History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18

"Make this my determination known to all Officers of the Army; prepare the men for what work is now to ensue, and say that I hold myself entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when I reflect that you are Prussians, can I think that you will act unworthily? But if there should be one or another who dreads to share all dangers with me, he,"—continued his Majesty, with an interrogative look, and then pausing for answer,—"can have his Discharge this evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach from me."—Modest strong bass murmur; meaning "No, by the Eternal!" if you looked into the eyes and faces of the group. Never will Retzow Junior forget that scene, and how effulgently eloquent the veteran physiognomies were.

"Hah, I knew it," said the King, with his most radiant smile, "none of you would desert me! I depend on your help, then; and on victory as sure."—The speech winds up with a specific passage: "The Cavalry regiment that does not on the instant, on order given, dash full plunge into the enemy, I will, directly after the Battle, unhorse, and make it a Garrison regiment. The Infantry battalion which, meet with what it may, shows the least sign of hesitating, loses its colors and its sabres, and I cut the trimmings from its uniform! Now good-night, Gentlemen: shortly we have either beaten the Enemy, or we never see one another again."

An excellent temper in this Army; a rough vein of heroism in it, steady to the death;—and plenty of hope in it too, hope in Vater Fritz. "Never mind," the soldiers used to say, in John Duke of Marlborough's time, "Corporal John will get us through it!"—That same evening Friedrich rode into the Camp, where the regiments he had were now all gathered, out of their cantonments, to march on the morrow. First regiment he came upon was the Life-Guard Cuirassiers: the men, in their accustomed way, gave him good-evening, which he cheerily returned. Some of the more veteran sort asked, ruggedly confidential, as well as loyal: "What is thy news, then, so late?" "Good news, children (KINDER): to-morrow you will beat the Austrians tightly!" "That we will, by—!" answered they.—"But think only where they stand yonder, and how they have intrenched themselves?" said Friedrich. "And if they had the Devil in front and all round them, we will knock them out; only thou lead us on!"—"Well, I will see what you can do: now lay you down, and sleep sound; and good sleep to you!" "Good-night, Fritz!" answer all; [Muller, p. 21 (from Kaltenhorn, of whom INFRA); Preuss, &c. &c.] as Fritz ambles on to the next regiment, to which, as to every one, he will have some word.

Was it the famous Pommern regiment, this that he next spoke to,—who answered Loudon's summons to them once (as shall be noticed by and by) in a way ineffable, though unforgettable? Manteuffel of Foot; yes, no other! [Archenholtz, ii. 61; and Kutzen, p. 35.] They have their own opinion of their capacities against an enemy, and do not want for a good conceit of themselves. "Well, children, how think you it will be to-morrow? They are twice as strong as we." "Never thou mind that; there are no Pommerners among them; thou knowest what the Pommerners can do!"—FRIEDRICH: "Yea, truly, that do I; otherwise I durst not risk the battle. Now good sleep to you! to-morrow, then, we shall either have beaten the Enemy or else be all dead." "Yea," answered the whole regiment; "dead, or else the Enemy beaten:" and so went to deep sleep, preface to a deeper for many of them,—as beseems brave men. In this world it much beseems the brave man, uncertain about so many things, to be certain of himself for one thing.

These snatches of Camp Dialogue, much more the Speech preserved to us by Retzow Junior, appear to be true; though as to the dates, the circumstances, there has been debating. [Kutzen, pp. 175-181.] Other Anecdotes, dubious or more, still float about in quantity;—of which let us give only one; that of the Deserter (which has merit as a myth). "What made thee desert, then?" "Hm, alas, your Majesty, we were got so down in the world, and had such a time of it!"—"Well, try it one day more; and if we cannot mend matters, thou and I will both desert."

A learned Doctor, one of the most recent on these matters, is astonished why the Histories of Friedrich should be such dreary reading, and Friedrich himself so prosaic, barren an object; and lays the blame upon the Age, insensible to real greatness; led away by clap-trap Napoleonisms, regardless of expense. Upon which Smelfungus takes him up, with a twitch:—

"To my sad mind, Herr Doctor, it seems ascribable rather to the Dryasdust of these Ages, especially to the Prussian Dryasdust, sitting comfortable in his Academies, waving sublimely his long ears as he tramples human Heroisms into unintelligible pipe-clay and dreary continents of sand and cinders, with the Doctors all applauding.

"Had the sacred Poet, or man of real Human Genius, been at his work, for the thousand years last past, instead of idly fiddling far away from his work,—which surely is definable as being very mainly, That of INTERPRETING human Heroisms; of painfully extricating, and extorting from the circumambient chaos of muddy babble, rumor and mendacity, some not inconceivable human and divine Image of them, more and more clear, complete and credible for mankind (poor mankind dumbly looking up to him for guidance, as to what it shall think of God and of Men in this Scene of Things),—I calculate, we should by this time have had a different Friedrich of it; O Heavens, a different world of it, in so many respects!

"My esteemed Herr Doctor, it is too painful a subject. Godlike fabulous Achilles, and the old Greek Kings of men, one perceives, after study, to be dim enough Grazier Sovereigns, 'living among infinite dung,' till their sacred Poet extricated them. And our UNsacred all-desecrating Dryasdust,—Herr Doctor, I must say, it fills me with despair! Authentic human Heroisms, not fabulous a whit, but true to the bone, and by all appearance very much nobler than those of godlike Achilles and pious AEneas ever could have been,—left in this manner, trodden under foot of man and beast; man and beast alike insensible that there is anything but common mud under foot, and grateful to anybody that will assure them there is nothing. Oh, Doctor, oh, Doctor! And the results of it—You need not go exclusively 'to France' to look at them. They are too visible in the so-called 'Social Hierarchies,' and sublime gilt Doggeries, sltcred and secular, of all Modern Countries! Let us be silent, my friend."—

"Prussian Dryasdust," he says elsewhere, "does make a terrible job of it; especially when he attempts to weep through his pipe-clay, or rise with his long ears into the moral sublime. As to the German People, I find that they dimly have not wanted sensibility to Friedrich; that their multitudes of Anecdotes, still circulating among them in print and VIVA VOCE, are proof of this. Thereby they have at least made a MYTH of Friedrich's History, and given some rhythmus, life and cheerful human substantiality to his work and him. Accept these Anecdotes as the Epic THEY could not write of him, but were longing to hear from somebody who could. Who has not yet appeared among mankind, nor will for some time. Alas, my friend, on piercing through the bewildering nimbus of babble, malignity, mendacity, which veils seven-fold the Face of Friedrich from us, and getting to see some glimpses of the Face itself, one is sorrowfully struck dumb once more. What a suicidal set of creatures; commanding as with one voice, That there shall be no Heroism more among them; that all shall be Doggery and Common-place henceforth. 'ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know that damned brood!'—Well, well. 'Solomon's Temple,' the Moslems say, 'had to be built under the chirping of ten thousand Sparrows.' Ten thousand of them; committee of the whole house, unanimously of the opposite view;—and could not quite hinder it. That too is something!"—

More to our immediate purpose is this other thing: That the Austrians have been in Council of War; and, on deliberation, have decided to come out of their defences; to quit their strong Camp, which lies so eligibly, ahead of Breslau and arear of Lissa and of Schweidnitz Water yonder; to cross Schweidnitz Water, leave Lissa behind them; and meet this offensively aggressive Friedrich in pitched fight. Several had voted, No, why stir?—Daun especially, and others with emphasis. "No need of fighting at all," said Daun: "we can defend Schweidnitz Water; ruin him before he ever get across." "Defend? Be assaulted by an Army like his?" urges Lucchesi, the other Chief General: "It is totally unworthy of us! We have gained the game; all the honors ours; let us have done with it. Give him battle, since he fortunately wishes it; we finish him, and gloriously finish the War too!" So argued Lucchesi, with vivacity, persistency,—to his own ill luck, but evidently with approval from Prince Karl. Everybody sees, this is the way to Prince Karl's favor at present. "Have not I reconquered Silesia?" thinks Prince Karl to himself; and beams applause on the high course, not the low prudent one. [Kutzen, pp. 45-48.] In a word, the Austrians decide on stepping out to meet Friedrich in open battle: it was the first time they ever did so; and it was likewise the last.

Sunday, December 4th, at four in the morning, Friedrich has marched from Parchwitz, straight towards the Austrian Camp; [Muller, p. 26.] he hears, one can fancy with what pleasure, that the Austrians are advancing towards him, and will not need to be forced in their strong position. His march is in four columns, Friedrich in the vanguard; quarters to be Neumarkt, a little Town about fourteen miles off. Within some miles of Neumarkt, early in the afternoon, he learns that there are a thousand Croats in the place, the Austrian Bakery at work there, and engineer people marking out an Austrian Camp. "On the Height beyond Neumarkt, that will be?" thinks Friedrich; for he knows this ground, having often done reviews here; to Breslau all the way on both hands, not a rood of it but is familiar to him. Which was a singular advantage, say the critics; and a point the Austrian Council of War should have taken more thought of.

Friedrich, before entering Neumarkt, sends a regiment to ride quietly round it on both sides, and to seize that Height he knows of. Height once seized, or ready for seizing, he bursts the barrier of Neumarkt; dashes in upon the thousand Croats; flings out the Croats in extreme hurry, musketry and sabre acting on them; they find their Height beset, their retreat cut off, and that they must vanish. Of the 1,000 Croats, "569 were taken prisoners, and 120 slain," in this unexpected sweeping out of Neumarkt. Better still, in Neumarkt is found the Austrian Bakery, set up and in full work;—delivers you 80,000 bread-rations hot-and-hot, which little expected to go such a road. On the Height, the Austrian stakes and engineer-tools were found sticking in the ground; so hasty had the flight been.

How Prince Karl came to expose his Bakery, his staff of life so far ahead of him? Prince Karl, it is clear, was a little puffed up with high thoughts at this time. The capture of Schweidnitz, the late "Malplaquet" (poorish Anti-Bevern Malplaquet), capture of Breslau, and the low and lost condition of Friedrich's Silesian affairs, had more or less turned everybody's head,—everybody's except Feldmarschall Daun's alone:—and witty mess-tables, we already said, were in the daily habit of mocking at Friedrich's march towards them with aggressive views, and called his insignificant little Army the "Potsdam Guard-Parade." [Cogniazzo, ii. 417-422.] That was the common triumphant humor; naturally shared in by Prince Karl; the ready way to flatter him being to sing in that tune. Nobody otherwise can explain, and nobody in any wise can justify, Prince Karl's ignorance of Friedrich's advance, his almost voluntary losing of his staff-of-life in that manner.

MAP TO GO HERE—FACING PAGE 48, BOOK 18 continuation——

Prince Karl's soldiers have each (in the cold form) three days, provision in their haversacks: they have come across the Weistritz River (more commonly called Schweidnitz Water), which was also the height of contemptuous imprudence; and lie encamped, this night,—in long line, not ill-chosen (once the River IS behind),—perpendicular to Friedrich's march, some ten miles ahead of him. Since crossing, they had learned with surprise, How their Bakery and Croats had been snapt up; that Friedrich was not at a distance, but near;—and that arrangements could not be made too soon! Their position intersects the Great Road at right angles, as we hint; and has villages, swamps, woody knolls; especially, on each wing, good defences. Their right wing leans on Nypern and its impassable peat-bogs, a Village two or three miles north from the Great Road; their centre is close behind another Village called Leuthen, about as far south from it: length of their bivouac is about five miles; which will become six or so, had Nadasti once taken post, who is to form the left wing, and go down as far as Sagschutz, southward of Leuthen. Seven battalions are in this Village of Leuthen, eight in Nypern, all the Villages secured; woods, scraggy abatis, redoubts, not forgotten: their cannon are numerous, though of light calibre. Friedrich has at least 71 heavy pieces; and 10 of them are formidably heavy,—brought from the walls of Glogau, with terrible labor to Ziethen; but with excellent effect, on this occasion and henceforth. They got the name of "Boomers, Bellowers (DIE BRUMMER)," those Ten. Friedrich was in great straits about artillery; and Retzow Senior recommended this hauling up of the Ten Bellowers, which became celebrated in the years coming. And now we are on the Battle-ground, and must look into the Battle itself, if we can.

Chapter X.—BATTLE OF LEUTHEN

From Neumarkt, on Monday, long before day, the Prussians, all but a small party left there to guard the Bakery and Army Properties, are out again; in four columns; towards what may lie ahead. Friedrich, as usual in such cases, for obvious reasons, rides with the vanguard. To Borne, the first Village on the Highway, is some seven or eight miles. The air is damp, the dim incipiences of dawn struggling among haze; a little way on this side Borne, we come on ranks of cavalry drawn across the Highway, stretching right and left into the dim void: Austrian Army this, then? Push up to it; see what it is, at least.

It proves to be poor General Nostitz, with his three Saxon regiments of dragoons, famous since Kolin-day, and a couple of Hussar regiments, standing here as outpost;—who ought to have been more alert; but they could not see through the dark, and so, instead of catching, are caught. The Prussians fall upon them, front and flank, tumble them into immediate wreck; drive the whole outpost at full gallop home, through Borne, upon Nypern and the right wing,—without news except of this symbolical sort. Saxon regiments are quite ruined, "540 of them prisoners" (poor Nostitz himself not prisoner, but wounded to death [Died in Breslau, the twelfth day after (Seyfarth, ii. 362).]); and the ground clear in this quarter.

Friedrich, on the farther side of Borne, calls halt, till the main body arrive; rides forward, himself and staff, to the highest of a range or suite of knolls, some furlongs ahead; sees there in full view, far and wide, the Austrians drawn up before him. From Nypern to Sagschuitz yonder; miles in length; and so distinct, while the light mended and the hazes faded, "that you could have counted them [through your glasses], man by man." A highly interesting sight to Friedrich; who continues there in the profoundest study, and calls up some horse regiments of the vanguard to maintain this Height and the range of Heights running south from it. And there, I think, the King is mainly to be found, looking now at the Austrians, now at his own people, for some three hours to come. His plan of Battle is soon clear to him: Nypern, with its bogs and scrags, on the Austrian right wing, is tortuous impossible ground, as he well remembers, no good prospect for us there: better ground for us on their left yonder, at Leuthen, even at Sagschutz farther south, whither they are stretching themselves. Attempt their left wing; try our "Oblique Order" upon that, with all the skill that is in us; perhaps we can do it rightly this time, and prosper accordingly! That is Friedrich's plan of action. The four columns once got to Borne shall fall into two; turn to the right, and go southward, ever southward:—they are to become our two Lines of Battle, were they once got to the right point southward. Well opposite Sagschutz, that will be the point for facing to left, and marching up,—in "Oblique Order," with the utmost faculty they have!

"The Oblique Order, SCHRAGE STELLUNG," let the hasty reader pause to understand, "is an old plan practised by Epaminondas, and revived by Friedrich,—who has tried it in almost all his Battles more or less, from Hohenfriedberg forward to Prag, Kolin, Rossbach; but never could, in all points, get it rightly done till now, at Leuthen, in the highest time of need. "It is a particular manoeuvre," says Archenholtz, rather sergeant-wise, "which indeed other troops are now [1793] in the habit of imitating; but which, up to this present time, none but Prussian troops can execute with the precision and velocity indispensable to it. You divide your line into many pieces; you can push these forward stairwise, so that they shall halt close to one another," obliquely, to either hand; and so, on a minimum of ground, bring your mass of men to the required point at the required angle. Friedrich invented this mode of getting into position; by its close ranking, by its depth, and the manner of movement used, it had some resemblance to the "Macedonian Phalanx,"—chiefly in the latter point, I should guess; for when arrived at its place, it is no deeper than common. "Forming itself in this way, a mass of troops takes up in proportion very little ground; and it shows in the distance, by reason of the mixed uniforms and standards, a totally chaotic mass of men heaped on one another," going in rapid mazes this way and that. "But it needs only that the Commander lift his finger; instantly this living coil of knotted intricacies develops itself in perfect order, and with a speed like that of mountain rivers when the ice breaks,"—is upon its Enemy. [Archenholtz, i. 209.]

"Your Enemy is ranked as here, in long line, three or two to one. You march towards him, but keep him uncertain as to how you will attack; then do on a sudden march up, not parallel to him, but oblique, at an angle of 45 degrees,—swift, vehement, in overpowering numbers, on the wing you have chosen. Roll that wing together, ruined, in upon its own line, you may roll the whole five miles of line into disorder and ruin, and always be in overpowering number at the point of dispute. Provided, only, you are swift enough about it, sharp enough! But extraordinary swiftness, sharpness, precision is the indispensable condition;—by no means try it otherwise; none but Prussians, drilled by an Old Dessauer, capable of doing it. This is the SCHRAGE ORDNUNG, about which there has been such commentating and controversying among military people: whether Friedrich invented it, whether Caesar did it, how Epaminondas, how Alexander at Arbela; how"—Which shall not in the least concern us on this occasion.

The four columns rustled themselves into two, and turned southward on the two sides of Borne;—southward henceforth, for about two hours; as if straight towards the Magic Mountain, the Zobtenberg, far off, which is conspicuous over all that region. Their steadiness, their swiftness and exactitude were unsurpassable. "It was a beautiful sight," says Tempelhof, an eye-witness: "The heads of the columns were constantly on the same level, and at the distance necessary for forming; all flowed on exact, as if in a review. And you could read in the eyes of our brave troops the noble temper they were in." [Tempelhof, i. 288, 287.] I know not at what point of their course, or for how long, but it was from the column nearest him, which is to be first line, that the King heard, borne on the winds amid their field-music, as they marched there, the sound of Psalms,—many-voiced melody of a Church Hymn, well known to him; which had broken out, band accompanying, among those otherwise silent men. The fact is very certain, very strange to me: details not very precise, except that here, as specimen, is a verse of their Hymn:—

     "Grant that with zeal and skill, this day, I do       What me to do behooves, what thou command'st me to;       Grant that I do it sharp, at point of moment fit,       And when I do it, grant me good success in it."      "Gieb dass ich thu' mit Fleiss was mir zu thun gebuhret,       Wozu mich dein Befehl in meinem Stande fuhret,       Gieb dass ich's thue bald, zu der Zeit da ich's soll;       Und wenn ich's thu', so gieb dass es gerathe wohl."

["HYMN-BOOK of Porst" (Prussian Sternhold-and-Hopkins), "p. 689:" cited in Preuss, ii. 107.]

One has heard the voice of waters, one has paused in the mountains at the voice of far-off Covenanter psalms; but a voice like this, breaking the commanded silences, one has not heard. "Shall we order that to cease, your Majesty?" "By no means," said the King; whose hard heart seems to have been touched by it, as might well be. Indeed there is in him, in those grim days, a tone as of trust in the Eternal, as of real religious piety and faith, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in his History. His religion, and he had in withered forms a good deal of it, if we will look well, being almost always in a strictly voiceless state,—nay, ultra-voiceless, or voiced the wrong way, as is too well known. "By no means!" answered he: and a moment after, said to some one, Ziethen probably: "With men like these, don't you think I shall have victory this day!"

The loss of their Saxon Forepost proved more important to the Austrians than it seemed;—not computable in prisoners, or killed and wounded. The Height named Scheuberg,—"Borne Rise" (so we might call it, which has got its Pillar of memorial since, with gilt Victory atop [Not till 1854 (Kutzen, pp. 194, 195).];—where Friedrich now is and where the Austrians are not, is at once a screen and a point of vision to Friedrich. By loss of their Nostitz Forepost, they had lost view of Friedrich, and never could recover view of him; could not for hours learn distinctly what he was about; and when he did come in sight again, it was in a most unexpected place! On the farther side of Borne, edge of the big expanse of open country there, Friedrich has halted; ridden with his adjutants to the top of "the Scheuberg (Shy-HILL)," as the Books call it, though it is more properly a blunt Knoll or "Rise,"—the nearest of a Chain of Knolls, or swells in the ground, which runs from north to south on that part.

Except the Zobtenberg, rising blue and massive, on the southern horizon (famous mythologic Mountain, reminding you of an ARTHUR'S SEAT in shape too, only bigger and solitary), this Country, for many miles round, has nothing that could be called a Hill; it is definable as a bare wide-waving champaign, with slight bumps on it, or slow heavings and sinkings. Country mostly under culture, though it is of sandy quality; one or two sluggish brooks in it; and reedy meres or mires, drained in our day. It is dotted with Hamlets of the usual kind; and has patches of scraggy fir. Your horizon, even where bare, is limited, owing to the wavy heavings of the ground; windmills and church-belfries are your only resource, and even these, from about Leuthen and the Austrian position, leave the Borne quarter mostly invisible to you. Leuthen Belfry, the same which may have stood a hundred years before this Battle, ends in a small tile-roof, open only at the gables:—"Leuthen Belfry," says a recent Tourist, "is of small resource for a view. To south you can see some distance, Sagschutz, Lobetintz and other Hamlets, amid scraggy fir-patches, and meadows, once miry pools; but to north you are soon shut in by a swell or slow rise, with two windmills upon it [important to readers at present]; and to eastward [Breslau side and Lissa side], or to westward [Friedrich's side], one has no view, except of the old warped rafters and their old mouldy tiles within few inches; or, if by audacious efforts at each end, to the risk of your neck, you get a transient peep, it is stopt, far short of Borne, by the slow irregular heavings, with or without fir about them." [Tourist's Note, PENES ME.]