Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20

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Prepared by D.R. Thompson

BOOK XX.

FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED:
THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS.

25th April, 1760-15th February, 1763.

Chapter I.

FIFTH CAMPAIGN OPENS.

There were yet, to the world's surprise and regret, Three Campaigns
of this War; but the Campaign 1760, which we are now upon, was what
produced or rendered possible the other two;--was the crisis of
them, and is now the only one that can require much narrative from
us here. Ill-luck, which, Friedrich complains, had followed him
like his shadow, in a strange and fateful manner, from the day of
Kunersdorf and earlier, does not yet cease its sad company; but, on
the contrary, for long months to come, is more constant than ever,
baffling every effort of his own, and from the distance sending him
news of mere disaster and discomfiture. It is in this Campaign,
though not till far on in it, that the long lane does prove to have
a turning, and the Fortune of War recovers its old impartial form.
After which, things visibly languish: and the hope of ruining such
a Friedrich becomes problematic, the effort to do it slackens also;
the very will abating, on the Austrian part, year by year, as of
course the strength of their resources is still more steadily
doing. To the last, Friedrich, the weaker in material resources,
needs all his talent,--all his luck too. But, as the strength, on
both sides, is fast abating,--hard to say on which side faster
(Friedrich's talent being always a FIXED quantity, while all else
is fluctuating and vanishing),--what remains of the once terrible
Affair, through Campaigns Sixth and Seventh, is like a race between
spent horses, little to be said of it in comparison. Campaign 1760
is the last of any outward eminence or greatness of event. Let us
diligently follow that, and be compendious with the remainder.

Friedrich was always famed for his Marches; but, this Year, they
exceeded all calculation and example; and are still the admiration
of military men. Can there by no method be some distant notion
afforded of them to the general reader? They were the one resource
Friedrich had left, against such overwhelming superiority in
numbers; and they came out like surprises in a theatre,--
unpleasantly surprising to Daun. Done with such dexterity, rapidity
and inexhaustible contrivance and ingenuity, as overset the schemes
of his enemies again and again, and made his one army equivalent in
effect to their three.

Evening of April 25th, Friedrich rose from his Freyberg
cantonments; moved back, that is, northward, a good march;
then encamped himself between Elbe and the Hill-Country; with freer
prospect and more elbow-room for work coming. His left is on
Meissen and the Elbe; his right at a Village called the
Katzenhauser, an uncommonly strong camp, of which one often hears
afterwards; his centre camp is at Schlettau, which also is strong,
though not to such a degree. This line extends from Meissen
southward about 10 miles, commanding the Reich-ward Passes of the
Metal Mountains, and is defensive of Leipzig, Torgau and the Towns
thereabouts. [Tempelhof, iv. 16 et seq.] Katzenhauser is but a mile
or two from Krogis--that unfortunate Village where Finck got his
Maxen Order: "ER WEISS,--You know I can't stand having difficulties
raised; manage to do it!"

Friedrich's task, this Year, is to defend Saxony; Prince Henri
having undertaken the Russians,--Prince Henri and Fouquet, the
Russians and Silesia. Clearly on very uphill terms, both of them:
so that Friedrich finds he will have a great many things to assist
in, besides defending Saxony. He lies here expectant till the
middle of June, above seven weeks; Daun also, for the last two
weeks, having taken the field in a sort. In a sort;--but comes no
nearer; merely posting himself astride of the Elbe, half in
Dresden, half on the opposite or northern bank of the River, with
Lacy thrown out ahead in good force on that vacant side; and so
waiting the course of other people's enterprises.

Well to eastward and rearward of Daun, where we have seen Loudon
about to be very busy, Prince Henri and Fouquet have spun
themselves out into a long chain of posts, in length 300 miles or
more, "from Landshut, along the Bober, along the Queiss and Oder,
through the Neumark, abutting on Stettin and Colberg, to the Baltic
Sea." [Tempelhof, iv. 21-24.] On that side, in aid of Loudon or
otherwise, Daun can attempt nothing; still less on the
Katzenhauser-Schlettau side can he dream of an attempt:
only towards Brandenburg and Berlin--the Country on that side, 50
or 60 miles of it, to eastward of Meissen, being vacant of troops--
is Daun's road open, were he enterprising, as Friedrich hopes he is
not. For some two weeks, Friedrich--not ready otherwise, it being
difficult to cross the River, if Lacy with his 30,000 should think
of interference--had to leave the cunctatory Feldmarschall this
chance or unlikely possibility. At the end of the second week
("June 14th," as we shall mark by and by), the chance
was withdrawn.

Daun and his Lacy are but one, and that by no means the most
harassing, of the many cares and anxieties which Friedrich has upon
him in those Seven Weeks, while waiting at Schlettau, reading the
omens. Never hitherto was the augury of any Campaign more
indecipherable to him, or so continually fluctuating with wild
hopes, which proved visionary, and with huge practical fears, of
what he knew to be the real likelihood. "Peace coming?" It is
strange how long Friedrich clings to that fond hope: "My Edelsheim
is in the Bastille, or packed home in disgrace: but will not the
English and Choiseul make Peace? It is Choiseul's one rational
course; bankrupt as he is, and reduced to spoons and kettles.
In which case, what a beautiful effect might Duke Ferdinand
produce, if he marched to Eger, say to Eger, with his 50,000
Germans (Britannic Majesty and Pitt so gracious), and twitched Daun
by the skirt, whirling Daun home to Bohemia in a hurry!" Then the
Turks; the Danes,--"Might not the Danes send us a trifle of Fleet
to Colberg (since the English never will), and keep our Russians at
bay?"--"At lowest these hopes are consolatory," says he once,
suspecting them all (as, no doubt, he often enough does), "and give
us courage to look calmly for the opening of this Campaign, the
very idea of which has made me shudder!" ["To Prince Henri:" in
Schoning, ii. 246 (3d April, 1760): ib. 263
(of the DANISH outlook); &c. &c.]

Meanwhile, by the end of May, the Russians are come across the
Weichsel again, lie in four camps on the hither side; start about
June 1st;--Henri waiting for them, in Sagan Country his head-
quarter; and on both hands of that, Fouquet and he spread out,
since the middle of May, in their long thin Chain of Posts, from
Landshut to Colberg again, like a thin wall of 300 miles.
To Friedrich the Russian movements are, and have been, full of
enigma: "Going upon Colberg? Going upon Glogau; upon Breslau?"
That is a heavy-footed certainty, audibly tramping forward on us,
amid these fond visions of the air! Certain too, and visible to a
duller eye than Friedrich's; Loudon in Silesia is meditating
mischief. "The inevitable Russians, the inevitable Loudon; and
nothing but Fouquet and Henri on guard there, with their long thin
chain of posts, infinitely too thin to do any execution!" thinks
the King. To whom their modes of operating are but little
satisfactory, as seen at Schlettau from the distance.
"Condense yourself," urges he always on Henri; "go forward on the
Russians; attack sharply this Corps, that Corps, while they are
still separate and on march!" Henri did condense himself, "took
post between Sagan and Sprottau; post at Frankfurt,"--poor
Frankfurt, is it to have a Kunersdorf or Zorndorf every year, then?
No; the cautious Henri never could see his way into these
adventures; and did not attack any Corps of the Russians. Took post
at Landsberg ultimately,--the Russians, as usual, having Posen as
place-of-arms,--and vigilantly watched the Russians, without coming
to strokes at all. A spectacle growing gradually intolerable to the
King, though he tries to veil his feelings.

Neither was Fouquet's plan of procedure well seen by Friedrich in
the distance. Ever since that of Regiment Manteuffel, which was a
bit of disappointment, Loudon has been quietly industrious on a
bigger scale. Privately he cherishes the hope, being a swift
vehement enterprising kind of man, to oust Fouquet; and perhaps to
have Glatz Fortress taken, before his Russians come! In the very
end of May, Loudon, privately aiming for Glatz, breaks in upon
Silesia again,--a long way to eastward of Fouquet, and as if
regardless of Glatz. Upon which, Fouquet, in dread for Schweidnitz
and perhaps Breslau itself, hastened down into the Plain Country,
to manoeuvre upon Loudon; but found no Loudon moving that way;
and, in a day or two, learned that Landshut, so weakly guarded, had
been picked up by a big corps of Austrians; and in another day or
two, that Loudon (June 7th) had blocked Glatz,--Loudon's real
intention now clear to Fouquet. As it was to Friedrich from the
first; whose anger and astonishment at this loss of Landshut were
great, when he heard of it in his Camp of Schlettau. "Back to
Landshut," orders he (11th June, three days before leaving
Schlettau); "neither Schweidnitz nor Breslau are in danger: it is
Glatz the Austrians mean [as Fouquet and all the world now see they
do!]; watch Glatz; retake me Landshut instantly!"

The tone of Friedrich, which is usually all friendliness to
Fouquet, had on this occasion something in it which offended the
punctual and rather peremptory Spartan mind. Fouquet would not have
neglected Glatz; pity he had not been left to his own methods with
Landshut and it. Deeply hurt, he read this Order (16th June);
and vowing to obey it, and nothing but it, used these words, which
were remembered afterwards, to his assembled Generals:
"MEINE HERREN, it appears, then, we must take Landshut again.
Loudon, as the next thing, will come on us there with his mass of
force; and we must then, like Prussians, hold out as long as
possible, think of no surrender on open field, but if even beaten,
defend ourselves to the last man. In case of a retreat, I will be
one of the last that leaves the field: and should I have the
misfortune to survive such a day, I give you my word of honor never
to draw a Prussian sword more." [Stenzel, v. 239.] This speech of
Fouquet's (June 16th) was two days after Friedrich got on march
from Schlettau. June 17th, Fouquet got to Landshut; drove out the
Austrians more easily than he had calculated, and set diligently,
next day, to repair his works, writing to Friedrich: "Your
Majesty's Order shall be executed here, while a man of us lives."
Fouquet, in the old Crown-Prince time, used to be called Bayard by
his Royal friend. His Royal friend, now darker of face and scathed
by much ill-weather, has just quitted Schlettau, three days before
this recovery of Landshut; and will not have gone far till he again
hear news of Fouquet.

NIGHT OF JUNE 14th-15th, Friedrich, "between Zehren and Zabel,"
several miles down stream,--his bridges now all ready, out of
Lacy's cognizance,--has suddenly crossed Elbe; and next afternoon
pitches camp at Broschwitz, which is straight towards Lacy again.
To Lacy's astonishment; who is posted at Moritzburg, with head-
quarter in that beautiful Country-seat of Polish Majesty,--only 10
miles to eastward, should Friedrich take that road. Broschwitz is
short way north of Meissen, and lies on the road either to
Grossenhayn or to Radeburg (Radeburg only four miles northward of
Lacy), as Friedrich shall see fit, on the morrow. For the Meissen
north road forks off there, in those two directions:
straight northward is for Grossenhayn, right hand is for Badeburg.
Most interesting to Lacy, which of these forks, what is quite
optional, Friedrich will take! Lacy is an alert man; looks well to
himself; warns Daun; and will not be caught if he can help it.
Daun himself is encamped at Reichenberg, within two miles of him,
inexpugnably intrenched as usual; and the danger surely is not
great: nevertheless both these Generals, wise by experience, keep
their eyes open.

The FIRST great Feat of Marching now follows, On Friedrich's part;
with little or no result to Friedrich; but worth remembering, so
strenuous, so fruitless was it,--so barred by ill news from
without! Both this and the Second stand recorded for us, in brief
intelligent terms by Mitchell, who was present in both; and who is
perfectly exact on every point, and intelligible throughout,--if
you will read him with a Map; and divine for yourself what the real
names are, out of the inhuman blotchings made of them, not by
Mitchell's blame at all. [Mitchell, Memoirs and Papers,
ii. 160 et seq.]

TUESDAY, JUNE 17th, second day of Friedrich's stay at Broschwitz,
Mitchell, in a very confidential Dialogue they had together,
learned from him, under seal of secrecy, That it was his purpose to
march for Radeburg to-morrow morning, and attack Lacy and his
30,000, who lie encamped at Moritzburg out yonder; for which step
his Majesty was pleased farther to show Mitchell a little what the
various inducements were: "One Russian Corps is aiming as if for
Berlin; the Austrians are about besieging Glatz,--pressing need
that Fouquet were reinforced in his Silesian post of difficulty.
Then here are the Reichs-people close by; can be in Dresden three
days hence, joined to Daun: 80,000 odd there will then be of
Enemies in this part: I must beat Lacy, if possible, while time
still is!"--and ended by saying: "Succeed here, and all may yet be
saved; be beaten here, I know the consequences: but what can I do?
The risk must be run; and it is now smaller than it will ever
again be."

Mitchell, whose account is a fortnight later than the Dialogue
itself, does confess, "My Lord, these reasons, though unhappily the
thing seems to have failed, 'appear to me to be solid and
unanswerable.'" Much more do they to Tempelhof, who sees deeper
into the bottom of them than Mitchell did; and finds that the
failure is only superficial. [Mitchell, Memoirs and
Papers, ii. 160 (Despatch, "June 30th, 1760");
Tempelhof, iv. 44.] The real success, thinks Tempelhof, would be,
Could the King manoeuvre himself into Silesia, and entice a
cunctatory Daun away with him thither. A cunctatory Daun to preside
over matters THERE, in his superstitiously cautious way;
leaving Saxony free to the Reichsfolk,--whom a Hulsen, left with
his small remnant in Schlettau, might easily take charge of, till
Silesia were settled? "The plan was bold, was new, and completely
worthy of Friedrich," votes Tempelhof; "and it required the most
consummate delicacy of execution. To lure Daun on, always with the
prospect open to him of knocking you on the head, and always by
your rapidity and ingenuity to take care that he never got it
done." This is Tempelhof's notion: and this, sure enough, was
actually Friedrich's mode of management in the weeks following;
though whether already altogether planned in his head, or only
gradually planning itself, as is more likely, nobody can say.
We will look a very little into the execution, concerning which
there is no dubiety:--

WEDNESDAY, 18th JUNE, "Friedrich," as predicted to Mitchell, the
night before, "did start punctually, in three columns, at 3 A.M.
[Sun just rising]; and, after a hot march, got encamped on the
southward side of Radeburg: ready to cross the Rodern Stream there
to-morrow, as if intending for the Lausitz [should that prove
needful for alluring Lacy],--and in the mean while very inquisitive
where Lacy might be. One of Lacy's outposts, those Saxon light
horse, was fallen in with; was chased home, and Lacy's camp
discovered, that night. At Bernsdorf, not three miles to southward
or right of us; Daun only another three to south of him. Let us
attack Lacy to-morrow morning; wind round to get between Daun and
him, [Tempelhof, iv. 47-49.]--with fit arrangements; rapid as
light! In the King's tent, accordingly, his Generals are assembled
to take their Orders; brief, distinct, and to be done with brevity.
And all are on the move for Bernsdorf at 4 next morning;
when, behold,--

"THURSDAY, 19th, At Bernsdorf there is no Lacy to be found.
Cautions Dorn has ordered him in,--and not for Lacy's sake, as
appears, but for his own: 'Hitherward, you alert Lacy; to cover my
right flank here, my Hill of Reichenberg,--lest it be not
impregnable enough against that feline enemy!' And there they have
taken post, say 60,000 against 30,000; and are palisading to a
quite extraordinary degree. No fight possible with Lacy or Daun."

This is what Mitchell counts the failure of Friedrich's enterprise:
and certainly it grieved Friedrich a good deal. Who, on riding out
to reconnoitre Reichenberg (Quintus Icilius and Battalion QUINTUS
part of his escort, if that be an interesting circumstance], finds
Reichenberg a plainly unattackable post; finds, by Daun's rate of
palisading, that there will be no attack from Daun either.
No attack from Daun;--and, therefore, that Hulsen's people may be
sent home to Schlettau again; and that he, Friedrich, will take
post close by, and wearisomely be content to wait for some new
opportunity.

Which he does for a week to come; Daun sitting impregnable,
intrenched and palisaded to the teeth,--rather wishing to be
attacked, you would say; or hopeful sometimes of doing something of
the Hochkirch sort again (for the country is woody, and the enemy
audacious);--at all events, very clear not to attack. A man erring,
sometimes to a notable degree, by over-caution. "Could hardly have
failed to overwhelm Friedrich's small force, had he at once, on
Friedrich's crossing the Elbe, joined Lacy, and gone out against
him," thinks Tempelhof, pointing out the form of operation too.
[Tempelhof, iv. 42, 48.] Caution is excellent; but not quite by
itself. Would caution alone do it, an Army all of Druidic
whinstones, or innocent clay-sacks, incapable of taking hurt, would
be the proper one!--Daun stood there; Friedrich looking daily into
him,--visibly in ill humor, says Mitchell; and no wonder; gloomy
and surly words coming out of him, to the distress of his Generals:
"Which I took the liberty of hinting, one evening, to his Majesty;"
hint graciously received, and of effect perceptible, at least to
my imagining.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, After nearly a week of this, there rose,
towards sunset, all over the Reichenberg, and far and wide, an
exuberant joy-firing: "For what in the world?" thinks Friedrich.
Alas, your Majesty,--since your own messenger has not arrived, nor
indeed ever will, being picked up by Pandours,--here, gathered from
the Austrian outposts or deserters, are news for you, fatal enough!
Landshut is done; Fouquet and his valiant 13,000 are trodden out
there. Indignant Fouquet has obeyed you, not wisely but too well.
He has kept Landshut six nights and five days. On the morning of
the sixth day, here is what befell:--

"LANDSHUT, MONDAY, 23d JUNE, About a quarter to two in the morning,
Loudon, who had gathered 31,000 horse and foot for the business,
and taken his measures, fired aloft, by way of signal, four
howitzers into the gray of the summer morning; and burst loose upon
Fouquet, in various columns, on his southward front, on both
flanks, ultimately in his rear too: columns all in the height of
fighting humor, confident as three to one,--and having brandy in
them, it is likewise said. Fouquet and his people stood to arms, in
the temper Fouquet had vowed they would: defended their Hills with
an energy, with a steady skill, which Loudon himself admired;
but their Hill-works would have needed thrice the number;--Fouquet,
by detaching and otherwise, has in arms only 10,680 men. Toughly as
they strove, after partial successes, they began to lose one Hill,
and then another; and in the course of hours, nearly all their
Hills. Landshut Town Loudon had taken from them, Landshut and its
roads: in the end, the Prussian position is becoming permeable,
plainly untenable;--Austrian force is moving to their rearward to
block the retreat.

"Seeing which latter fact, Fouquet throws out all his Cavalry, a
poor 1,500, to secure the Passes of the Bober; himself formed
square with the wrecks of his Infantry; and, at a steady step, cuts
way for himself with bayonet and bullet. With singular success for
some time, in spite of the odds. And is clear across the Bober;
when lo, among the knolls ahead, masses of Austrian Cavalry are
seen waiting him, besetting every passage! Even these do not break
him; but these, with infantry and cannon coming up to help them,
do. Here, for some time, was the fiercest tug of all,--till a
bullet having killed Fouquet's horse, and carried the General
himself to the ground, the spasm ended. The Lichnowski Dragoons, a
famed Austrian regiment, who had charged and again charged with
nothing but repulse on repulse, now broke in, all in a foam of
rage; cut furiously upon Fouquet himself; wounded Fouquet thrice;
would have killed him, had it not been for the heroism of poor
Trautschke, his Groom [let us name the gallant fellow, even if
unpronounceable], who flung himself on the body of his Master, and
took the bloody strokes instead of him; shrieking his loudest,
'Will you murder the Commanding General, then!' Which brought up
the Colonel of Lichnowski; a Gentleman and Ritter, abhorrent of
such practices. To him Fouquet gave his sword;--kept his vow never
to draw it again.

"The wrecks of Fouquet's Infantry were, many of them, massacred, no
quarter given; such the unchivalrous fury that had risen.
His Cavalry, with the loss of about 500, cut their way through.
They and some stragglers of Foot, in whole about 1,500 of both
kinds, were what remained of those 10,680 after this bloody
morning's work. There had been about six hours of it; 'all over by
8 o'clock.'" [ Hofbericht von der am 23 Junius, 1760, bey
Landshuth vorgefallenen Action (in Seyfarth,
Beylagen, ii. 669-671); Helden-Geschichte,
vi. 258-284; Tempelhof, iv. 26-41; Stenzel, v. 241
(who, by oversight,--this Volume being posthumous to poor Stenzel,
--protracts the Action to "half-past 7 in the evening").]

Fouquet has obeyed to the letter: "Did not my King wrong me?"
Fouquet may say to himself. Truly, Herr General, your King's Order
was a little unwise; as you (who were on the ground, and your King
not) knew it to be. An unwise Order;--perhaps not inexcusable in
the sudden circumstances. And perhaps a still more perfect Bayard
would have preferred obeying such a King in spirit, rather than in
letter, and thereby doing him vital service AGAINST his temporary
will? It is not doubted but Fouquet, left to himself and his
13,000, with the Fortresses and Garrisons about him, would have
maintained himself in Silesia till help came. The issue is,--
Fouquet has probably lost this fine King his Silesia, for the time
being; and beyond any question, has lost him 10,000 Prussian-
Spartan fighters, and a fine General whom he could ill spare!--In a
word, the Gate of Silesia is burst open; and Loudon has every
prospect of taking Glatz, which will keep it so.

What a thunder-bolt for Friedrich! One of the last pillars struck
away from his tottering affairs. "Inevitable, then? We are over
with it, then?" One may fancy Friedrich's reflections. But he
showed nothing of them to anybody; in a few hours, had his mind
composed, and new plans on the anvil. On the morrow of that
Austrian Joy-Firing,--morrow, or some day close on it (ought to
have been dated, but is not),--there went from him, to Magdeburg,
the Order: "Have me such and such quantities of Siege-Artillery in
a state of readiness." [Tempelhof, iv. 51.] Already meaning, it is
thought, or contemplating as possible a certain Siege, which
surprised everybody before long! A most inventive, enterprising
being; no end to his contrivances and unexpected outbreaks;
especially when you have him jammed into a corner, and fancy it is
all over with him!

"To no other General," says Tempelhof, "would such a notion of
besieging Dresden have occurred; or if it had suggested itself, the
hideous difficulties would at once have banished it again, or left
it only as a pious wish. But it is strokes of this kind that
characterize the great man. Often enough they have succeeded, been
decisive of great campaigns and wars, and become splendid in the
eyes of all mankind; sometimes, as in this case, they have only
deserved to succeed, and to be splendid in the eyes of judges.
How get these masses of enemies lured away, so that you could try
such a thing? There lay the difficulty; insuperable altogether,
except by the most fine and appropriate treatment. Of a truth, it
required a connected series of the wisest measures and most secret
artifices of war;--and withal, that you should throw over them such
a veil as would lead your enemy to see in them precisely the
reverse of what they meant. How all this was to be set in action,
and how the Enemy's own plans, intentions and moods of mind were to
be used as raw material for attainment of your object,--studious
readers will best see in the manoeuvres of the King in his now more
than critical condition; which do certainly exhibit the completest
masterpiece in the Art of leading Armies that Europe has
ever seen."

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