History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1x
by
Thomas Carlyle
Part 2 out of 2
soft Hills, on both sides of the Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden,
as you ascend the River; till it rises into Hills of wild
character, getting ever wilder, and riven into wondrous chasms and
precipices. Extends, say almost twenty miles up the River, to
Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with perhaps
ten miles of breadth on each side of the River: area of the Rock-
region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles.
The Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the
Lausitz, the Schneeberg (SNOW MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the
Bohemian border, are about thirty-five miles apart: these two are
both reckoned to be in it,--its last outposts on that eastern side.
But the limits of it are fixed by custom only, and depend on no
natural condition.
We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a
rather lower block, of Sandstone, intercalated into the Metal-
Mountain range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of
harder rocks. Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies,
continuous, broad and high, the "Metal-Mountain range" specially so
called: northward and northeastward there rise, beyond that
Falkenberg, many mountains, solitary or in groups,--"the Metal
Mountains" fading out here into "the Lausitz Hills," still in fine
picturesque fashion, which are Northern Border to the great
Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge from this Sandstone
Country.
Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a
notable degree of height: but it is torn and tumbled into stone
labyrinths, chasms and winding rock-walls, as few regions are.
Grows pinewood, to the topmost height; pine-trees far aloft look
quietly down upon you, over sheer precipices, on your intricate
path. On the slopes of the Hills is grass enough; in the intervals
are Villages and husbandries, are corn and milk for the laborious
natives,--who depend mainly on quarrying, and pine-forest work:
pines and free-stone, rafts of long slim pines, and big stone
barges, are what one sees upon the River there. A Note, not very
geological, says of it:--
"Elbe sweeps freely through this Country, for ages and aeons past;
curling himself a little into snake-figure, and with increased
velocity, but silent mostly, and trim to the edge, a fine flint-
colored river;--though in aeons long anterior, it must have been a
very different matter for torrents and water-power. The Country is
one huge Block of Sandstone, so many square miles of that material;
ribbed, channelled, torn and quarried, in this manner, by the ever-
busy elements, for a million of Ages past! Chiefly by the Elbe
himself, since he got to be a River, and became cosmic and
personal; ceasing to be a mere watery chaos of Lakes and Deluges
hereabouts. For the Sandstone was of various degrees of hardness;
tenacious as marble some parts of it, soft almost as sand other
parts. And the primordial diluviums and world-old torrents, great
and small, rushing down from the Bohemian Highlands, from the Saxon
Metal Mountains, with such storming, gurgling and swashing, have
swept away the soft parts, and left the hard standing in this
chaotic manner, and bequeathed it all to the Elbe, and the common
frosts and rains of these human ages.
"Elbe has now a trim course; but Elbe too is busy quarrying and
mining, where not artificially held in;--and you notice at every
outlet of a Brook from the interior, north side and south side, how
busy the Brook has been. Boring, grinding, undermining; much helped
by the frosts, by the rains. AEons ago, the Brook was a lake, in
the interior; but was every moment laboring to get out; till it has
cut for itself that mountain gullet, or sheer-down chasm, and
brought out with it an Alluvium or Delta,--on which, since Adam's
time, human creatures have built a Hamlet. That is the origin, or
unwritten history, of most hamlets and cultivated spots you fall in
with here: they are the waste shavings of the Brook, working
millions of years, for its own object of getting into the Elbe in
level circumstances. Ploughed fields, not without fertility, are in
the interior, if you ascend that Brook; the Hamlet, at the delta or
mouth of it, is as if built upon its TONGUE and into its GULLET:
think how picturesque, in the November rains, for example!
"The road" one road, "from Dresden to Aussig, to Lobositz, Budin,
Prag, runs up the river-brink (south brink); or, in our day, as
Prag-Dresden Railway, thunders through those solitudes; strangely
awakening their echoes; and inviting even the bewildered Tourist to
reflect, if he could. The bewildered Tourist sees rock-walls
heaven-high on both hands of him; River and he rushing on between,
by law of gravitation, law of ennui (which are laws of Nature
both), with a narrow strip of sky in full gallop overhead; and has
little encouragement to reflect, except upon his own sorrows, and
delirious circumstances, physical and moral. 'How much happier,
were I lying in my bed!' thinks the bewildered Tourist;--does
strive withal to admire the Picturesque, but with little success;
notices the 'BASTEI (Bastion),' and other rigorously prescribed
points of the Sublime and Beautiful, which are to be 'done.'
That you will have to DO, my friend: step out, you will have to go
on that Pinnacle, with indifferent Hotel attached; on that iron
balcony, aloft among the clouds yonder; and shudder to project over
Elbe-flood from such altitudes, admiring the Picturesque in
prescribed manner.
"This Country has for its permanent uses, timber, free-stone,
modicum of milk and haver, serviceable to the generality;--and to
his Polish Majesty, at present, it is as the very Ark of Noah:
priceless at this juncture; being the strongest military country in
the world. Excellent strength in it; express Fortresses; especially
one Fortress called the Konigstein, not far from Schandau, of a
towering precipitous nature, with 'a well 900 feet deep' in it, and
pleasant Village outside at the base;--Fortress which is still, in
our day, reckoned a safe place for the Saxon Archives and
preciosities. Impregnable to gunpowder artillery; not to be had
except by hunger. And then, farther down the River, close by Pirna,
presiding over Pirna, as that Konigstein in some sort does over
Schandau, is the Sonnenstein: Sonnenstein too was a Fortress in
those days of Friedrich, but not impregnable, if judged worth
taking. The Austrians took it, a year or two hence; Friedrich
retook it, dismantled it: 'the Sonnenstein is now a Madhouse,' say
the Guide-books.
"Sonnenstein stands close east or up-stream of Pirna, which is a
town of 5,000 souls, by much the largest in those parts;
Konigstein a little down-stream of Schandau, which latter is on the
opposite or north side of the River. These are the two chief Towns,
which do all the trade of this region; picturesque places both:--
the Tourist remembers Pirna? Standing on its sleek table or stair-
step, by the River's edge; well above floodmark; green, shaggy or
fringy mountains looking down on it to rearward; in front, beyond
the River, nothing visible but mile-long cream-colored rock-wall,
with bushes at bottom and top, wall quarried by Elbe, as you can
see. Pirna is near the beginning [properly END, but we start from
Dresden] or western extremity of Saxon Schweitz. Schandau, almost
at the opposite or eastern extremity, is still more picturesque;
standing on the delta of a little Brook, with high rock-cliffs,
with garden-shrubberies, sanded walks, tufts of forest-umbrage;
a bright-painted, almost OPERATIC-looking place,--with spa-waters,
if I recollect: "yes truly, and the "Bath Season" making its
packages in great haste, breaking up prematurely, this
Year (1756)!--
Directly on arriving at Gross-Sedlitz, Friedrich takes ocular
survey of this Country, which is already not unknown to him.
He finds that the Saxons have secured themselves within the
Mountains; a rocky streamlet, Brook of Gottleube, which issues into
Elbe just between Gross-Sedlitz and them, "through a dell of eighty
or a hundred feet deep," serving as their first defence; well in
front of the mere rocky Heights and precipices behind it, which
stretch continuously along to southward, six miles or more, from
Pirna and the south brink of Elbe. At Langen-Hennersdorf, which is
the southernmost part, these Heights make an elbow inwards, by
Leopoldshayn, towards the Konigstein, which is but four miles off;
here too the Saxons are defended by a Brook (running straight
towards Konigstein, this one) in front of their Heights; and stand
defensive, in this way, along a rock-bulwark of ten miles long:
the passes all secured by batteries, by abatis, palisades, mile
after mile, as Friedrich rides observant leftward: behind them,
Elbe rushing swifter through his rock-walls yonder, with chasms and
intricate gorges; defending them inexpugnably to rear. Six miles
long of natural bulwark (six to Hennersdorf), where the gross of
the Saxons lie; then to Konigstein four other miles, sufficiently,
if more sparsely, beset by them. "No stronger position in the
world," Friedrich thinks; [ OEuvres de Frederic,
italic> iv. 83, 84 (not a very distinct Account; and far from
accurate in the details,--which are left without effectual
correction even in the best Editions).]--and that it is impossible
to force this place, without a loss of life disproportionate even
to its importance at present. Not to say that the Saxons will make
terms all the easier, BEFORE bloodshed rise between us;--and
furthermore that Hunger (for we hear they have provision only for
two weeks) may itself soon do it. "Wedge them in, therefore; block
every outgate, every entrance; nothing to get in, except gradually
Hunger. Hunger, and on our part rational Offers, will suffice."
That is Friedrich's plan; good in itself,--though the ovine
obstinacy, and other circumstances, retarded the execution of it to
an unexpected extent, lamentable to Friedrich and to some others.
The Prussian-Saxon military operations for the next five weeks need
not detain us. Their respective positions on the Heights behind
that Brook Gottleube, and on the plainer Country in front of it,--
How the Prussians lie, first Division of them, from Gross-Sedlitz
to Zehist, under the King; then second Division from Zehist to
Cotta, and onward by "the Rothschenke" (RED-HOUSE Tavern), by
Markersbach, and sparsely as far as Hellendorf on the Prag Highway;
in brief, where all the Divisions of them lie, and under whom;
and where the Prussians, watching Elbe itself, have Batteries and
Posts on the north side of it: all this is marked on the Map;
--to satisfy ingenuous curiosity, should it make tour in those
parts. To which add only these straggles of Note, as farther
elucidative:--
"The Saxons, between Elbe and their Lines, possess about thirty
square miles of country. From Pirna or Sonnenstein to Konigstein,
as the crow flies, may be five miles east to west; but by Langen-
Hennersdorf, and the elbow there, it will be ten: at Konigstein,
moreover, Elbe makes an abrupt turn northward for a couple of
miles, instead of westward as heretofore, turning abruptly westward
again after that: so that the Saxon 'Camp' or Occupancy here, is an
irregular Trapezium, with Pirna and Konigstein for vertices, and
with area estimable as above,--ploughable, a fair portion of it,
and not without corn of its own. So that the 'two weeks' provision'
spun themselves out (short allowance aiding) to two months, before
actual famine came.
... "The High-road from the Lausitz parts crosses Elbe at Pirna;
falls into the Dresden-Prag High-road there; and from Pirna towards
Toplitz, for the first few miles, this latter runs through the
Prussian Posts; but we may guess it is not much travelled at
present. North of Elbe, too, the Prussians have batteries on the
fit points; detachments of due force, from Gross-Sedlitz Bridge-of-
Pontoons all round to Schandau, or beyond; could fire upon the
Konigstein, across the River: they have plugged up the Saxon
position everywhere. They have a Battery especially, and strong
post, to cannonade the Bridge at Pirna, should the Saxons think of
trying there. It is now the one Saxon or even Half-Saxon Bridge;
Sonnenstein and Pirna command the Saxon end of it, a strong battery
the Prussian end: a Bridge lying mainly idle, like the general
Highway to Toplitz at this time. Beyond the Konigstein, again, at a
place called Wendisch-Fahre (WENDS'-FERRY), the Prussians have, by
means of boats swinging wide at anchor on the swift current, what
is called a Flying-bridge, with which the north side can
communicate with the south. They have a post at Nieder-Raden (OBER
Raden, railway station in our time, is on the south side):
Nether Raden is an interesting little Hamlet, mostly invisible to
mankind (built in the THROAT of the stone chasms there), from which
you begin mounting to the BASTEI far aloft. A Raden to be noted, by
the Tourist and us."
Little, or even nothing, of fighting there is: why should there be?
The military operations are a dead-lock, and require no word.
Thirty thousand, half of the Prussian Force, lie, vigilant as
lynxes, blockading here; other half, 32,000, under Marshal Keith,
have marched forward to Aussig, to Nollendorf on the Bohemian
frontier, to clear the ways, and look into any Austrian motion
thereabouts,--with whom, with some Pandour detachment of whom, Duke
Ferdinand, leading the vanguard, has had a little brush among the
Hills; smiting them home again, in his usual creditable way
(September 13th); and taking Camp at Peterswalde, he and others of
the Force, that night. [ OEuvres de Frederic,
iv. 85; ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, i. 19.] It is with this Keith Army,
with this if with any, that adventures are to be looked for at
present.
Polish Majesty's Head-quarters are at Struppen, well in the centre
of the Saxon lines; "goes always to the Konigstein to sleep."
Polish Majesty's own table is, by Friedrich's permission for that
special object, supplied AD LIBITUM: but the common men were at
once put on short allowance, which grows always the shorter.
Polish Majesty corresponds with Friedrich, as we saw; and above
all, sends burning Messages to Austria, to France, to every
European Court, charged with mere shrieks: "Help me; a robber has
me!" In which sense, Excellencies of all kinds, especially one Lord
Stormont, the English Excellency, daily running out from Dresden to
Gross-Sedlitz, are passionately industrious with Friedrich; who is
eager enough to comply, were there any safe means possible.
But there are none. Unfortunately, too, it appears the Austrians
are astir; Feldmarschall Browne actually furbishing himself at Prag
yonder with an eye hitherward, and extraordinary haste and spirit
shown: which obliges Friedrich to rise in his demands;
ovine obstinacy, on the other side, naturally increasing from the
same cause.
"Polish Majesty, we say, has liberty to bring in proviant for self
and suite, rigorously for no mortal more; and he lives well, in the
culinary sense,--surely for most part 'in his dressing-gown,' too,
poor loose collapsed soul! Bruhl and he have plenty of formal
business: but their one real business is that of crying, by
estafettes and every conceivable method, to Austria, 'Get us out of
this!' To which Austria has answered, 'Yes; only patience, and be
steady!'--Friedrich's head-quarters are at Sedlitz; and the
negotiating and responding which he has, transcends imagination.
His first hope was, Polish Majesty might be persuaded to join with
him;--on the back of that, certainty, gradually coming, that Polish
Majesty never would; and that the Austrians would endeavor a
rescue, were they once ready. Starvation, or the Austrians, which
will be first here? is the question; and Friedrich studies to think
it will be the former. At all events, having settled on the
starvation method, and seen that all his posts are right, we
perceive he does not stick close by Sedlitz; but runs now hither
now thither; is at Torgau, where an important establishment, kind
of New Government for Saxony, on the Finance side, is organizing
itself. What his work with Ambassadors was, and how delicate the
handling needed, think!"--Here is another Clipping:--
... "Polish Majesty passes the day at Struppen, amid many vain
noises of Soldiering, of Diplomatizing; the night always at
Konigstein, and finally both day and night,--quite luxuriously
accommodated, Bruhl and he, to the very end of this Affair.
Towards Struppen [this is weeks farther on, but we give it here],--
Comte de Broglio [Old Broglio's elder Son, younger is in the
Military line], who is Ambassador to his Saxon-Polish Majesty, sets
out from Dresden for an interview with said Majesty. At the
Prussian lines, he is informed, 'Yes, you can go; but, without our
King's Order, you cannot return.' 'What? The Most Christian
Majesty's Ambassador, and treated in this way? I will go to where
the Polish King is, and I will return to my own King, so often as I
find business: stop me at your peril!' and threatened and argued,
and made a deal of blusterous noise;--far too much, thinks Valori;
think the Prussian Officers, who are sorry, but inflexible.
Margraf Karl, Commandant of the place, in absence of King Friedrich
(who is gone lately, on a Business we shall hear of), earnestly
dissuaded Excellency Broglio; but it was to no purpose. Next day
Broglio appeared in his state-carriage, formally demanding
entrance, free thoroughfare: 'Do you dare refuse me?' 'Yes,'
answered Margraf Karl; 'we do and must.' Indignant Broglio
reappeared, next day, on foot; Lieutenant-General Prince Friedrich
Eugen of Wurtemberg the chief man in charge: 'Do you dare?'
'Indubitably, Yes;'--and Broglio still pushing on incredulous,
Eugen actually raised his arm,--elbow and fore-arm across the
breast of Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador,--who recoiled, to
Dresden, in mere whirlwinds of fire; and made the most of it
[unwisely, thinks Valori] in writing to Court. [Valori, ii. 349,
209, 353 ("Wednesday, 6th October," the day of it, seemingly);
ib. i. 312, &c.] Court, in high dudgeon, commanded Valori to quit
Berlin without taking leave. Valori, in his private capacity, wrote
an Adieu; [Friedrich's kind Letter in answer to it, "2d November,
1756," in Valori, i. 313.] and in his public, as the fact stood,
That he was gone without Adieu."
And the Dauphiness, daughter of those injured Polish Majesties,
fell on her knees (Pompadour permitting and encouraging) at the
feet of Most Christian Majesty; on her knees, all in passion of
tears; craved help and protection to her loved old Mother, in the
name of Nature and of all Kings: could any King resist? And his
Pompadour was busy: "Think of that noble Empress, who calls me
COUSIN AND DEAR PRINCESS; think of that insolent Prussian Robber:
Ah, your Majesty:" -and King Louis, though not a hating man, did
privately dislike Friedrich; and evil speeches of Friedrich's had
been reported to him. And, in short, the upshot was: King Louis,
bound only to 24,000 for help of Austria, determined to send, and
did send, above 100,000 across the Rhine, next Year, for that
object; as will be seen. And all Frenchmen--all except Belleisle,
who is old--are charmed with these new energetic measures, and
beautiful new Austrian connections.
Certain it is, the Austrians are coming, her Imperial Majesty bent
with all her might on relief of those Saxon martyrs; which indeed
is relief of herself, as she well perceives: "Courage, my friends;
endure yet a little!" Messengers smuggle themselves through the
Mountain paths, and go and return, though with difficulty.
Since September 19th, the Correspondence with Polish Majesty has
ceased: no persuading of the Polish Majesty. Winterfeld went twice
to him; conferred at large, Bruhl forbidden to be there, on the
actual stringencies and urgencies of Fact between the Two
Countries; but it was with no result at all. Polish Majesty has not
the least intention that Saxony shall be even a Highway for
Friedrich, if at any time Polish Majesty can hinder it:
"Neutrality," therefore, will not do for Friedrich; he demands
Alliance, practical Partnership; and to that his Polish Majesty is
completely abhorrent. Diplomatizing may cease; nothing but wrestle
of fight will settle this matter.
Friedrich, able to get nothing from the Sovereign of Saxony, is
reduced to grasp Saxony itself: and we can observe him doing it;
always the closer, always the more carefully, as the complicacy
deepens, and the obstinacy becomes more dangerous and provoking.
What alternative is there? On first entering Saxony, Friedrich had
made no secret that he was not a mere bird of passage there.
At Torgau, there was at once a "Field-Commissariat" established,
with Prussian Officials of eminence to administer, the Military
Chest to be deposited there, and Torgau to be put in a state of
defence. Torgau, our Saxon Metropolis of War-Finance, is becoming
more and more the Metropolis of Saxon Finance in general.
Saxon Officials were liable, from the first, to be suspended, on
Friedrich's order. Saxon Finance-Officials, of all kinds, were from
the first instructed, that till farther notice there must be no
disbursements without King Friedrich's sanction. And, in fact, King
Friedrich fully intends that Saxony is to help him all it can;
and that it either will or else shall, in this dire pressure of
perplexity, which is due in such a degree to the conduct of the
Saxon Government for twelve years past. Would Saxony go with him in
any form of consent, how much more convenient to Friedrich!
But Saxony will not; Polish Majesty, not himself suffering hunger,
is obstinate as the decrees of Fate (or as sheep, when too much put
upon), regardless of considerations;--and, in fine, here is Browne
actually afoot; coming to relieve Polish Majesty!--The Austrians
had uncommonly bestirred themselves:--
The activity, the zeal of all ranks, ever since this expedition
into Saxony, and clutching of Saxony by the throat, contemporary
witnesses declare to have been extraordinary. "Horses for
Piccolomini's Cavalry,--they had scarcely got their horses, not to
speak of training them, not to speak of cannon and the heavier
requisites, when Schwerin began marching out of Glatz on
Piccolomini. As to the cannon for Browne and him, draught-cattle
seem absolutely unprocurable. Whereupon Maria Theresa flings open
her own Imperial Studs: 'There, yoke these to our cannon; let them
go their swiftest;'--which awoke such an enthusiasm, that noblemen
and peasants crowded forward with their coach-horses and their
cart-horses, to relay Browne, all through Bohemia, at different
stages; and the cannon and equipments move to their places at the
gallop, in a manner," [Archenholtz, i. 24.]--and even Browne, at
the base of the Metal Mountains, has got most of his equipments.
And is astir towards Pirna (Army of 60,000, rumor says), for relief
of the Saxon martyrs. Friedrich's complexities are getting day by
day more stringent.
From the middle of September, Marshal Keith, as was observed, with
Half of the Prussians, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick under him, has
been on the Bohemian slope of the Metal Mountains; securing the
roads, towns and passes thereabouts, and looking out for the
advance of Marshal Browne from the interior parts. Town of Aussig,
and the River-road (castle of Tetschen, on its high rock known to
Tourists, which always needs to be taken on such occasions), these
Keith has secured. Lies encamped from Peterswalde to Aussig, the
middle or main strength of him being in the Hamlet of Johnsdorf
(discoverable, if readers like): there lies Keith, fifteen miles in
length; like a strap, or bar, thrown across the back of that Metal-
Mountain Range,--or part of its back; for the range is very broad,
and there is much inequality, and many troughs, big and little,
partial and general, in the crossing of it. A tract which my
readers and I have crossed before now, by the "Pascopol" or Post-
road and otherwise; and shall often have to cross!
Browne, vigorously astir in the interior (cannon and equipments
coming by relays at such a pace), is daily advancing, with his best
speed: in the last days of September, Browne is encamped at Budin;
may cross the Eger River any day, and will then be within two
marches of Keith. His intentions towards Pirna Country are fixed
and sure; but the plan or route he will take is unknown to
everybody, and indeed to Browne himself, till he see near at hand
and consider. Browne's problem, he himself knows, is abundantly
abstruse,--bordering on the impossible; but he will try his best.
To get within reach of the Saxons is almost impossible to Browne,
even were there no Keith there. As good as impossible altogether,
by any line of march, while Keith is afoot in those parts.
By Aussig, down the River, straight for the interior of their Camp,
it is flatly impossible: by the south or southeast corner of their
Camp (Gottleube way), or by the northeast (by Schandau way, right
bank of Elbe), it is virtually so,--at least without beating Keith.
Could one beat Keith indeed;--but that will not be easy! And that,
unluckily, is the preliminary to everything.
"By the Hellendorf-Hennersdorf side, in the wastes where Gottleube
Brook gathers itself, Browne might have a chance. There, on that
southeast corner of their Camp, were he once there to attack the
Prussians from without, while the Saxons burst up from within,--
there," thinks a good judge, "is much the favorablest place.
But unless Browne's Army had wings, how is it ever to get there?
Across those Metal-Mountain ranges, barred by Keith:--by Aussig,
with the rocks overhanging Elbe River and him, he cannot go in auy
case. Were there no Keith, indeed (but there always is, standing
ready on the spring), one might hold to leftward, and by stolen
marches, swift, far round about--!
"By Schandau region, north side of the Elbe, is Browne's easiest,
and indeed one feasible, point of approach,--no Prussians at
present between him and that; the road open, though a far circuit
northward for Browne,--were he to cross the Elbe in Leitmeritz
circle, and march with velocity? That too will be difficult,--
nearly impossible in sight of Keith. And were that even done, the
egress for the Saxons, by Schandau side, is through strait mountain
gorges, intricate steep passes, crossings of the Elbe: what force
of Saxons or of Austrians will drive the Prussians from their
redoubts and batteries there?" [ OEuvres de Frederic,
italic> iv. 86, 93, 96.]
Browne's problem is none of the feasiblest: but his orders are
strict, "Relieve the Saxons, at all risks." And Browne, one of the
ablest soldiers liviug ("Your Imperial Majesty's best general,"
said the dying Khevenhuller long since), will do his utmost upon
it. Friedrich does not think the enterprise very dangerous,--
beating of Keith the indispensable preliminary to it; but will
naturally himself go and look into it.
Tuesday, September 28th, Friedrich quits Pirna Country by the Prag
Highway; making due inspection of his Posts as he goes along;
and, the outmost of these once past, drives rapidly up the
Mountains; gets, with small escort, through Peterswalde on to
Johnsdorf that night. Does not think this Keith position good;
breaks up this "Camp of Johnsdorf" bodily next morning; and marches
down the Mountains, direct towards Browne; who, we hear, is about
crossing the Eger (his Pontoons now come at last), and will himself
be on the advance. From Turmitz, a poor mountain hamlet in the
hollow of the Hills, which is head-quarters that night, the march
proceeds again; Friedrich with the vanguard; Army, I think, on
various country-roads, on both hands; till all get upon the Great
Road again,--Prag-Toplitz-Dresden Post-road; which is called,
specially in this part of it, and loosely in whole, "The Pascopol,"
and leads down direct to Budin and Browne.
"A 'Pascopol' famed in military annals," says our Tourist. "It is a
road with many windings, many precipitous sweeps of up and down;
road precipitous in structure;--offers views to the lover of wild
Nature: huge lonesome Hills scattered in the distance;
waste expanses nearer hand, and futile attempts at moorish
agriculture; but little else that is comfortable. In times of
Peace, you will meet, at long intervals, some post-vehicle
struggling forward under melancholy circumstances; some cart, or
dilapidated mongrel between cart and basket, with a lean ox
harnessed to it, and scarecrow driver, laden with pit-coal,--which
you wish safe home, and that the scarecrow were getting warmed by
it. But in War-time the steep road is livelier; the common Invasion
road between Saxony and Bohemia; whole Armies sweeping over it, and
their thousand-fold wagons and noises making clangor enough.
... One of those Hollows, on the Pascopol, is Joachimsthal, with
its old Silver Mines; yielding coins which were in request with
traders, the silver being fine. 'Let my ducat be a Joachimsthal
one, then!' the old trader would say: 'a JOACHIMSTHAL-ER;' or, for
brevity, a 'THAL-ER;' whence THALER, and at last DOLLAR (almighty
and otherwise),--now going round the world! [Busching,
Erdbeschreibung, v. 178.] Pascopol finishes in Welmina
Township. From the last hamlet in Welmina, at the neck of the last
Hill, step downward one mile, holding rather to the left, you will
come on the innocent Village of Lobositz, its poor corn-mills and
huckster-shops all peaceably unknown as yet, which is soon to
become very famous."
The Country-roads where Friedrich's Army is on march, I should
think, are mostly on the mounting hand. For here, from Turmitz, is
a trough again; though the last considerable one; and on the crest
of that, we shall look down upon the Bohemian Plains and the grand
Basin of the Elbe,--through various scrubby villages which are not
nameworthy; through one called Kletschen, which for a certain
reason is. Crossing the shoulder of Kletschenberg (HILL of this
Kletschen), which abuts upon the Pascopol,--yonder in bright
sunshine is your beautiful expansive Basin of the Elbe, and the
green Bohemian Plains, revealed for a moment. Friedrich snatches
his glass, not with picturesque object: "See, yonder is
Feldmarschall Browne, then! In camp yonder, down by Lobositz, not
ten miles from us,--[it is most true; Browne marched this morning,
long before the Sun; crossed Eger, and pitched camp at noon]--
Good!" thinks Friedrich. And pushes down into the Pascopol,
into the hollows and minor troughs, which hide Browne henceforth,
till we are quite near.
Quite near, through Welmina and a certain final gap of the Hills,
Friedrich with the vanguard does emerge, "an hour before sunset;"
overhanging Browne; not above a mile from the Camp of Browne.
A very large Camp, that of Browne's, flanked to right by the Elbe;
goes from Sulowitz, through Lobositz, to Welhoten close on Elbe;--
and has properties extremely well worth studying just now!
"Friedrich" the Books say, "bivouacs by a fire of sticks," short
way down on the southern slope of the Hill; and till sunset and
after, has eye-glass, brain, and faculties and activities
sufficiently occupied for the rest of the night;--his Divisions
gradually taking post behind him, under arms; "not till midnight,
the very rearmost of them." ["Tuesday, 28th September, left the
Camp at Sedlitz, with 8 battalions 20 squadrons, to Johnsdorf:
29th, to Turmitz,--Browne is to pass the Eger tomorrow. From the
tops of the Pascopol (30th), SEE an Austrian Camp in the Plain of
Lobositz. Vanguard bivouacs in the 'neck' of the two Hills or a
little beyond." PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT OF CAMPAIGN 1756 (in
Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 844-845, 840-858); Anonymous of Hamburg;
&c. &c.]
Chapter VI.
BATTLE OF LOBOSITZ.
Welmina,--or Reschni-Aujest, last pertinent of Welmina (but we will
take Friedrich's name for it), offers to the scrutinizing eye
nothing, in our day, but some bewildered memory of "Alte Fritz"
clinging obstinately even to the Peasant mind thereabouts. A sleepy
littery place; some biggish haggard untrimmed trees, some broken-
backed sleepy-looking thatched houses, not in contact, and each as
far as might be with its back turned on the other, and cloaked in
its own litter and privacy. Probably no human creature will be
visible, as you pass through. Much straw lying about, chiefly where
the few gaunt trees look down on it (cattle glad of any shelter):
in fact, it is mainly an extinct tumult of straw; nothing alive, as
you pass, but a few poor oxen languidly sauntering up and down,
finding much to trample, little to eat. The Czech Populations
(were it not for that "Question of the Nationalities") are not
very beautiful!
Close south of this poor Hamlet is a big Hill, conspicuous with
three peaks; quite at the other base of which, a good way down,
lies Lobositz, the main Village in those parts; a place now of
assiduous corn-mill and fruit trade; and one of the stations on the
Dresden-Prag Railway. This Hill is what Lloyd calls the Lobosch;
[Major-General Lloyd, History of the late War in Germany,
1756-1759 (3 vols. 4to, London, 1781), i. 2-11.] twin
to which, only flatter, is Lloyd's "Homolka Hill" (Hill of
RADOSTITZ in more modern Plans and Books). Conspicuous Heights, and
important to us here,--though I did not find the Peasants much know
them under those names. By the southern shoulder of this Lobosch
Hill runs the road from Welmina to Lobositz, with branches towards
many other villages. To your right or southern hand, short way
southward, rises the other Hill, which Lloyd calls Homolka Hill;
the gap or interval between Homolka and Lobosch, perhaps a furlong
in extent, is essentially the PASS through those uplands.
This pass, Friedrich, at the first moment, made sure of;
filling the same with battalions, there to bivouac. He likewise
promptly laid hold of the two Hills, high Lobosch to his left, and
lower Homolka to right; which precautionary measure it is reckoned
a fault in Browne to have neglected, that night; fault for which he
smarted on the morrow.
From this upland pass, or neck between the two Mountains,
Friedrich's battalions would have had a fine view, had the morning
shone for them: Lobositz, Leitmeritz, Melnick; a great fertile
Valley, or expanse of fruitful country, many miles in breadth and
length; Elbe, like a silver stripe, winding grandly through the
finest of all his countries, before ducking himself into the rock-
tumults of that Pirna district. The mountain gorges of Prag and
Moldau River, south of Melnick, lie hidden under the horizon, or
visible only as peaks, thirty miles and more to southeastward;
a bright country intervening, sprinkled with steepled towns.
To northwestward, far away, are the Lausitz Mountains, ranked in
loose order, but massive, making a kind of range: and as outposts
to them in their scattered state, Hills of good height and aspect
are scattered all about, and break the uniformity of the Plain.
Nowhere in North Germany could the Prussian battalions have a finer
view,--if the morning were fine, and if views were their object.
The morning, first in October, was not fine; and it was far other
than scenery that the Prussian battalions had in hand!--Friday, 1st
October, 1756, Day should have broken: but where is day? At seven
in the morning (and on till eleven), thick mist lay over the plain;
thin fog to the very hill-tops; so that you cannot see a hundred
yards ahead. Lobositz is visible only as through a crape;
farther on, nothing but gray sea; under which, what the Austrians
are doing, or whether there are any Austrians, who can say?
Leftward on the Lobosch-Hill side, as we reconnoitre, some Pandours
are noticeable, nestled in the vineyards there:--that sunward side
of the Lobosch is all vineyards, belonging to the different
Lobositzers: scrubby vineyards, all in a brown plucked state at
this season. Vineyards parted by low stone walls, say three or four
feet high (parted by hurdles, or by tiny trenches, in our day, and
the stone walls mere stone facings): there are the Pandours
crouched, and give fire in a kneeling posture when you approach.
Lower down, near Lobositz itself, flickerings as of Horse
squadrons, probably Hussar parties, twinkle dubious in the wavering
mist. Problem wrapt in mist; nothing to be seen; and all depends on
judging it with accuracy! Seven by the clock: Deploy, at any rate;
let us cover our post; and be in readiness for events.
Friedrich's vanguard of itself nearly fills that neck, or space
between the Lobosch and Homolka Hills. He spreads his Infantry and
"hundred field-pieces," in part, rightwards along the Homolka Hill;
but chiefly leftwards along the Lobosch, where their nearest duty
is to drive off those Pandours. Always as a new battalion, pushing
farther leftward, comes upon its ground, the Pandours give fire on
it;--and it on the Pandours; till the Left Wing is complete, and
all the Lobosch is, in this manner, a crackling of Pandour
musketry. and anti-musketry. Right Wing, steady to its guns on the
Homolka, has as yet nothing to do. Those wings of Infantry are two
lines deep; the Cavalry, in three lines, is between them in the
centre; no room for Cavalry elsewhere, except on the outskirts some
fringing of light horse, to be ready for emergencies.
The Pandour firing, except for the noise of it, does not amount to
much; they can take no aim, says Lloyd, crouching behind their
stone fences; and the Prussian Battalions, steadily pushing
downwards, trample out their sputtering, and clear the Lobosch of
them to a safe distance. But the ground is intricate, so wrapt in
mist for the present. That crackling lasts for hours; decisive of
nothing; and the mist also, and one's anxious guessings and
scrutinizings, lasts in a wavering fitful manner.
Once, for some time, in the wavering of the mist, there was seen,
down in the plain opposite our centre, a body of Cavalry. Horse for
certain: say ten squadrons of them, or 1,500 Horse; continually
manoeuvring, changing shape; now in more ranks, now in fewer;
sometimes "checkerwise," formed like a draught-board; shooting out
wings: they career about, one sees not whither, or vanish again
into the mist behind. "Browne's rear-guard this, that we are come
upon," thinks Friedrich; "these squatted Pandours, backed by Horse,
must be his rear-guard, that are amusing us: Browne and the Army
are off; crossing the Elbe, hastening towards the Schandau, the
Pirna quarter, while we stand bickering and idly sputtering here!"
--Weary of such idle business, Friedrich orders forward Twenty of
his Squadrons from the centre station: "Charge me those Austrian
Horse, and let us finish this." The Twenty Squadrons, preceded by a
pair of field-pieces, move down hill; storm in upon the Austrian
party, storm it furiously into the mist; are furiously chasing it,
--when unexpected cannon-batteries, destructive case-shot, awaken
on their left flank (batteries from Lobositz, one may guess);
and force them to draw back. To draw back, with some loss; and rank
again, in an indignantly blown condition, at the foot of their
Hill. Indignant; after brief breathing, they try it once more.
"Don't try it!" Friedrich had sent out to tell them: for the mist
was clearing; and Friedrich, on the higher ground, saw new
important phenomena: but it was too late. For the Twenty Squadrons
are again dashing forward; sweeping down whatever is before them:
in spite of cannon-volleys, they plunge deeper and deeper into the
mist; come upon "a ditch twelve feet broad" (big swampy drain, such
as are still found there, grass-green in summer-time); clear said
ditch; forward still deeper into the mist: and after three hundred
yards, come upon a second far worse "ditch;" plainly impassable
this one,--"ditch" they call it, though it is in fact a vile sedgy
Brook, oozing along there (the MORELL BACH, considerable Brook,
lazily wandering towards Lobositz, where it disembogues in rather
swifter fashion);--and are saluted with cannon, from the farther
side; and see serried ranks under the gauze of mist: Browne's Army,
in fact! The Twenty Squadrons have to recoil out of shot-range, the
faster, the better; with a loss of a good many men, in those two
charges. Friedrich orders them up Hill again; much regretful of
this second charge, which he wished to hinder; and posts them to
rearward,--where they stand silent, the unconscious stoic-
philosophers in buff, and have little farther service through the
rest of the day.
It is now 11 o'clock; the mist all clearing off; and Friedrich,
before that second charge, had a growing view of the Plain and its
condition. Beyond question, there is Browne; not in retreat, by any
means; but in full array; numerous, and his position very strong.
Ranked, unattackable mostly, behind that oozy Brook, or BACH of
Morell; which has only two narrow Bridges, cannon plenty on both:
one Bridge from the south parts to Sulowitz (OUR road to Sulowitz
and it would be by Radostitz and the Homolka); and then one other
Bridge, connecting Sulowitz with Lobositz,--which latter is
Browne's own Bridge, uniting right wing and left of Browne, so to
speak; and is still more unattackable, in the circumstances.
What will Friedrich decide on attempting?
That oozy Morell Brook issues on Browne's side of Lobositz, cutting
Browne in two; but is otherwise all in Browne's favor.
Browne extends through Lobositz; and beyond it, curves up to
Welhoten on the River-brink; at Lobositz are visible considerable
redoubts, cannon-batteries and much regular infantry. Browne will
be difficult to force yonder, in the Lobositz part; but yonder
alone can he be tried. He is pushing up more Infantry that way;
conscious probably of that fact,--and that the Lobosch Hill is not
his, but another's. What would not Browne now give for the Lobosch
Hill! Yesternight he might have had it gratis, in a manner;
and indeed did try slightly, with his Pandour people (durst not at
greater expense),--who have now ceased sputtering, and cower
extinct in the lower vineyards there. Browne, at any rate, is
rapidly strengthening his right wing, which has hold of Lobositz;
pushing forward in that quarter,--where the Brook withal is of
firmer bottom and more wadable. Thither too is Friedrich bent.
So that Lobositz is now the key of the Battle; there will the tug
of war now be.
Friedrich's cavalry is gone all to rearward. His right wing holds
the Homolka Hill,--that too would now be valuable to Browne;
and cannot be had gratis, as yesternight! Friedrich's left wing is
on the Lobosch; Pandours pretty well extinct before it, but now
from Welhoten quarter new Regulars coming on thither,--as if Browne
would still take the Lobosch? Which would be victory to him; but is
not now possible to Browne. Nor will long seem so;--Friedrich
having other work in view for him;--meaning now to take Lobositz,
instead of losing the Lobosch to him! Friedrich pushes out his Left
Wing still farther leftward, leftward and downward withal, to clear
those vineyard-fences completely of their occupants, Pandour or
Regular, old or new. This is done; the vineyard-fences swept;--and
the sweepings driven, in a more and more stormy fashion, towards
Welhoten and Lobositz; the Lobosch falling quite desperate
for Browne.
Henceforth Friedrich directs all his industry to taking Lobositz;
Browne, to the defending of it, which he does with great vigor and
fire; his batteries, redoubts, doing their uttermost, and his
battalions rushing on, mass of them after mass, at quick march,
obstinate, fierce to a degree, in the height of temper; and showing
such fight as we never had of them before. Friedrich's Left Wing
and Browne's Right now have it to decide between them;--any attempt
Browne makes with his Left through Sulowitz (as he once did, and
once only) is instantly repressed by cannon from the Homolka Hill.
And the rest of the Battle, or rather the Battle itself,--for all
hitherto has been pickeering and groping in the mist,--may be made
conceivable in few words.
Friedrich orders the second line of his Left Wing to march up and
join with the first; Right Wing, shoving ITS two lines into one, is
now to cover the Lobosch as well. Left Wing, in condensed
condition, shall fall down on Lobositz, and do its best. They are
now clear of the vineyard-works; the ground is leveller, though
still sloping,--a three furlongs from the Village, and somewhat
towards the Elbe, when Browne's battalions first came extensively
to close grips; fierce enough (as was said); the toughest wrestle
yet had with those Austrians,--coming on with steady fury, under
such force of cannon; with iron ramrods too, and improved ways,
like our own. But nothing could avail them; the counter-fury being
so great. They had to go at the Welhoten part, and even to run,--
plunging into Elbe, a good few of them, and drowning there, in the
vain hope to swim. "Never have my troops," says Friedrich, "done
such miracles of valor, cavalry as well as infantry, since I had
the honor to command them. By this dead-lift achievement (TOUR DE
FORCE) I have seen what they can do." [Letter to Schwerin,
"Lobositz, 2d August, 1756" (Retzow, i. 64); RELATION DE LA
CAMPAGNE, 1756, that is, PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in Gesammelte
Nachrichten), i. 848. Lloyd, UT SUPRA, i. 2-11 (who
has solid information at first hand, having been an actor in these
Wars. A man of great natural sagacity and insight; decidedly
luminous and original, though of somewhat crabbed temper now and
then; a man well worth hearing on this and on whatever else he
handles). Tempelhof, GESCHICHTE DES SIEBENJAHRIGEN KRIEGES (which
is at first a mere Translation of Lloyd, nothing new in it but
certain notes and criticisms on Lloyd; when Lloyd ends, Tempelhof,
Prussian Major and Professor, a learned, intelligent, but diffuse
man, of far inferior talent to Lloyd, continues and completes on
his own footing: six very thin 4tos, Berlin, 1794), i. 38 (Battle,
with FOOTNOTES), and ib. 51 (CRITICISM of Lloyd). Prussian and
Austrian Accounts in Helden-Geschichte, iii.
800 et seq. Many Narratives in FELDZUGE, and the BEYLAGE to
Seyfarth; &c. &c.]
In fine, after some three hours more of desperate tugging and
struggling, cannon on both sides going at a great rate, and
infinite musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side,
and ammunition falling done"), not without bayonet-pushings, and
smitings with the butt of your musket, the Austrians are driven
into Lobositz; are furiously pushed there, and, in spite of new
battalions coming to the rescue, are fairly pushed through.
These Village-streets are too narrow for new battalions from
Browne; "much of the Village should have been burnt beforehand,"
say cool judges. And now, sure enough, it does get burnt;
Lobositz is now all on fire, by Prussian industry. So that the
Austrians have to quit it instantly; and rush off in great
disorder; key of the Battle, or Battle itself, quite lost to them.
The Prussian infantry, led by the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern
("Governor of Stettin," one of the Duke-Ferdinand cousinry, frugal
and valiant), gave the highest satisfaction; seldom was such
firing, such furious pushing; they had spent ninety cartridges a
man; were at last quite out of cartridges; so that Bevern had to
say, "Strike in with bayonets, MEINE KINDER; butt-ends, or what we
have; HERAN!" Our Grenadiers were mainly they that burnt Lobositz.
"How salutary now would it have been," says Epimetheus Lloyd, "had
Browne had a small battery on the other side of the Elbe;"
whereby he might have taken them in flank, and shorn them into the
wind! Epimetheus marks this battery on his Plan; and is wise
behindhand, at a cheap rate.
Browne's Right Wing, and probably his Army with it, would have gone
much to perdition, now that Lobositz was become Prussian,--had not
Browne, in the nick of the moment, made a masterly movement:
pushed forward his Centre and Left Wing, numerous battalions still
fresh, to interpose between the chasing Prussians and those
fugitives. The Prussians, infantry only, cannot chase on such
terms; the Prussian cavalry, we know, is far rearward on the high
ground. Browne retires a mile or two,--southward, Budin-ward,--not
chased; and there halts, and rearranges himself; thinking what
farther he will do. His aim in fighting had only been to defend
himself; and in that humble aim he has failed. Chase of the
Prussians over that Homolka-Lobosch country, with the high grounds
rearward and the Metal Mountains in their hands, he could in no
event have attempted.
The question now is: Will he go back to Budin; or will he try
farther towards Schandau? Nature points to the former course, in
such circumstances; Friedrich, by way of assisting, does a thing
much admired by Lloyd;--detaches Bevern with a strong party
southward, out of Lobositz, which is now his, to lay hold of
Tschirskowitz, lying Budin-ward, but beyond the Budin Road.
Which feat, when Browne hears of it, means to him, "Going to cut me
off from Budin, then? From my ammunition-stores, from my very
bread-cupboard!" And he marches that same midnight, silently, in
good order, back to Budin. He is not much ruined; nay the Prussian
loss is numerically greater: "3,308 killed and wounded, on the
Prussian side; on the Austrian, 2,984, with three cannon taken and
two standards." Not ruined at all; but foiled, frustrated; and has
to devise earnestly, "What next?" Once rearranged, he may
still try.
The Battle lasted seven hours; the last four of it very hot, till
Lobositz was won and lost. It was about 5 P.M. when Browne fired
his retreat-cannon:--cannon happened to be loaded (say the
Anecdote-Books, mythically given now and then); Friedrich, wearied
enough, had flung himself into his carriage for a moment's rest, or
thankful reflection; and of all places, the ball of the retreat-
cannon lighted THERE. Between Friedrich's feet, as he lay
reclining,--say the Anecdote-Books, whom nobody is bound
to believe.
On the strength of those two Prussian charges, which had retired
from case-shot on their flank, and had not wings, for getting over
sedge and ooze, Austria pretended to claim the victory.
"Two charges repelled by our gallant horse; Lobositz, indeed, was
got on fire, and we had nothing for it but to withdraw; but we took
a new position, and only left that for want of water;"--with the
like excuses. "Essentially a clear victory," said the Austrians;
and sang TE-DEUM about it;--but profited nothing by that piece of
melody. The fact, considerable or not, was, from the first, too
undeniable: Browne beaten from the field. And beaten from his
attempt too (the Saxons not relievable by this method); and lies
quiet in Budin again,--with his water sure to him; but what other
advantages gained?
Here are two Letters, brief both, which we may as well read:--
1. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA (at Baireuth).
"LOBOSITZ, 4th October, 1756.
"MY DEAR SISTER,--Your will is accomplished. Tired out by these
Saxon delays, I put myself at the head of my Army of Bohemia
[Keith's hitherto]; and marched from Aussig to--a Name which seemed
to me of good augury, being yours,--to the Village of Welmina
[Battle was called OF WELMINA, by the Prussians at first]. I found
the Austrians here, near Lobositz; and, after a Fight of seven
hours, forced them to run. Nobody of your acquaintance is killed,
except Generals Luderitz and OErzen [who are not of ours].
"I return you a thousand thanks for the tender part you take in my
lot. Would to Heaven the valor of my Army might procure us a stable
Peace! That ought to be the aim of War. Adieu, my dear Sister;
I embrace you tenderly, assuring you of the lively affection with
which I am-F." [ OEuvres, xxvii. i. 291.]
2. PRINCE OF PRUSSIA TO VALORI (who is still at Berlin, but
soon going as it proves,--Broglio's explosion at the Lines of
Gross-Sedlitz being on hand, during the King's absence, in
these very hours ["5th-6th October" (Valori, ii. 353).]
"CAMP OF LOBOSITZ, 5th October, 1756.
"You will know the news of the day; and I am persuaded you take
part in it. All you say to me betokens the conspiracy there is for
the destruction of our Country. If that is determined in the Book
of Fate, we cannot escape it.
"Had my advice been asked, a year ago, I should have voted to
preserve the Alliance [with YOU] which we had been used to for
sixteen years [strictly for twelve, though in substance ever since
1740], and which was by nature advantageous to us. But if my advice
were asked just now, I should answer, That the said method being
now impossible, we are in the case of a ship's captain who defends
himself the best he can, and when all resources are exhausted, has,
rather than surrender on shameful conditions, to fire the powder-
magazine, and blow up his ship. You remember that of your
Francois I."--FORS L'HONNEUR; ah yes, very well!--"Perhaps it will
be my poor Children who will be the victims of these past errors,"
--for such I still think them, I for my part.
"The Gazettes enumerate the French troops that are to besiege
Wesel, Geldern [Wesel they will get gratis, poor Geldern will
almost break their heart first], and take possession of Ost-
Friesland; the Russian Declaration [Manifesto not worth reading]
tells us Russia's intentions for the next year [most truculent
intentions]: we will defend ourselves to the last drop of our
blood, and perish with honor. If you have any counsel farther, I
pray you give it me.
MAP GOES HERE-- BETWEEN P. 350 AND 351 Chap VII book 17
"Remain always my friend; and believe that in all situations I will
remain yours; and trying to do what my duty is, will not forfeit
the sentiments on your part which have been so precious to me.
Your servant, GUILLAUME." [Valori, ii. 204-206.]
"Pity this good Prince contemplating the downfall of his House,"
suggests Valori: "He deserved a better fate! He would be in despair
to think I had sent this Letter to your Excellency; but I thought
perhaps you would show it to the King,"--and that it might do good
one day. [Valori (to the French Minister, "12th October, 1756"),
ii. 204.] The Prussians lay in their "Camp of Lobositz," posted up
and down in that neighborhood, for a couple of weeks more;
waiting whether Rrowne would attempt anything farther in the
fighting way; and, in fine, whether the solution of the crisis
would fall out hereabouts, or on the other side of the Hills.
Chapter VII.
THE SAXONS GET OUT OF PIRNA ON DISMAL TERMS.
The disaster of October 1st--for which they were trying to sing
TE-DEUMS at Vienna--fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage
at Pirna: "Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people,
in their lines here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as
Retzow has seldom heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires,
starting out, artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high;
and borne by the echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell
and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;--intended to strike a deeper
damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty
was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order,
"Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of
not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential
Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try
it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th
stand to your tools, and it shall be done."
Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse
and foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the
foot of Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and
scouts; to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa,
Kamnitz, Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau
region, quite from the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn;
an eligible Village, which is but seven miles or so from the
Konigstein, with the chasmy country and the river intervening.
Monday, October llth, Browne will arrive at Lichtenhayn (sixty
miles of circling march from Budin); privately post himself near
Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying ahead of
him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get yourselves
across,--near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover of the
Konigstein's cannon,--on the front or riverward side of those same
Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can be
Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets
of Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your
bridge and your building of it.
"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts
resolute, with powder dry; there, about the eastern roots of the
Lilienstein [beautiful Show Mountain, with stair-steps cut on it
for Tourist people, by August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian
battery and abatis which is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at
Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced for action, through that Monday
night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein, at your beckoning, shall
fire two cannon-shots; which shall mean, 'All ready here!'
Then forward, you, on those Prussian posts by the front; I will
attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am told,
they are but weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and
dead-lift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only force
them,--you are in the open field again; and you march away with me,
colors flying; your hunger-cage and all your tribulations left
behind you!"--
This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,--what choice have
they?--though the question of crossing and bridge-building has its
intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the
11th" is a sore clause to them; for not only are there short and
ever shorter rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with
large strides. The "daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half
that quantity; the "ounce or so of butcher's-meat once a week" has
vanished, or become HORSE of extreme leanness. The cavalry horses
have not tasted oats, nothing but hay or straw (not even water
always); the artillery horses had to live by grazing, brown leaves
their main diet latterly. Not horses any longer; but walking
trestles, poor animals! And the men,--well, they are fallen pale;
but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which they have
in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all the
cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about;
no hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they
hope, utter hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made.
[PRECIS DE LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in
Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 482-494).]
Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure.
Browne arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn, evening of the 11th;
bivouacs, hidden in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather;
stealthily reconnoitres the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims
himself for assault, at sound of the two cannons to-morrow.
But there came no cannon-signal on the morrow; far other
signallings and messagings to-morrow, and next day, and next, from
the Konigstein and neighborhood! "Wait, Excellency Feldmarschall
[writes Bruhl to him, Note after Note, instead of signalling from
the Konigstein]: do wait a very little! You run no risk in waiting;
we, even if we MUST yield, will make that our first stipulation!"
"YOU will?" grumbles Browne; and waits, naturally, with extreme
impatience. But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side of
it, has already altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point
onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous
miseries, tragical to think of. Worth some record here, since there
are Documents abundant;--especially as Feldmarschall Rutowski (who
is General-in-Chief, an old, not esteemed, friend of ours) has
produced, or caused to be produced, a Narrative, which illuminates
the Business from within as well. [PRECIS, &c. (just cited);
compare TAGEBUCH DER EINSCHLIESSUNG DES SACHSISCHEN LAGERS BEY
PIRNA ("Diary," &c., which is the Prussian Account: in Seyfarth,
BEYLAGEN), ii. 22-48.] The latter is our main Document here:--
I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could
surmise some laxity of effort, and a rather slovenly-survey of
facts, in that quarter. The Enterprise, from the first, was flatly
impossible, say judges; and it is certain, poor Rutowski's
execution was not first-rate. "How get across the Elbe?" Rutowski
had said to himself, perhaps not quite with the due rigor of candor
proportionate to the rigorous fact: "How get across the Elbe?
We have copper pontoons at Pirna; but they will be difficult to
cart. Or we might have a boat-bridge; boats planked together two
and two. At Pirna are plenty of boats; and by oar and track-rope,
the River itself might be a road for them? Boats or pontoons to
Konigstein, by water or land, they must be got. Eight miles of
abysmal roads, our horses all extenuated? Impossible to cart these
pontoons!" said Rutowski to himself.--Pity he had not tried it.
He had a week to do those eight bad miles in; and 2,000 lean
horses, picking grass or brown leaves, while their riders threshed.
"We will drag our pontoons by water, by the Elbe tow-path," thought
Rutowski, "that will be easier;"--and forthwith sets about
preparing for it, secretly collecting boats at Pirna, steersmen,
towing-men, bridge-tackle and what else will be necessary.
Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had
come to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on Friday night Rutowski has a
squad of boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towiug peasants ready;
and actually gets under way. They are escorted by the due
battalions with field-pieces;--who are to fire upon the Prussian
batteries, and keep up such a blaze of musketry and heavier shot,
as will screen the boats in passing. Surely a ticklish operation,
this;--arguing a sanguine temper in General Rutowski! The south
bank of the River is ours; but there are various Prussian
batteries, three of them very strong, along the north bank, which
will not fail to pelt us terribly as we pass. No help for it;--we
must trust in luck! Here is the sequel, with dates adjusted.
ELBE RIVER, NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8th-9th. Friday night, accordingly, so
soon as Darkness (unusually dark this night) has dropt her veil on
the business, Rutowski sets forth. The Prussian battery, or bridge-
head (TETE-DE-PONT), at Pirna, has not noticed him, so silent was
he. But, alas, the other batteries do not fail to notice; to give
fire; and, in fact, on being answered, and finding it a serious
thing, to burst out into horrible explosion; unanswerable by the
Saxon field-pieces; and surely perilous to human nature steering
and towing those big River-Boats. "Loyal to our King, and full of
pity for him; that are we;"--but towing at a rate, say of two
shillings per head! Before long, the forty towing peasants fling
down their ropes, first one, then more, then all, in spite of
efforts, promises, menaces; and vanish among the thickets,--
forfeiting the two shillings, on view of imminent death.
Soldiers take the towing-ropes; try to continue it a little;
but now the steersmen also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us
out, let us out! We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if
you don't!" making night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks
down for that bout; double barges mooring on the Saxon shore, I
know not precisely at what point, nor is it material.
SATURDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 9th-10th) New boatmen, forty new towmen
have been hired at immense increase of wages; say four shillings
for the night: but have you much good probability, my General, that
even for that high guerdon imminence of death can be made
indifferent to towmen? No, you have n't. The matter goes this night
precisely as it did last: towmen vanishing in the horrible cannon
tumult; steersmen shrieking, "We will ground you on the Prussian
shore;" very soldiers obliged to give it up; and General Rutowski
himself obliged to wash his hands of it, as a thing that cannot be
done. In fact, a thing which need not have been tried, had Rutowski
been rigorously candid with himself and his hopes, as the facts now
prove to be. "Twenty-four hours lost by this bad business" (says
he; "thirty-six," as I count, or, to take it rigorously, "forty-
eight" even): and now, Sunday morning instead of Friday, at what,
in sad truth, is metaphorically "the eleventh hour," Rutowski has
to bethink him of his copper pontoons; and make the impossible
carting method possible in a day's time, or do worse.
SUNDAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10th-11th, By unheard-of exertions, all
hands and all spent-horses now at a dead-lift effort night and day,
Rutowski does get his pontoons carted out of the Pirna storehouse;
lands them at Thurmsdorf,--opposite the Lilienstein,--a mile or so
short of Konigstein, where his Bridge shall be. It is now the 11th,
at night. And our pontoons are got to the ground, nothing more.
Every man of us, at this hour, should have been across, and
trimming himself to climb, with bayonet fixed! Browne is ready,
expecting our signal-shot to storm in on his side. And our bridge
is not built, only the pontoons here. "All things went perverse,"
adds Rutowski, for farther comfort: "we [Saxon Home-Army] had with
us, except Officers, only Four Pontoniers, or trained Bridge-
builders; all the rest are at Warsaw:" sad thought, but too late to
think it!
TUESDAY, TILL WEDNESDAY EARLY (12th-13th), Bridge, the Four
Pontoniers, with Officers and numb soldiers doing their best, is
got built;--Browne waiting for us, on thorns, all day;
Prussians extensively beginning to strengthen their posts, about
the Lilienstein, about Lichtenhayn, or where risk is; and in fact
pouring across to that northern side, quite aware of Rutowski
and Browne.
That same night, 12th-13th, while the Bridge was struggling to
complete itself,--rain now falling, and tempests broken out,--the
Saxon Army, from Pirna down to Hennersdorf, had lifted itself from
its Lines, and got under way towards Thurmsdorf, and the crossing-
place. Dark night, plunging rain; all the elements in uproar.
The worst roads in Nature; now champed doubly; "such roads as never
any Army marched on before." Most of their cannon are left
standing; a few they had tried to yoke, broke down, "and choked up
the narrow road altogether; so that the cavalry had to dismount,
and lead their horses by side-paths,"--figure what side-paths!
Distance to Thurmsdorf, from any point of the Saxon Lines, cannot
be above six miles: but it takes them all that night and all next
day. Such a march as might fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye
Rutowskis, Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors,
what a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild raging
weather, labyrinthic roads worn knee-deep. It is broad daylight,
Wednesday, 13th, and only the vanguard is yet got across, trailing
a couple of cannons; and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank
there, in spite of wet and hunger; rain still pouring, wind
very high.
Nothing of Browne comes, this Wednesday; but from the opposite
Gross-Sedlitz and Gottleube side, the Prussians are coming.
This morning, at daylight, struck by symptoms, "the Prussians
mounted our empty redoubts:" they are now in full chase of us,
Ziethen with Hussars as vanguard. A difficult bit of marching, even
Ziethen and his light people find it; sprawling forward, at their
cheeriest, with daylight to help, and in chase, not chased, through
such intricacies of rock and mud. Ziethen's company did not assist
the Saxons! They wheel round, show fight, and there is volleying
and bickering all day; the Saxon march getting ever more perturbed.
Nearly all the baggage has to be left. Ziethen takes into the woods
near Thurmsdorf; giving fire as the poor wet Saxons, now much in a
pell-mell condition, pass to their Bridge. [PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in
Gesammelte Nachrichten), i. 852.]
Heavier Prussians are striding on to rear; these, from some final
hill-top, do at last belch out two cannon-shots: figure the
confusion at that Bridge, the speed now becoming delirious there!
Towards evening, rain still violent, the Saxons, baggageless, and
rushing quite pell-mell the latter part of them, are mostly across,
still countable to 14,000 or so;--upon which they cut their Bridge
adrift, and let the river take it. At Raden, a few miles lower, the
Prussians fished it out; rebuilt it more deliberately,--and we
shall find it there anon. This day Friedrich, hearing what is
afoot, has returned in person from the Lobositz Country;
takes Struppen as his head-quarter, which was lately the
Polish Majesty's.
From Browne there has nothing come this Wednesday; but to-morrow
morning at seven there comes a Letter from him, written this night
at ten; to the effect:--
"HEAD-QUARTER, LICHTENHAYN, Wednesday, October 13th, 10 P.M.
"EXCELLENZ,--Have [omitting the I] waited here at Lichtenhayn since
Tuesday, expecting your signal-cannon; hearing nothing of it,
conclude you have by misfortune not been able to get across;
and that the Enterprise is up. My own position being dangerous
[Prussians of double my strength intrenched within few miles of
me], I turn homewards to-morrow at nine A.M.: ready for whatever
occurs TILL then; and sorrowfully say adieu," [PRECIS (ut supra),
p. 493; Helden-Geschichte, iii. 940; &c.]
Dreadful weather for Browne in his bivouac, and wearisome waiting,
with Prussians and perils accumulating on him! Browne was ill of
lungs; coughing much; lodging, in these violent tempests, on the
cold ground. A right valiant soldier and man, as does appear;
the flower of all the Irish Brownes (though they have quite
forgotten him in our time), and of all those Irish Exiles then
tragically spending themselves in Austrian quarrels! "You saw the
great man," says one who seems to have been present, "how he
sacrificed himself to this Enterprise. What Austrian Field-marshal
but himself would ever have lowered his loftiness to lead, in
person, so insignificant a Detachment, merely for the public good!
I have seen staff-officers, distinguished only by their sasheries
and insignia, who would not have stirred to inspect a vedette
without 250 men. Our Field-marshal was of another turn.
Sharing with his troops all the hardships, none excepted, of these
critical days; and in spite of a violent cough, which often brought
the visible blood from his lungs, and had quite worn him down;
exposing himself, like the meanest of the Army, to the tempests of
rainy weather. Think what a sight it was, going to your very heart,
and summoning you to endurance of every hardship,--that evening
[not said which], when the Field-marshal, worn out with his
fatigues and his disorder, sank out of fainting-fits into a sleep!
The ground was his bed, and the storm of clouds his coverlid.
In crowds his brave war-comrades gathered round; stripped their
cloaks, their coats, and strove in noble rivalry which of them
should have the happiness to screen the Father of the Army at their
own cost of exposure, and by any device keep the pelting of the
weather from that loved head!" [Cogniazzo, Gestandnisse
eines OEsterreichischen Veterans, ii. 251.] There is a
picture for you, in the heights of Lichtenhayn, as you steam past
Schandau, in contemplative mood; and perhaps think of "Justice to
Ireland!" among other sad thoughts that rise.
From Thurmsdorf to the Pontoon-Bridge there was a kind of road;
down which the Saxons scrambled yesterday; and, by painful degrees,
got wriggled across. But, on the other shore, forward to the
Hamlets of Halbstadt and Ebenheit, there is nothing but a steep
slippery footpath: figure what a problem for the 14,000 in such
weather! Then at Ebenheit, close behind, Browne-wards, were Browne
now there, rises the Lilienstein, abrupt rocky mountain, its slopes
on both hands washed by the River (River making its first elbow
here, closely girdling this Lilienstein): on both these slopes are
Prussian batteries, each with its abatis; needing to be stormed:--
that will be your first operation. Abatis and slopes of the
Lilienstein once stormed, you fall into a valley or hollow, raked
again by Prussian batteries; and will have to mount, still
storming, out of the valley, sky-high across the Ziegenruck
(GOAT'S-BACK) ridge: that is your second preliminary operation.
After which you come upon the work itself; namely, the Prussian
redoubts at Lichtenhayn, and 12,000 men on them by this time!
A modern Tourist says, reminding or informing:
"From the Konigstein to Pirna, Elbe, if serpentine, is like a
serpent rushing at full speed. Just past the Konigstein, the Elbe,
from westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to
northward; runs so for a mile and a half; then, just before getting
to the BASTEI at Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so
continues. Tourists know Raden,"--where the Prussians have just
fished out a Bridge for themselves,--"with the BASTEI high aloft to
west of it. The Old Inn, hospitable though sleepless, stands
pleasantly upon the River-brink, overhung by high cliffs: close on
its left side, or in the intricacies to rear of it, are huts and
houses, sprinkled about, as if burrowed in the sandstone;
more comfortably than you could expect. The site is a narrow dell,
narrow chasm, with labyrinthic chasms branching off from it;
narrow and gloomy as seen from the River, but opening out even into
cornfields as you advance inwards: work of a small Brook, which is
still industriously tinkling and gushing there, and has in Pre-
Adamite times been a lake, and we know not what. Nieder-Raden,
this, on the north side of the River; of Ober-Raden, on the south
side, there is nothing visible from your Inn windows,"--nor have we
anything to do with it farther. An older Guide of Tourists yields
us this second Fraction (capable of condensation):--
... "To Halbstadt, thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and
steeper; from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you take a guide.
The Mountain is conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you
where needed: August the Strong's Hunting-Lodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here
(August went thither in a grand way, 1708, with his Wife);
Lodge still extant, by the side of a wood;--Lilienstein towering
huge and sheer, solitary, grand, like some colossal Pillar of the
Cyclops, from this round Pediment of Country which you have been
climbing; tops of Lilienstein plumed everywhere with fir and birch,
Pediment also very green and woody. August the Strong, grandly
visiting here, 1708, on finish of those stair-steps cut for you,
set up an Ebenezer, or Column of Memorial at this Hunting-Hut, with
Inscription which can still be read, though now with difficulty in
its time-worn state:--
"FRIEDERICUS AUGUSTUS, REX [of what? Dare not say of POLAND just
now, for fear of Charles XII.], ET ELECTOR SAX., UT FORTUNAEM
VIRTUTE, ITA ASPERAM HANC RUPEM PRIMUS [PRIMUS not of men, but of
Saxon Electors] SUPERAVIT, ADITUMQUE FACILIOREM REDDI CURAVIT.
ANNO 1708."--"UT FORTUNAM VIRTUTE, As his fortune by valor, SO he
conquered this rugged rock by"--Poor devil, only hear him:--and
think how good Nature is (for the time being) to poor devils and
their 354 bastards! [M.(agister) Wilhelm Lebrecht Gotzinger,
Schandau und seine Umgebungen, oder Beschreibung der
Sachsischen Schweitz (Dresden, 1812), pp. 145-148.
Gotzinger, who designates himself as "Pastor at Neustadt near
Stolpen" (northwest border of the Pirna Country), has made of this
(which would now be called a TOURIST'S GUIDE, and has something
geological in it) a modest, good little Book, put together with
industry, clearness, brevity. Gives interesting Narrative of our
present Business too, as gathered from his "Father" and other good
sources and testimonies.]
Bruhl and the Polish Majesty, safe enough they, and snug in the
Konigstein, are clear for advancing: "Die like soldiers, for your
King and Country!" writes Polish Majesty, "Thursday, two in the
morning:" that also Rutowski reads; and I think still other Royal
Autographs, sent as Postscripts to that. From the Konigstein they
duly fire off the two Cannon-shot, as signal that we are coming;
signal which Browne, just in the act of departing, never heard,
owing to the piping of the winds and rattling of the rain.
"Advance, my heroes!" counsel they: "You cannot drag your
ammunitions, say you; your poor couple of big guns? Here are his
Majesty's own royal horses for that service!"--and, in effect, the
royal stud is heroically flung open in this pressure; and a
splashing column of sleek quadrupeds, "150 royal draught-horses,
early in the forenoon," [Gotzinger, p. 156.] swim across to
Ebenheit accordingly, if that could encourage. And, "about noon,
there is strong cannonading from the Konigstein, as signal to
Browne," who is off. Polish Majesty looking with his spy-glass in
an astonished manner. In Vain! Rutowski and his Council of War--
sitting wet in a hut of Ebenheit, with 14,000 starved men outside,
who have stood seventy-two hours of rain, for one item--see nothing
for it but "surrender on such terms as we can get."
"In fact," independently of weather and circumstances, "the
Enterprise," says Friedrich, "was radically impossible; nobody that
had known the ground could have judged it other." Rutowski had not
known it, then? Browne never pretended to know it. Rutowski was not
candid with the conditions; the conditions never known nor candidly
looked at; and THEY are now replying to him with candor enough.
From the first his Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope;
going out, as here, by spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and
flat despair.
That column of royal horses sent splashing across the River,--that
was the utmost of self-sacrifice which I find recorded of his
Polish Majesty in this matter. He was very obstinate; his Bruhl and
he were. But his conduct was not very heroic. That royal Autograph,
"General Rutowski, and ye true Saxons, attack these Prussian lines,
then; sell your lives like men" (not like Bruhl and me), must have
fallen cold on the heart, after seventy-two hours of rain!
Rutowski's wet Council of War, in the hut at Ebenheit, rain still
pouring, answers unanimously, "That it were a leading of men to the
butchery;" that there is nothing for it but surrender. Bruhl and
Majesty can only answer: "Well-a-day; it must be so, then!"--
Winterfeld, Prussian Commander hereabouts, grants Armistice, grants
liberal "wagon-loads of bread" first of all; terms of Capitulation
to be settled at Struppen to-morrow.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15th, Rutowski goes across to Struppen, the late
Saxon head-quarter, now Friedrich's;--Friday gone a fortnight was
the day of Lobositz. Winterfeld and he are the negotiators there;
Friedrich ratifying or refusing by marginal remarks. The terms
granted are hard enough: but they must be accepted.
First preliminary of all terms has already been accepted: a gift of
bread to these poor Saxons; their haversacks are empty, their
cartridge-boxes drowned; it has rained on them three days and
nights. Last upshot of all terms is still well known to everybody:
That the 14,000 Saxons are compelled to become Prussian, and
"forced to volunteer"!
That had been Friedrich's determination, and reading of his rights
in the matter, now that hard had come to hard. "You refused all
terms; you have resisted to death (or death's-DOOR); and are now at
discretion!" Of the question, What is to be done with those Saxons?
Friedricb had thought a great deal, first and last; and had found
it very intricate,--as readers too will, if they think of it.
"Prisoners of War,--to keep them locked up, with trouble and
expense, in that fashion? They can never be exchanged: Saxony has
now nothing to exchange them with; and Austria will not.
Their obstinacy has had costs to me; who of us can count what
costs! In short, they shall volunteer!"
"Never did I, for my poor part, authorize such a thing," loudly
asseverated Rutowski afterwards. And indeed the Capitulation is not
precise on that interesting point. A lengthy Document, and not
worth the least perusal otherwise; we condense it into three
Articles, all grounding on this general Basis, not deniable by
Rutowski: "The Saxon Army, being at such a pass, ready to die of
hunger, if we did NOT lift our finger, has, so to speak, become our
property; and we grant it the following terms:"--
"1. Kettle-drums, standards and the like insignia and matters of
honor,--carry these to the Konigstein, with my regretful respects
to his Polish Majesty. Konigstein to be a neutral Fortress during
this War. Polish Majesty at perfect liberty to go to Warsaw [as he
on the instant now did, and never returned].
"2. Officers to depart on giving their parole, Not to serve
against us during this War [Parole given, nothing like too well
kept].
"3. Rest of the Army, with all its equipments, munitions, soul
and body (so to speak), is to surrender utterly, and be ours, as
all Saxony shall for the present be." [In Helden-
Geschichte, iii. 920-928, at full length--with
Briedrich's MARGINALIA noticeably brief.]
That is, in sum, the Capitulation of Struppen. Nothing articulate
in it about the one now interesting point,--and in regard to that,
I can only fancy Rutowski might interject, interrogatively, perhaps
at some length: "Our soldiers to be Prisoners of War, then?"
"Prisoners; yes, clearly,--unless they choose to volunteer, and
have a better fate! Prisoners can volunteer. They are at
discretion; they would die, if we did NOT lift our finger!" thus I
suppose Winterfeld would rejoin, if necessary;--and that, in the
Winterfeld-Rutowski Conferences, the thing had probably been kept
in a kind of CHIAROSCURO by both parties.
Very certain it is, Sunday, 17th October, 1756, Capitulation being
signed the night before, Friedrich goes across at Nieder-Raden
(where the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI;
where the Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together
out of those Pontoons),--goes across at Nieder-Raden, up that
chasmy Pass; rides to the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener
country behind; and pauses there, while the captive Saxon Army
defiles past him, laying down its arms at his feet. Unarmed, and
now under Prussian word of command, these Ex-Saxon soldiers go on
defiling; march through by that Chasm of Nieder-Raden; cross to
Ober-Raden; and, in the plainer country thereabouts, are--in I know
not what length of hours, but in an incredibly short length, so
swift is the management--changed wholly into Prussian soldiers:
"obliged to volunteer," every one of them!
That is the fact; fact loudly censured; fact surely questionable,--
to what intrinsic degree I at this moment do not know. Fact much
blamable before the loose public of mankind; upon which I leave men
to their verdict. It is not a fact which invites imitation, as we
shall see! Fact how accomplished; by what methods? that would be
the question with me; but even that is left dark. "The horse
regiments, three of heavy horse, he broke; and distributed about, a
good few in his own Garde-du-Corps." Three other horse regiments
were in Poland, the sole Saxon Army now left,--of whom, at least of
one man among whom, we may happen to hear. "Ten foot regiments
[what was reckoned a fault] he left together; in Prussian uniform,
with Prussian Officers. They were scattered up and down; put in
garrisons; not easy handling them: they deserted by whole companies
at a time in the course of this War." [Preuss, ii. 22, 135;
in Stenzel (v. 16-20) more precise details.] Not a measure for
imitation, as we said!--How Friedrich defended such hard conduct to
the Saxons? Reader, I know only that Destiny and Necessity, urged
on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at this
time; and that Friedrich did not the least dream of making any
defence;--and will have to take your verdict, such as it may be.
Moritz of Dessau had a terrible Winter of it, organizing and
breaking in these Saxon people,--got by press-gang in this way.
Polish Majesty, "with 500 of suite," had driven instantly for
Warsaw; post-horses most politely furnished him, and all the
Prussian posts and soldiers well kept out of his road,--road chosen
for him to that end. Poor soul, he never came back. For six years
coming, he saw, from Warsaw in the distance (amid anarchy and
NIE-POZWALAM, which he never lacked there), the wide War raging, in
Saxony especially; and died soon after it was done. Nor did Bruhl
return, except broken by that event, and to die in few months
after. Let us pity the poor fat-goose of a Majesty (not ill-natured
at all, only stupid and idle): some pity even to the doomed-
phantasm Bruhl, if you can;--and thank Heaven to have got done with
such a pair!--
Friedrich's treatment of the Saxon Troops, Saxon Majesty and
Country: who shall say that it was wise in all points? It would be
singular treatment, if it were! In all things, AFTER is so
different from BEFORE and DURING. The truth is, Friedrich hoped
long to have made some agreement with the Saxons. And readers now,
in the universal silence, have no notion of Friedrich's
complexities from fact, and of the loud howl of hostile rumor,
which was piping through all journals, diplomacies and foreign
human throats, against him at that time.
"The essential passages of War and Peace," says a certain
Commentator, "during those Five weeks of Pirna, can be made
intelligible in small compass. But how the world argued of them
then and afterwards, and rang with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic
logic from side to side, no reader will now ever know. A world-
tornado extinct, gone:--think of the sounds uttered from human
windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse others with ditto;
of the vituperations, execrations, printed and vocal,--grating
harsh thunder upon Friedrich and this new course of his.
Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that
topic, through the afflicted Universe in general, for certain
years. The very Pamphlets printed on it,--cannot Dryasdust give me
the number of tons weight, then? Dead now every Pamphlet of them;
a thing fallen horrible to human nature; extinct forever, as is the
wont in such cases."
I will give only this of Voltaire; a mild Epigram, done at The
DELICES, in pleasant view of Ferney and good things coming. A bolt
shot into the storm-tost Sea and its wreckages, by a Mariner now
cheerily drying his clothes on the shore there;--in fact, an
indifferent Epigram, on Kings Friedrich and George, which is now
flying about in select circles:--
"Rivaux du Vainqueur de l'Euphrate,
L'Oncle et le Neveu,
L'un fait la guerre en pirate,
L'autre en parti bleu.
"
"Rivals of Alexander the Great, this Uncle and Nephew make war, the
one as a Pirate [seizure of those French ships], the other [Saxony
stolen] as Captain of an Accidental Thieving-squad,"--PARTI BLEU,
as the French soldiers call it. [Walpole's LETTERS, "To Sir Horace
Mann, 8th December; 1756."]
MAP facing page 365, Chap VII, Book 17---------------------
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Pirna was no sooner done than Friedrich returned to the "Camp at
Lobositz," where his victorious Keith-Army has been lying all this
while. The Camp of Lobositz, and all Camps Prussian and Austrian,
are about to strike their tents, and proceed to Winter-quarters, to
prepare against next Spring. Friedrich set off thither October 18th
(the very day after that of Waltersdorf); with intent to bring home
Keith's Army, and see if Browne meant anything farther (which
Browne did not, or does only in the small Tolpatch way); also to
meet, Schwerin, whom he had summoned over from Silesia for a little
conference there. Schwerin, after eating Konigsgratz Country well,
--which was all he could do, as Piccolomini would not come out, and
we know how strong the ground is,--had retired to Silesia again, in
due season (snapping up, in a sharply conclusive manner, any
Tolpatcheries that attempted chase of him); taken Winter
cantonments in Silesia, headquarter Schweidnitz; and is now getting
his Instructions, here personally, in the Metal Mountains, for a
day or two. [ Helden-Geschichte, iii.
946, 948.]
Friedrich brought his Keith-Army home to Gross-Sedlitz, to join the
other Force there; and distributed the whole into their Winter-
quarters. Cantoned far and wide, spreading out from Pirna on both
hands: on the left or western hand, by Zwickau, Freyberg, Chemnitz,
up to Leipzig, Torgau; and on the right or northeast hand, by
Zittau, Gorlitz, Bautzen, to protect the Lausitz against Austrian
inroads,--while a remote Detachment, under Winterfeld, watches the
Bober River with similar views. [In Helden-Geschichte,
iii. 948 et seq., a minute List by Place and
Regiment.] All which done, or settled to be done, Friedrich quits
Gross-Sedlitz, November 14th; and takes up his abode at Dresden for
this Winter.
Chapter VIII.
WINTER IN DRESDEN.
The Saxon Army is incorporated, then; its King gone under the
horizon; the Saxon Country has a Prussian Board set over it, to
administer all things of Government, especially to draw taxes and
recruits from Saxony. Torgau, seat of this new Board, has got
fortified; "1,500 inhabitants were requisitioned as spademen for
that end, at first with wages,"--latterly, I almost fear, without!
The Saxon Ministers are getting drilled, cashiered if necessary;
and on all hands, rigorous methods going forward;--till Saxony is
completely under grasp; in which state it was held very tight
indeed, for the six years coming. There is no detailing of all
that; details, were they even known to an Editor at such distance,
would weary every reader. Enough to understand that Friedrich has
not on this occasion, as he did in 1744, omitted to disarm Saxony,
to hobble it in every limb, and have it, at discretion, tied as
with ropes to his interests and him. [ Helden-Geschichte,
iii. 945-956.] His management was never accounted
cruel; and it was studiously the reverse of violent or irregular:
but it had to be rigorous as the facts were;--nor was it the worst,
or reckoned the worst, of Saxony's miseries in this time.
Poor Country, suffering for its Bruhl! In the Country, except for
its Bruhl, there was no sin against Prussia; the reverse rather.
The Saxon population, as Protestants, have no good-will to Austria
and its aims of aggrandizement. In Austrian spy-letters, now and
afterwards, they are described to us as "GUT PREUSSISCH;" "strong
for Prussia, the most of them, even in Dresden itself."
Whether Friedrich could have had much real hope to end the War this
Year, or scare it off from beginning, may be a question. If he had,
it is totally disappointed. The Saxon Government has brought ruin
on itself and Country, but it has been of great damage to
Friedrich. Would Polish Majesty have consented to disband his
soldiers, and receive Friedrich with a BONA-FIDE "Neutrality,"
Friedrich could have passed the Mountains still in time for a heavy
stroke on Bohemia, which was totally unprepared for such a visit,
And he might--from the Towers of Prag, for instance--have, far more
persuasively, held out the olive-branch to an astonished Empress-
Queen: "Leave me alone, Madam; will you, then! Security for that;
I wanted and want nothing more!" But Polish Majesty, taking on him
the character of Austrian martyr, and flinging himself into the
gulf, has prevented all that; has turned all that the other way.
Austria, it appears, is quite ungrateful: "Was n't he bound?"
thinks Austria,--as its wont rather is. Forgetful of the great
deliverance wrought for it by poor Polish Majesty; whom it could
not deliver-except into bottomless wreck! Austria, grateful or not,
stands unscathed; has time to prepare its Armaments, its vocal
Arguments: Austria is in higher provocation than ever; and its very
Arguments, highly vocal to the Reich and the world, "Is not this
man a robber, and enemy of mankind?" do Friedrich a great deal of
ill. Friedrich's sudden Campaign, instead of landing him in the
heart of the Austrian States, there to propose Peace, has kindled
nearly all Europe into flames of rage against him,--which will not
consist in words merely! Never was misunderstanding of a man at a
higher pitch: "Such treatment of a peaceable Neighbor and Crowned
Head,--witness it, ye Heavens and thou Earth!" Dauphiness falling
on her knees to Most Christian Majesty; "Princess and dearest
Sister" to Most Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of
Pleading to the German Reich, in a furious, Delphic-Pythoness or
quasi-inspired tone: all this goes on.
From the time when Pirna was blockaded, Kaiser Franz, his high
Consort and sense of duty urging him, has been busy in the Reich's-
Hofrath (kind of Privy-Council or Supreme Court of the Reich, which
sits at Vienna); busy there, and in the Reich's Diet at Regensburg;
busy everywhere, with utmost diligence over Teutschland,--forging
Reich thunder. Manifestoes, HOF-DECRETS, DEHORTATORIUMS,
EXCITATORIUMS; so goes it, exploding like Vesuvius, shock on the
back of shock:--20th September it began; and lasts, CRESCENDO,
through Winter and onwards, at an extraordinary rate. [In
Helden-Geschichte (iv. 163-174; iii. 956; and indeed
PASSIM through those Volumes), the Originals in frightful
superabundance.] Of all which, leaving readers to imagine it, we
will say nothing,--except that it points towards "Armed
Interference by the Reich," "Reich's Execution Army;" nay towards
"Ban of the Reich" (total excommunication of this Enemy of Mankind,
and giving of him up to Satan, by bell, book and candle), which is
a kind of thunder-bolt not heard of for a good few ages past!
Thunder-bolt thought to be gone mainly to rust by the judicious;--
which, however, the poor old Reich did grasp again, and attempt to
launch. As perhaps we shall have to notice by and by, among the
miracles going.
France too, urged by the noblest concern, feels itself called upon.
France magnanimously intimates to the Reich's Diet, once and again,
"That Most Christian Majesty is guarantee of the Treaty of
Westphalia; Most Christian Majesty cannot stand such procedures;"
and then the second time, "That Most Christian Majesty will
interfere practically,"--by 100,000 men and odd.
[ Helden-Geschichte, iv. 340 ("26th March,
1757").] In short, the sleeping world-whirlwinds are awakened
against this man. General Dance of the Furies; there go they, in
the dusky element, those Eumenides, "giant-limbed, serpent-haired,
slow-pacing, circling, torch in hand" (according to Schiller),--
scattering terror and madness. At least, in the Diplomatic Circles
of mankind;--if haply the Populations will follow suit!--
Friedrich, abundantly contemptuous of Reich's-thunder in the rusted
kind, and well able to distinguish sound from substance in the
Reich or elsewhere, recognizes in all this sufficiently portentous
prophecies of fact withal; and understands, none better, what a
perilous position he has got into. But he cannot mend it;--can
only, as usual, do his own utmost in it. As readers will believe he
does; and that his vigilance and diligence are very great.
Continual, ubiquitous and at the top of his bent, one fancies his
effort must have been,--though he makes no noise on the subject.
Considerable work he has with Hanover, this Winter; with the poor
English Government, and their "Army of Observation," which is to
appear in the Hanover parts, VERSUS those 100,000 French, next
Spring. To Hanover he has sent Schmettau (the Younger Schmettau,
Elder is now dead) in regard to said Army; has made a new and
closer Treaty with England (impossible to be fulfilled on poor
England's part);--and laments, as Mitchell often does, the
tragically embroiled condition of that Country, struggling so
vehemently, to no purpose, to get out of bed, and not unlike
strangling or smothering itself in its own blankets, at present!
With and in regard to Saxony, his work is of course extremely
considerable; and in regard to his own Army, and its coming
Business, considerablest of all. Counter-Manifesto work, to state
his case in a distinct manner, and leave it with the Populations if
the Diplomacies are deaf: this too, is copiously proceeding;
under Artists who probably do not require much supervision.
In fact, no King living has such servants, in the Civil or the
Military part, to execute his will. And no King so little wastes
himself in noises; a King who has good command of himself, first of
all; not to be thrown off his balance by any terror, any
provocation even, though his temper is very sharp.
Friedrich in person is mainly at Dresden, lodged in the Bruhl
Palace;--endless wardrobes and magnificences there; three hundred
and sixty-FOUR Pairs of Breeches hanging melancholy, in a widowed
manner: C'EST ASSEZ DE CULOTTES; MONTREZ-MOI DES VERTUS! Bruhl is
far away, in Poland; Madam Bruhl has still her Apartments in this
Palace,--a frugal King needs only the necessary spaces.
Madam Bruhl is very busy here; and not to good purpose, being well
seen into. "She had a cask of wine sent her from Warsaw," says
Friedrich; "orders were given to decant for her every drop of the
wine, but to be sure and bring us the cask." Cask was found to have
two bottoms, intermediate space filled with spy-correspondence.
Madam Bruhl protests and pleads, Friedrich not unpolite in reply;
his last Letter to her says, "Madam, it is better that you go and
join your Husband."
Another high Dame gets sausages from Bohemia;--some of Friedrich's
light troops have an appetite, beyond strict law for sausages;
break in, find Letters along with the other stuffing.
[ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 108; Mitchell,
"27th March, 1757" (Raumer p. 321).] Friedrich has a good deal of
watching and coercing to do in that kind,--some arresting,
conveyance even to Custrin for a time, though nothing crueler
proved needful. To the poor Queen he keeps up civilities, but is
obliged to be strict as Argus;--she made him a Gift too, the NIGHT
of Correggio, admired NOTTE of Correggio; having heard that he sat
before it silent for half an hour, on entering that fine Gallery,--
which is due to our Sovereign Lord and his Bruhl, alas! On the
other hand, Friedrich had to take from her Majesty's Royal Abode
those Hundred Swiss of Body-guard; to discharge the same, and put
Prussians in their stead. Nay, at one time, on loud outcry from her
Majesty, and great private cause of complaint against her, there
was talk of sending the poor Royal lady to Warsaw, after her
Husband; but her objection being violent, nothing came of that:
Winter following, her poor Majesty died, [27th November, 1757.] and
gave nobody any farther trouble.
Friedrich's outposts, especially in the Lausitz, are a good deal
disturbed by Austrian Tolpatcheries; and do feats, heroic in the
small way, in smiting down that rabble. A valuable Officer or two
is lost in such poor service, poor but indispensable; [Funeral
Discourses (of a very curious, ponderous and serious tone), in
Gesammelte Nachrichten, ii. 458, 464, &c.]
and the troops have not always the repose which is intended them.
Lieutenant-Colonel Loudon (Scotch by kindred, and famous enough
before long) is the soul of these Croat enterprises,--and gets his
Colonelcy by them, in a month or two; Browne recommending.
Loudon had arrived too late for Lobositz, but had been with Browne
to Schandau; and, on the march homewards, did a bright feat of the
Croat kind:--surprisal, very complete, of that Hill-Castle of
Tetschen and considerable Hussar Party there; done in a style which
caught the eye of Browne; and was the beginning of great things to
poor Loudon, after his twenty years of painful eclipse under the
Indigo Trencks, and miscellaneous Doggeries, Austrian aud Russian.
[LA VIE DU FELDMARECHAL BARON DE LOUDON (Translation of one Pezzl's
German: a Vienne et a Paris, 1792), i. 1-32.]
Tetschen, therefore, will again need capture by the Prussians, if
they again intend that way. And in the mean while, Friedrich, to
counterpoise those mischievous Croat people, has bethought him of
organizing a similar Force of his own;--Foot chiefly, for, on hint
of former experience, he already has Hussars in quantity. And, this
Winter, there are accordingly, in different Saxon Towns, three
Irregular Regiments getting ready for him; three "Volunteer
Colonels" busily enlisting each his "Free Corps," such the title
chosen;--chief Colonel of them one Mayer, now in Zwickau
neighborhood with 6 or 700 loose handy fellows round him, getting
formed into strict battalion there: [Pauli (our old diffuse
friend), Leben grosser Helden des gegenwartigen Krieges
(9 vols., Halle, 1759-1764), iii. 159, ? Mayr.] of
whom, and of whose soldiering, we shall hear farther. For the plan
was found to answer; and extended itself year after year; and the
"Prussian Free Corps," one way and another, made considerable noise
in the world.
Outwardly Friedrich's Life is quiet; busy, none can be more so;
but to the on-looker, placid, polite especially. He hears sermon
once or twice in the Kreuz-Kirche (Protestant High Church);
then next day will hear good music, devotional if you call it so,
in the Catholic Church, where her Polish Majesty is. Daily at the
old hour he has his own Concert, now and then assisting with his
own flute. Makes donations to the Poor, and such like, due from
Saxon Sovereignty while held by him; on the other hand, reduces
salaries at a sad rate Guarini, Queen's Confessor, from near 2,000
pounds to little more than 300 pounds, for one instance;--cuts off
about 25,000 pounds in all under this head. [ Helden-
Geschichte, iv. 306 ("December, 1756").] And is heavy
with billeting, as new Prussians arrive. Billets at length in
the very Ambassadors' Hotels,--and by way of apology to the
Excellencies, signifies to them in a body: "Sorry for the
necessity, your Excellencies: but ought not you to go to Warsaw
rather? Your credentials are to his Polish Majesty. He is not here;
nor coming hither, for some time!" Which hint, I suppose, the
Excellencies mostly took. From his own Forests there came by the
Elbe great rafts of firewood, to warm his soldiers in their
quarters. Once or twice he makes excursions, of a day of two days;
to the Lausitz, to Leipzig (through Freyberg, where he has a post
of importance);--very gracious to the University people: "Students
be troubled with soldiering? Far from it ye learned Gentlemen,
servants of the Muses! Recruitment, a lamentable necessity, is to
go on under your own Official people, and wholly by the old
methods." [ Helden-Geschichte, iv. 303-313;
UNIVERSITATSANSCHLAG ZU LEIPZIG, WEGEN DER WERBUNG
("University-Placard about Enlisting:" in Gesammelte
Nachrichten, i. 811).]
Once, and once only, he made a run to Berlin, January 4th-18th,
1757: the last for six years and more. Came with great despatch,
Brother Henri with him, whole journey in one day; got, "to his
Mother's about 11 at night." [Ib. iv. 308.] A joyful meeting, for
the kindred: cheerful light-gleam in the dark time, so suddenly
eclipsed to them and others by those hurricanes that have risen.
His Majesty seems to be in perfect health; and wears no look of
gloom. At Berlin is no Carnival this year; all are grave, sunk in
sad contemplations of the future. Of his businesses in this
interval, which were many, I will say nothing; only of one little
Act he did, the day before his departure: the writing of this
SECRET LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS to Graf Finck von Finkenstein, his
chief Home Minister, one of his old boy-comrades, as readers may
recollect. The Letter was read by Count Finck with profound
attention, 11th January, 1757, and conned over till he knew every
point of it; after which he sealed it up, inscribing on the Cover:
"HOCHSTEIGENHANDIGE UND GANX GEHEIME"--that is, "Highest-
Autographic and altogether Secret Instructions, by the King, which,
with the Appendixes, were delivered to me, Graf von Finkenstein,
the 12th of January, 1757." In this docketing it lay, sealed for
many years (none knows how many), then unsealed, still in strict
keeping, in the Private Royal Archives" [Preuss, i. 449.]--till on
Friedrich's Birthday, 24th January, 1854, it was, with some
solemnity, lithographed at Berlin, and distributed to a select
public,--as readers shall see.
"SECRET INSTRUCTION FOR THE GRAF VON FINCK.
"BERLIN, 10th January, 1757.
"In the critical situation our affairs are in, I ought to give you
my orders, so that in all the disastrous cases which are in the
possibility of events, you be authorized for taking the
necessary steps.
"1. If it chanced (which Heaven forbid) that one of my Armies in
Saxony were totally beaten; or that the French should drive the
Hanoverians from their Country [which they failed not to do], and
establish themselves there, and threaten us with an invasion into
the Altmark; or that the Russians should get through by the
Neumark,--you are to save the Royal Family, the principal
DICASTERIA [Land-Schedules, Lists of Tax-dues], the Ministries and
the Directorium [which is the central Ministry of all]. If it is in
Saxony on the Leipzig side that we are beaten, the fittest place
for the removal of the Royal Family, and of the Treasure, is to
Custrin: in such case the Royal Family and all above named must go,
escorted by the whole Garrison" of Berlin, "to Custrin. If the
Russians entered by the Neumark, or if a misfortune befell us in
the Lausitz, it would be to Magdeburg that all would have to go:
in fine, the last refuge is Stettin,--but you must not go till the
last extremity. The Garrison, the Royal Family and the Treasure are
inseparable, and go always together: to this must be added the
Crown Diamonds, the Silver Plate in the Grand Apartments,--which,
in such case, as well as the Gold Plate, must be at once coined
into money.
"If it happened that I were killed, the Public Affairs must go on
without the smallest alteration, or its being noticeable that they
are in other hands: and, in this case, you must hasten forward the
Oaths and Homagings, as well here as in Preussen; and, above all,
in Silesia. If I should have the fatality to be taken prisoner by
the Enemy, I prohibit all of you from paying the least regard to my
person, or taking the least heed of what I might write from my
place of detention. Should such misfortune happen me, I wish to
sacrifice myself for the State; and you must obey my Brother,--who,
as well as all my Ministers and Generals, shall answer to me with
their heads, Not to offer any Province or any Ransom for me, but to
continue the War, pushing their advantages, as if I never had
existed in the world.
"I hope, and have ground to believe, that you, Count Finck, will
not need to make use of this Instruction: but in case of
misfortune, I authorize you to employ it; and, as mark that it is,
after a mature and sound deliberation, my firm and constant will, I
sign it with my Hand and confirm it with my Seal."
Or, in Friedrich's own spelling &c., so far as our possibilities
permit:--
"INSTRUCTION SECRETE POUR LE CONTE DE FINE.
"BERLIN, ce 10 de Janv. 1757.
"Dans La Situation Critique ou se trouvent nos affaires je dois
Vous donner mes Ordres pour que dans tout Les Cas Malheureux qui
sont dans la possibilite des Evenemens vous Soyez autorisse aux
partis quil faut prendre. 1)[Yes; but there follows no "2)"
anywhere, such the haste!] Sil arivoit (de quoi le Ciel preserve)
qu'une de mes Armees en Saxse fut totallement battue, oubien que
Les francais chassassent Les Hanovryeins de Leur pais et si
etablissent et nous menassassent d'un Invassion dans la Vieille
Marche, ou que les Russes penetrassent par La Nouvelle Marche, il
faut Sauver la famille Royale, les principeaux Dicasteres les
Ministres et le Directoire. Si nous somes battus en Saxse du Cote
de leipssic Le Lieu Le plus propre pour Le transport de La famille
et du Tressor est a Custrin, il faut en ce Cas que la famille
Royalle et touts cidesus nomez aillent esCortez de toute La
Guarnisson a Custrin. Si les Russes entroient par la Nouvele Marche
ou quil nous arivat un Malheur en Lusace, il faudroit que tout Se
transportat a Magdebourg, enfin Le Derni& refuge est a Stetein,
mais il ne hut y all&r qu'a La Derniere exstremite La Guarnisson la
famille Royalle et le Tressort sent Inseparables et vont toujours
ensemble il faut y ajouter les Diamans de la Couronne, et
L'argenterie des Grands Apartements qui en pareil cas ainsi que la
Veselle d'or doit etre incontinant Monoyee. Sil arivoit que je fus
tue, il faut que Les affaires Continuent Leur train sans la Moindre
allteration et Sans qu'on s'apersoive qu'elles sont en d'autre
Mains, et en ce Cas il faut hater Sermens et homages tant ici qu'en
prusse et surtout en Silesie. Si j'avois la fatalite d'etre pris
prissonier par L'Enemy, je Defend qu'on Aye le Moindre egard pour
ma perssonne ni qu'on fasse La Moindre reflextion sur ce que je
pourois ecrire de Ma Detention, Si pareil Malheur m'arivoit je Veux
me Sacriffier pour L'Etat et il faut qu'on obeisse a Mon frere le
quel ainsi que tout Mes Ministres et Generaux me reponderont de
leur Tette qu'on offrira ni province ni ransson pour moy et que lon
Continuera la Guerre en poussant Ses avantages tout Come si je
n'avais jamais exsiste dans le Monde. J'espere et je dois Croire
que Vous Conte finc n'aurez pas bessoin de faire usage de Cette
Instruction mais en cas de Malheur je Vous autorisse a L'Employer,
et Marque que C'est apres Une Mure et saine Deliberation Ma ferme
et Constante Volonte je le Signe de Ma Main et la Muni de
mon Cachet "FEDERIC R."
[Fac simile of Autograph (Berlin, 24th January, 1854), where is
some indistinct History of the Document. Printed also in
OEuvres, xxv. 319-323.]
These, privately made law in this manner, are Friedrich's fixed
feelings and resolutions;--how fixed is now farther apparent by a
fact which was then still more private, guessable long afterwards
only by one or two, and never clearly known so long as Friedrich
lived: the fact that he had (now most probably, though the date is
not known) provided poison for himself, and constantly wore it
about his person through this War. "Five or six small pills, in a
small glass tube, with a bit of ribbon to it:" that stern relic
lay, in a worn condition, in some drawer of Friedrich's, after
Friedrich was gone. [Preuss, ii. 175, 315 n.] For the Facts are
peremptory; and a man that will deal with them must be equally so.
Two days after this Finck missive, Friday, 12th, Friedrich took
farewell at Berlin, drove to Potsdam that night with his Brother,
to Dresden next day. Adieu, Madam; Adieu, O Mother! said the King,
in royal terms, but with a heart altogether human. "May God above
bless you, my Son!" the old Lady would reply:--and the Two had seen
one another for the last time; Mother and Son were to meet no more
in this world.
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