait till the Grand- Duke arrives. [Adelung, iv. 421; v. 36.] For this is, theoretically, HIS Army; Grand-Duke Franz being the Commander's Cloak, this season; as Karl was last,--a right lucky Cloak he, while Traun lurked under him, not so lucky since! July 13th, Franz arrived; and Traun, under Franz, instantly went into Conti (now again in those Frankfurt parts); clutched at Conti, Briareus-like, in a multiform alarming manner: so that Conti lost head; took to mere retreating, rushing about, burning bridges;--and in fine, July 19th, had flung himself bodily across the Rhine (clouds of Tolpatches sticking to him), and left old Traun and his Grand-Duke supreme lord in those parts. Who did NOT invade Elsass, as was now expected; but lay at Heidelberg, intending to play pacifically a surer card. All French are out of Teutschland again; and the game given up. In what a premature and shameful manner! thinks Friedrich. "Nominally it was the Grand-Duke that flung Conti over the Rhine; and delivered Teutschland from its plagues. After which fine feat, salvatory to the Cause of Liberty, and destructive to French influence, what is to prevent his election to the Kaisership? Friedrich complains aloud: 'Conti has given it up; you drafted 15,000 from him (for imaginary uses in the Netherlands),--you have given it up, then! Was that our bargain?' 'We have given it up,' answers D'Argenson the War-minister, writing to Valori; 'but,'-- And supplies, instead of performance according to the laws of fact, eloquent logic; very superfluous to Friedrich and the said laws!-- Valori, and the French Minister at Dresden, had again been trying to stir up the Polish Majesty to stand for Kaiser; but of course that enterprise, eager as the Polish Majesty might be for such a dignity, had now to collapse, and become totally hopeless. A new offer of Friedrich's to co-operate had been refused by Bruhl, with a brevity, a decisiveness--'Thinks me finished (AUX ABOIS),' says Friedrich; 'and not worth giving terms to, on surrendering!' The foolish little creature; insolent in the wrong quarter!" [ 'The German Burden, then,--which surely was mutual, at lowest, and lately was French altogether,--the French have thrown it off; the French have dropped their end of the BEARING-POLES (so to speak), and left Friedrich by himself, to stand or stagger, under the beweltered broken harness-gear and intolerable weight! That is one's payment for cutting the rope from their neck last year!-- Long since, while the present Campaign was being prepared for, under such financial pressures, Friedrich had bethought him, "The French might, at least give me money, if they can nothing else?"--and he had one day penned a Letter with that object; but had thrown it into his desk again, "No; not till the very last extremity, that!" Friedrich did at last despatch the unpleasant missive: "Service done you in Elsass, let us say little of it; but the repayment has been zero hitherto: your Bavarian expenses (poor Kaiser gone, and Peace of Fussen come!) are now ended:-- A round sum, say of 600,000 pounds, is becoming indispensable here, if we are to keep on our feet at all!" Herr Ranke, who has seen the Most Christian King's response (though in a capricious way), finds "three or four successive redactions" of the difficult passage; all painfully meaning, "Impossible, alas!"--painfully adding, "We will try, however!" And, after due cunctations, Friedrich waiting silent the while,--Louis, Most Christian King, who had failed in so many things towards Friedrich, does empower Valori To offer him a subsidy of 600,000 livres a month, till we see farther. Twenty thousand pounds a month; he hopes this will suffice, being himself run terribly low. Friedrich's feeling is to be guessed: "Such a dole might answer to a Landgraf of Hessen-Darmstadt; but to me is not in the least suitable;"--and flatly refuses it; FIEREMENT, says Valori. [Ranke, iii. 235, 299 n. (not the least of DATE allowed us in either case); Valori. i. 240.] MON GROS VALORI, who could not himself help all this, poor soul, "falls now into complete disgrace;" waits daily upon Friedrich at the giving out of the parole, "but frequently his Majesty does not speak to me at all." Hardly looks at me, or only looks as if I had suddenly become Zero Incarnate. It is now in these days, I suppose, that Friedrich writes about the "Scamander Battle" (of Fontenoy), and "Capture of Pekin," by way of helping one to fight the Austrians according to Treaty. And has a touch of bitter sarcasm in uttering his complaints against, such treatment,--the heart of him, I suppose, bitter enough. Most Christian King has felt this of the Scamander, Friedrich perceives; Louis's next letter testifies pique;--and of course we are farther from help, on that side, than ever. "From the STANDE of the Kur-Mark [Brandenburg] Friedrich was offered a considerable subsidy instead; and joyfully accepted the same, 'as a loan:'"--paid it punctually back, too; and never, all his days, forgot it of those STANDE. [Stenzel, iv. 255; Ranke, &c.] CAMP OF DIESKAU: BRITANNIC MAJESTY MAKES PEACE, FOR HIMSELF, WITH FRIEDRICH; BUT CANNOT FOR AUSTRIA OR SAXONY. About the middle of August, there are certain Saxon phenomena which awaken dread expectation in the world. Friedrich, watching, Argus- like, near and far, in his Chlum observatory, has noticed that Prince Karl is getting reinforced in Konigsgratz; 10,000 lately, 7,000 more coming;--and contrariwise that the Saxons seem to be straggling off from him; ebbing away, corps after corps,--towards Saxony, can it be? There are whispers of "Bavarian auxiliaries" being hired for them, too. And little Bruhl's late insolence; Bruhl's evident belief that "we are finished (AUX ABOIS)"? Putting all this together, Friedrich judges--with an indignation very natural--that there is again some insidious Saxon mischief, most likely an attack on Brandenburg, in the wind. Friedrich orders the Old Dessauer, "March into them, delay no longer!" and publishes a clangorously indignant Manifesto (evidently his own writing, and coming from the heart): [In Adelung, v. 64-71 (no date; "middle of August," say the Books).] "How they have, not bound by their Austrian Treaty, wantonly invaded our Silesia; have, since and before, in spite of our forbearance, done so many things:--and, in fact, have finally exhausted our patience; and are forcing us to seek redress and safety by the natural methods," which they will see how they like!-- Old Leopold advances straightway, as bidden, direct for the Saxon frontier. To whom Friedrich shoots off detachments,--Prince Dietrich, with so many thousands, to reinforce Papa; then General Gessler with so many,--till Papa is 30,000 odd; and could eat Saxony at a mouthful; nothing whatever being yet ready there on Bruhl's part, though he has such immense things in the wind!-- Nevertheless Friedrich again paused; did not yet strike. The Saxon question has Russian bug-bears, no end of complications. His Britannic Majesty, now at Hanover, and his prudent Harrington with him, are in the act of laboring, with all earnestness, for a general Agreement with Friedrich. Without farther bitterness, embroilment and bloodshed: how much preferable for Friedrich! Old Dessauer, therefore, pauses: "Camp of Dieskau," which we have often heard of, close on the Saxon Border; stands there, looking over, as with sword drawn, 30,000 good swords,--but no stroke, not for almost three months more. In three months, wretched Bruhl had not repented; but, on the contrary, had completed his preparations, and gone to work;--and the stroke did fall, as will be seen. That is Bruhl's posture in the matter. [Ranke, iii. 231, 314.] To Britannic George, for a good while past, it has been manifest that the Pragmatic Sanction, in its original form, is an extinct object; that reconquest of Silesia, and such like, is melancholy moonshine; and that, in fact, towards fighting the French with effect, it is highly necessary to make peace with Friedrich of Prussia again. This once more is George's and his Harrington's fixed view. Friedrich's own wishes are known, or used to be, ever since the late Kaiser's death,--though latterly he has fallen silent, and even avoids the topic when offered (knowing his man)! Herrington has to apply formally to Friedrich's Minister at Hanover. "Very well, if they are in earnest this time," so Friedrich instructs his Minister: "My terms are known to you; no change admissible in the terms;--do not speak with me on it farther: and, observe, within four weeks, the thing finished, or else broken off!" [Ranke, iii. 277-281.] And in this sense they are laboring incessantly, with Austria, with Saxony,--without the least success;--and Excellency Robinson has again a panting uncomfortable time. Here is a scene Robinson transacts at Vienna, which gives us a curious face-to-face glimpse of her Hungarian Majesty, while Friedrich is in his Camp at Chlum. SCHONBRUNN, 2d AUGUST, 1745, ROBINSON HAS AUDIENCE OF HER HUNGARIAN MAJESTY. Robinson, in a copious sonorous speech (rather apt to be copious, and to fall into the Parliamentary CANTO-FERMO), sets forth how extremely ill we Allies are faring on the French hand; nothing done upon Silesia either; a hopeless matter that,--is it not, your Majesty? And your Majesty's forces all lying there, in mere dead- lock; and we in such need of bhem! "Peace with Prussia is indispensable."--To which her Majesty listened, in statuesque silence mostly; "never saw her so reserved before, my Lord." ... ROBINSON. ... "'Madam, the Dutch will be obliged to accept Neutrality' [and plump down again, after such hoisting]! QUEEN. "'Well, and if they did, they? "It would be easier to accommodate with France itself, and so finish the whole matter, than with Prussia." My Army could not get to the Netherlands this season. No General of mine would undertake conducting it at this day of the year. Peace with Prussia, what good could it do at present?' ROBINSON. "'England has already found, for subsidies, this year, 1,178,753 pounds. Cannot go on at that rate. Peace with Prussia is one of the returns the English Nation expects for all it has done.' QUEEN. "'I must have Silesia again: without Silesia the Kaiserhood were an empty title. "Or would you have us administer it under the guardiancy of Prussia!"' ... ROBINSON. "'In Bohemia itself things don't look well; nothing done on Friedrich: your Saxons seem to be qnarrelling with you, and going home.' QUEEN. "'Prince Karl is himself capable of fighting the Prussians again. Till that, do not speak to me of Peace! Grant me only till October!' ROBINSON. "'Prussia will help the Grand-Duke to Kaisership.' QUEEN. "'The Grand-Duke is not so ambitions of an empty honor as to engage in it under the tutelage of Prussia. Consider farther: the Imperial dignity, is it compatible with the fatal deprivation of Silesia? "One other battle, I say! Good God, give me only till the month of October!"' ROBINSON. "'A battle, Madam, if won, won't reconquer Silesia; if lost, your Majesty is ruined at home.' QUEEN. "'DUSSE'JE CONCLURE AVEC LUI LE LENDEMAIN, JE LUI LIVRERAIS BATAILLE CE SOIR (Had I to agree with him to-morrow, I would try him in a battle this evening)!'" [Robinson's Despatch, 4th August, 1745. Ranke, iii. 287; Raumer, pp. 161, 162.] Her Majesty is not to be hindered; deaf to Robinson, to her Britannic George who pays the money. "Cruel man, is that what you call keeping the Pragmatic Sanction; dismembering me of Province after Province, now in Germany, then in Italy, on pretext of necessity? Has not England money, then? Does not England love the Cause of Liberty? Give me till October!" Her Majesty did take till October, and later, as we shall see; poor George not able to hinder, by power of the purse or otherwise: who can hinder high females, or low, when they get into their humors? Much of this Austrian obstinacy, think impartial persons, was of female nature. We shall see what profit her Majesty made by taking till October. As for George, the time being run, and her Majesty and Saxony unpersuadable, he determined to accept Friedrich's terms himself, in hope of gradually bringing the others to do it. August 26th, at Hanover, there is signed a CONVENTION OF HANOVER between Friedrich and him: "Peace on the old Breslau-Berlin terms,--precisely the same terms, but Britannic Majesty to have them guaranteed by All the Powers, on the General Peace coming,--so that there be no snake-procedure henceforth." Silesia Friedrich's without fail, dear Hanover unmolested even by a thought of Friedrich's;--and her Hungarian Majesty to be invited, nay urged by every feasible method, to accede. [Adelung, v. 75; is "in Rousset, xix. 441;" in &c. &c.] Which done, Britannic Majesty--for there has hung itself out, in the Scotch Highlands, the other day ("Glenfinlas, August 12th"), a certain Standard "TANDEM TRIUMPHANS," and unpleasant things are imminent!--hurries home at his best pace, and has his hands full there, for some time. On Austria, on Saxony, he could not prevail: "By no manner of means!" answered they; and went their own road,--jingling his Britannic subsidies in their pocket; regardless of the once Supreme Jove, who is sunk now to a very different figure on the German boards. Friedrich's outlook is very bad: such a War to go on, and not even finance to do it with. His intimates, his Rothenburg one time, have "found him sunk in gloomy thought." But he wears a bright face usually. No wavering or doubting in him, his mind made up; which is a great help that way. Friedrich indicates, and has indicated everywhere, for many months, that Peace, precisely on the old footing, is all he wants: "The Kaiser being dead, whom I took up arms to defend, what farther object is there?" says he. "Renounce Silesia, more honestly than last time; engage to have it guaranteed by everybody at the General Peace (or perhaps Hohenfriedberg will help to guarantee it),--and I march home!" My money is running down, privately thinks he; guarantee Silesia, and I shall be glad to go. If not, I must raise money somehow; melt the big silver balustrades at Berlin, borrow from the STANDE, or do something; and, in fact, must stand here, unless Silesia is guaranteed, and struggle till I die. That latter withal is still privately Friedrich's thought. Under his light air, he carries unspoken that grimly clear determination, at all times, now and henceforth; and it is an immense help to the guidance of him. An indispensable, indeed. No king or man, attempting anything considerable in this world, need expect to achieve it except, tacitly, on those same terms, "I will achieve it or die!" For the world, in spite of rumors to the contrary, is always much of a bedlam to the sanity (so far as he may have any) of every individual man. A strict place, moreover; its very bedlamisms flowing by law, as do alike the sudden mud- deluges, and the steady Atlantic tides, and all things whatsoever: a world inexorable, truly, as gravitation itself;--and it will behoove you to front it in a similar humor, as the tacit basis for whatever wise plans you lay. In Friedrich, from the first entrance of him on the stage of things, we have had to recognize this prime quality, in a fine tacit form, to a complete degree; and till his last exit, we shall never find it wanting. Tacit enough, unconscious almost, not given to articulate itself at all;--and if there be less of piety than we could wish in the silence of it, there is at least no play-actor mendacity, or cant of devoutness, to poison the high worth of it. No braver little figure stands on the Earth at that epoch. Ready, at the due season, with his mind silently made up;--able to answer diplomatic Robinsons, Bartensteins and the very Destinies when they apply. If you will withdraw your snakish notions, will guarantee Silesia, will give him back his old Treaty of Berlin in an irrefragable shape, he will march home; if not, he will never march home, but be carried thither dead rather. That is his intention, if the gods permit. GRAND-DUKE FRANZ IS ELECTED KAISER (13TH SEPTEMBER, 1745); FRIEDRICH, THE SEASON AND FORAGE BEING DONE, MAKES FOR SILESIA. There occurred at Frankfurt--the clear majority, seven of the nine Electors, Bavaria itself (nay Bohemia this time, "distaff" or not), and all the others but Friedrich and Kur-Pfalz, being so disposed or so disposable, Traun being master of the ground--no difficulty about electing Grand-Duke Franz Stephan of Tuscany? Joint-King of Bohemia, to be Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich. Friedrich's envoy protested;--as did Kur-Pfalz's, with still more vehemence, and then withdrew to Hanau: the other Seven voted September 13th 1745: and it was done. A new Kaiser, Franz Stephan, or Franz I.,--with our blessing on him, if that can avail much. But I fear it cannot. Upon such mendacious Empty-Case of Kaiserhood, without even money to feed itself, not to speak of governing, of defending and coercing; upon such entities the blessings of man avail little; the gods, having warned them to go, do not bless them for staying! --However, tar-barrels burn, the fountains play (wine in some of them, I hope); Franz is to be crowned in a fortnight hence, with extraordinary magnificence. At this last part of it Maria Theresa will, in her own high person, attend; and proceeds accordingly towards Frankfurt, in the end of September (say the old Books), so soon as the Election is over. Hungarian Majesty's bearing was not popular there, according to Friedrich,--who always admires her after a sort, and always speaks of her like a king and gentleman:--but the High Lady, it is intimated, felt somewhat too well that she was high. Not sorry to have it known, under the due veils, that her Kaiser-Husband is but of a mimetic nature; that it is she who has the real power; and that indeed she is in a victorious posture at present. Very high in her carriage towards the Princes of the Reich, and their privileges:--poor Kur-Pfalz's notary, or herald, coming to protest (I think, it was the second time) about something, she quite disregarded his tabards, pasteboards, or whatever they were, and clapt him in prison. The thing was commented upon; but Kur-Pfalz got no redress. Need we repeat,--lazy readers having so often met him, and forgotten him again,--this is a new younger Kur-Pfalz: Karl Theodor, this one; not Friedrich Wilhelm's old Friend, but his Successor, of the Sulzbach line; of whom, after thirty years or so, we may again hear. He can complain about his violated tabard; will get his notary out of jail again, but no redress. Highish even towards her friends, this "Empress-Queen" (KAISERIN-KONIGIN, such her new title), and has a kind of "Thank-you-for- Nothing" air towards them. Prussian Majesty, she said, had unquestionable talents; but, oh, what a character! Too much levity, she said, by far; heterodox too, in the extreme; a BOSER MANN;--and what a neighbor has he been! As to Silesia, she was heard to say, she would as soon part with her petticoat as part with it. [ So that there is not the least prospect of peace here? "None," answer Friedrich's emissaries, whom he had empowered to hint the thing. Which is heavy news to Friedrich. Early in August, not long after that Audience of Robinson's, her Majesty, after repeated written messages to Prince Karl, urging him to go into fight again or attempt something, had sent two high messengers: Prince Lobkowitz, Duke d'Ahremberg, high dignitaries from Court, have come to Konigsgratz with the latest urgencies, the newest ideas; and would fain help Prince Karl to attempt something. Daily they used to come out upon a little height, in view of Friedrich's tent, and gaze in upon him, and round all Nature, "with big tubes," he says, "as if they had been astronomers;" but never attempted anything. We remember D'Ahremberg, and what part he has played, from the Dettingen times and onward. "A debauched old fellow," says Friedrich; "gone all to hebetude by his labors in that line; agrees always with the last speaker." Prince Karl seems to have little stomach himself; and does not see his way into (or across) another Battle. Lobkowitz, again, is always saying: "Try something! We are now stronger than they, by their detachings, by our reinforcings" (indeed, about twice their number, regular and irregular), though most of the Saxons are gone home. After much gazing through their tubes, the Austrians (August 23d) do make a small shift of place, insignificant otherwise; the Prussians, next day, do the like, in consequence; quit Chlum, burning their huts; post themselves a little farther up the Elbe,--their left at a place called Jaromirz, embouchure of the Aupa into Elbe, [ again unattackable. The worst fact is the multitude of Pandours, more and more infesting our provision-roads; and that horse-forage itself is, at last, running low. Detachments lie all duly round to right and left, to secure our communications with Silesia, especially to left, out of Glatz, where runs one of the chief roads we have. But the service is becoming daily more difficult. For example:-- "NEUSTADT, 8th SEPTEMBER. In that left-hand quarter, coming out of Glatz at a little Bohemian Town called Neustadt, the Prussian Commander, Tauenzien by name, was repeatedly assaulted; and from September 8th, had to stand actual siege, gallantly repulsing a full 10,000 with their big artillery, though his walls were all breached, for about a week, till Friedrich sent him relief. Prince Lobkowitz, our old anti-Belleisle friend, who is always of forward fiery humor, had set them on this enterprise; which has turned out fruitless. The King is much satisfied with Tauenzien; [Ib. 132.] of whom we shall hear again. Who indeed becomes notable to us, were it only for getting one Lessing as secretary, by and by: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, whose fame has since gone into all countries; the man having been appointed a 'Secretary' to the very Destinies, in some sort; that is to say, a Writer of Books which have turned out to have truth in them! Tauenzien, a grimmish aquiline kind of man, of no superfluous words, has distinguished himself for the present by defending Neustadt, which the Austrians fully counted to get hold of." Let us give another little scene; preparatory to quitting this Country, as it is evident the King and we will soon have to do; Country being quite eaten out, Pandours getting ever rifer, and the Season done:-- JAROMIRZ, "EARLY IN SEPTEMBER," 1745. "Jaromirz is a little Bohemian Town on the Aupa, or between the Aupa and Metau branches of the Upper Elbe; four or five miles north of Semonitz, where Friedrich's quarter now is. Valori, so seldom spoken to, is lodged in a suburb there: 'Had not you better go into the town itself?' his Majesty did once say; but Valori, dreading nothing, lodged on, --'Landlord a Burgher whom I thought respectable.' Respectable, yes he; but his son had been dealing with Franquini the Pandour, and had sold Valori,--night appointed, measures all taken; a miracle if Valori escape. Franquini, chief of 30,000 Pandours, has come in person to superintend this important capture; and lies hidden, with a strong party, in the woods to rearward. Prussians about 200, scattered in posts, occupy the hedges in front, for guard of the ovens; to rear, Jaromirz being wholly ours, there is no suspicion. "In the dead of the night, Franquini emerges from the woods; sends forward a party of sixty, under the young Judas; who, by methods suitable, gets them stealthily conducted into Papa's Barn, which looks across a courtyard into Valori's very windows. From the Barn it is easy, on paws of velvet, to get into the House, if you have a Judas to open it. Which you have:--bolts all drawn for you, and even beams ready for barricading if you be meddled with. 'Upstairs is his Excellency asleep; Excellency's room is--to right, do you remember; or to left'--'Pshaw, we shall find it!' The Pandours mount; find a bedroom, break it open,--some fifteen or sixteen of them, and one who knows a little French;--come crowding forward: to the horror and terror of the poor inhabitant.' 'QUE VOULEZ-VOUS DONC?' 'His Excellency Valori!' 'Well, no violence; I am your prisoner: let me dress!' answers the supposed Excellency,--and contrives to secrete portfolios, and tear or make away with papers. And is marched off, under a select guard, who leave the rest to do the pillage. And was not Valori at all; was Valori's Secretary, one D'Arget, who had called himself Valori on this dangerous occasion! Valori sat quaking behind his partition; not till the Pandours began plundering the stables did the Prussian sentry catch sound of them, and plunge in." Friedrich had his amusement out of this adventure; liked D'Arget, the clever Secretary; got D'Arget to himself before long, as will be seen;--and, in quieter times, dashed off a considerable Explosion of Rhyme, called LE PALLADION (Valori as Prussia's "Palladium," with Devils attempting to steal him, and the like), which was once thought an exquisite Burlesque,--Kings coveting a sight of it, in vain,--but is now wearisome enough to every reader. [Valori, i. 242; iii. 130: for the Fact. Exquisite Burlesque, PALLADION itself, is in copy of that very bad Original, JEANNE D'ARC,--the only thing now good in it, Friedrich's polite yet positive refusal to gratify King Louis and his Pompdour with a sight of it (see IB. PREFACE, x-xiv, Friedrich's Letter to Louis; date of request and of refusal, March, 1750).]--Let us attend his Majesty's exit from Bohemia. Chapter XII. BATTLE OF SOHR. The famed beautiful Elbe River rises in romantic chasms, terrible to the picturesque beholder, at the roots of the Riesengebirge; overlooked by the Hohe-Kamms, and highest summits of that chain. "Out of eleven wells," says gentle Dulness, "EILF or ELF QUELLEN, whence its name, Elbe for ELF." Sure enough, it starts out of various wells; [Description, in Zollner, Schlesien, great peacock's or pasha's tail, from the roots of the Giant Mountains thereabouts; and hurries southward,--or even rather eastward, at first; for (except the Iser to westward, which does not fall in for a great while) its chief branches come from the eastern side: Aupa, Metau, Adler, the drainings of Glatz, and of that rugged Country where Friedrich has been camping and manoeuvring all summer. On the whole, its course is southward for the first seventy or eighty miles, washing Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz it turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by hill and plain, through the rest of its five or six hundred miles. Its first considerable branch, on that eastern or left bank, is the Aupa, which rises in the Pass of Schatzlar (great struggling there, for convoys, just now); goes next by Trautenau, which has lately been burnt; and joins the Elbe at Jaromirz, where Valori was stolen, or nearly so, from under the Prussian left wing. The Aupa runs nearly straight south; the Elbe, till meeting it, has run rather southeast; but after joining they go south together, augmented by the Metau, by the Adler, down to Pardubitz, where the final turn to west occurs. Jaromirz, which lies in the very angle of Elbe and Aupa, is the left wing of Friedrich's Camp; main body of the Camp lies on the other side of the Elbe, but of course has bridges (as at Smirzitz, where that straw sentry did his pranks lately); bridges are indispensable, part of our provision coming always by that BOHEMIAN Neustadt, from the northeast quarter out of Silesia; though the main course of our meal (and much fighting for it) is direct from the north, by the Pass of Schatzlar,-- "Chaslard," as poor Valori calls it. Thus Friedrich lay, when Valori escaped being stolen; when Tauenzien was assailed by the 10,000 Pandours with siege artillery, and stood inexpugnable in the breach till Friedrich relieved him. Those Pandours "had cut away his water, for the last two days;" so that, except for speedy relief, all valor had been in vain. Water being gone, not recoverable without difficulties, Neustadt was abandoned (September 16th, as I guess);--one of our main Silesian roads for meal has ceased. We have now only Schatzlar to depend on; where Franquini--lying westward among the glens of the Upper Elbe, and possessed of abundant talent in the Tolpatch way (witness Valori's narrow miss lately)--gives us trouble enough. Friedrich determines to move towards Schatzlar. Homewards, in fact; eating the Country well as he goes. Saturday, 18th September, Friedrich crosses the Elbe at Jaromirz. Entirely unopposed; the Austrians were all busy firing FEU-DE-JOIE for the Election of their Grand-Duke: Election done five days ago at Frankfurt, and the news just come. So they crackle about, and deliver rolling fire, at a great rate; proud to be "IMPERIAL Army" henceforth, as if that could do much for them. There was also vast dining, for three days, among the high heads, and a great deal of wine spent. That probably would have been the chance to undertake something upon them, better than crossing the Elbe, says Friedrich looking back. But he did not think of it in time; took second-best in place of best. He is now, therefore, over into that Triangular piece of Country between Elbe and Aupa (if readers will consult their Map); in that triangle, his subsequent notable operations all lie. He here proposes to move northward, by degrees,--through Trautenau, Schatzlar, and home; well eating this bit of Country too, the last uneaten bit, as he goes. This well eaten, there will be no harbor anywhere for Invasion, through the Winter coming. One of my old Notes says of it, in the topographic point of view:-- "It is a triangular patch of Country, which has lain asleep since the Creation of the World; traversed only by Boii (BOI-HEIM-ERS, Bohemians), Czechs and other such populations, in Human History; but which Friedrich has been fated to make rather notable to the Moderns henceforth. Let me recommend it to the picturesque tourist, especially to the military one. Lovers of rocky precipices, quagmires, brawling torrents and the unadulterated ruggedness of Nature, will find scope there; and it was the scene of a distinguished passage of arms, with notable display of human dexterity and swift presence of mind. For the rest, one of the wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant regions in the world. Wild stony upland; topmost Upland, we may say, of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland; for the rainstorms hereabouts run several roads,--into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder, into the Black Sea by the Donau;--and it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeks-journeys, from many sides. "Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest' (KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in area, the longer side of which lies along the Elbe. A Country of rocky defiles; lowish hills chaotically shoved together, not wanting their brooks and quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood. Some poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are scattered about; there may be patches ploughable for rye [modern Tourist says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained; reminded me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine afternoon!]--ploughable for rye, buckwheat; boggy grass to be gathered in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable, among these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor ploughing, moiling creatures, they little thought of becoming notable so soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the least notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no more notice than if they also had been stocks and moss-grown stones. Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years past, in a dim manner;--and are much terrified to have become the seat of war, all on a sudden. Their poor Hamlets, Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz, Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them, languidly, the live-coal of mysterious human existence, in those woods,--to judge by the last maps that have come out. A thing worth considering by the passing tourist, military or other." It is in this Kingdom Forest (which he calls ROYAUME DE SILVA, instead of SYLVA DE ROYAUME) that Friedrich now nmrches; keeping the body of the Forest well on his left, and skirting the southern and eastern sides of it. Rough marching for his Majesty; painfully infested by Nadastian Tolpatches; who run out on him from ambushes, and need to be scourged; one ambush in particular, at a place called Liebenthal (second day's march, and near the end of it),-- where our Prussian Hussars, winding like fiery dragons on the dangerous precipices, gave them better than they brought, and completely quenched their appetite for that day. After Liebenthal, the march soon ends; three miles farther on, at the dim wold-hamlet of Staudentz: here a camp is pitched; here, till the Country is well eaten out, or till something else occur, we propose to tarry for a time. Horse-forage abounds here; but there is no getting of it without disturbance from those dogs; you must fight for every truss of grass: if a meal-train is coming, as there does every five days, you have to detach 8,000 foot and 3,000 horse to help it safe in. A fretting fatiguing time for regular troops. Our bakery is at Trautenau,--where Valori is now lodging. The Tolpatchery, unable to take Trautenau, set fire to it, though it is their own town, their own Queen's town; thatchy Trautenau, wooden too in the upper stories of it, takes greedily to the fire; goes all aloft in flame, and then lies black. A scandalous transaction, thinks Friedrich. The Prussian corn lay nearly all in cellars; little got, even of the Prussians, by such an atrocity: and your own poor fellow- subjects, where are they? Valori was burnt out here; again exploded from his quarters, poor man;--seems to have thought it a mere fire in his own lodging, and that he was an unfortunate diplomatist. Happily he got notice (PRIVATISSIME, for no officer dare whisper in such cases) that there is an armed party setting out for Silesia, to guard meal that is coming: Valori yokes himself to this armed party, and gets safe over the Hills with it,--then swift, by extra post, to Breslau and to civilized (partially civilized) accommodation, for a little rest after these hustlings and tossings. Friedrich had lain at Staudentz, in this manner, bickering continually for his forage, and eating the Country, for about ten days: and now, as the latter process is well on, and the season drawing to a close: he determines on a shift northward. Thursday, 30th September next, let there be one other grand forage, the final one in this eaten tract, then northward to fresh grounds. That, it appears, was the design. But, on Wednesday, there came in an Austrian deserter; who informs us that Prince Karl is not now in Konigsgratz, but in motion up the Elbe; already some fifty miles up; past Jaromirz: his rear at Konigshof, his van at Arnau,--on a level with burnt Trautenau, and farther north than we ourselves are. This is important news. "Intending to block us out from Schatzlar? Hmh!" Single scouts, or small parties, cannot live in this Kingdom Wood, swarming with Pandours: Friedrich sends out a Colonel Katzler, with 500 light horse, to investigate a little. Katzler pushes forward, on such lane or forest road-track as there is, towards Konigshof; beats back small hussar parties;--comes, in about an hour's space, not upon hussars merely, but upon dense masses of heavy horse winding through the forest lanes; and, with that imperfect intelligence, is obliged to return. The deserter spake truth, apparently; and that is all we can know. Forage scheme is given up; the order is, "Baggage packed, and MARCH to-morrow morning at ten." Long before ten, there had great things befallen on the morrow!--Try to understand this Note a little:-- "The Camp of Staudentz- which two persons (the King, and General Stille, a more careful reporter, who also was an eye-witness) have done their best to describe--will, after all efforts, and an Ordnance Map to help, remain considerably unintelligible to the reader; as is too usual in such cases. A block of high-lying ground; Friedrich's Camp on it, perhaps two miles long, looks to the south; small Village of Staudentz in front; hollow beyond that, and second small Village, Deutsch Prausnitz, hanging on the opposite slope, with shaggy heights beyond, and the Kingdom Forest there beginning: on the left, defiles, brooks and strait country, leading towards the small town of Eypel: that is our left and front aspect, a hollow well isolating us on those sides. Hollow continues all along the front; hollow definite on our side of it, and forming a tolerable defence:--though again, I perceive, to rightward at no great distance, there rise High Grounds which considerably overhang us." A thing to be marked! "These we could not occupy, for want of men; but only maintain vedettes upon them. Over these Heights, a mile or two westward of this hollow of ours, runs the big winding hollow called Georgengrund (GEORGE'S BOTTOM), which winds up and down in that Kingdom Forest, and offers a road from Konigshof to Trautenau, among other courses it takes. "From the crown of those Heights on our right flank here, looking to the west, you might discern (perhaps three miles off, from one of the sheltering nooks in the hither side of that Georgengrund), rising faintly visible over knolls and dingles, the smoke of a little Forest Village. That Village is Sohr; notable ever since, beyond others, in the Kingdom Wood. Sohr, like the other Villages, has its lane-roads; its road to Trautenau, to Konigshof, no doubt; but much nearer you, on our eastern slope of the Heights, and far hitherward of Sohr, which is on the western, goes the great road [what is now the great road], from Konigshof to Trautenau, well visible from Friedrich's Camp, though still at some distance from it. Could these Heights between us and Sohr, which lie beyond the great road, be occupied, we were well secured; isolated on the right too, as on the other sides, from Kingdom Forest and its ambushes. 'Should have been done,' admits Friedrich; 'but then, as it is, there are not troops enough:' with 18,000 men you cannot do everything!" Here, however, is the important point. In Sohr, this night, 29th September, in a most private manner, the Austrians, 30,000 of them and more, have come gliding through the woods, without even their pipe lit, and with thick veil of hussars ahead! Outposts of theirs lie squatted in the bushes behind Deutsch Prausnitz, hardly 500 yards from Friedrich's Camp. And eastward, leftward of him, in the defiles about Eypel, lie Nadasti and Ruffian Trenck, with ten or twelve thousand, who are to take him in rear. His "Camp of Staudentz" will be at a fine pass to-morrow morning. The Austrian Gentlemen had found, last week, a certain bare Height in the Forest (Height still known), from which they could use their astronomer tubes day after day; [Orlich, ii. 225.] and now they are about attempting something! Thursday morning, very early, 30th September, 1745, Friedrich was in his tent, busy with generals and march-routes,--when a rapid orderly comes in, from that Vedette, or strong Piquet, on the Heights to our right: "Austrians visibly moving, in quantity, near by!" and before he has done answering, the officer himself arrives: "Regular Cavalry in great force; long dust-cloud in Kingdom Forest, in the gray dawn; and, so far as we can judge, it is their Army coming on." Here is news for a poor man, in the raw of a September morning, by way of breakfast to him! "To arms!" is, of course, Friedrich's instant order; and he himself gallops to the Piquet on the Heights, glass in hand. "Austrian Army sure enough, thirty to thirty-five thousand of them, we only eighteen. [ de Frederic, flank here; to attack our Camp by surprise: will crush us northward through the defiles, and trample us down in detail? Hmh! To run for it, will never do. We must fight for it, and even attack THEM, as
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