The disaster of October 1st--for which they were trying to sing TE-DEUMS
at Vienna--fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage at Pirna:
"Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people, in their lines
here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as Retzow has seldom
heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires, starting out,
artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high; and borne by the
echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the
Pirna Country;--intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he.
[Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway
sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!"
And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a
confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I
will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the
11th stand to your tools, and it shall be done."
Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse and
foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the foot of
Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and scouts;
to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa, Kamnitz,
Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau region, quite from
the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn; an eligible Village, which is
but seven miles or so from the Konigstein, with the chasmy country
and the river intervening. Monday, October 11th, Browne will arrive at
Lichtenhayn (sixty miles of circling march from Budin); privately post
himself near Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying
ahead of him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get
yourselves across,--near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover
of the Konigstein's cannon,--on the front or riverward side of those
same Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can
be Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets of
Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your bridge and
your building of it.
"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts resolute,
with powder dry; there, about the eastern roots of the Lilienstein
[beautiful Show Mountain, with stair-steps cut on it for Tourist people,
by August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian battery and abatis which
is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced
for action, through that Monday night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein,
at your beckoning, shall fire two cannon-shots; which shall mean, 'All
ready here!' Then forward, you, on those Prussian posts by the front;
I will attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am
told, they are but weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and
dead-lift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only force them,--you
are in the open field again; and you march away with me, colors flying;
your hunger-cage and all your tribulations left behind you!"--
This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,--what choice have
they?--though the question of crossing and bridge-building has its
intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the 11th"
is a sore clause to them; for not only are there short and ever shorter
rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with large strides. The
"daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half that quantity; the "ounce
or so of butcher's-meat once a week" has vanished, or become HORSE of
extreme leanness. The cavalry horses have not tasted oats, nothing but
hay or straw (not even water always); the artillery horses had to
live by grazing, brown leaves their main diet latterly. Not horses any
longer; but walking trestles, poor animals! And the men,--well, they are
fallen pale; but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which
they have in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all
the cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about; no
hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they hope, utter
hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made. [PRECIS DE
LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in _Gesammelte
Nachrichten, _i. 482-494).]
Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure. Browne
arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn, evening of the 11th; bivouacs, hidden
in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather; stealthily reconnoitres
the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims himself for assault, at sound
of the two cannons to-morrow. But there came no cannon-signal on the
morrow; far other signallings and messagings to-morrow, and next
day, and next, from the Konigstein and neighborhood! "Wait, Excellency
Feldmarschall [writes Bruhl to him, Note after Note, instead of
signalling from the Konigstein]: do wait a very little! You run no
risk in waiting; we, even if we MUST yield, will make that our first
stipulation!" "YOU will?" grumbles Browne; and waits, naturally, with
extreme impatience. But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side
of it, has already altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point
onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous miseries,
tragical to think of. Worth some record here, since there are
Documents abundant;--especially as Feldmarschall Rutowski (who is
General-in-Chief, an old, not esteemed, friend of ours) has produced, or
caused to be produced, a Narrative, which illuminates the Business
from within as well. [PRECIS, &c. (just cited); compare TAGEBUCH DER
EINSCHLIESSUNG DES SACHSISCHEN LAGERS BEY PIRNA ("Diary," &c., which is
the Prussian Account: in Seyfarth, BEYLAGEN), ii. 22-48.] The latter is
our main Document here:--
I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could
surmise some laxity of effort, and a rather slovenly-survey of facts, in
that quarter. The Enterprise, from the first, was flatly impossible, say
judges; and it is certain, poor Rutowski's execution was not first-rate.
"How get across the Elbe?" Rutowski had said to himself, perhaps not
quite with the due rigor of candor proportionate to the rigorous fact:
"How get across the Elbe? We have copper pontoons at Pirna; but they
will be difficult to cart. Or we might have a boat-bridge; boats planked
together two and two. At Pirna are plenty of boats; and by oar and
track-rope, the River itself might be a road for them? Boats or pontoons
to Konigstein, by water or land, they must be got. Eight miles of
abysmal roads, our horses all extenuated? Impossible to cart these
pontoons!" said Rutowski to himself.--Pity he had not tried it. He had
a week to do those eight bad miles in; and 2,000 lean horses, picking
grass or brown leaves, while their riders threshed. "We will drag our
pontoons by water, by the Elbe tow-path," thought Rutowski, "that
will be easier;"--and forthwith sets about preparing for it, secretly
collecting boats at Pirna, steersmen, towing-men, bridge-tackle and what
else will be necessary.
Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had come
to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on Friday night Rutowski has a squad of
boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towing peasants ready; and
actually gets under way. They are escorted by the due battalions with
field-pieces;--who are to fire upon the Prussian batteries, and keep up
such a blaze of musketry and heavier shot, as will screen the boats in
passing. Surely a ticklish operation, this;--arguing a sanguine temper
in General Rutowski! The south bank of the River is ours; but there are
various Prussian batteries, three of them very strong, along the north
bank, which will not fail to pelt us terribly as we pass. No help for
it;--we must trust in luck! Here is the sequel, with dates adjusted.
ELBE RIVER, NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8th-9th. Friday night, accordingly, so
soon as Darkness (unusually dark this night) has dropt her veil on the
business, Rutowski sets forth. The Prussian battery, or bridge-head
(TETE-DE-PONT), at Pirna, has not noticed him, so silent was he. But,
alas, the other batteries do not fail to notice; to give fire; and, in
fact, on being answered, and finding it a serious thing, to burst out
into horrible explosion; unanswerable by the Saxon field-pieces;
and surely perilous to human nature steering and towing those big
River-Boats. "Loyal to our King, and full of pity for him; that are
we;"--but towing at a rate, say of two shillings per head! Before long,
the forty towing peasants fling down their ropes, first one, then more,
then all, in spite of efforts, promises, menaces; and vanish among the
thickets,--forfeiting the two shillings, on view of imminent death.
Soldiers take the towing-ropes; try to continue it a little; but now the
steersmen also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us out, let us out!
We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if you don't!" making
night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks down for that bout;
double barges mooring on the Saxon shore, I know not precisely at what
point, nor is it material.
SATURDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 9th-10th) New boatmen, forty new towmen have
been hired at immense increase of wages; say four shillings for the
night: but have you much good probability, my General, that even for
that high guerdon imminence of death can be made indifferent to towmen?
No, you have n't. The matter goes this night precisely as it did last:
towmen vanishing in the horrible cannon tumult; steersmen shrieking, "We
will ground you on the Prussian shore;" very soldiers obliged to give it
up; and General Rutowski himself obliged to wash his hands of it, as
a thing that cannot be done. In fact, a thing which need not have been
tried, had Rutowski been rigorously candid with himself and his hopes,
as the facts now prove to be. "Twenty-four hours lost by this bad
business" (says he; "thirty-six," as I count, or, to take it rigorously,
"forty-eight" even): and now, Sunday morning instead of Friday, at what,
in sad truth, is metaphorically "the eleventh hour," Rutowski has to
bethink him of his copper pontoons; and make the impossible carting
method possible in a day's time, or do worse.
SUNDAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10th-11th, By unheard-of exertions, all hands
and all spent-horses now at a dead-lift effort night and day, Rutowski
does get his pontoons carted out of the Pirna storehouse; lands them
at Thurmsdorf,--opposite the Lilienstein,--a mile or so short of
Konigstein, where his Bridge shall be. It is now the 11th, at night. And
our pontoons are got to the ground, nothing more. Every man of us, at
this hour, should have been across, and trimming himself to climb, with
bayonet fixed! Browne is ready, expecting our signal-shot to storm in
on his side. And our bridge is not built, only the pontoons here. "All
things went perverse," adds Rutowski, for farther comfort: "we [Saxon
Home-Army] had with us, except Officers, only Four Pontoniers, or
trained Bridge-builders; all the rest are at Warsaw:" sad thought, but
too late to think it!
TUESDAY, TILL WEDNESDAY EARLY (12th-13th), Bridge, the Four Pontoniers,
with Officers and numb soldiers doing their best, is got built;--Browne
waiting for us, on thorns, all day; Prussians extensively beginning to
strengthen their posts, about the Lilienstein, about Lichtenhayn, or
where risk is; and in fact pouring across to that northern side, quite
aware of Rutowski and Browne.
That same night, 12th-13th, while the Bridge was struggling to complete
itself,--rain now falling, and tempests broken out,--the Saxon Army,
from Pirna down to Hennersdorf, had lifted itself from its Lines, and
got under way towards Thurmsdorf, and the crossing-place. Dark night,
plunging rain; all the elements in uproar. The worst roads in Nature;
now champed doubly; "such roads as never any Army marched on before."
Most of their cannon are left standing; a few they had tried to yoke,
broke down, "and choked up the narrow road altogether; so that the
cavalry had to dismount, and lead their horses by side-paths,"--figure
what side-paths! Distance to Thurmsdorf, from any point of the Saxon
Lines, cannot be above six miles: but it takes them all that night and
all next day. Such a march as might fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye
Rutowskis, Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors, what
a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild raging weather,
labyrinthic roads worn knee-deep. It is broad daylight, Wednesday, 13th,
and only the vanguard is yet got across, trailing a couple of cannons;
and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank there, in spite of wet and
hunger; rain still pouring, wind very high.
Nothing of Browne comes, this Wednesday; but from the opposite
Gross-Sedlitz and Gottleube side, the Prussians are coming. This
morning, at daylight, struck by symptoms, "the Prussians mounted our
empty redoubts:" they are now in full chase of us, Ziethen with Hussars
as vanguard. A difficult bit of marching, even Ziethen and his light
people find it; sprawling forward, at their cheeriest, with daylight
to help, and in chase, not chased, through such intricacies of rock and
mud. Ziethen's company did not assist the Saxons! They wheel round, show
fight, and there is volleying and bickering all day; the Saxon march
getting ever more perturbed. Nearly all the baggage has to be left.
Ziethen takes into the woods near Thurmsdorf; giving fire as the poor
wet Saxons, now much in a pell-mell condition, pass to their Bridge.
[PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten), _i. 852.] Heavier
Prussians are striding on to rear; these, from some final hill-top, do
at last belch out two cannon-shots: figure the confusion at that Bridge,
the speed now becoming delirious there! Towards evening, rain still
violent, the Saxons, baggageless, and rushing quite pell-mell the latter
part of them, are mostly across, still countable to 14,000 or so;--upon
which they cut their Bridge adrift, and let the river take it. At
Raden, a few miles lower, the Prussians fished it out; rebuilt it more
deliberately,--and we shall find it there anon. This day Friedrich,
hearing what is afoot, has returned in person from the Lobositz
Country; takes Struppen as his head-quarter, which was lately the Polish
Majesty's.
From Browne there has nothing come this Wednesday; but to-morrow morning
at seven there comes a Letter from him, written this night at ten; to
the effect:--
"HEAD-QUARTER, LICHTENHAYN, Wednesday, October 13th, 10 P.M.
"EXCELLENZ,--Have [omitting the I] waited here at Lichtenhayn since
Tuesday, expecting your signal-cannon; hearing nothing of it, conclude
you have by misfortune not been able to get across; and that the
Enterprise is up. My own position being dangerous [Prussians of double
my strength intrenched within few miles of me], I turn homewards
to-morrow at nine A.M.: ready for whatever occurs TILL then; and
sorrowfully say adieu," [PRECIS (ut supra), p. 493; _Helden-Geschichte,
_iii. 940; &c.]
Dreadful weather for Browne in his bivouac, and wearisome waiting,
with Prussians and perils accumulating on him! Browne was ill of lungs;
coughing much; lodging, in these violent tempests, on the cold ground.
A right valiant soldier and man, as does appear; the flower of all the
Irish Brownes (though they have quite forgotten him in our time), and of
all those Irish Exiles then tragically spending themselves in Austrian
quarrels! "You saw the great man," says one who seems to have been
present, "how he sacrificed himself to this Enterprise. What Austrian
Field-marshal but himself would ever have lowered his loftiness to lead,
in person, so insignificant a Detachment, merely for the public good!
I have seen staff-officers, distinguished only by their sasheries and
insignia, who would not have stirred to inspect a vedette without 250
men. Our Field-marshal was of another turn. Sharing with his troops all
the hardships, none excepted, of these critical days; and in spite of a
violent cough, which often brought the visible blood from his lungs, and
had quite worn him down; exposing himself, like the meanest of the Army,
to the tempests of rainy weather. Think what a sight it was, going to
your very heart, and summoning you to endurance of every hardship,--that
evening [not said which], when the Field-marshal, worn out with his
fatigues and his disorder, sank out of fainting-fits into a sleep! The
ground was his bed, and the storm of clouds his coverlid. In crowds his
brave war-comrades gathered round; stripped their cloaks, their coats,
and strove in noble rivalry which of them should have the happiness to
screen the Father of the Army at their own cost of exposure, and by
any device keep the pelting of the weather from that loved head!"
[Cogniazzo, _Gestandnisse eines OEsterreichischen Veterans, _ii. 251.]
There is a picture for you, in the heights of Lichtenhayn, as you steam
past Schandau, in contemplative mood; and perhaps think of "Justice to
Ireland!" among other sad thoughts that rise.
From Thurmsdorf to the Pontoon-Bridge there was a kind of road; down
which the Saxons scrambled yesterday; and, by painful degrees, got
wriggled across. But, on the other shore, forward to the Hamlets of
Halbstadt and Ebenheit, there is nothing but a steep slippery footpath:
figure what a problem for the 14,000 in such weather! Then at
Ebenheit, close behind, Browne-wards, were Browne now there, rises the
Lilienstein, abrupt rocky mountain, its slopes on both hands washed
by the River (River making its first elbow here, closely girdling this
Lilienstein): on both these slopes are Prussian batteries, each with its
abatis; needing to be stormed:--that will be your first operation.
Abatis and slopes of the Lilienstein once stormed, you fall into a
valley or hollow, raked again by Prussian batteries; and will have to
mount, still storming, out of the valley, sky-high across the Ziegenruck
(GOAT'S-BACK) ridge: that is your second preliminary operation. After
which you come upon the work itself; namely, the Prussian redoubts at
Lichtenhayn, and 12,000 men on them by this time! A modern Tourist says,
reminding or informing:
"From the Konigstein to Pirna, Elbe, if serpentine, is like a serpent
rushing at full speed. Just past the Konigstein, the Elbe, from
westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to northward; runs so
for a mile and a half; then, just before getting to the BASTEI at
Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so continues. Tourists
know Raden,"--where the Prussians have just fished out a Bridge for
themselves,--"with the BASTEI high aloft to west of it. The Old Inn,
hospitable though sleepless, stands pleasantly upon the River-brink,
overhung by high cliffs: close on its left side, or in the intricacies
to rear of it, are huts and houses, sprinkled about, as if burrowed in
the sandstone; more comfortably than you could expect. The site is a
narrow dell, narrow chasm, with labyrinthic chasms branching off from
it; narrow and gloomy as seen from the River, but opening out even into
cornfields as you advance inwards: work of a small Brook, which is still
industriously tinkling and gushing there, and has in Pre-Adamite times
been a lake, and we know not what. Nieder-Raden, this, on the north side
of the River; of Ober-Raden, on the south side, there is nothing visible
from your Inn windows,"--nor have we anything to do with it farther.
An older Guide of Tourists yields us this second Fraction (capable of
condensation):--
... "To Halbstadt, thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and steeper;
from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you take a guide. The Mountain is
conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you where needed: August
the Strong's Hunting-Lodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here (August went thither in
a grand way, 1708, with his Wife); Lodge still extant, by the side of a
wood;--Lilienstein towering huge and sheer, solitary, grand, like some
colossal Pillar of the Cyclops, from this round Pediment of Country
which you have been climbing; tops of Lilienstein plumed everywhere with
fir and birch, Pediment also very green and woody. August the Strong,
grandly visiting here, 1708, on finish of those stair-steps cut for
you, set up an Ebenezer, or Column of Memorial at this Hunting-Hut, with
Inscription which can still be read, though now with difficulty in its
time-worn state:--
"FRIEDERICUS AUGUSTUS, REX [of what? Dare not say of POLAND just now,
for fear of Charles XII.], ET ELECTOR SAX., UT FORTUNAEM VIRTUTE, ITA
ASPERAM HANC RUPEM PRIMUS [PRIMUS not of men, but of Saxon Electors]
SUPERAVIT, ADITUMQUE FACILIOREM REDDI CURAVIT. ANNO 1708."--"UT FORTUNAM
VIRTUTE, As his fortune by valor, SO he conquered this rugged rock
by"--Poor devil, only hear him:--and think how good Nature is (for the
time being) to poor devils and their 354 bastards! [M.(agister) Wilhelm
Lebrecht Gotzinger, _Schandau und seine Umgebungen, oder Beschreibung
der Sachsischen Schweitz _(Dresden, 1812), pp. 145-148. Gotzinger,
who designates himself as "Pastor at Neustadt near Stolpen" (northwest
border of the Pirna Country), has made of this (which would now be
called a TOURIST'S GUIDE, and has something geological in it) a modest,
good little Book, put together with industry, clearness, brevity. Gives
interesting Narrative of our present Business too, as gathered from his
"Father" and other good sources and testimonies.]
Bruhl and the Polish Majesty, safe enough they, and snug in the
Konigstein, are clear for advancing: "Die like soldiers, for your King
and Country!" writes Polish Majesty, "Thursday, two in the morning:"
that also Rutowski reads; and I think still other Royal Autographs, sent
as Postscripts to that. From the Konigstein they duly fire off the two
Cannon-shot, as signal that we are coming; signal which Browne, just in
the act of departing, never heard, owing to the piping of the winds and
rattling of the rain. "Advance, my heroes!" counsel they: "You cannot
drag your ammunitions, say you; your poor couple of big guns? Here are
his Majesty's own royal horses for that service!"--and, in effect, the
royal stud is heroically flung open in this pressure; and a splashing
column of sleek quadrupeds, "150 royal draught-horses, early in the
forenoon," [Gotzinger, p. 156.] swim across to Ebenheit accordingly, if
that could encourage. And, "about noon, there is strong cannonading from
the Konigstein, as signal to Browne," who is off. Polish Majesty looking
with his spy-glass in an astonished manner. In Vain! Rutowski and his
Council of War--sitting wet in a hut of Ebenheit, with 14,000 starved
men outside, who have stood seventy-two hours of rain, for one item--see
nothing for it but "surrender on such terms as we can get."
"In fact," independently of weather and circumstances, "the Enterprise,"
says Friedrich, "was radically impossible; nobody that had known the
ground could have judged it other." Rutowski had not known it, then?
Browne never pretended to know it. Rutowski was not candid with the
conditions; the conditions never known nor candidly looked at; and
THEY are now replying to him with candor enough. From the first his
Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope; going out, as here, by
spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and flat despair.
That column of royal horses sent splashing across the River,--that was
the utmost of self-sacrifice which I find recorded of his Polish Majesty
in this matter. He was very obstinate; his Bruhl and he were. But his
conduct was not very heroic. That royal Autograph, "General Rutowski,
and ye true Saxons, attack these Prussian lines, then; sell your lives
like men" (not like Bruhl and me), must have fallen cold on the heart,
after seventy-two hours of rain! Rutowski's wet Council of War, in the
hut at Ebenheit, rain still pouring, answers unanimously, "That it were
a leading of men to the butchery;" that there is nothing for it but
surrender. Bruhl and Majesty can only answer: "Well-a-day; it must be
so, then!"--
Winterfeld, Prussian Commander hereabouts, grants Armistice, grants
liberal "wagon-loads of bread" first of all; terms of Capitulation to be
settled at Struppen to-morrow.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15th, Rutowski goes across to Struppen, the late Saxon
head-quarter, now Friedrich's;--Friday gone a fortnight was the day
of Lobositz. Winterfeld and he are the negotiators there; Friedrich
ratifying or refusing by marginal remarks. The terms granted are hard
enough: but they must be accepted. First preliminary of all terms has
already been accepted: a gift of bread to these poor Saxons; their
haversacks are empty, their cartridge-boxes drowned; it has rained on
them three days and nights. Last upshot of all terms is still well known
to everybody: That the 14,000 Saxons are compelled to become Prussian,
and "forced to volunteer"!
That had been Friedrich's determination, and reading of his rights in
the matter, now that hard had come to hard. "You refused all terms; you
have resisted to death (or death's-DOOR); and are now at discretion!"
Of the question, What is to be done with those Saxons? Friedrich
had thought a great deal, first and last; and had found it very
intricate,--as readers too will, if they think of it. "Prisoners of
War,--to keep them locked up, with trouble and expense, in that fashion?
They can never be exchanged: Saxony has now nothing to exchange them
with; and Austria will not. Their obstinacy has had costs to me; who of
us can count what costs! In short, they shall volunteer!"
"Never did I, for my poor part, authorize such a thing," loudly
asseverated Rutowski afterwards. And indeed the Capitulation is not
precise on that interesting point. A lengthy Document, and not worth
the least perusal otherwise; we condense it into three Articles, all
grounding on this general Basis, not deniable by Rutowski: "The Saxon
Army, being at such a pass, ready to die of hunger, if we did NOT lift
our finger, has, so to speak, become our property; and we grant it the
following terms:"--
"1. Kettle-drums, standards and the like insignia and matters of
honor,--carry these to the Konigstein, with my regretful respects to
his Polish Majesty. Konigstein to be a neutral Fortress during this War.
Polish Majesty at perfect liberty to go to Warsaw [as he on the instant
now did, and never returned].
"2. Officers to depart on giving their parole, Not to serve against us
during this War [Parole given, nothing like too well kept].
"3. Rest of the Army, with all its equipments, munitions, soul and body
(so to speak), is to surrender utterly, and be ours, as all Saxony shall
for the present be." [In _Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 920-928, at full
length--with Briedrich's MARGINALIA noticeably brief.]
That is, in sum, the Capitulation of Struppen. Nothing articulate in it
about the one now interesting point,--and in regard to that, I can only
fancy Rutowski might interject, interrogatively, perhaps at some
length: "Our soldiers to be Prisoners of War, then?" "Prisoners; yes,
clearly,--unless they choose to volunteer, and have a better fate!
Prisoners can volunteer. They are at discretion; they would die, if we
did NOT lift our finger!" thus I suppose Winterfeld would rejoin, if
necessary;--and that, in the Winterfeld-Rutowski Conferences, the thing
had probably been kept in a kind of CHIAROSCURO by both parties.
Very certain it is, Sunday, 17th October, 1756, Capitulation being
signed the night before, Friedrich goes across at Nieder-Raden (where
the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI; where the
Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together out of those
Pontoons),--goes across at Nieder-Raden, up that chasmy Pass; rides to
the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener country behind; and pauses
there, while the captive Saxon Army defiles past him, laying down its
arms at his feet. Unarmed, and now under Prussian word of command,
these Ex-Saxon soldiers go on defiling; march through by that Chasm
of Nieder-Raden; cross to Ober-Raden; and, in the plainer country
thereabouts, are--in I know not what length of hours, but in an
incredibly short length, so swift is the management--changed wholly into
Prussian soldiers: "obliged to volunteer," every one of them!
That is the fact; fact loudly censured; fact surely questionable,--to
what intrinsic degree I at this moment do not know. Fact much
blamable before the loose public of mankind; upon which I leave men to
their verdict. It is not a fact which invites imitation, as we shall
see! Fact how accomplished; by what methods? that would be the question
with me; but even that is left dark. "The horse regiments, three of
heavy horse, he broke; and distributed about, a good few in his own
Garde-du-Corps." Three other horse regiments were in Poland, the sole
Saxon Army now left,--of whom, at least of one man among whom, we may
happen to hear. "Ten foot regiments [what was reckoned a fault] he
left together; in Prussian uniform, with Prussian Officers. They were
scattered up and down; put in garrisons; not easy handling them: they
deserted by whole companies at a time in the course of this War."
[Preuss, ii. 22, 135; in Stenzel (v. 16-20) more precise details.] Not
a measure for imitation, as we said!--How Friedrich defended such hard
conduct to the Saxons? Reader, I know only that Destiny and Necessity,
urged on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at
this time; and that Friedrich did not the least dream of making any
defence;--and will have to take your verdict, such as it may be.
Moritz of Dessau had a terrible Winter of it, organizing and breaking
in these Saxon people,--got by press-gang in this way. Polish Majesty,
"with 500 of suite," had driven instantly for Warsaw; post-horses most
politely furnished him, and all the Prussian posts and soldiers well
kept out of his road,--road chosen for him to that end. Poor soul,
he never came back. For six years coming, he saw, from Warsaw in the
distance (amid anarchy and NIE-POZWALAM, which he never lacked there),
the wide War raging, in Saxony especially; and died soon after it was
done. Nor did Bruhl return, except broken by that event, and to die
in few months after. Let us pity the poor fat-goose of a Majesty
(not ill-natured at all, only stupid and idle): some pity even to the
doomed-phantasm Bruhl, if you can;--and thank Heaven to have got done
with such a pair!--
Friedrich's treatment of the Saxon Troops, Saxon Majesty and Country:
who shall say that it was wise in all points? It would be singular
treatment, if it were! In all things, AFTER is so different from
BEFORE and DURING. The truth is, Friedrich hoped long to have made some
agreement with the Saxons. And readers now, in the universal silence,
have no notion of Friedrich's complexities from fact, and of the
loud howl of hostile rumor, which was piping through all journals,
diplomacies and foreign human throats, against him at that time.
"The essential passages of War and Peace," says a certain Commentator,
"during those Five weeks of Pirna, can be made intelligible in small
compass. But how the world argued of them then and afterwards, and rang
with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic logic from side to side, no reader
will now ever know. A world-tornado extinct, gone:--think of the sounds
uttered from human windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse
others with ditto; of the vituperations, execrations, printed and
vocal,--grating harsh thunder upon Friedrich and this new course of his.
Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that topic,
through the afflicted Universe in general, for certain years. The very
Pamphlets printed on it,--cannot Dryasdust give me the number of tons
weight, then? Dead now every Pamphlet of them; a thing fallen horrible
to human nature; extinct forever, as is the wont in such cases."
I will give only this of Voltaire; a mild Epigram, done at The DELICES,
in pleasant view of Ferney and good things coming. A bolt shot into the
storm-tost Sea and its wreckages, by a Mariner now cheerily drying his
clothes on the shore there;--in fact, an indifferent Epigram, on Kings
Friedrich and George, which is now flying about in select circles:--
"Rivaux du Vainqueur de l'Euphrate,
L'Oncle et le Neveu,
L'un fait la guerre en pirate,
L'autre en parti bleu."
"Rivals of Alexander the Great, this Uncle and Nephew make war, the one
as a Pirate [seizure of those French ships], the other [Saxony stolen]
as Captain of an Accidental Thieving-squad,"--PARTI BLEU, as the French
soldiers call it. [Walpole's LETTERS, "To Sir Horace Mann, 8th December;
1756."]
MAP facing page 365, Chap VII, Book 17----
Pirna was no sooner done than Friedrich returned to the "Camp at
Lobositz," where his victorious Keith-Army has been lying all this
while. The Camp of Lobositz, and all Camps Prussian and Austrian, are
about to strike their tents, and proceed to Winter-quarters, to prepare
against next Spring. Friedrich set off thither October 18th (the very
day after that of Waltersdorf); with intent to bring home Keith's Army,
and see if Browne meant anything farther (which Browne did not, or does
only in the small Tolpatch way); also to meet, Schwerin, whom he had
summoned over from Silesia for a little conference there. Schwerin,
after eating Konigsgratz Country well,--which was all he could do,
as Piccolomini would not come out, and we know how strong the ground
is,--had retired to Silesia again, in due season (snapping up, in a
sharply conclusive manner, any Tolpatcheries that attempted chase of
him); taken Winter cantonments in Silesia, headquarter Schweidnitz;
and is now getting his Instructions, here personally, in the Metal
Mountains, for a day or two. [_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 946, 948.]
Friedrich brought his Keith-Army home to Gross-Sedlitz, to join the
other Force there; and distributed the whole into their Winter-quarters.
Cantoned far and wide, spreading out from Pirna on both hands: on the
left or western hand, by Zwickau, Freyberg, Chemnitz, up to Leipzig,
Torgau; and on the right or northeast hand, by Zittau, Gorlitz, Bautzen,
to protect the Lausitz against Austrian inroads,--while a remote
Detachment, under Winterfeld, watches the Bober River with similar
views. [In _Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 948 et seq., a minute List by Place
and Regiment.] All which done, or settled to be done, Friedrich quits
Gross-Sedlitz, November 14th; and takes up his abode at Dresden for this
Winter.