History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XV Part 11

FRIEDRICH GOES OUT TO MEET HIS THREE-LEGGED MONSTER; CUTS ONE LEG OF IT IN TWO (Fight of Hennersdorf, 23d November, 1745).

Friedrich, having heard the secret, gazes into it with horror and astonishment: "What a time I have! This is not living; this is being killed a thousand times a day!" [Ranke (iii. 321 n.): TO whom said, we are not told.]--with horror and astonishment; but also with what most luminous flash of eyesight is in him; compares it with Prince Karl's enigmatic motions, Grune's open ones and the other phenomena;--perceives that it is an indisputable fact, and a thrice-formidable; requiring to be instantly dealt with by the party interested! Whereupon, after hearty thanks to Rudenskjold, there occur these rapidly successive phases of activity, which we study to take up in a curt form.

FIRST (probably 9th or 10th November), there is Council held with Minister Podewils and the Old Dessauer; Council from which comes little benefit, or none. Podewils and Old Leopold stare incredulous; cannot be made to believe such a thing. "Impossible any Saxon minister or man would voluntarily bring the theatre of war into his own Country, in this manner!" thinks the Old Dessauer, and persists to think,--on what obstinate ground Friedrich never knew. To which Podewils, "who has properties in the Lausitz, and would so fain think them safe,"

obstinately, though more covertly, adheres. "Impossible!" urge both these Councillors; and Friedrich cannot even make them believe it.

Believe it; and, alas, believing it is not the whole problem!

Happily Friedrich has the privilege of ordering, with or without their belief. "You, Podewils, announce the matter to foreign Courts. You, Serene Highness of Anhalt, at your swiftest, collect yonder, and encamp again. Your eye well on Grune and Rutowski; and the instant I give you signal--! I am for Silesia, to look after Prince Karl, the other long leg of this Business." Old Leopold, according to Friedrich's account, is visibly glad of such opportunity to fight again before he die: and yet, for no reason except some senile jealousy, is not content with these arrangements; perversely objects to this and that. At length the King says,--think of this hard word, and of the eyes that accompany it!--"When your Highness gets Armies of your own, you will order them according to your mind; at present, it must be according to mine." On, then; and not a moment lost: for of all things we must be swift!

Old Leopold goes accordingly. Friedrich himself goes in a week hence.

Orders, correspondences from Podewils and the rest, are flying right and left;--to Young Leopold in Silesia, first of all. Young Leopold draws out his forces towards the Silesian-Lausitz border, where Prince Karl's intentions are now becoming visible. And,--here is the second phase notable,--

"On Monday, 15th, ["18th," _Feldzuge,_ i. 402 (see Rodenbeck, i. 122).]

at 7 A.M.," Friedrich rushes off, by Crossen, full speed for Liegnitz; "with Rothenburg, with the Prince of Prussia and Ferdinand of Brunswick accompanying." With what thoughts,--though, in his face, you can read nothing; all Berlin being already in such tremor! Friedrich is in Liegnitz next day; and after needful preliminaries there, does, on the Thursday following, "at Nieder-Adelsdorf," not far off, take actual command of Prince Leopold's Army, which had lain encamped for some days, waiting him. And now with such force in hand,--35,000, soldiers every man of them, and freshened by a month's rest,--one will endeavor to do some good upon Prince Karl. Probably sooner than Prince Karl supposes.

For there is great velocity in this young King; a panther-like suddenness of spring in him: cunning, too, as any Felis of them; and with claws like the Felis Leo on occasion. Here follows the brief Campaign that ensued, which I strive greatly to abridge.

Prince Karl's intentions towards Frankfurt-on-Oder Country, through the Lausitz, are now becoming practically manifest. There is a Magazine for him at Guben, within thirty miles of Frankfurt; arrangements getting ready all the way. A winter march of 150 miles;--but what, say the spies, is to hinder? Prince Karl dreams not that Friedrich is on the ground, or that anybody is aware. Which notion Friedrich finds that it will be extremely suitable to maintain in Prince Karl. Friedrich is now at Adelsdorf, some thirty miles eastward of the Lausitz Border, perhaps forty or more from the route Prince Karl will follow through that Province.

"It is a high-lying irregularly hilly Country; hilly, not mountainous.

Various streams rise out of it that have a long course,--among others, the Spree, which washes Berlin;--especially three Valleys cross it, three Rivers with their Valleys: Bober, Queiss, Neisse (the THIRD Neisse we have come upon); all running northward, pretty much parallel, though all are branches of the Oder. This is Neisse THIRD, we say; not the Neisse of Neisse City, which we used to know at the north base of the Giant Mountains, nor the Roaring Neisse, which we have seen at Hohenfriedberg; but a third [and the FOURTH and last, "Black Neisse,"

thank Heaven, is an upper branch of this, and we have, and shall have, nothing to do with it!]--third Neisse, which we may call the Lausitz Neisse. On which, near the head of it, there is a fine old spinning, linen-weaving Town called Zittau,--where, to make it memorable, one Tourist has read, on the Town-house, an Inscription worth repeating: 'BENE FACERE ET MALE AUDIRE REGIUM EST, To do good and have evil said of you, is a kingly thing.' Other Towns, as Gorlitz, and seventy miles farther the above-said Guben, lie on this same Neisse,--shall we add that Herrnhuth stands near the head of it? The wondrous Town of Herrnhuth (LORD'S-KEEPING), founded by Count Zinzendorf, twenty years before those dates; ["In 1722, the first tree felled" (LIVES of Zinzendorf).] where are a kind of German Methodist-Quakers to this day, who have become very celebrated in the interim. An opulent enough, most silent, strictly regular, strange little Town. The women are in uniform; wives, maids, widows, each their form of dress. Missionaries, speaking flabby English, who have been in the West Indies or are going thither, seem to abound in the place; male population otherwise, I should think, must be mainly doing trade elsewhere; nothing but prayers, preachings, charitable boarding-schooling and the like, appeared to be going on.

Herrnhuth is 'a Sabbath Petrified; Calvinistic Sabbath done into Stone,'

as one of my companions called it." [Tourist's Note (Autumn, 1852).]

Herrnhuth, of which all Englishmen have heard, stands near the head of this our third Neisse; as does Zittau, a few miles higher up. I can do nothing more to give it mark for them. Bober Valley, then Queiss Valley, which run parallel though they join at last, and become Bober wholly before getting into the Oder,--these two Valleys and Rivers lie in Friedrich's own Territory; and are between him and the Lausitz, Queiss River being the boundary of Silesia and the Lausitz here. It is down the Neisse that Prince Karl means to march. There are Saxons already gathering about Zittau; and down as far as Guben they are making Magazines and arrangements,--for it is all their own Country in those years, though most of it is Prussia's now. Prince Karl's march will go parallel to the Bober and the Queiss; separated from the Queiss in this part by an undulating Hill-tract of twenty miles or more.

Friedrich has had somewhat to settle for the Southern Frontier of Silesia withal, which new doggeries of Pandours are invading,--to lie ready for Prince Karl on his return thither, whose grand meaning all this while (as Friedrich well knows), is "Silesia in the lump" again, had he once cut us off from Brandenburg and our supplies! General Na.s.sau, far eastward, who is doing exploits in Moravia itself,--him Friedrich has ordered homeward, westward to his own side of the Mountains, to attend these new Pandour gentlemen; Winterfeld he has called home, out of those Southern mountains, as likely to be usefuler here on this Western frontier. Winterfeld arrived in Camp the same day with Friedrich; and is sent forward with a body of 3,000 light troops, to keep watch about the Lausitz Frontier and the River Queiss; "careful not to quit our own side of that stream,"--as we mean to hoodwink Prince Karl, if we can!

Friedrich lies strictly within his own borders, for a day or two; till Prince Karl march, till his own arrangements are complete. Friedrich himself keeps the Bober, Winterfeld the Queiss; "all pa.s.s freely out of the Lausitz; none are allowed to cross into it: thereby we hear notice of Prince Karl, he none of us." Perfectly quiescent, we, poor creatures, and aware of nothing! Thus, too, Friedrich--in spite of his warlike Manifesto, which the Saxons are on the eve of answering with a formal Declaration of War--affects great rigor in considering the Saxons as not yet at war with him: respects their frontier, Winterfeld even punishes hussars "for trespa.s.sing on Lausitz ground." Friedrich also affects to have roads repaired, which he by no means intends to travel:--the whole with a view of lulling Prince Karl; of keeping the mouse-trap open, as he had done in the Striegau case. It succeeded again, quite as conspicuously, and at less expense.

Prince Karl--whose Tolpatch doggery Winterfeld will not allow to pa.s.s the Queiss, and to whom no traveller or tidings can come from beyond that River--discerns only, on the farther sh.o.r.e of it, Winterfeld with his 3,000 light troops. Behind these, he discerns either nothing, or nothing immediately momentous; but contentedly supposes that this, the superficies of things, is all the solid-content they have. Prince Karl gets under way, therefore, nothing doubting; with his Saxons as vanguard. Down the Neisse Valley, on the right or Queiss-ward side of it: Sat.u.r.day, 20th November, is his first march in Lusatian territory.

He lies that night spread out in three Villages, Schonberg, Schonbrunn, Kieslingswalde; [_Feldzuge,_ i. 407 (Bericht von der Action bey Katholisch-Hennersdorf, &c.).] some ten miles long; parallel to the Neisse River, and about four miles from it, east or Queiss-ward of it.

Karl himself is rear, at Schonberg; fierce Lobkowitz is centre; the Saxons are vanguard, 6,000 in all, posted in Villages, which again are some ten or twelve miles ahead of Prince Karl's forces; the Queiss on their right hand, and the Naumburg Bridge of Queiss, where Winterfeld now is, about fifteen miles to east. Their Uhlans circulate through the intervening s.p.a.ce (were much patrolling needed, in such quiet circ.u.mstances), and maintain the due communication. There lies Prince Karl, on Sat.u.r.day night, 20th November, 1745; an Army of perhaps 40,000, dnngerously straggling out above twenty miles long; and appears to see no difficulty ahead. The Saxons, I think, are to continue where they are; guarding the flank, while the Prince and Lobkowitz push forward, closer by Neisse River. In four marches more, they can be in Brandenburg, with Guben and their Magazines at hand.

Seeing which state of matters, Winterfeld gives Friedrich notice of it; and that he, Winterfeld, thinks the moment is come. "Pontoons to Naumburg, then!" orders Friedrich. Winterfeld, at the proper moment, is to form a Bridge there. One permanent Bridge there already is; and two fords, one above it, one below: with a second Bridge, there will be roadway for four columns, and a swift transit when needful. Sunday, 21st, Friedrich quits the Bober, diligently towards Naumburg; marches Sunday, Monday; Tuesday, 23d, about eleven A.M., begins to arrive there; Winterfeld and pa.s.sages all ready. Forward, then, and let us drive in upon Prince Karl; and either cut him in two, or force him to fight us; he little thinks where or on what terms. Sure enough, in the worst place we can choose for him! Friedrich begins crossing in four columns at one P.M.; crosses continuously for four hours; unopposed, except some skirmis.h.i.+ng of Uhlans, while his Cavalry is riding the Fords to right and left; Uhlans were driven back swiftly, so soon as the Cavalry got over. At five in the evening, he has got entirely across, 35,000 horse and foot: Ziethen is chasing the Uhlans at full speed; who at least will show us the way,--for by this time a mist has begun falling, and the brief daylight is done.

Friedrich himself, without waiting for the rear of his force, and some while before this mist fell (as I judge), is pus.h.i.+ng forward, "a miller lad for his guide," across to Hennersdorf,--Katholisch-Hennersdorf, a long straggling Village, eight or ten miles off, and itself two miles long,--where he understands the Saxons are. Miller lad guides us, over height and hollow, with his best skill, at a brisk pace;--through one hollow, where he has known the cattle pasture in summer time; but which proves impa.s.sable, and mere quagmire, at this season. No getting through it, you unfortunate miller lad (GARCON DE MEUNIER). Nevertheless, we did find pa.s.sage through the skirts of it: nay this quagmire proved the luck of us; for the enemy, trusting to it, had no outguard there, never expecting us on that side. So that the vanguard, Ziethen and rapid Hussars, made an excellent thing of it. Ziethen sends us word, That he has got into the body of Hennersdorf,--"found the Saxon Quartermaster quietly paying his men;"--that he, Ziethen, is tolerably master of Hennersdorf, and will amuse the enemy till the other force come up.

Of course Friedrich now pushes on, double speed; detaches other force, horse and foot: which was lucky, says my informant; for the Ziethen Hussars, getting good plunder, had by no means demolished the Saxons; but had left them time to draw up in firm order, with a hedge in front, a little west of the Village;--from which post, una.s.sailable by Ziethen, they would have got safe off to the main body, with little but an affront and some loss of goods. The new force--a rapid Katzler with light horse in the van, cuira.s.siers and foot rapidly following him--sweeps past the long Village, "through a thin wood and a defile;"

finds the enemy firmly ranked as above said; cavalry their left, infantry on right, flanked by an impenetrable hedge; and at once strikes in. At once, Katzler does, on order given; but is far too weak. Charges, he; but is counter-charged, tumbled back; the Saxons, horse and foot, showing excellent fight. At length, more Prussian force coming up, cuira.s.siers charge them in front, dragoons in flank, hussars in rear; all attacking at once, and with a will; and the poor Saxon Cavalry is entirely cut to shreds.

And now there remains only the Infantry, perhaps about 1,000 men (if one must guess); who form a square; ply vigorously their field-pieces and their fire-arms; and cannot be broken by horse-charges. In fact, these Saxons made a fierce resistance;--till, before long, Prussian Infantry came up; and, with counter field-pieces and musketries, blasted gaps in them; upon which the Cavalry got admittance, and reduced the gallant fellows nearly wholly to annihilation either by death or capture. There are 914 Prisoners in this Action, 4 big guns, and I know not how many kettle-drums, standards and the like,--all that were there, I suppose.

The number of dead not given. [Orlich, ii. 291; _Feldzuge,_i. 400-413.]

But, in brief, this Saxon Force is utterly cut to pieces; and only scattered twos and threes of it rush through the dark mist; scattering terror to this hand and that. The Prussians take their post at and round Hennersdorf that night;--bivouacking, though only in sack trousers, a blanket each man:--"We work hard, my men, and suffer all things for a day or two, that it may save much work afterwards," said the King to them; and they cheerfully bivouacked.

This was the Action of Katholisch-Hennersdorf, fought on Tuesday, 23d November, 1745; and still celebrated in the Prussian Annals, and reckoned a brilliant pa.s.sage of war. KATHOLISCH-Hennersdorf, some ten miles southwest of Naumburg ON THE QUEISS (for there are, to my knowledge, Twenty-five other Villages called Hennersdorf, and Three several Towns of Naumburg, and many Castles and Hamlets so named in dear Germany of the Nomenclatures):--Katholisch-Hennersdorf is the place, and Tuesday about dusk the time. A sharp brush of fighting; not great in quant.i.ty, but laid in at the right moment, in the right place. Like the p.r.i.c.k of a needle, duly sharp, into the spinal marrow of a gigantic object; totally ruinous to such object. Never, or rarely, in the Annals of War, was as much good got of so little fighting. You may, with labor and peril, plunge a hundred dirks into your boaconstrictor; hack him with axes, bray him with sledge-hammers; that is not uncommon: but the one true p.r.i.c.k in the spinal marrow, and the Artist that can guide you well to that, he and it are the notable and beneficent phenomena.

PRINCE KARL, CUT IN TWO, TUMBLES HOME AGAIN DOUBLE-QUICK.

Next morning, Wednesday, 24th, the Prussians are early astir again; groping, on all manner of roads, to find what Prince Karl is doing, in a world all covered in thick mist. They can find nothing of him, but broken tumbrils, left baggage-wagons, rumor of universal marching hither and marching thither;--evidences of an Army fallen into universal St.

Vitus's-Dance; distractedly hurrying to and fro, not knowing whitherward for the moment, except that it must be homewards, homewards with velocity.

Prince Karl's farther movements are not worth particularizing. Ordering and cross-ordering; march this way; no, back again: such a scene in that mist. Prince Karl is flowing homeward; confusedly deluging and gurgling southward, the best he can. Next afternoon, near Gorlitz, and again one other time, he appears drawn up, as if for fighting; but has himself no such thought; flies again, without a shot; leaves Gorlitz to capitulate, that afternoon; all places to capitulate, or be evacuated. We hear he is for Zittau; Winterfeld with light horse hastens after him, gets sight of him on the Heights at Zittau yonder, [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 157; Orlich, ii. 296.] "about two in the morning:" but the Prince has not the least notion to fight. Prince leaves Zittau to capitulate,--quits silently the Heights of Zittau at two A.M. (Winterfeld, very lively in the rear of him, cutting off his baggage);--and so tumbles, pell-mell, through the Pa.s.ses of Gabel, home to Bohemia again. Let us save this poor Note from the fire:

"On Sat.u.r.day night, November 27th, the Prussians, pursuing Prince Karl, were cantoned in the Herrnhuth neighborhood,--my informant's regiment in the Town of Herrnhuth itself. [_Feldzuge,_ i. ubi supra.] Yes, there lay the Prussians over Sunday; and might hear some weighty expounder, if they liked. Considerably theological, many of these poor Prussian soldiers; carrying a Bible in their knapsack, and devout Psalms in the heart of them. Two-thirds of every regiment are LANDESKINDER, native Prussians; each regiment from a special canton,--generally rather religious men. The other third are recruits, gathered in the Free Towns of the Reich, or where they can be got; not distinguished by devotion these, we may fancy, only trained to the uttermost by Spartan drill."

Before the week is done, that "first leg" of the grand Enterprise (the Prince-Karl leg) is such a leg as we see. "Silesia in the lump,"--fond dream again, what a dream! Old Dessauer getting signal, where now, too probably, is Saxony itself?--Ranking again at Aussig in Bohemia, Prince Karl--5,000 of his men lost, and all impetus and fire gone--falls gently down the Elbe, to join Rutowski at least; and will reappear within four weeks, out of Saxon Switzerland, still rather in dismal humor.

The Prussian Troops, in four great Divisions, are cantoned in that Lausitz Country, now so quiet; in and about Bautzen and three other Towns of the neighborhood; to rest and be ready for the old Dessauer, when we hear of him. The "Magazine at Guben in 138 wagons," the Gorlitz and other Magazines of Prince Karl in the due number of wagons, supply them with comfortable unexpected provender. Thus they lie cantoned; and have with despatch effectually settled their part of the problem.

Question now is, How will it stand with the Old Dessauer and his part?

Or, better still, Would not perhaps the Saxons, in this humiliated state, accept Peace, and finish the matter?

Chapter XIV.--BATTLE OF KESSELSDORF.

A "Correspondence" of a certain Excellency Villiers, English Minister at Dresden,--Sir Thomas Villiers, Grandfather of the present Earl of Clarendon,--was very famous in those weeks; and is still worth mention, as a trait of Friedrich's procedure in this crisis. Friedrich, not intoxicated with his swift triumph over Prince Karl, but calculating the perils and the chances still ahead,--miserably off for money too,--admits to himself that not revenge or triumph, that Peace is the one thing needful to him. November 29th, Old Leopold is entering Saxony; and in the same hours, Podewils at Berlin, by order of Friedrich, writes to Villiers who is in Dresden, about Peace, about mediating for Peace: "My King ready and desirous, now as at all times, for Peace; the terms of it known; terms not altered, not alterable, no bargaining or higgling needed or allowable. CONVENTION OF HANOVER, let his Polish Majesty accede honestly to that, and all these miseries are ended."

["CORRESPONDANCE DU ROI AVEC SIR THOMAS VILLIERS;" commences, on Podewils's part, 28th November; on Friedrich's, 4th December; ends, on Villier's, 18th December; fourteen Pieces in all, four of them Friedrich's: Given in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 183-216 (see IB, 158), and in many other Books.]

Villiers starts instantly on this beneficent business; "goes to Court, on it, that very night;" Villiers shows himself really diligent, reasonable, loyal; doing his very best now and afterwards; but has no success at all. Polish Majesty is obstinate,--I always think, in the way sheep are, when they feel themselves too much put upon;--and is deaf to everybody but Bruhl. Bruhl answers: "Let his Prussian Majesty retire from our Territory;--what is he doing in the Lausitz just now! Retire from our Territory; THEN we will treat!" Bruhl still refuses to be desperate of his bad game;--at any rate, Bruhl's rage is yellower than ever. That, very evening, while talking to Villiers, he has had preparations going on;--and next morning takes his Master, Polish Majesty August III., with some comfortable minimum of apparatus (cigar-boxes not forgotten), off to Prag, where they can be out of danger till the thing decide itself. Villiers follows to Prag; desists not from his eloquent Letters, and earnest persuasions at Prag; but begins to perceive that the means of persuading Bruhl will be a much heavier kind of artillery.

On the whole, negotiations have yet done little. Britannic George, though Purseholder, what is his success here? As little is the Russian Bugbear persuasive on Friedrich himself. The Czarina of the Russias, a luxurious lady, of far more weight than insight, has just notified to him, with more emphasis than ever, That he shall not attack Saxony; that if he do, she with considerable vigor will attack him! That has always been a formidable puzzle for Friedrich: however, he reflects that the Russians never could draw sword, or be ready with their Army, in less than six months, probably not in twelve; and has answered, translating it into polite official terms: "Fee-faw-fum, your Czarish Majesty!

Question is not now of attacking, but of being myself attacked!"--and so is now running his risks with the Czarina.

Still worse was the result he got from Louis XV. Lately, "for form's sake," as he tells us, "and not expecting anything," he had (November 15th) made a new appeal to France: "Ruin menacing your Most Christian Majesty's Ally, in this huge sudden crisis of invasive Austrian-Saxons; and for your Majesty's sake, may I not in some measure say?" To which Louis's Answer is also given. A very sickly, unpleasant Doc.u.ment; testifying to considerable pique against Friedrich;--Ranke says, it was a joint production, all the Ministers gradually contributing each his little pinch of irony to make it spicier, and Louis signing when it was enough;--very considerable pique against Friedrich; and something of the stupid sulkiness as of a fat bad boy, almost glad that the house is on fire, because it will burn his nimble younger brother, whom everybody calls so clever: "Sorry indeed, Sir my Brother, most sorry:--and so you have actually signed that HANOVER CONVENTION with our worst Enemy?

France is far from having done so; France has done, and will do, great things. Our Royal heart grieves much at your situation; but is not alarmed; no, Your Majesty has such invention, vigor and ability, superior to any crisis, our clever younger Brother! And herewith we pray G.o.d to have you in his holy keeping." This is the purport of King Louis's Letter;--which Friedrich folds together again, looking up from perusal of it, we may fancy with what a glance of those eyes. [Louis's Original, in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 173, 174 (with a much more satirical paraphrase than the above), and Friedrich's Answer adjoined,--after the events had come.]

He is getting instructed, this young King, as to alliances, grand combinations, French and other. His third Note to Villiers intimates, "It being evident that his Polish Majesty will have nothing from us but fighting, we must try to give it him of the best kind we have."

["Bautzen, 11th December, 1745" (UBI SUPRA).] Yes truly; it is the ULTIMATE persuasive, that. Here, in condensed form, are the essential details of the course it went, in this instance:--General Grune, on the road to Berlin, hearing of the rout at Hennersdorf, halted instantly,--hastened back to Saxony, to join Rutowski there, and stand on the defensive. Not now in that Halle-Frontier region (Rutowski has quitted that, and all the intrenchments and marshy impregnabilities there); not on that Halle-Frontier, but hovering about in the interior, Rutowski and Grune are in junction; gravitating towards Dresden;--expecting Prince Karl's advent; who ought to emerge from the Saxon Switzerland in few days, were he sharp; and again enable us to make a formidable figure. Be speedy, Old Dessauer: you must settle the Grune-Rutowski account before that junction, not after it!

The Old Dessauer has been tolerably successful, and by no means thinks he has been losing time. November 29th, "at three in the morning," he stept over into Saxony with its impregnable camps; drove Rutowski's rear-guard, or remnant, out of the quagmires, ca.n.a.ls and intrenchments, before daylight; drove it, that same evening, or before dawn of the morrow, out of Leipzig: has seized that Town,--lays heavy contribution on it, nearly 50,000 pounds (such our strait for finance), "and be sure you take only substantial men as sureties!" [Orlich, ii. 308.]--and will, and does after a two days' rest, advance with decent celerity inwards; though "One must first know exactly whither; one must have bread, and preparations and precautions; do all things solidly and in order," thinks the Old Dessauer. Friedrich well knows the whither; and that Dresden itself is, or may be made, the place for falling in with Rutowski. Friedrich is now himself ready to join, from the Bautzen region; the days and hours precious to him; and spurs the Old Dessauer with the sharpest remonstrances. "All solidly and in order, your Majesty!" answers the Old Dessauer: solid strong-boned old coach-horse, who has his own modes of trotting, having done many a heavy mile of it in his time; and whose skin, one hopes, is of the due thickness against undue spurring.

Old Dessauer wishes two things: bread to live upon; and a sure Bridge over the Elbe whereby Friedrich may join him. Old Dessauer makes for Torgau, far north, where is both an Elbe Bridge and a Magazine; which he takes; Torgau and pertinents now his. But it is far down the Elbe, far off from Bautzen and Friedrich: "A nearer Bridge and rendezvous, your Highness! Meissen [where they make the china, only fifty miles from me, and twenty from Dresden], let that be the Bridge, now that you have got victual. And speedy; for Heaven's sake, speedy!" Friedrich pushes out General Lehwald from Bautzen, with 4,000 men, towards Meissen Bridge; Lehwald does not himself meddle with the Bridge, only fires shot across upon the Saxon party, till the Old Dessauer, on the other bank, come up;--and the Old Dessauer, impatience thinks, will never come. "Three days in Torgau, yes, Your Majesty: I had bread to bake, and the very ovens had to be built." A solid old roadster, with his own modes of trotting; needs thickness of skin. [Friedrich's Letters to Leopold, in Orlich, ii. 431, 435 (6th-10th December, 1745).]

At long last, on Sunday, 12th December, about two P.M., the Old Dessauer does appear; or General Gessler, his vanguard, does appear,--Gessler of the sixty-seven standards,--"always about an hour ahead." Gessler has summoned Meissen; has not got it, is haggling with it about terms, when, towards sunset of the short day, Old Dessauer himself arrives. Whereupon the Saxon Commandant quits the Bridge (not much breaking it); and glides off in the dark, clear out of Meissen, towards Dresden,--chased, but successfully defending himself. [See Plan, p. 10.] "Had he but stood out for two days!" say the Saxons,--"Prince Karl had then been up, and much might have been different." Well, Friedrich too would have been up, and it had most likely been the same on a larger scale. But the Saxon Commandant did not stand out; he glided off, safe; joined Rutowski and Grune, who are lying about Wilsdruf, six or seven miles on the hither side of Dresden, and eagerly waiting for Prince Karl. "Bridge and Town of Meissen are your Majesty's," reports the Old Dessauer that night: upon which Friedrich instantly rises, hastening thitherward. Lehwald comes across Meissen Bridge, effects the desired junction; and all Monday the Old Dessauer defiles through Meissen town and territory; continually advances towards Dresden, the Saxons hara.s.sing the flanks of him a little,--nay in one defile, being sharp strenuous fellows, they threw his rear into some confusion; cut off certain carts and prisoners, and the life of one brave General, Lieutenant-General Roel, who had charge there. "Spurring one's trot into a gallop! This comes of your fast marching, of your spurring beyond the rules of war!" thinks Old Leopold; and Friedrich, who knows otherwise, is very angry for a moment.

But indeed the crisis is pressing. Prince Karl is across the Metal Mountains, nearing Dresden from the east; Friedrich strikes into march for the same point by Meissen, so soon as the Bridge is his. Old Leopold is advancing thither from the westward,--steadily hour by hour; Dresden City the fateful goal. There,--in these middle days of December, 1745 (Highland Rebellion just whirling back from Derby again, "the London shops shut for one day"),--it is clear there will be a big and b.l.o.o.d.y game played before we are much older. Very sad indeed: but Count Bruhl is not persuadable otherwise. By slumbering and sluggarding, over their money-tills and flesh-pots; trying to take evil for good, and to say, "It will do," when it will not do, respectable Nations come at last to be governed by Bruhls; cannot help themselves;--and get their backs broken in consequence. Why not? Would you have a Nation live forever that is content to be governed by Bruhls? The G.o.ds are wiser!--It is now the 13th; Old Dessauer tramping forward, hour by hour, towards Dresden and some field of Fate.

On Tuesday, 14th, by break of day, Old Dessauer gets on march again; in four columns, in battle order; steady all day,--hard winter weather, ground crisp, and flecked with snow. The Pa.s.s at Neustadt, "his cavalry went into it at full gallop;" but found n.o.body there. That night he encamps at a place called Rohrsdorf; which may be eight miles west-by-north from Dresden, as the crow flies; and ten or more, if you follow the highway round by Wilsdruf on your right. The real direct Highway from Meissen to Dresden is on the other side of the Elbe, and keeps by the River-bank, a fine level road; but on this western side, where Leopold now is, the road is inland, and goes with a bend. Leopold, of course, keeps command of this road; his columns are on both sides of it, River on their left at some miles distance; and incessantly expect to find Rutowski, drawn out on favorable ground somewhere. The country is of fertile, but very broken character; intersected by many brooks, making obliquely towards the Elbe (obliquely, with a leaning Meissen-wards); country always mounting, till here about Rohrsdorf we seem to have almost reached the watershed, and the brooks make for the Elbe, leaning Dresden way. Good posts abound in such broken country, with its villages and brooks, with its thickets, hedges and patches of swamp. But Rutowski has not appeared anywhere, during this Tuesday.

Our four columns, therefore, lie all night, under arms, about Rohrsdorf: and again by morrow's dawn are astir in the old order, crunching far and wide the frozen ground; and advance, charged to the muzzle with potential battle. Slightly upwards always, to the actual watershed of the country; leaving Wilsdruf a little to their right. Wilsdruf is hardly past, when see, from this broad table-land, top of the country: "Yonder is Rutowski, at last;--and this new Wednesday will be a day!"

Yonder, sure enough: drawn out three or four miles long; with his right to the Elbe, his left to that intricate Village of Kesselsdorf; bristling with cannon; deep gullet and swampy brook in front of him: the strongest post a man could have chosen in those parts.

The Village of Kesselsdorf itself lies rather in a hollow; in the slight beginning, or uppermost extremity, of a little Valley or Dell, called the Tschonengrund,--which, with its quaggy brook of a Tschone, wends northeastward into the Elbe, a course of four or five miles: a little Valley very deep for its length, and getting altogether chasmy and precipitous towards the Elbe-ward or lower end. Kesselsdorf itself, as we said, is mainly in a kind of hollow: between Old Leopold and Kesselsdorf the ground rather mounts; and there is perceptibly a flat knoll or rise at the head of it, where the Village begins. Some trees there, and abundance of cannon and grenadiers at this moment. It is the southwestern or left-most point of Rutowski's line; impregnable with its cannon-batteries and grenadiers. Rightward Rutowski extends in long lines, with the quaggy-dell of Tschonengrund in front of him, parallel to him; Dell ever deepening as it goes. Northeastward, at the extreme right, or Elbe point of it, where Grune and the Austrians stand, it has grown so chasmy, we judge that Grune can neither advance nor be