The famed beautiful Elbe River rises in romantic chasms, terrible to the
picturesque beholder, at the roots of the Riesengebirge; overlooked
by the Hohe-Kamms, and highest summits of that chain. "Out of eleven
wells," says gentle Dulness, "EILF or ELF QUELLEN, whence its name, Elbe
for ELF." Sure enough, it starts out of various wells; [Description, in
Zollner, _Briefe uber Schlesien,_ ii. 305; in &c. &c.] rushes out, like
a great peacock's or pasha's tail, from the roots of the Giant Mountains
thereabouts; and hurries southward,--or even rather eastward, at first;
for (except the Iser to westward, which does not fall in for a great
while) its chief branches come from the eastern side: Aupa, Metau,
Adler, the drainings of Glatz, and of that rugged Country where
Friedrich has been camping and manoeuvring all summer. On the whole,
its course is southward for the first seventy or eighty miles, washing
Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz it
turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by
hill and plain, through the rest of its five or six hundred miles.
Its first considerable branch, on that eastern or left bank, is the
Aupa, which rises in the Pass of Schatzlar (great struggling there, for
convoys, just now); goes next by Trautenau, which has lately been burnt;
and joins the Elbe at Jaromirz, where Valori was stolen, or nearly so,
from under the Prussian left wing. The Aupa runs nearly straight south;
the Elbe, till meeting it, has run rather southeast; but after joining
they go south together, augmented by the Metau, by the Adler, down to
Pardubitz, where the final turn to west occurs. Jaromirz, which lies in
the very angle of Elbe and Aupa, is the left wing of Friedrich's Camp;
main body of the Camp lies on the other side of the Elbe, but of course
has bridges (as at Smirzitz, where that straw sentry did his pranks
lately); bridges are indispensable, part of our provision coming always
by that BOHEMIAN Neustadt, from the northeast quarter out of Silesia;
though the main course of our meal (and much fighting for it) is direct
from the north, by the Pass of Schatzlar,--"Chaslard," as poor Valori
calls it.
Thus Friedrich lay, when Valori escaped being stolen; when Tauenzien
was assailed by the 10,000 Pandours with siege artillery, and stood
inexpugnable in the breach till Friedrich relieved him. Those Pandours
"had cut away his water, for the last two days;" so that, except
for speedy relief, all valor had been in vain. Water being gone, not
recoverable without difficulties, Neustadt was abandoned (September
16th, as I guess);--one of our main Silesian roads for meal has ceased.
We have now only Schatzlar to depend on; where Franquini--lying westward
among the glens of the Upper Elbe, and possessed of abundant talent in
the Tolpatch way (witness Valori's narrow miss lately)--gives us trouble
enough. Friedrich determines to move towards Schatzlar. Homewards, in
fact; eating the Country well as he goes.
Saturday, 18th September, Friedrich crosses the Elbe at Jaromirz.
Entirely unopposed; the Austrians were all busy firing FEU-DE-JOIE
for the Election of their Grand-Duke: Election done five days ago at
Frankfurt, and the news just come. So they crackle about, and deliver
rolling fire, at a great rate; proud to be "IMPERIAL Army" henceforth,
as if that could do much for them. There was also vast dining, for
three days, among the high heads, and a great deal of wine spent. That
probably would have been the chance to undertake something upon them,
better than crossing the Elbe, says Friedrich looking back. But he did
not think of it in time; took second-best in place of best.
He is now, therefore, over into that Triangular piece of Country between
Elbe and Aupa (if readers will consult their Map); in that triangle,
his subsequent notable operations all lie. He here proposes to move
northward, by degrees,--through Trautenau, Schatzlar, and home; well
eating this bit of Country too, the last uneaten bit, as he goes. This
well eaten, there will be no harbor anywhere for Invasion, through the
Winter coming. One of my old Notes says of it, in the topographic point
of view:--
"It is a triangular patch of Country, which has lain asleep since the
Creation of the World; traversed only by Boii (BOI-HEIM-ERS, Bohemians),
Czechs and other such populations, in Human History; but which Friedrich
has been fated to make rather notable to the Moderns henceforth. Let me
recommend it to the picturesque tourist, especially to the military
one. Lovers of rocky precipices, quagmires, brawling torrents and the
unadulterated ruggedness of Nature, will find scope there; and it was
the scene of a distinguished passage of arms, with notable display of
human dexterity and swift presence of mind. For the rest, one of the
wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant
regions in the world. Wild stony upland; topmost Upland, we may say,
of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland; for the rainstorms
hereabouts run several roads,--into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the
Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder, into the Black Sea by the Donau;--and
it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeks-journeys, from
many sides.
"Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge
waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest' (KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium
of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in area, the
longer side of which lies along the Elbe. A Country of rocky defiles;
lowish hills chaotically shoved together, not wanting their brooks and
quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood. Some
poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are
scattered about; there may be patches ploughable for rye [modern Tourist
says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained; reminded
me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine
afternoon!]--ploughable for rye, buckwheat; boggy grass to be gathered
in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable, among
these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor
ploughing, moiling creatures, they little thought of becoming notable so
soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the least
notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no
more notice than if they also had been stocks and moss-grown stones.
Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years
past, in a dim manner;--and are much terrified to have become the seat
of war, all on a sudden. Their poor Hamlets, Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz,
Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them,
languidly, the live-coal of mysterious human existence, in those
woods,--to judge by the last maps that have come out. A thing worth
considering by the passing tourist, military or other."
It is in this Kingdom Forest (which he calls ROYAUME DE SILVA, instead
of SYLVA DE ROYAUME) that Friedrich now marches; keeping the body of the
Forest well on his left, and skirting the southern and eastern sides
of it. Rough marching for his Majesty; painfully infested by Nadastian
Tolpatches; who run out on him from ambushes, and need to be scourged;
one ambush in particular, at a place called Liebenthal (second day's
march, and near the end of it),--where our Prussian Hussars, winding
like fiery dragons on the dangerous precipices, gave them better than
they brought, and completely quenched their appetite for that day. After
Liebenthal, the march soon ends; three miles farther on, at the dim
wold-hamlet of Staudentz: here a camp is pitched; here, till the Country
is well eaten out, or till something else occur, we propose to tarry for
a time.
Horse-forage abounds here; but there is no getting of it without
disturbance from those dogs; you must fight for every truss of grass:
if a meal-train is coming, as there does every five days, you have
to detach 8,000 foot and 3,000 horse to help it safe in. A fretting
fatiguing time for regular troops. Our bakery is at Trautenau,--where
Valori is now lodging. The Tolpatchery, unable to take Trautenau, set
fire to it, though it is their own town, their own Queen's town; thatchy
Trautenau, wooden too in the upper stories of it, takes greedily to
the fire; goes all aloft in flame, and then lies black. A scandalous
transaction, thinks Friedrich. The Prussian corn lay nearly all in
cellars; little got, even of the Prussians, by such an atrocity: and
your own poor fellow-subjects, where are they? Valori was burnt out
here; again exploded from his quarters, poor man;--seems to have thought
it a mere fire in his own lodging, and that he was an unfortunate
diplomatist. Happily he got notice (PRIVATISSIME, for no officer dare
whisper in such cases) that there is an armed party setting out for
Silesia, to guard meal that is coming: Valori yokes himself to this
armed party, and gets safe over the Hills with it,--then swift, by extra
post, to Breslau and to civilized (partially civilized) accommodation,
for a little rest after these hustlings and tossings.
Friedrich had lain at Staudentz, in this manner, bickering continually
for his forage, and eating the Country, for about ten days: and now,
as the latter process is well on, and the season drawing to a close:
he determines on a shift northward. Thursday, 30th September next, let
there be one other grand forage, the final one in this eaten tract, then
northward to fresh grounds. That, it appears, was the design. But,
on Wednesday, there came in an Austrian deserter; who informs us that
Prince Karl is not now in Konigsgratz, but in motion up the Elbe;
already some fifty miles up; past Jaromirz: his rear at Konigshof, his
van at Arnau,--on a level with burnt Trautenau, and farther north than
we ourselves are. This is important news. "Intending to block us out
from Schatzlar? Hmh!" Single scouts, or small parties, cannot live in
this Kingdom Wood, swarming with Pandours: Friedrich sends out a Colonel
Katzler, with 500 light horse, to investigate a little. Katzler
pushes forward, on such lane or forest road-track as there is, towards
Konigshof; beats back small hussar parties;--comes, in about an hour's
space, not upon hussars merely, but upon dense masses of heavy horse
winding through the forest lanes; and, with that imperfect intelligence,
is obliged to return. The deserter spake truth, apparently; and that
is all we can know. Forage scheme is given up; the order is, "Baggage
packed, and MARCH to-morrow morning at ten." Long before ten, there
had great things befallen on the morrow!--Try to understand this Note a
little:--
"The Camp of Staudentz-which two persons (the King, and General Stille,
a more careful reporter, who also was an eye-witness) have done their
best to describe--will, after all efforts, and an Ordnance Map to help,
remain considerably unintelligible to the reader; as is too usual
in such cases. A block of high-lying ground; Friedrich's Camp on it,
perhaps two miles long, looks to the south; small Village of Staudentz
in front; hollow beyond that, and second small Village, Deutsch
Prausnitz, hanging on the opposite slope, with shaggy heights beyond,
and the Kingdom Forest there beginning: on the left, defiles, brooks
and strait country, leading towards the small town of Eypel: that is our
left and front aspect, a hollow well isolating us on those sides. Hollow
continues all along the front; hollow definite on our side of it, and
forming a tolerable defence:--though again, I perceive, to rightward at
no great distance, there rise High Grounds which considerably overhang
us." A thing to be marked! "These we could not occupy, for want of men;
but only maintain vedettes upon them. Over these Heights, a mile or
two westward of this hollow of ours, runs the big winding hollow called
Georgengrund (GEORGE'S BOTTOM), which winds up and down in that Kingdom
Forest, and offers a road from Konigshof to Trautenau, among other
courses it takes.
"From the crown of those Heights on our right flank here, looking to
the west, you might discern (perhaps three miles off, from one of
the sheltering nooks in the hither side of that Georgengrund), rising
faintly visible over knolls and dingles, the smoke of a little Forest
Village. That Village is Sohr; notable ever since, beyond others, in
the Kingdom Wood. Sohr, like the other Villages, has its lane-roads; its
road to Trautenau, to Konigshof, no doubt; but much nearer you, on our
eastern slope of the Heights, and far hitherward of Sohr, which is on
the western, goes the great road [what is now the great road], from
Konigshof to Trautenau, well visible from Friedrich's Camp, though still
at some distance from it. Could these Heights between us and Sohr, which
lie beyond the great road, be occupied, we were well secured; isolated
on the right too, as on the other sides, from Kingdom Forest and its
ambushes. 'Should have been done,' admits Friedrich; 'but then, as
it is, there are not troops enough:' with 18,000 men you cannot do
everything!"
Here, however, is the important point. In Sohr, this night, 29th
September, in a most private manner, the Austrians, 30,000 of them and
more, have come gliding through the woods, without even their pipe lit,
and with thick veil of hussars ahead! Outposts of theirs lie squatted in
the bushes behind Deutsch Prausnitz, hardly 500 yards from Friedrich's
Camp. And eastward, leftward of him, in the defiles about Eypel, lie
Nadasti and Ruffian Trenck, with ten or twelve thousand, who are to take
him in rear. His "Camp of Staudentz" will be at a fine pass to-morrow
morning. The Austrian Gentlemen had found, last week, a certain bare
Height in the Forest (Height still known), from which they could use
their astronomer tubes day after day; [Orlich, ii. 225.] and now they
are about attempting something!
Thursday morning, very early, 30th September, 1745, Friedrich was in his
tent, busy with generals and march-routes,--when a rapid orderly comes
in, from that Vedette, or strong Piquet, on the Heights to our right:
"Austrians visibly moving, in quantity, near by!" and before he has done
answering, the officer himself arrives: "Regular Cavalry in great force;
long dust-cloud in Kingdom Forest, in the gray dawn; and, so far as we
can judge, it is their Army coming on." Here is news for a poor man, in
the raw of a September morning, by way of breakfast to him! "To arms!"
is, of course, Friedrich's instant order; and he himself gallops to the
Piquet on the Heights, glass in hand. "Austrian Army sure enough,
thirty to thirty-five thousand of them, we only eighteen. [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ iii. 139.] Coming to take us on the right flank here;
to attack our Camp by surprise: will crush us northward through the
defiles, and trample us down in detail? Hmh! To run for it, will never
do. We must fight for it, and even attack THEM, as our way is, though on
such terms. Quick, a plan!" The head of Friedrich is a bank you cannot
easily break by coming on it for plans: such a creature for impromptu
plans, and unexpected dashes swift as the panther's, I have hardly
known,--especially when you squeeze him into a corner, and fancy he is
over with it! Friedrich gallops down, with his plan clear enough; and
already the Austrians, horse and foot, are deploying upon those Heights
he has quitted; Fifty Squadrons of Horse for left wing to them, and
a battery of Twenty-eight big Guns is establishing itself where
Friedrich's Piquet lately stood.
Friedrich's right flank has to become his front, and face those
formidable Austrian Heights and Batteries; and this with more than
Prussian velocity, and under the play of those twenty-eight big guns,
throwing case-shot (GRENADES ROYALES) and so forth, all the while.
To Valori, when he heard of the thing, it is inconceivable how mortal
troops could accomplish such a movement; Friedrich himself praises
it, as a thing honorably well done. Took about half an hour; case-shot
raining all the while; soldier honorably never-minding: no flurry,
though a speed like that of spinning-tops. And here we at length are,
Staudentz now to rear of us, behind our centre a good space; Burgersdorf
in front of us to right, our left reaching to Prausnitz: Austrian lines,
three deep of them, on the opposite Height; we one line only, which
matches them in length.
They, that left wing of horse, should have thundered down on us,
attacking us, not waiting our attack, thinks Friedrich; but they
have not done it. They stand on their height there, will perhaps fire
carbines, as their wont is. "You, Buddenbrock, go into them with your
Cuirassiers!" Buddenbrock and the Cuirassiers, though it is uphill,
go into them at a furious rate; meet no countercharge, mere sputter of
carbines;--tumble them to mad wreck, back upon their second line, back
upon their third: absurdly crowded there on their narrow height, no room
to manoeuvre; so that they plunge, fifty squadrons of them, wholly into
the Georgengrund rearward, into the Kingdom Wood, and never come on
again at all. Buddenbrock has done his job right well.
Seeing which, our Infantry of the right wing, which stood next to
Buddenbrock, made impetuous charge uphill, emulous to capture that
Battery of Twenty-eight; but found it, for some time, a terrible
attempt. These Heights are not to be called "hills," still less
"mountains" (as in some careless Books); but it is a stiff climb at
double-quick, with twenty-eight big guns playing in the face of you.
Storms of case-shot shear away this Infantry, are quenching its noble
fury in despair; Infantry visibly recoiling, when our sole Three
Regiments of Reserve hurry up to support. Round these all rallies;
rushes desperately on, and takes the Battery,--of course, sending the
Austrian left wing rapidly adrift, on loss of the same.
This, I consider, is the crisis of the Fight; the back of the Austrian
enterprise is already broken, by this sad winging of it on the left. But
it resists still; comes down again,--the reserve of their left wing
seen rapidly making for Burgersdorf, intending an attack there; which we
oppose with vigor, setting Burgersdorf on fire for temporary screen; and
drive the Austrian reserve rapidly to rearward again. But there is rally
after rally of them. They rank again on every new height, and dispute
there; loath to be driven into Kingdom Wood, after such a flourish of
arms. One height, "bushy steep height," the light-limbed valiant Prince,
little Ferdinand of Brunswick, had the charge of attacking; and he did
it with his usual impetus and irresistibility:--and, strangely enough,
the defender of it chanced to be that Brother of his, Prince Ludwig,
with whom he had the little Interview lately. Prince Ludwig got a wound,
as well as lost his height. The third Brother, poor Prince Albrecht,
who is also here, as volunteer apprentice, on the Prussian side, gets
killed. There will never be another Interview, for all three, between
the Camps! Strange times for those poor Princes, who have to seek
soldiering for their existence.
Meanwhile the Cavalry of Buddenbrock, that is to say of the right wing,
having now no work in that quarter, is despatched to reinforce the left
wing, which has stood hitherto apart on its own ground; not attacked or
attacking,--a left wing REFUSED, as the soldiers style it. Reinforced by
Buddenbrock, this left wing of horse does now also storm forward;--"near
the Village of Prausnitz" (Prausnitz a little way to rear of it),
thereabouts, is the scene of its feat. Feat done in such fashion that
the Austrians opposite will not stand the charge at all; but gurgle
about in a chaotic manner; then gallop fairly into Kingdom Wood, without
stroke struck; and disappear, as their fellows had done. Whereupon
the Prussian horse breaks in upon the adjoining Infantry of that flank
(Austrian right flank, left bare in this manner); champs it also into
chaotic whirlpools; cuts away an outskirt of near 2,000 prisoners,
and sets the rest running. This seems to have been pretty much the
COUP-DE-GRACE of the Fight; and to have brought the Austrian dispute to
finis. From the first, they had rallied on the heights; had struggled
and disputed. Two general rallies they made, and various partial, but
none had any success. They were driven on, bayonet in back, as the
phrase is: with this sad slap on their right, added to that old one on
their left, what can they now do but ebb rapidly; pour in cataracts
into Kingdom Wood, and disappear there? [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii.
135-143; Stille, pp. 144-163; Orlich, ii. 227-243; _Feldzuge,_ i. 357,
363, 374.]
Prince Karl's scheme was good, says Friedrich; but it was ill executed.
He never should have let us form; his first grand fault was that he
waited to be attacked, instead of attacking. Parts of his scheme were
never executed at all. Duke d'Ahremberg, for instance, it is said, had
so dim a notion of the ground, that he drew up some miles off, with
his back to the Prussians. Such is the rumor,--perhaps only a rumor,
in mockery of the hebetated old gentleman fallen unlucky? On the
other hand, that Nadasti made a failure which proved important, is
indubitable. Nadasti, with some thousands of Tolpatchery, was at
Liebenthal, four miles to southeast of the action; Ruffian Trenck lay
behind Eypel, perhaps as far to east, of it: Trenck and Nadasti were to
rendezvous, to unite, and attack the Prussian Camp on its rear,--"Camp,"
so ran the order, for it was understood the Prussians would all be
there, we others attacking it in front and both flanks;--which turned
out otherwise, not for Nadasti alone!
Nadasti came to his rendezvous in time; Ruffian Trenck did not:
Nadasti grew tired of waiting for Trenck, and attacked the Camp by
himself:--Camp, but not any men; Camp being now empty, and the men all
fighting, ranked at right angles to it, furlongs and miles away. Nadasti
made a rare hand of the Camp; plundered everything, took all the King's
Camp-furniture, ready money, favorite dog Biche,--likewise poor
Eichel his Secretary, who, however, tore the papers first. Tolpatchery
exultingly gutted the Camp; and at last set fire to it,--burnt even some
eight or ten poor Prussian sick, and also "some women whom they caught.
We found the limbs of these poor men and women lying about," reports
old General Lehwald; who knew about it. A doggery well worthy of the
gallows, think Lehwald and I. "Could n't help it; ferocity of wild men,"
says Nadasti. "Well; but why not attack, then, with your ferocity?"
Confused Court-martial put these questions, at Vienna subsequently; and
Ruffian Trenck, some say, got injustice, Nadasti shuffling things upon
him; for which one cares almost nothing. Lehwald, lying at Trautenau,
had heard the firing at sunrise; and instantly marched to help: he only
arrived to give Nadasti a slash or two, and was too late for the Fight.
One Schlichtling, on guard with a weak party, saved what was in the
right wing of the Camp,--small thanks to him, the Main Fight being so
near: Friedrich's opinion is, an Officer, in Schlichtling's place, ought
to have done more, and not have been so helpless.
This was the Battle of Sohr; so called because the Austrians had begun
there, and the Prussians ended there. The Prussian pursuit drew bridle
at that Village; unsafe to prosecute Austrians farther, now in the deeps
of Kingdom Forest. The Battle has lasted five hours. It must be now
getting towards noon; and time for breakfast, if indeed any were to be
had; but that is next to impossible, Nadasti having been so busy. Not
without extreme difficulty is a manchet of bread, with or without a drop
of wine, procured for the King's Majesty this day. Many a tired hero
will have nothing but tobacco, with spring-water, to fall back upon.
Never mind! says the King, says everybody. After all, it is a cheap
price to pay for missing an attack from Pandours in the rear, while such
crisis went on ahead.
Lying COUSIN Trenck, of the Life-guard, who is now in Glatz, gives vivid
eye-witness particulars of these things, time of the morning and so on;
says expressly he was there, and what he did there, [Frederic Baron de
Trenck, _Memoires, traduits par lui-meme_ (Strasburg and Paris, 1789),
i. 74-78, 79.]--though in Glatz under lock and key, three good months
before. "How could I help mistakes," said he afterwards, when people
objected to this and that in his blusterous mendacity of a Book: "I had
nothing but my poor agitated memory to trust to!" A man's memory, when
it gets the length of remembering that he was in the Battle of Sohr
while bodily absent, ought it not to--in fact, to strike work; to still
its agitations altogether, and call halt? Trenck, some months after,
got clambered out of Glatz, by sewers, or I forget how; and leaped, or
dropped, from some parapet into the River Neisse,--sinking to the loins
in tough mud, so that he could not stir.
MAP TO GO HERE----BOOK 15--page 499----
"Fouquet let me stand there half a day, before he would pick me
out again." Rigorous Bouquet, human mercy forbidding, could not let
him stand there in permanence,--as we, better circumstanced, may with
advantage try to do, in time coming!
Friedrich lay at Sohr five days; partly for the honor of the thing,
partly to eat out the Country to perfection. Prince Karl, from
Konigshof, soon fell back to Konigsgratz; and lay motionless there,
nothing but his Tolpatcheries astir, Sohr Country all eaten, Friedrich,
in the due Divisions, marched northward. Through Trautenau, Schatzlar,
his own Division, which was the main one;--and, fencing off the
Tolpatches successfully with trouble, brings all his men into Silesia
again. A good job of work behind them, surely! Cantons them to right and
left of Landshut, about Rohnstock and Hohenfriedberg, hamlets known so
well; and leaving the Young Dessauer to command, drives for Berlin (30th
October),--rapidly, as his wont is. Prince Karl has split up his force
at Konigsgratz; means, one cannot doubt, to go into winter-quarters.
If he think of invading, across that eaten Country and those bad
Mountains,--well, our troops can all be got together in six hours' time.
At Trautenau, a week after Sohr, Friedrich had at last received the
English ratification of that Convention of Hanover, signed 26th August,
almost a month ago; not ratified till September 22d. About which there
had latterly been some anxiety, lest his Britannic Majesty himself might
have broken off from it. With Austria, with Saxony, Britannic Majesty
has been entirely unsuccessful:--"May not Sohr, perhaps, be a fresh
persuasive?" hopes Friedrich;--but as to Britannic Majesty's breaking
off, his thoughts are far from that, if we knew! Poor Majesty: not long
since, Supreme Jove of Germany; and now--is like to be swallowed
in ragamuffin street-riots; not a thunder-bolt within clutch of him
(thunder-bolts all sticking in the mud of the Netherlands, far off), and
not a constable's staff of the least efficacy! Consider these dates in
combination. Battle of Sohr was on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30th:--
"SUNDAY preceding, SEPTEMBER 26th, was such a Lord's-Day in the City of
Edinburgh, as had not been seen there,--not since Jenny Geddes's stool
went flying at the Bishop's head, above a hundred years before. Big
alarm-bell bursting out in the middle of divine service; emptying all
the Churches ('Highland rebels just at hand!')--into General Meeting of
the Inhabitants, into Chaos come again, for the next forty hours.
Till, in the gaunt midnight, Tuesday, 2 A.M., Lochiel with about 1,000
Camerons, waiting slight opportunity, crushed in through the Netherbow
Port; and"--And, about noon of that day, a poor friend of ours,
loitering expectant in the road that leads by St. Anthony's Well, saw
making entry into paternal Holyrood,--the Young Pretender, in person,
who is just being proclaimed Prince of Wales, up in the High-street
yonder! "A tall slender young man, about five feet ten inches high; of
a ruddy complexion, high-nosed, large rolling brown eyes; long-visaged,
red-haired, but at that time wore a pale periwig. He was in a Highland
habit [coat]; over the shoulder a blue sash wrought with gold; red
velvet breeches; a green velvet bonnet, with white cockade on it and
a gold lace. His speech seemed very like that of an Irishman; very sly
[how did you know, my poor friend?];--spoke often to O'Sullivan [thought
to be a person of some counsel; had been Tutor to Maillebois's Boys, had
even tried some irregular fighting under Maillebois]--to O'Sullivan and"
[Henderson, _Highland Rebellion,_ p. 14.]... And on Saturday, in short,
came PRESTONPANS. Enough of such a Supreme Jove; good for us here as a
timetable chiefly, or marker of dates!
Sunday, 3d October, King's Adjutant, Captain Mollendorf, a young Officer
deservedly in favor, arrives at Berlin with the joyful tidings of
this Sohr business ("Prausnitz" we then called it): to the joy of all
Prussians, especially of a Queen Mother, for whom there is a Letter in
pencil. After brief congratulation, Mollendorf rushes on; having next to
give the Old Dessauer notice of it in his Camp at Dieskau, in the Halle
neighborhood. Mollendorf appears in Halle suddenly next morning, Monday,
about ten o'clock, sixteen postilions trumpeting, and at their swiftest
trot, in front of him;--shooting, like a melodious morning-star, across
the rusty old city, in this manner,--to Dieskau Camp, where he gives the
Old Dessauer his good news. Excellent Victory indeed; sharp striking,
swift self-help on our part. Halle and the Camp have enough to think
of, for this day and the next. Whither Mollendorf went next, we will not
ask: perhaps to Brunswick and other consanguineous places?--Certain it
is,
"On Wednesday, the 6th, about two in the afternoon, the Old Dessauer
has his whole Army drawn out there, with green sprigs in their hats,
at Dieskau, close upon the Saxon Frontier; and, after swashing and
manoeuvring about in the highest military style of art, ranks them
all in line, or two suitable lines, 30,000 of them; and then,
with clangorous outburst of trumpet, kettle-drum and all manner of
field-music, fires off his united artillery a first time; almost shaking
the very hills by such a thunderous peal, in the still afternoon. And
mark, close fitted into the artillery peal, commences a rolling fire,
like a peal spread out in threads, sparkling strangely to eye and ear;
from right to left, long spears of fire and sharp strokes of sound,
darting aloft, successive simultaneous, winding for the space of miles,
then back by the rear line, and home to the starting-point: very
grand indeed. Again, and also again, the artillery peal, and rolling
small-arms fitted into it, is repeated; a second and a third time,
kettle-drums and trumpets doing what they can. That was the Old
Dessauer's bonfiring (what is called FEU-DE-JOIE), for the Victory of
Sohr; audible almost at Leipzig, if the wind were westerly. Overpowering
to the human mind; at least, to the old Newspaper reporter of that day.
But what was strangest in the business," continues he "(DAS CURIEUSESTE
DABEY), was that the Saxon Uhlans, lying about in the villages across
the Border, were out in the fields, watching the sight, hardly 300 yards
off, from beginning to end; and little dreamed that his High Princely
Serenity," blue of face and dreadful in war, "was quite close to them,
on the Height called Bornhock; condescending to 'take all this into
High-Serene Eye-shine there; and, by having a white flag waved,
deigning to give signal for the discharges of the artillery.'"
[_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 1124.]
By this the reader may know that the Old Dessauer is alive, ready for
action if called on; and Bruhl ought to comprehend better how riskish
his game with edge-tools is. Bruhl is not now in an unprepared
state:--here are Uhlans at one's elbow looking on. Rutowski's Uhlans;
who lies encamped, not far off, in good force, posted among morasses;
strongly entrenched, and with schemes in his head, and in Bruhl's, of
an aggressive, thrice-secret and very surprising nature! I remark only
that, in Heidelberg Country, victorious old Traun is putting his people
into winter-quarters; himself about to vanish from this History, [Went
to SIEBENBURGEN (Transylvania) as Governor; died there February,
1748, age seventy-one (_Maria Theresiens Leben,_ p. 56 n.).]--and has
detached General Grune with 10,000 men; who left Heidelberg October 9th,
on a mysterious errand, heeded by nobody; and will turn up in the next
Chapter.