History of Friedrich II of Prussia V

Part 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 Magazin,
xvi. 169 ("Your illustrious 'Column,' at Fontenoy?
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), King James's Irish
Army-List (Dublin, 1855), pp. 594-600.] Whoever was
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, Memoires, i. 108.
A FRENCH OFFICER'S ACCOUNT (translated in Gentleman's
Magazine, 1745; where, pp. 246, 250, 291, 313, &c.,
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, Journal of the Siege;"
"Mr. Prince (of the South Church, Boston),
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, Life of De Ziethen, italic> pp. 171-181 (extremely romantic; now given up as mythical,
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.
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 106. More
specially BERICHTE VON DER AM 22 MAI, 1745 BEY NEUSTADT IN OBER-
SCHLESIEN VORGEFALLENER ACTION (Seyfarth, Beylage, italic> i. 159-166).] Our new cavalry-manoeuvres deserve praise.
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.
[ Bericht von der am 21 Mai, 1745 bey Landshut
rorgefallener Action, in Feldzuge, i. 302-305 (or in
Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 155-158);
OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 105; Stille, pp. 120-124
(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, Die
Schlacht von Hohenfriedbeg (Potsdam, 1845), pp. 18,
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 Helden-Geschichte, i. 1098-1102.
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, OEuvres, iii. 108-118. Lutzow, above
cited, is the harmonizer. Besides which, two of value, in
Feldzuge, i. 310-323, 328-336; not to mention
Cogniazzo, Confessions of an Austrian Veeran
(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, Helden-Geschichte,
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." [ Helden-
Geschichte, ubi supra.] The Prussians push them on,
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;"
[ Military Instructions. ] a very hopeful
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, ii. 9, iv. 465, 468. See Preuss,
i. 212; OEuvres de Frederic; &c. &c.]--how
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
OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 71.] (which is
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." [ OEuvres
de Frederic, ii.218.] ...--"On Hohenfriedberg Day,"
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 OEuvres de
Frederic, (iii. 120 et seq.); especially see Orlich
(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, Geschichte Ferdinands von Braunschweig-
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. [ OEuvres, iii. 123.]
--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 Feldzuge, iv. 257, 371, 532.]
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!"
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 128.]

'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.
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 126, 128.]--
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,
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 129.]--and are
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; OEuvres de Frederic,
iii. 130: for the Fact. Exquisite Burlesque, PALLADION itself, is
in OEuvres, xi. 192-271 (see IB. 139): a bad
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, Briefe uber
Schlesien, ii. 305; in &c. &c.] rushes out, like a
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. [ OEuvres
de Frederic, iii. 139.] Coming to take us on the right
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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