History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 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, 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, 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!—