Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20

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




The pleasant part of the fact is, that Gotzkowsky's powerful
intercessions were thenceforth no farther needed. The same day,
Saturday, October 11th, a few hours after this of the GASSEN-
LAUFEN, news arrived full gallop: "The King is coming!" After which
it was beautiful to see how all things got to the gallop; and in a
no-time Berlin was itself again. That same evening, Saturday, Lacy
took the road, with extraordinary velocity, towards Torgau Country,
where the Reichsfolk, in Hulsen's absence, are supreme; and, the
second evening after, was got 60 miles thitherward. His joint
dominion had been of Two days. On the morning of Sunday, 12th, went
Tottleben, who had businesses, settlements of ransom and the like,
before marching. Tottleben, too, made uncommon despatch;
marched, as did all these invasive Russians, at the rate of thirty
miles a day; their Main Army likewise moving off from Frankfurt to
a safer distance. Friedrich was still five marches off; but there
seemed not a moment to lose.

The Russian spoilings during the retreat were more horrible than
ever: "The gallows gaping for us; and only this one opportunity, if
even this!" thought the agitated Cossack to himself. Our poor
friend Nissler had a sad tale to tell of them; [In Busching,
Beitrage, i. 400, 401, account of their
sacking of Nussler's pleasant home and estate, "Weissensee, near
Berlin."] as who had not? Terror and murder, incendiary fire and
other worse unnamable abominations of the Pit. One old Half-pay
gentleman, whom I somewhat respect, desperately barricaded himself,
amid his domestics and tenantries, Wife and Daughters assisting:
"Human Russian Officers can enter here; Cossacks no, but shall kill
us first. Not a Cossack till all of us are lying dead!"
[Archenholtz, ii. 150.] And kept his word; the human Russians
owning it to be proper.

In Guben Country, "at Gross-Muckro, October 15th," the day after
passing Guben, Friedrich first heard for certain, That the Russians
had been in Berlin, and also that they were gone, and that all was
over. He made two marches farther,--not now direct for Berlin, but
direct for Saxony AND it;--to Lubben, 50 or 60 miles straight south
of Berlin; and halted there some days, to adjust himself for a new
sequel. "These are the things," exclaims he, sorrowfully, to
D'Argens, "which I have been in dread of since Winter last; this is
what gave the dismal tone to my Letters to you. It has required not
less than all my philosophy to endure the reverses, the
provocations, the outrages, and the whole scene of atrocious things
that have come to pass." [ OEuvres de Frederic, italic> xix. 199; "22d October."] Friedrich's grief about Berlin we
need not paint; though there were murmurs afterwards, "Why did not
he start sooner?" which he could not, in strict reason, though
aware that these savageries were on march. He had hoped the Eugen-
Hulsen appliances, even should all else fail, might keep them at
bay. And indeed, in regard to these latter, it turned only on a
hair. Montalembert calculating, vows, on his oath, "Can assure you,
M. l'Ambassadeur, PUIS BIEN VOUS ASSURER COMME SI J,ETAIS DEVANT
DIEU, as if I stood before God," [Montalembert, ii. 108.] that,
from first to last, it was my doing; that but for me, at the very
last, the Russians, on sight of Hulsen and Eugen, and no Lacy come,
would have marched away!

Friedrich's orderings and adjustings, dated Lubben, where his Army
rested after this news from Berlin, were manifold; and a good deal
still of wrecks from the Berlin Business fell to his share.
For instance, one thing he had at once ordered: "Your Bill of a
Million-and-half to the Russians, don't pay it, or any part of it!
When Bamberg was ransomed, Spring gone a year,--Reich and Kaiser,
did they respect our Bill we had on Bamberg? Did not they cancel
it, and flatly refuse?" Friedrich is positive on the point,
"Reprisal our clear remedy!" But Berlin itself was in alarm, for
perhaps another Russian visit; Berlin and Gotzkowsky were humbly
positive the other way. Upon which a visit of Gotskowsky to the
Royal Camp: "Merchants' Bills are a sacred thing, your Majesty!"
urged Gotzkowsky. Who, in his zeal for the matter, undertook
dangerous visits to the Russian Quarters, and a great deal of
trouble, peril and expense, during the weeks following.
Magnanimous Gotzkowsky, "in mere bribes to the Russian Officials,
spent about 6,000 pounds of his own," for one item. But he had at
length convinced his Majesty that Merchants' Bills were a sacred
thing, in spite of Bamberg and desecrative individualities;
and that this Million-and-half must be paid. Friedrich was struck
with Gotzkowsky and his view of the facts. Friedrich, from his own
distressed funds, handed to Gotzkowsky the necessary Million-and-
half, commanding only profound silence about it; and to Gotzkowsky
himself a present of 150,000 thalers (20,000 pounds odd);
[Archenholtz, ii. 146.] and so the matter did at last end.

It had been a costly business to Berlin, and to the King, and to
the poor harried Country. To Berlin, bombardment of ten hours;
alarm of discursive siege-work in the environs for five days;
foreign yoke for three days; lost money to the amounts above
stated; what loss in wounds to body or to peace of mind, or whether
any loss that way, nobody has counted. The Berlin people rose to a
more than Roman height of temper, testifies D'Argens; [
OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 195-199: "D'Argens to the
King: Berlin, 19th October, 1760,"--an interesting Letter of
details.] so that perhaps it was a gain. The King's Magazines and
War-furnitures about Berlin are wasted utterly,--Arsenal itself not
blown up, we well know why;--and much Hunnish ruin in
Charlottenburg, with damage to Antiques,--for which latter clause
there shall, in a few months, be reprisal: if it please the Powers!

Of all this Montalembert declares, "Before God, that he,
Montalembert, is and was the mainspring." And indeed, Tempelhof,
without censure of Montalembert and his vocation, but accurately
computing time and circumstance, comes to the same conclusion;--as
thus: "OCTOBER 8th, seeing no Lacy come, Czernichef, had it not
been for Montalembert's eloquence, had fixed for returning to
Copenik: whom cautious Lacy would have been obliged to imitate.
Suppose Czernichef had, OCTOBER 9th, got to Copenik,--Eugen and
Hulsen remain at Berlin; Czernichef could not have got back thither
before the 11th; on the 11th was news of Friedrich's coming; which
set all on gallop to the right about." [Tempelhof, iv. 277.]
So that really, before God, it seems Montalembert must have the
merit of this fine achievement:--the one fruit, so far as I can
discover, of his really excellent reasonings, eloquences,
patiences, sown broadcast, four or five long years, on such a field
as fine human talent never had before. I declare to you,
M. l'Ambassadeur, this excellent vulture-swoop on Berlin, and
burning or reburning of the Peasantry of the Mark, is due solely to
one poor zealous gentleman!--

What was next to follow out of THIS,--in Torgau neighborhood, where
Daun now stands expectant,--poor M. de Montalembert was far from
anticipating; and will be in no haste to claim the merit of before
God or man.



Chapter V.

BATTLE OF TORGAU.

After Hulsen's fine explosion on the Durrenberg, August 20th, on
the incompetent Reichs Generals, there had followed nothing
eminent; new futilities, attemptings and desistings, advancings and
recoilings, on the part of the Reich; Hulsen solidly maintaining
himself, in defence of his Torgau Magazine and Saxon interests in
those regions, against such overwhelming odds, till relief and
reinforcement for them and him should arrive; and gaining time,
which was all he could aim at in such circumstances. Had the Torgau
Magazine been bigger, perhaps Hulsen might have sat there to the
end. But having solidly eaten out said Magazine, what could Hulsen
do but again move rearward? [ Hogbericht von dem Ruckzug
des General-Lieutenants von Hulsen aus dem Lager bey Torgau
(in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii.
755-784).] Above all, on the alarm from Berlin, which called him
off double-quick, things had to go their old road in that quarter.
Weak Torgau was taken, weak Wittenberg besieged. Leipzig, Torgau,
Wittenberg, all that Country, by the time the Russians left Berlin,
was again the Reich's. Eugen and Hulsen, hastening for relief of
Wittenberg, the instant Berlin was free, found Wittenberg a heap of
ruins, out of which the Prussian garrison, very hunger urging, had
issued the day before, as prisoners of war. Nothing more to be done
by Eugen, but take post, within reach of Magdeburg and victual, and
wait new Order from the King.

The King is very unquestionably coming on; leaves Lubben
thitherward October 20th. [Rodenbeck, ii. 35: in Anonymous
of Hamburg (iv. 241-245) Friedrich's Two Marches,
towards and from Berlin (7th-17th October, to Lubben; thence, 20th
October-3d November, to Torgau).] With full fixity of purpose as
usual; but with as gloomy an outlook as ever before. Daun, we said,
is now arrived in those parts: Daun and the Reich together are near
100,000; Daun some 60,000,--Loudon having stayed behind, and gone
southward, for a stroke on Kosel (if Goltz will permit, which he
won't at all!),--and the Reich 35,000. Saxony is all theirs;
cannot they maintain Saxony? Not a Town or a Magazine now belongs
to Friedrich there, and he is in number as 1 to 2.
"Maintain Saxony; indisputably you can!" that is the express Vienna
Order, as Friedrich happens to know. The Russians themselves have
taken Camp again, and wait visibly, about Landsberg and the Warta
Country, till they see Daun certain of executing said Order;
upon which they intend, they also, to winter in those Elbe-Prussian
parts, and conjointly to crush Friedrich into great confinement
indeed. Friedrich is aware of this Vienna Order; which is a kind of
comfort in the circumstances. The intentions of the hungry
Russians, too, are legible to Friedrich; and he is much resolved
that said Order shall be impossible to Daun. "Were it to be
possible, we are landless. Where are our recruits, our magazines,
our resources for a new Campaign? We may as well die, as suffer
that to be possible!" Such is Friedrich's fixed view. He says to
D'Argens:--

"You, as a follower of Epicurus, put a value on life; as for me, I
regard death from the Stoic point of view. Never shall I see the
moment that forces me to make a disadvantageous Peace;
no persuasion, no eloquence, shall ever induce me to sign my
dishonor. Either I will bury myself under the ruins of my Country,
or if that consolation appears too sweet to the Destiny that
persecutes me, I shall know how to put an end to my misfortunes
when it is impossible to bear them any longer. I have acted, and
continue to act, according to that interior voice of conscience and
of honor which directs all my steps: my conduct shall be, in every
time, conformable to those principles. After having sacrificed my
youth to my Father, my ripe years to my Country, I think I have
acquired the right to dispose of my old age. I have told you, and I
repeat it, Never shall my hand sign a humiliating Peace.
Finish this Campaign I certainly will, resolved to dare all, and to
try the most desperate things either to succeed or to find a
glorious end (FIN GLORIEUSE)." [ OEuvres de Frederic, italic> xix. 202 ("Kemberg, 28th October, 1760," a week and a day
before Torgau).]

Friedrich had marched from Lubben, after three days, settling of
affairs, OCTOBER 20th; arrived at Jessen, on the Elbe, within wind
of Wittenberg, in two days more. "He formed a small magazine at
Duben," says Archenholtz; "and was of a velocity, a sharpness,"--
like lightning, in a manner! Friedrich is uncommonly dangerous when
crushed into a corner, in this way; and Daun knows that he is.
Friedrich's manoeuvrings upon Daun--all readers can anticipate the
general type of them. The studious military reader, if England
boasts any such, will find punctual detail of them in TEMPELHOF and
the German Books. For our poor objects, here is a Summary which
may suffice:--

From Lubben, having winded up these bad businesses,--and reinforced
Goltz, at Glogau, to a 20,000 for Silesia's sake, to look towards
Kosel and Loudon's attempts there,--Friedrich gathered himself into
proper concentration; and with all the strength now left to him
pushed forward (20th October) towards Wittenberg, and recovery of
those lost Saxon Countries. To Wittenberg from Lubben is some 60
miles;--can be done, nearly, in a couple of days. With the King,
after Goltz is furnished, there are about 30,000; Eugen and Hulsen,
not idle for their own part, wait in those far Western or Ultra-
Wittenberg regions (in and beyond Dessau Country), to join him with
their 14,000, when they get signal. Joined with these, he will be
44,000; he will then cross Elbe somewhere, probably not where Daun
and the Reich imagine, and be in contact with his Problem;
with what a pitch of willingness nobody need be told! Daun, in
Torgau Country, has one of the best positions; nor is Daun a man
for getting flurried.

The poor Reichs Army, though it once flattered itself with
intending to dispute Friedrich's passage of the Elbe, and did make
some detachings and manoeuvrings that way, on his approach to
Wittenberg (October 22d-23d),--took a safer view, on his actual
arrival there, on his re-seizure of that ruined place, and
dangerous attitude on the right bank below and above. Safer view,
on salutary second thoughts;--and fell back Leipzig-way, southward
to Duben, 30 or 40 miles. Whence rapidly to Leipzig itself, 30 or
40 more, on his actually putting down his bridges over Elbe.
Friedrich's crossing-place was Schanzhaus, in Dessau Country,
between Roslau and Klikau, 12 or 15 miles below Wittenberg;
about midway between Wittenberg and the inflow of the Mulda into
Elbe. He crossed OCTOBER 26th, no enemy within wind at all; Daun at
Torgau in his inexpugnable Camp, Reichsfolk at Duben, making
towards Leipzig at their best pace. And is now wholly between Elbe
and Mulda; nothing but Mulda and the Anhall Countries and the Halle
Country now to rear of him.

At Jonitz, next march southward, he finds the Eugen-Hulsen people
ready. We said they had not been idle while waiting signal:
of which here is one pretty instance. Eugen's Brother, supreme
Reigning Duke of Wurtemberg,--whom we parted with at Fulda, last
Winter, on sore terms; but who again, zealous creature, heads his
own little Army in French-Austrian service, in still more eclipsed
circumstances ("No subsidy at all, this Year, say your august
Majesties? Well, I must do without: a volunteer; and shall need
only what I can make by forced contributions!" which of course he
is diligent to levy wherever possible),--has latterly taken Halle
Country in hand, very busy raising contributions there: and Eugen
hears, not without interest, that certain regiments or detachments
of his, pushed out, are lying here, there, superintending that
salutary work,--within clutch, perhaps, of Kleist the Hussar!
Eugen despatches Kleist upon him; who pounces with his usual fierce
felicity upon these people. To such alarm of his poor Serenity and
poor Army, that Serenity flies off homeward at once, and out of
these Wars altogether; where he never had other than the reverse of
business to be, and where he has played such a farce-tragedy for
four years back. Eugen has been heard to speak,--theoretically, and
in excited moments,--of "running such a fellow through the body,
were one near him:: but it is actually Eugen in person that sends
him home from these Wars: which may be counted a not unfraternal or
unpatriotic procedure; being of indisputable benefit to the poor
Sovereign man himself, and to everybody concerned with him.

Hearing that Friedrich was across, Daun came westward that same day
(October 26th), and planted himself at Eilenburg; concluding that
the Reichsfolk would now be in jeopardy first of all. Which was
partly the fact; and indeed this Daun movement rather accelerated
the completion of it. Without this the Reichs Army might have lived
another day. It had quitted Duben, and gone in all haste for
Leipzig, at 1 in the morning (not by Eilenburg, of which or of
Daun's arrival there it knows nothing),--"at 1 in the morning of
the 27th," or in fact, so soon as news could reach it at the
gallop, That Friedrich was across. And now Friedrich, seeing Daun
out in this manner, judged that a junction was contemplated;
and that one could not be too swift in preventing it. October 29th,
with one diligent march, Friedrich posted himself at Duben;
there, in a sort now between Daun and the Reichsfolk, detached
Hulsen with a considerable force to visit these latter in Leipzig
itself; and began with all diligence forming "a small Magazine in
Duben," Magdeburg and the current of the Elbe being hitherto his
only resource in that kind. By the time of Hulsen's return, this
little operation will be well forward, and Daun will have declared
himself a little.

Hulsen, evening of October 30th, found Leipzig in considerable
emotion, the Reichsfolk taking refuge in it: not the least inclined
to stand a push, when Hulsen presented himself. Night of 30th-31st,
there was summoning and menacing; Reich endeavoring to answer in
firm style; but all the while industriously packing up to go. By 5
in the morning, things had come to extremity;---morning, happily
for some of us, was dark mist. But about 5 o'clock, Hulsen (or
Hulsen's Second) coming on with menace of fire and sword upon these
poor Reichspeople, found the Reichspeople wholly vanished in the
mist. Gone bodily; in full march for the spurs of the Metal-
Mountain Range again;--concluding, for the fourth time, an
extremely contemptible Campaign. Daun, with the King ahead of him,
made not the least attempt to help them in their Leipzig
difficulty; but retired to his strong Camp at Torgau; feels his
work to lie THERE,--as Friedrich perceives of him, with
some interest.

Hulsen left a little garrison in Leipzig (friend Quintus a part of
it); [Tempelhof, iv. 290.] and returned to the King; whose small
Magazine at Duben, and other small affairs there,--Magdeburg with
boats, and the King with wagons, having been so diligent in
carrying grain thither,--are now about completed. From Daun's
returning to Torgau, Friedrich infers that the cautious man has got
Order from Court to maintain Torgau at all costs,--to risk a battle
rather than go. "Good: he shall have one!" thinks Friedrich.
And, NOVEMBER 2d, in four columns, marches towards Torgau;
to Schilda, that night, which is some seven miles on the southward
side of Torgau. The King, himself in the vanguard as usual, has
watched with eager questioning eye the courses of Daun's advanced
parties, and by what routes they retreat; discerns for certain that
Daun has no views upon Duben or our little Magazine; and that the
tug of wrestle for Torgau, which is to crown this Campaign into
conquest of Saxony, or shatter it into zero like its foregoers on
the Austrian part, and will be of death-or-life nature on the
Prussian part, ought to ensue to-morrow. Forward, then!

This Camp of Torgau is not a new place to Daun. It was Prince
Henri's Camp last Autumn; where Daun tried all his efforts to no
purpose; and though hugely outnumbering the Prince, could make
absolutely nothing of it. Nothing, or less; and was flowing back to
Dresden and the Bohemian Frontier, uncheered by anything, till that
comfortable Maxen Incident turned up. Daun well knows the strength
of this position. Torgau and the Block of Hill to West, called Hill
of Siptitz:--Hulsen, too, stood here this Summer; not to mention
Finck and Wunsch, and their beating the Reichspeople here. A Hill
and Post of great strength; not unfamiliar to many Prussians, nor
to Friedrich's studious considerations, though his knowledge of it
was not personal on all points;--as To-morrow taught him, somewhat
to his cost.

"Tourists, from Weimar and the Thuringian Countries," says a Note-
book, sometimes useful to us, "have most likely omitted Rossbach in
their screaming railway flight eastward; and done little in Leipzig
but endeavor to eat dinner, and, still more vainly, to snatch a
little sleep in the inhuman dormitories of the Country.
Next morning, screaming Dresden-ward, they might, especially if
military, pause at Oschatz, a stage or two before Meissen, where
again are objects of interest. You can look at Hubertsburg, if
given that way,--a Royal Schloss, memorable on several grounds;--at
Hubertsburg, and at other features, in the neighborhood of Oschatz.
This done, or this left not done, you strike off leftward, that is
northward, in some open vehicle, for survey of Torgau and its
vicinities and environs. Not above fifteen miles for you; a drive
singular and pleasant; time enough to return and be in Dresden
for dinner.

"Torgau is a fine solid old Town; Prussian military now abundant in
it. In ancient Heathen times, I suppose, it meant the GAU, or
District, of THOR; Capital of that Gau,--part of which, now under
Christian or quasi-Christian circumstances, you have just been
traversing, with Elbe on your right hand. Innocent rural aspects of
Humanity, Boor's life, Gentry's life, all the way, not in any
holiday equipment; on the contrary, somewhat unkempt and scraggy,
but all the more honest and inoffensive. There is sky, earth, air,
and freedom for your own reflections: a really agreeable kind of
Gau; pleasant, though in part ugly. Large tracts of it are pine-
wood, with pleasant Villages and fine arable expanses interspersed.
Schilda and many Villages you leave to right and left.
Old-fashioned Villages, with their village industries visible
around; laboring each in its kind,--not too fast; probably with
extinct tobacco-pipe hanging over its chin (KALT-RAUCHEND, 'smoking
COLD,' as they phrase it).

"Schilda has an absurd celebrity among the Germans: it is the
Gotham of Teutschland; a fountain of old broad-grins and homely and
hearty rustic banter; welling up from the serious extinct Ages to
our own day; 'SCHILTburger' (Inhabitant of SCHILDA) meaning still,
among all the Teutsch populations, a man of calmly obstinate whims
and delusions, of notions altogether contrary to fact, and
agreeable to himself only; resolutely pushing his way through life
on those terms: amid horse-laughter, naturally, and general wagging
of beards from surrounding mankind. Extinct mirth, not to be
growled at or despised, in Ages running to the shallow, which have
lost their mirth, and become all one snigger of mock-mirth. For it
is observable, the more solemn is your background of DARK, the
brighter is the play of all human genialities and coruscations on
it,--of genial mirth especially, in the hour for mirth. Who the
DOCTOR BORDEL of Schilda was, I do not know: but they have had
their Bordel, as Gotham had;--probably various Bordels;
industrious to pick up those Spiritual fruits of the earth. For the
records are still abundant and current; fully more alive than those
of Gotham here are.--And yonder, then, is actually Schilda of the
absurd fame. A small, cheerful-looking human Village, in its Island
among the Woods; you see it lying to the right:--a clean brick-
slate congeries, with faint smoke-canopy hanging over it,
indicating frugal dinner-kettles on the simmer;--and you remember
kindly those good old grinnings, over good SCHILTBURGER, good WISE
MEN OF GOTHAM, and their learned Chroniclers, and unlearned Peasant
Producers, who have contributed a wrinkle of human Fun to the
earnest face of Life.

"After Schilda, and before, you traverse long tracts of Pine
Forest, all under forest management; with long straight stretches
of sandy road (one of which is your own), straight like red tape-
strings, intersecting the wide solitudes: dangerous to your
topographies,--for the finger-posts are not always there, and human
advice you can get none. Nothing but the stripe of blue sky
overhead, and the brown one of tape (or sand) under your feet:
the trees poor and mean for most part, but so innumerable, and all
so silent, watching you all like mute witnesses, mutely whispering
together; no voice but their combined whisper or big forest SOUGH
audible to you in the world:--on the whole, your solitary ride
there proves, unexpectedly, a singular deliverance from the mad
railway, and its iron bedlamisms and shrieking discords and
precipitances; and is soothing, and pensively welcome, though sad
enough, and in outward features ugly enough. No wild boars are now
in these woods, no chance of a wolf:"--what concerns us more is,
that Friedrich's columns, on the 3d of November, had to march up
through these long lanes, or tape-stripes of the Torgau Forest;
and that one important column, one or more, took the wrong turn at
some point, and was dangerously wanting at the expected moment!--

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