AT sunrise, on a beautiful April morning, the last detachment of
General Loudon’s light troops, five thousand strong, took up their
march to join the army of Marshal Daun.
Every officer and man wore in his helmet a sprig of green, according
to an ancient custom of the Austrian army when beginning a campaign.
Vast crowds assembled at every point of vantage along the highway to
applaud these favourite troops; while, afar off, the steeples, towers,
and belfries of Vienna were black with people watching as this splendid
body of men unwound itself, like a great serpent, and turned its head
toward the enemy.
Gavin felt triumphantly happy as his troop, well horsed and clad,
fell in line. They were mostly new recruits, with a sprinkling of
seasoned soldiers, but they had had several months of breaking in at
the cantonments, and being originally of stout fibre--honest peasantry,
used to an outdoor life of toil--they were already fair soldiers. If
every one of them did not burn with enthusiasm, as Gavin did, to
distinguish himself, they had a fine and noble _esprit de corps_, which
rendered it certain that every man would do his duty to his sovereign
and his country.
St. Arnaud, as captain, had more liberty in his movements on the march
than Gavin; but Gavin, riding along contentedly at the head of his
troop, was well entertained by his own thoughts.
“If I expect promotion,” he argued to himself, “I ought to show by the
condition of the men under me how I could manage a larger body. Now,
having been a private soldier myself, I know exactly what these fellows
will do and will not do. They will not, at first, know how to make
themselves comfortable; but I, who went through two campaigns, know
a thing or two about that. Then, when a man is ill, if he is a brave
fellow, he will make out that he is well, and won’t go to the hospital;
but I will look sharp after him and see that he does. The faint-hearted
ones will imagine they are ill every time things look a little blue.
Aha! I shall catch those fellows. I will have my men so that St.
Arnaud will say to the major: ‘Do you notice Lieutenant Hamilton’s
troop? Always ninety-nine per cent. of them fit for duty.’ Then the
major, reporting to the lieutenant-colonel, will say: ‘Do you observe
Lieutenant Hamilton’s excellent report?’ And the lieutenant-colonel,
talking with the colonel, will say: ‘Lieutenant Hamilton’s troop is
the best in St. Arnaud’s command, and St. Arnaud’s command is the best
in the regiment.’ And the colonel, one day, as we file past, will say
to General Loudon: ‘Will your Excellency notice Captain St. Arnaud’s
command, how well it looks and marches?’ And General Loudon will reply:
‘True; and Lieutenant Hamilton’s troop is the best of them.’ And so,
when promotions are going, it will be said: ‘St. Arnaud and that young
Hamilton must not be left out.’ Oh, what a stroke of good fortune it
was that I got lost in the snow in Silesia!”
When they halted for the night, Gavin made good all he had said
concerning his knowledge of how to make his men comfortable. His
troopers, seeing this intimate knowledge of their wants, and that they
were attended to before their young lieutenant looked after his own
comfort, conceived an instant respect for him. After he had seen that
both men and horses were provided for, Gavin hastened to the tent to be
shared in common by St. Arnaud and himself. St. Arnaud had been equally
zealous in the performance of his duty, and it was more onerous than
Gavin’s. But presently he arrived; their servant had provided them with
a good supper, and they spent their first evening of campaigning with
the greatest merriment.
Those days of marching toward Marshal Daun were to Gavin very happy.
He loved a soldier’s life, and when he had bright spring weather and
mild April nights, with the comforts of an officer on the march, he had
nothing else to ask for in life except promotion.
They reached the neighbourhood of Leutomischl within a few days, and
found an army of fifty thousand men assembled, mostly raw recruits,
with the remnants of the men who had made the disastrous autumn
campaign. Forty miles off lay Frederick of Prussia, with forty
thousand men, besieging Olmutz. If he succeeded in capturing this
strongly fortified place the road to Vienna would be open. But it was
an undertaking difficult for even the stupendous military genius of
Frederick. The town was naturally protected by the numerous branches
of the Morawa River, and these sluices, generally kept dammed, could
easily be flooded and oppose difficult obstacles to overcome. In
addition to this, all of the Prussian supplies--food, ammunition,
and money--had to be transported by wagons from Neisse, a hundred
and twenty miles off, while the last eighty miles from Troppau were
extremely dangerous, and required a protecting force of more than ten
thousand men for each of the monthly convoys of from three to four
thousand four-horse wagons.
Marshal Daun was proverbial for his slowness and caution, and it was
often a source of congratulation to Gavin and St. Arnaud that they were
under General Loudon, who was in a state of perpetual activity. There
were continual scouting parties almost to the gates of Olmutz, and
constant communication with the town and garrison. Both were determined
to resist, and being well provided with food and ammunition, there
was no thought of surrender. Frederick, who is thought to have shown
less ability in sieges than in battles, had allowed his engineers to
begin their first parallel too far away from the lines, and the first
bombardment, terrific in point of noise, and costing vast amounts of
the gunpowder so precious to the Prussians, did not the smallest harm.
The month of May opened, and although Frederick pursued the siege
with vigour, Marshal Daun still lay among the hills and mountains,
moving a little off from Leutomischl, but still keeping about forty
miles from Olmutz. He knew, however, that all was going well for
the Austrians and ill for the Prussians at Olmutz. The Pandours,
light-armed Hungarian infantry, that in marching could equal the
cavalry, infested the neighbourhood of the town and fortress in small
parties, and even singly, while Loudon’s corps, chiefly light cavalry,
but with four regiments of grenadiers, made it dangerous to all small
bodies of Prussian troops who ventured away from their lines. Loudon’s
comprehensive and piercing eye did not fail to see the qualifications
of all his officers, even the subalterns, whom he knew through the
reports he exacted of their superiors, and he soon came to realize that
in Captain St. Arnaud he had a man after his own heart. And riding one
day with the colonel of St. Arnaud’s regiment, the general said:
“Is not that young Sublieutenant Hamilton, who is always with Captain
St. Arnaud, a capable officer?”
“Very, sir; his activity and enterprise, as well as Captain St.
Arnaud’s, were shown by their escape from Glatz. As you probably know,
Hamilton is of good English and Scotch blood, but, owing to some
family troubles, his youth was spent in poverty and obscurity, and he
served some time in the French army as a private soldier. The Empress
Queen herself gave him his commission, and the young man seems burning
to distinguish himself.”
General Loudon, himself a Scotchman, was not less interested in Gavin
from knowing his nationality.
May passed into June, and June waned; still Marshal Daun gave no sign
of interrupting the siege of Olmutz. He had merely taken up a position
a few miles nearer, where he patiently waited for the hour of action.
The officers and men of Loudon’s corps were envied by the rest of the
army, as they alone were actively employed.
One night, after a week of very active scouting, St. Arnaud and Gavin
were sitting in their tent, when a message from General Loudon came for
St. Arnaud. He at once left, and it was an hour before he returned.
When he entered, his gleaming eyes and smiling face showed that he had
something pleasant to tell.
“Good news! great news!” he said, sitting down on the table,
where Gavin was studying a large map of the country spread out
before him. “We move to-morrow. A wagon train of more than three
thousand four-horse wagons, loaded with money, food, clothing, and
ammunition--they say our old acquaintance, the King of Prussia, is
devilish short of ammunition--has started from Neisse. If it reaches
Olmutz, it will prolong the siege certainly--Frederick thinks it
will give him the victory. But if we can stop it, we can save Olmutz
without a pitched battle, and thereby ruin the Prussian campaign in the
beginning. It has an escort of seven thousand men, and four thousand
men will be sent to meet it; that means that the Prussians must lose a
whole army corps, as well as their three or four thousand wagons and
twelve thousand horses.”
“And we will stop them here,” cried Gavin, excitably, pointing on
the map to the pass of Domstadtl. “You know, that pass, hemmed in
by mountains, and narrow and devious, a thousand men could stop ten
thousand there.”
“We will make a feint at Guntersdorf, a few miles before they get to
Domstadtl; but you are right; the Prussians must open that gate and
shut it after them if they want to save their convoy; and the opening
and shutting will be hard enough, I promise you. We move the day after
to-morrow, so go to bed. You will have work to do to-morrow.”
Work, indeed, there was to do for every officer and man in Marshal
Daun’s army; and the morning after they were on the march. It was a
bright and beautiful June morning, and it seemed a holiday march to the
fifty thousand Austrians. Marshal Daun was noted for keeping his men
well fed, and the friendly disposition of the people in the province
made this an easy thing to do. The Austrian armies were ever the most
picturesque in Europe, owing to the splendour and variety of their
uniforms and the different races represented. Rested and refreshed
after the disastrous campaign of the autumn, on this day they hailed
with joy the prospect of meeting their ancient enemy. With fresh twigs
in their helmets, with their knapsacks well filled, the great masses
of cavalry, infantry, and artillery stepped out in beautiful order,
threading their way along the breezy uplands and through the green
heart of the wooded hills down to the charming valleys below.
St. Arnaud and Gavin were with the vanguard. A part of their duty was
to throw a reinforcement of eleven hundred men into Olmutz, and it was
Marshal Daun’s design to make Frederick think that a pitched battle in
front of Olmutz was designed.
All through the dewy morning they travelled briskly, and after a
short rest at noon they again took up the line of march in the golden
afternoon. About six o’clock they reached a little white village in
the plain, which was to be the halting place for the night of Loudon’s
corps.
It was an exquisite June evening, cool for the season, with a young
moon trembling in the east, and a sky all green and rose and opal in
the west. Myriads of flashing stars glittered in the deep blue heavens,
and the passing from the golden light of day to the silver radiance of
the night was ineffably lovely.
From the vast green plain and the dusky hills and valleys rose the
camp-fires of fifty thousand men. Just at sunset the band of St.
Arnaud’s regiment, marching out to a green field beyond the village,
began to play the national hymn. Other bands, from the near-by plain
and the far-away recesses of the hills and valleys, joined in, and the
music, deliciously softened by the distances, floated upward, till it
was lost in the evening sky.
Gavin and St. Arnaud, walking together along a little hawthorn-bordered
lane, listened with a feeling of delight so sharp as to be almost
pain. The magic beauty of the scene, the hour, and the sweet music were
overpowering. St. Arnaud’s words, after a long silence, when the last
echo of the music had died among the hills, were:
“And this delicious prelude is the beginning of the great concert of
war, cannon, and musketry, the groans and cries of the wounded, the
wild weeping of widows and orphans, the tap of the drum in the funeral
march.”
“And shouts of victory, and the knowledge of having done one’s duty,
and the sweet acclaims of all we love when we return,” answered Gavin.
“I am older than you, and have seen more of war,” was St. Arnaud’s
reply.
Day broke next morning upon a fair and cloudless world. It continued
cool for the season, and the sun was not too warm to drive away the
freshness of the air. By sunrise they were on the march again, and by
noon Frederick, at his great camp of Prossnitz, saw through his glass
masses of Austrians appearing through the trees and taking post on the
opposite heights, and turning to his aide, said:
“Those Austrians are learning to march, though!”
In the Prussian army it was thought that battle was meant, and troops
were hurried forward to that side of the fortress. But Loudon,
stealthily creeping up on the other side, engaging such force as was
left--eleven hundred grenadiers--without firing a shot or losing a man
double-quicked it into the fortress. By the afternoon the Austrians had
melted out of sight, and the garrison was stronger by eleven hundred
men.
In this demonstration on the other side of the fortress St. Arnaud’s
command had taken part. It was well understood that the action was
a mere feint to cover the grenadiers who were running into the
fortress, and St. Arnaud had privately warned Gavin against leading
his troop too far, knowing that a single troop may bring on a general
engagement. Gavin promised faithfully to remember this, and did,
until finding himself, for the first time, close to a small body of
Prussian infantry, in an old apple orchard, he suddenly dashed forward,
waving his sword frantically, and yelling for his men to come on. The
Prussians were not to be frightened by that sort of thing, and coolly
waiting, partly protected by the trees and undergrowth, received the
Austrians with a volley. One trooper rolled out of his saddle; the
sight maddened the rest, and the first thing St. Arnaud knew he was in
the midst of a sharp skirmish. The Prussians stood their ground, and as
the Austrians had no infantry at hand, it took some time to dislodge
them. Nor was it done without loss on the Austrian side. At last,
however, the Prussians began a backward movement, in perfect order, and
without losing a man. St. Arnaud, glad to have them go on almost any
terms, was amazed and infuriated to hear Gavin shouting to his men, and
to see them following him at a gallop, under the trees, toward the wall
at the farther end of the orchard, where the Prussians could ask no
better place to make a stand. In vain the bugler rent the air with the
piercing notes of the recall. Gavin only turned, and waving his sword
at St. Arnaud plunged ahead. St. Arnaud, wild with anxiety, sent an
orderly after him with peremptory orders to return; but Gavin kept on.
St. Arnaud, sending a number of his men around in an effort to flank
the Prussians, was presently relieved to see some of Gavin’s troopers
straggling back. And last of all he saw Gavin, with a man lying across
the rump of his horse, making his way out of the orchard. At that
moment General Loudon, with a single staff-officer, rode up.
“Captain St. Arnaud,” said he in a voice of suppressed anger, “I
am amazed at what I see. If this firing is heard, it may bring the
Prussians on our backs in such force that not only our grenadiers will
not get into the fortress, but they may be captured. My orders were,
distinctly, there should be no fighting, if possible. Here I see a part
of your command following the enemy into a position where a hundred of
them could hold their own against a thousand cavalry.”
St. Arnaud was in a rage with Gavin, and thinking it would be the
best thing in the world for Gavin to get then and there the rebuke he
deserved, replied firmly:
“It is not I, sir, who has disobeyed your orders. Lieutenant Hamilton’s
impetuosity led him into this, and I have been trying to recall him for
the last half hour. Here is Lieutenant Hamilton now.”
Gavin rode up. An overhanging bough had grazed his nose and made it
bleed, and at the same time had given him a black and swollen eye.
And another bough had caught in his coat and torn it nearly off his
body. But these minor particulars were lost in the vast and expansive
grin which wreathed his face. The thought that illumined his mind and
emblazoned his countenance was this:
“The general is here. He must have seen what I did. What good fortune!
My promotion is sure.”
But what General Loudon said was this:
“Lieutenant Hamilton, your conduct to-day is as much deserving of
a court martial as any I ever saw on the field. You have not only
unnecessarily endangered the lives of your men--a crime on the part of
an officer--but you have come near endangering the whole success of our
movement. Your place after this will be with neither the vanguard nor
the rear-guard, but with the main body, where you can do as little harm
by your rashness as possible.”
Gavin’s look of triumph changed to one of utter bewilderment, and then
to one of mingled rage and horror. General Loudon, without another
word, rode off. Gavin, half choking, cried to St. Arnaud:
“But you know what I went after? My first sergeant was shot through
both legs--the fellow was in the lead--and he cried out to me to come
and save him. Just then I heard the bugle, but could I leave that poor
fellow there to die?”
“Certainly not; and this shall be known; but you were very rash in the
beginning; so come on, and wash your face the first time you come to
water.”
The rest of that day was like an unhappy dream to Gavin. They were
again on the march by three o’clock, and at bivouac they had rejoined
the main body.
Their camp that night was well beyond Olmutz, and led them again toward
the mountains. When all the arrangements for the night were made, and
their tent was pitched, St. Arnaud, who had been absent for half an
hour, returned and looked in. He saw Gavin sitting on the ground in an
attitude of utter dejection.
“Come,” cried St. Arnaud gayly; “you take the general too seriously; he
was angry with you, and so was I, for that matter; but he knows all the
facts now.”
“It is of no consequence,” replied Gavin sullenly. But when St. Arnaud
urged him, he rose and joined him for a stroll about the camp. As they
were walking along a little path that led along the face of a ravine,
they saw, in the clear twilight of the June evening, General Loudon,
quite unattended, approaching them. Gavin would have turned off, but
St. Arnaud would not let him. As they stood on the side of the path,
respectfully to let the general pass, he stopped and said in the rather
awkward way which was usual with him:
“I make no apology for my words to you to-day, Lieutenant Hamilton,
because, on cool reflection, I still think that you deserve them. I
found out, however, later, that you performed an act of great gallantry
in rescuing your wounded sergeant, and I have already recommended you
for promotion to Marshal Daun.”
General Loudon extended his hand. Gavin, quite overcome, took it
silently, and after a cordial grasp and a word or two between St.
Arnaud and General Loudon he passed on.
“_You_ told him,” was all Gavin could say to St. Arnaud.
“What if I did? I was bound to tell him all that happened before his
report was sent to Marshal Daun.”
The day had been a nightmare, but the night was so happy that Gavin
could not sleep.
From the 22d until the 28th Loudon’s corps was travelling toward the
convoy by a long and circuitous hill route, quite out of sight and
knowledge of the Prussians. Marshal Daun had remained behind with the
main body, having crossed the Moldawa River, while General Ziskowitz,
with several thousand men, remained on the other side, ready to
reinforce General Loudon, should he be needed.
Those six June days were cloudless, and what with easy marching and
mild nights and good fare, never was campaigning pleasanter. Their
march lay among the hills and mountains, clothed in their freshest
green. Pure and sparkling streams abounded in the wooded heights and
cool, green solitudes. The oldest soldiers declared it to be the
pleasantest march they had ever made.
On the sixth day they began to listen attentively for the noise of the
approaching convoy, which, with its escort, was stretched out full
twenty miles. Soon after daybreak, as the Austrians were pushing toward
the woody defiles near Guntersdorf, a low reverberation was heard, like
the far-distant echo of breakers on the shore. It was the rolling of
twelve thousand iron-bound wheels, while the iron-shod hoofs of twelve
thousand horses smote the earth. General Loudon immediately made his
preparations to attack at Guntersdorf, but it was understood that if
a determined resistance was made the Austrians should fall back to
Domstadtl, through whose dark defiles and gloomy passes it would be
impossible for the Prussians to fight their way.
St. Arnaud’s regiment led the van, and he and Gavin rode side by side
through the dewy freshness of the morning. The road was steep and
winding, but always picturesque, and the trees were in their first
fresh livery of green. They rode briskly, men and horses inspired by
the freshness and vitality of the delicious mountain air. Ever as they
drew nearer the road by which the convoy was making its creaking,
rolling, thundering way, the sullen roar grew nearer and louder. On
reaching Guntersdorf, General Loudon quickly posted a part of his force
in the defiles, with several pieces of artillery concealed among the
wooded heights. The general rode hither and thither, and presently came
up to where St. Arnaud’s and Gavin’s regiment was posted, on the brow
of a spur of the mountains, thick with trees and rocks.
“We shall meet the advance guard and escort here; it is probably three
thousand men, with seven or eight thousand to follow; but if we throw
them into confusion and overwhelm them, it will be enough. It is
impossible to stop at once a wagon train twenty miles long, and the
wagons will help us to win the battle, by those behind pressing those
in front upon our guns. Then we shall fall back to Domstadtl, where we
can destroy the convoy at our leisure.”
At that moment, from their commanding position, St. Arnaud and Gavin
looked across a low-lying flank of the mountains, and winding across
a valley, four miles away, were a thousand Prussian dragoons, while
behind them came a long line of infantry, and then the great wagon
train, four abreast.
Never had either Gavin or St. Arnaud seen such a sight as this vast
mass of men, horses, and wagons that poured in a steady stream into the
valley. The earth shook with the mighty tramp, and great clouds of dust
enveloped them like a fog.
The stillness of the early June morning remained unbroken for an hour;
yet while this strange procession unwound itself and approached nearer
and nearer the defiles of Guntersdorf the noise became deafening, and
the horses of the Austrian cavalry trembled with fear as the earth
shook under their feet. Presently, the first platoon of Prussian
cavalry debouched before an Austrian field battery, concealed in the
heights above them. Suddenly the thunderous roar of wheels and hoofs
was cut into by the booming of guns, and cannon-balls dropped among
the troopers. Instantly there was a halt, the infantry closed up, and
under a heavy fire the Prussians formed and rushed up the heights to
silence the guns. The Austrians stood their ground, supported by both
cavalry and infantry; but meanwhile the wagons were fighting the battle
for them. In vain had orders been sent back to halt the train. It came
pressing on with an irresistible force, like the force of gravity.
The Austrians, seeing the beginning of hopeless confusion and panic
in the wagon train, which could only increase, drew off, inducing the
Prussians to follow them. There was some sharp fighting among the
passes, but, as Gavin said, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself
the order came to fall back to Domstadtl.
It was about eight o’clock in the morning when the Austrians began to
retrace the road they had travelled soon after daybreak. St. Arnaud’s
and Gavin’s regiment, having had the van in the advance, were the
rear-guard of the retrograde movement. As they trotted along behind
the last rank of troopers, they both cast many backward looks at
the rude mountain roads through which the Prussians were toiling
to their destruction in the impenetrable ravines of Domstadtl. The
troops had reformed as well as they could, but the wagons were in
a terrible state of disorder. Some hundreds of them had stopped at
Guntersdorf, but these had been swept away and trampled under foot by
the advancing legions. Some of the wagoners had turned their vehicles
around and were making for the rear, knowing fighting to be ahead of
them; others, cutting the traces, mounted the horses and galloped no
one knew whither, leaving a solid barricade of wagons in the road to
be dispersed. And ever from behind came this avalanche of horses and
wagons, pressing on, halting at obstacles, scattered in dire confusion,
but always, always, a stream pouring on.
The Austrians reached the gloomy pass of Domstadtl only a little
in advance of the Prussians, and before they had well taken their
positions and unlimbered their artillery the Prussian vanguard, very
gallantly led, had forced its way through the pass, with two hundred
and fifty wagons on the gallop. But then came the howling of the
Austrian artillery, and the advance was checked. Colonel Mosel, the
Prussian commander, seeing there was no forcing the pass, formed
all his wagons as fast as they arrived in a great square--a wagon
fortress, as it was called--and prepared to defend it. General Zeithen,
with the guard for the second section, moved rapidly backward to
turn the great stream of men and horses and wheels back on Troppau.
But still they came surging on, men losing their heads, and driving
forward when they were ordered to turn backward. And on the wagon
fortress played the Austrian artillery, while the cavalry, dashing
up to the remnants of the Prussian guard, sabred them at the wagons.
The wagon horses grew wild with fright, and their plunging, rearing,
and frantic whinnying added to the maelstrom of disorder. The powder
wagons were in this division, and when an Austrian cannon-ball fell
into one of these, the explosion seemed as if it would rend the solid
mountains. Others caught from the sparks of this one, and the scene
and sound, as deafening crashes resounded, and masses of flame and
smoke ascended, were like the infernal regions. Huge rocks, split by
the concussion of thousands of pounds of gunpowder, rolled down the
sides of the mountain, sweeping away men and horses in their resistless
course. Uprooted trees and a vast mass of debris followed these awful
reverberations. Horses dropped dead in their tracks, men fell to the
ground, stunned by the roar, and were unable to rise; others bled at
the nose; some became totally deaf. The sky was obscured with smoke,
and in the semi-darkness at midday men’s faces, blackened with powder,
had a frightful appearance. Fighting continued at all points along the
line, where the eleven thousand Prussians endeavoured to make a stand
at many places, but were completely overborne. Cannon and musketry
added their horrors to the scene, and when men fought at all they
fought like demons. All through the June day this fearful combat raged
through the mountain passes; and when the sun, obscured in dim clouds,
set, the great wagon train was utterly destroyed, with thousands of its
escort, wagoners, and horses dead.
Neither St. Arnaud nor Gavin slept in a tent that night, but throwing
themselves on the ground, wrapped in their cloaks, slept the sleep of
exhaustion and collapse.
By sunset Frederick of Prussia knew that his convoy was destroyed, and
with it some of his best troops. That night the bombardment of Olmutz
was terrific; the Prussians were firing off the ammunition they could
not take away with them. No one slept in the town or the fortress that
night for the hurricane of fire and flame that blazed from the Prussian
lines. It slackened toward daylight, and when the sun rose there was
not a Prussian regiment in sight. The whole army was on the march for
the other side of the mountains.