History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15

To describe the Battle which ensued, Battle named of Striegau or Hohenfriedberg, excels the power of human talent,—if human talent had leisure for such employment. It is the huge shock and clash of 70,000 against 70,000, placed in the way we said. An enormous furious SIMALTAS (or "both-at-once," as the Latins phrase it), spreading over ten square miles. Rather say, a wide congeries of electric simultaneities; all ELECTRIC, playing madly into one another; most loud, most mad: the aspect of which is smoky, thunderous, abstruse; the true SEQUENCES of which, who shall unravel? There are five accounts of it, all modestly written, each true-looking from its own place: and a thrice-diligent Prussian Officer, stationed on the spot in late years, has striven well to harmonize them all. [Five Accounts: 1. The Prussian Official Account, in Helden-Geschichte, i. 1098-1102. 2. The Saxon, ib. 1103-1108. 3. The Austrian, ib. 1109-1115. 4. Stille's (ii. 125-133, of English Translation). 5. Friedrich's own, OEuvres, iii. 108-118. Lutzow, above cited, is the harmonizer. Besides which, two of value, in Feldzuge, i. 310-323, 328-336; not to mention Cogniazzo, Confessions of an Austrian Veeran (Breslau, 1788-1791: strictly Anonymous at that time, and candid, or almost more, to Prussian merit;—still worth reading, here and throughout), ii. 123-135; &c. &c.] Well worth the study of military men;—who might make tours towards this and the other great battle-field, and read such things, were they wise. For us, a feature or two, in the huge general explosion, to assist the reader's fancy in conceiving it a little, is all that can be pretended to.

Chapter X.—BATTLE OF HOHENFRIEDBERG

With the first streak of dawn, the dispute renewed itself between those Prussians and Saxons who are on the Heights of Striegau. The two Armies are in contact here; they lie wide apart as yet at the other end. Cannonading rises here, on both sides, in the dim gray of the morning, for the possession of these Heights. The Saxons are out-cannonaded and dislodged, other Saxons start to arms in support: the cry "To arms!" spreads everywhere, rouses Weissenfels to horseback; and by sunrise a furious storm of battle has begun, in this part. Hot and fierce on both sides; charges of horse, shock after shock, bayonet-charges of foot; the great guns going like Jove's thunder, and the continuous tearing storm of small guns, very loud indeed: such a noise, as our poor Schoolmaster, who lives on this spot, thinks he will hear only once again, when the Last Trumpet sounds! It did indeed, he informs us, resemble the dissolution of Nature: "For all fell dark too;" a general element of sulphurous powder-smoke, streaked with dull blazes; and death and destruction very nigh. What will become of poor pacific mortals hereabouts? Rittmeister Seydlitz, Winterfeld his patron ride, with knit brows, in these horse-charges; fiery Rothenburg too; Truchsess von Waldburg, at the head of his Division,—poor Truchsess known in London society, a cannon-ball smites the life out of him, and he ended here.

At the first clash of horse and foot, the Saxons fancied they rather had it; at the second, their horse became distressed; at the third, they rolled into disorderly heaps. The foot also, stubborn as they were, could not stand that swift firing, followed by the bayonet and the sabre; and were forced to give ground. The morning sun shone into their eyes, too, they say; and there had risen a breath of easterly wind, which hurled the smoke upon them, so that they could not see. Decidedly staggering backwards; getting to be taken in flank and ruined, though poor Weissenfels does his best. About five in the morning, Friedrich came galloping hitherward; Valori with him: "MON AMI, this is looking well! This will do, won't it?" The Saxons are fast sinking in the scale; and did nothing thenceforth but sink ever faster; though they made a stiff defence, fierce exasperation on both sides; and disputed every inch. Their position, in these scraggy Woods and Villages, in these Morasses and Carp-Husbandries, is very strong.

It had proved to be farther north, too, than was expected; so that the Prussians had to wheel round a little (right wing as a centre, fighting army as radius) before they could come parallel, and get to work: a delicate manoeuvre, which they executed to Valori's admiration, here in the storm of battle; tramp, tramp, velocity increasing from your centre outwards, till at the end of the radius, the troops are at treble-quick, fairly running forward, and the line straight all the while. Admirable to Valori, in the hot whirlwind of battle here. For the great guns go, in horrid salvos, unabated, and the crackling thunder of the small guns; "terrible tussling about those Carp-ponds, that quaggy Carp-husbandry," says the Schoolmaster, "and the Heavens blotted out in sulphurous fire-streaked smoke. What had become of us pacific? Some had run in time, and they were the wisest; others had squatted, who could find a nook suitable. Most of us had gathered into the Nursery-garden at the foot of our Village; we sat quaking there,—our prayers grown tremulously vocal;—in tears and wail, at least the women part. Enemies made reconcilement with each other," says he, "and dear friends took farewell." [His Narrative, in Lutzow, UBI SUPRA.] One general Alleleu; the Last Day, to all appearance, having come. Friedrich, seeing things in this good posture, gallops to the left again, where much urgently requires attention from him.

On the Austrian side, Prince Karl, through his morning sleep at Hausdorf, had heard the cannonading: "Saxons taking Striegau!" thinks he; a pleasant lullaby enough; and continues to sleep and dream. Agitated messengers rush in, at last; draw his curtains: "Prussians all in rank, this side Striegau Water; Saxons beaten, or nearly so, at Striegau: we must stand to arms, your Highness!"—"To arms, of course," answers Karl; and hurries now, what he can, to get everything in motion. The bivouac itself had been in order of battle; but naturally there is much to adjust, to put in trim; and the Austrians are not distinguished for celerity of movement. All the worse for them just now.

On Friedrich's side, so far as I can gather, there have happened two cross accidents. First, by that wheeling movement, done to Valori's admiration in the Striegau quarter, the Prussian line has hitched itself up towards Striegau, has got curved inward, and covers less ground than was counted on; so that there is like to be some gap in the central part of;—as in fact there was, in spite of Friedrich's efforts, and hitchings of battalions and squadrons: an indisputable gap, though it turned to rich profit for Friedrich; Prince Karl paying no attention to it. Upon such indisputable gap a wakeful enemy might have done Friedrich some perilous freak; but Karl was in his bed, as we say;—in a terrible flurry, too, when out of bed. Nothing was done upon the gap; and Friedrich had his unexpected profit by it before long.

The second accident is almost worse. Striegau Bridge (of planks, as I feared), creaking under such a heavy stream of feet and wheels all night, did at last break, in some degree, and needed to be mended; so that the rearward regiments, who are to form Friedrich's left wing, are in painful retard;—and are becoming frightfully necessary, the Austrians as yet far outflanking us, capable of taking us in flank with that right wing of theirs! The moment was agitating to a General-in-chief: Valori will own this young King's bearing was perfect; not the least flurry, though under such a strain. He has aides-de-camp, dashing out every-whither with orders, with expedients; Prince Henri, his younger Brother: galloping the fastest; nay, at last, he begs Valori himself to gallop, with orders to a certain General Gessler, in whose Brigade are Dragoons. Which Valori does,—happily without effect on Gessler; who knows no Valori for an aide-de-camp, and keeps the ground appointed him; rearward of that gap we talked of.

Happily the Austrian right wing is in no haste to charge. Happily Ziethen, blocked by that incumbrance of the Bridge mending, "finds a ford higher up," the assiduous Ziethen; splashes across, other regiments following; forms in line well leftward; and instead of waiting for the Austrian charge, charges home upon them, fiercely through the difficult grounds, No danger of the Austrians outflanking us now; they are themselves likely to get hard measure on their flank. By the ford and by the Bridge, all regiments, some of them at treble-quick, get to their posts still in time. Accident second has passed without damage. Forward, then; rapid, steady; and reserve your fire till within fifty paces!—Prinoe Ferdinand of Brunswick (Friedrich's Brother-in-law, a bright-eyed steady young man, of great heart for fight) tramps forth with his Division:—steady!—all manner of Divisions tramp forth; and the hot storm, Ziethen and cavalry dashing upon that right wing of theirs, kindles here also far and wide.

The Austrian cavalry on this wing and elsewhere, it is clear, were ill off. "We could not charge the Prussian left wing, say they, partly because of the morasses that lay between us; and partly [which is remarkable] because they rushed across and charged us." [Austrian report, Helden-Geschichte, i. 1113.] Prince Karl is sorry to report such things of his cavalry; but their behavior was bad and not good. The first shock threw them wavering; the second,—nothing would persuade them to dash forth and meet it. High officers commanded, obtested, drew out pistols, Prince Karl himself shot a fugitive or two,—it was to no purpose; they wavered worse at every new shock; and at length a shock came (sixth it was, as the reporter counts) which shook them all into the wind. Decidedly shy of the Prussians with their new manoeuvres, and terrible way of coming on, as if sure of beating. In the Saxon quarter, certain Austrian regiments of horse would not charge at all; merely kept firing from their carbines, and when the time came ran.

As for the Saxons, they have been beaten these two hours; that is to say, hopeless these two hours, and getting beaten worse and worse. The Saxons cannot stand, but neither generally will they run; they dispute every ditch, morass and tuft of wood, especially every village. Wrecks of the muddy desperate business last, hour after hour. "I gave my men a little rest under the garden walls," says one Saxon Gentleman, "or they would have died, in the heat and thirst and extreme fatigue: I would have given 100 gulden [10 pounds Sterling] for a glass of water." [ Helden-Geschichte, ubi supra.] The Prussians push them on, bayonet in back; inexorable, not to be resisted; slit off whole battalions of them (prisoners now, and quarter given); take all their guns, or all that are not sunk in the quagmires;—in fine, drive them, part into the Mountains direct, part by circuit thither, down upon the rear of the Austrian fight: through Hausdorf, Seifersdorf and other Mountain gorges, where we hear no more of them, and shall say no more of them. A sore stroke for poor old Weissenfels; the last public one he has to take, in this world, for the poor man died before long. Nobody's blame, he says; every Saxon man did well; only some Austrian horse-regiments, that we had among us, were too shy. Adieu to poor old Weissenfels. Luck of war, what else,—thereby is he in this pass.

And now new Prussian force, its Saxons being well abolished, is pressing down upon Prince Karl's naked left flank. Yes;—Prince Karl too will have to go. His cavalry is, for most part, shaken into ragged clouds; infantry, steady enough men, cannot stand everything. "I have observed," says Friedrich, "if you step sharply up to an Austrian battalion [within fifty paces or so], and pour in your fire well, in about a quarter of an hour you see the ranks beginning to shake, and jumble towards indistinctness;" [Military Instructions. ] a very hopeful symptom to you!

It was at this moment that Lieutenant-General Gessler, under whom is the Dragoon regiment Baireuth, who had kept his place in spite of Valori's message, determined on a thing,—advised to it by General Schmettau (younger Schmettau), who was near. Gessler, as we saw, stood in the rear line, behind that gap (most likely one of several gaps, or wide spaces, left too wide, as we explained); Gessler, noticing the jumbly condition of those Austrian battalions, heaped now one upon another in this part,—motions to the Prussian Infantry to make what farther room is needful; then dashes through, in two columns (self and the Dragoon-Colonel heading the one, French Chasot, who is Lieutenant-Colonel, heading the other), sabre in hand, with extraordinary impetus and fire, into the belly of these jumbly Austrians; and slashes them to rags, "twenty battalions of them," in an altogether unexampled manner. Takes "several thousand prisoners," and such a haul of standards, kettle-drums and insignia of honor, as was never got before at one charge. Sixty-seven standards by the tale, for the regiment (by most All-Gracious Permission) wears, ever after, "67" upon its cartridge-box, and is allowed to beat the grenadier march; [Orlich, ii. 179 (173 n., 179 n., slightly wrong); Militair-Lexikon, ii. 9, iv. 465, 468. See Preuss, i. 212; OEuvres de Frederic; &c. &c.]—how many kettle-drums memory does not say.

Prince Karl beats retreat, about 8 in the morning; is through Hohenfriedberg about 10 (cannon covering there, and Nadasti as rear-guard): back into the Mountains; a thoroughly well-beaten man. Towards Bolkenhayn, the Saxons and he; their heavy artillery and baggage had been left safe there. Not much pursued, and gradually rearranging himself; with thoughts,—no want of thoughts! Came pouring down, triumphantly invasive, yesterday; returns, on these terms, in about fifteen hours. Not marching with displayed banners and field-music, this time; this is a far other march. The mouse-trap had been left open, and we rashly went in!—Prince Karl's loss, including that of the Saxons (which is almost equal, though their number in the field was but HALF), is 9,000 dead and wounded, 7,000 prisoners, 66 cannon, 73 flags and standards; the Prussian is about 5,000 dead and wounded. [In Orlich (ii. 182) all the details.] Friedrich, at sight of Valori, embraces his GROS VALORI; says, with a pious emotion in voice and look, "My friend, God has helped me wonderfully this day!" Actually there was a kind of devout feeling visible in him, thinks Valori: "A singular mixture, this Prince, of good qualities and of bad; I never know which preponderates." [Valori, SOEPIUS.] As is the way with fat Valoris, when they come into such company.

Friedrich is blamed by some military men, and perhaps himself thought it questionable, that he did not pursue Prince Karl more sharply. He says his troops could not; they were worn out with the night's marching and the day's fighting. He himself may well be worn out. I suppose, for the last four-and-twenty hours he, of all the contemporary sons of Adam, has probably been the busiest. Let us rest this day; rest till to-morrow morning, and be thankful. "So decisive a defeat," writes he to his Mother (hastily, misdating "6th" June for 4th), "has not been since Blenheim" [Letter in OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 71.] (which is tolerably true); and "I have made the Princes sign their names," to give the good Mother assurance of her children in these perils of war. Seldom has such a deliverance come to a man.

Chapter XI.—CAMP OF CHLUM: FRIEDRICH CANNOT ACHIEVE PEACE

Friedrich marched, on the morrow, likewise to Bolkenhayn; which the enemy have just left; our hussars hanging on their rear, and bickering with Nadasti. Then again on the morrow, Sunday,—"twelve hours of continuous rain," writes Valori; but there is no down-pour, or distress, or disturbance that will shake these men from their ranks, writes Valori. And so it goes on, march after march, the Austrians ahead, Dumoulin and our hussars infesting their rear, which skilfully defended itself: through Landshut down into Bohemia; where are new successive marches, the Prussian quarterstaff stuck into the back of defeated Austria, "Home with you; farther home!"—and shogging it on,—without pause, for about a fortnight to come. And then only with temporary pause; that is to say, with intricate manoeuvrings of a month long, which shove it to Konigsgratz, its ultimatum, beyond which there is no getting it. The stages and successive campings, to be found punctually in the old Books and new, can interest only military readers. Here is a small theological thing at Landshut, from first hand:—

JUNE 8th, 1745. "The Army followed Dumoulin's Corps, and marched upon Landshut. On arriving in that neighborhood, the King was surrounded by a troop of 2,000 Peasants,"—of Protestant persuasion very evidently! (which is much the prevailing thereabouts),—"who begged permission of him 'to massacre the Catholics of these parts, and clear the country of them altogether.' This animosity arose from the persecutions which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination, when their churches used to be taken from them and given to the Popish priests,"—churches and almost their children, such was the anxiety to make them orthodox. The patience of these peasants had run over; and now, in the hour of hope, they proposed the above sweeping measure. "The King was very far from granting them so barbarous a permission. He told them, 'They ought rather to conform to the Scripture precept, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that despitefully used them; such was the way to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.' The peasants," rolling dubious eyes for a moment, "answered, His Majesty was right; and desisted from their cruel pretension." [OEuvres de Frederic, ii.218.]...—"On Hohenfriedberg Day," says another Witness, "as far as the sound of the cannon was heard, all round, the Protestants fell on their knees, praying for victory to the Prussians;" [In Ranke, iii. 259.] and at Breslau that evening, when the "Thirteen trumpeting Postilions" came tearing in with the news, what an enthusiasm without limit!

Prince Karl has skill in choosing camps and positions: his Austrians are much cowed; that is the grievous loss in his late fight. So, from June 8th, when they quit Silesia,—by two roads to go more readily,—all through that month and the next, Friedrich spread to the due width, duly pricking into the rear of them, drives the beaten hosts onward and onward. They do not think of fighting; their one thought is to get into positions where they can have living conveyed to them, and cannot be attacked; for the former of which objects, the farther homewards they go, it is the better. The main pursuit, as I gather, goes leftward from Landshut, by Friedland,—the Silesian Friedland, once Wallenstein's. Through rough wild country, the southern slope of the Giant Mountains, goes that slow pursuit, or the main stream of it, where Friedrich in person is; intricate savage regions, cut by precipitous rocks and soaking quagmires, shaggy with woods: watershed between the Upper Elbe and Middle Oder; Glatz on our left,—with the rain of its mountains gathering to a Neisse River, eastward, which we know; and on their west or hither side, to a Mietau, Adler, Aupa and other many-branched feeders of the Elbe. Most complex military ground, the manoeuvrings on it endless,—which must be left to the reader's fancy here.

About the end of June, Karl and his Austrians find a place suitable to their objects: Konigsgratz, a compact little Town, in the nook between the Elbe and Adler; covered to west and to south by these two streams; strong enough to east withal; and sure and convenient to the southern roads and victual. Against which Friedrich's manoeuvres avail nothing; so that he at last (20th July) crosses Elbe River; takes, he likewise, an inexpugnable Camp on the opposite shore, at a Village called Chlum; and lies there, making a mutual dead-lock of it, for six weeks or more. Of the prior Camps, with their abundance of strategic shufflings, wheelings, pushings, all issuing in this of Chlum, we say nothing: none of them,—except the immediately preceding one, called of Nahorzan, called also of Drewitz (for it was in parts a shifting entity, and flung the LIMBS of it about, strategically clutching at Konigsgratz),—had any permanency: let us take Chlum (the longest, and essentially the last in those parts) as the general summary of them, and alone rememberable by us. ["Camp of Gross-Parzitz [across the Mietau, to dislodge Prince Karl from his shelter behind that stream], June 14th:" "Camp of Nahorzan, June 18th [and abstruse manoeuvrings, of a month, for Konigsgratz]: 20th July," cross Elbe for Chlum; and lie, yourself also inexpugnable, there. See OEuvres de Frederic, (iii. 120 et seq.); especially see Orlich (ii. pp. 193, 194, 203, &c. &c.),—with an amplitude of inorganic details, sufficient to astonish the robustest memory!]

Friedrich's purposes, at Chlum or previously, are not towards conquests in Bohemia, nor of fighting farther, if he can help it. But, in the mean while, he is eating out these Bohemian vicinages; no invasion of Silesia possible from that quarter soon again. That is one benefit: and he hopes always his enemies, under screw of military pressure with the one hand, and offer of the olive-branch with the other, will be induced to grant him Peace. Britannic Majesty, after Fontenoy and Hohenfriedberg, not to mention the first rumors of a Jacobite Rebellion, with France to rear of it, is getting eager to have Friedrich settled with, and withdrawn from the game again;—the rather, as Friedrich, knowing his man, has ceased latterly to urge him on the subject. Peace with George the Purseholder, does not that mean Peace with all the others? Friedrich knows the high Queen's indignation; but he little guesses, at this time, the humor of Bruhl and the Polish Majesty. He has never yet sent the Old Dessauer in upon them; always only keeps him on the slip, at Magdeburg; still hoping actualities may not be needed. He hopes too, in spite of her indignation, the Hungarian Majesty, with an Election on hand, with the Netherlands at such a pass, not to speak of Italy and the Middle Rhine, will come to moderate views again. On which latter points, his reckoning was far from correct! Within three months, Britannic Majesty and he did get to explicit Agreement (CONVENTION OF HANOVER, 26th August): but in regard to the Polish Majesty and the Hungarian there proved to be no such result attainable, and quite other methods necessary first!

"Of military transactions in this Camp of Chlum, or in all these Bohemian-Silesian Camps, for near four months, there is nothing, or as good as nothing: Chlum has no events; Chlum vigilantly guards itself; and expects, as the really decisive to it, events that will happen far away. We are to conceive this military business as a dead-lock; attended with hussar skirmishes; attacks, defences, of outposts, of provision-wagons from Moravia or Silesia:—Friedrich has his food from Silesia chiefly, by several routes, 'convoys come once in the five days.' His horse-provender he forages; with Tolpatches watching him, and continual scufflings of fight: 'for hay and glory,' writes one Prussian Officer, 'I assure you we fight well!' Endless enterprising, manoeuvring, counter-manoeuvring there at first was; and still is, if either party stir: but here, in their mutually fixed camps, tacit mutual observances establish themselves; and amid the rigorous armed vigilantes, there are traits of human neighborship. As usual in such cases. The guard-parties do not fire on one another, within certain limits: a signal that there are dead to bury, or the like, is strictly respected. On one such occasion it was (June 30th, Camp-of-Nahorzan time) that Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick—Prince Ferdinand, with a young Brother Albert volunteering and learning his business here, who are both Prussian—had a snatch of interview with a third much-loved Brother, Ludwig, who is in the Austrian service. A Prussian officer, venturing beyond the limits, had been shot; Ferdinand's message, 'Grant us burial of him!' found, by chance, Brother Ludwig in command of that Austrian outpost; who answers: 'Surely;—and beg that I may embrace my Brothers!' And they rode out, those three, to the space intermediate; talked there for half an hour, till the burial was done. [Mauvillon, Geschichte Ferdinands von Braunschweig-Luneburg, i. 118.] Fancy such an interview between the poor young fellows, the soul of honor each, and tied in that manner!