_The French enter the Prussian Dominions, where they commit
great Disorders..... Reflections on the Misconduct of the
Allied Army..... Russian Fleet blocks up the Prussian Ports
in the Baltic..... Russians take Memel..... Declaration of
the King of Prussia on that occasion..... Army of the Empire
raised with Difficulty..... The Austrians take Gabel.....
and destroy Zittau..... The Prince of Prussia leaves the
Army..... Communication between England and Ostend broke
off..... Gueldres capitulates..... Skirmishes between the
Prussians and Austrians..... and between the Prussians and
Russians..... Mareschal Lehwald attacks the Russians in their
Intrenchments near Norkitten..... Hasty Retreat of the
Russians out of Prussia..... French and Imperialists take
Gotha..... Action between the Prussians and Austrians near
Goerlitz..... The French oblige Prince Ferdinand to
retire..... Berlin laid under Contribution by the Austrians;
and Leipsic subjected to military Execution by the
Prussians..... Battle of Rosbach..... The Austrians take
Schweidnitz; and defeat the Prince of Bevern near
Breslau..... Mareschal Keith lays Bohemia under
Contribution..... King of Prussia defeats the Austrians at
Lissa; retakes Breslau and Schweidnitz, and becomes Master
of all Silesia..... Hostilities of the Swedes in
Pomerania..... Mareschal Lehwald forces the Swedes to
retire...... Memorial presented to the Dutch by Colonel
Yorke, relative to Ostend and Nieuport..... King of
Prussia’s Letter to the King of Great Britain..... His
Britannic Majesty’s Declaration..... Disputes concerning the
Convention of Closter-Seven..... Progress of the Hanoverian
Army..... Death of the Queen of Poland..... Transactions at
Sea..... Fate of Captain Death..... Session opened.....
Supplies granted..... Funds for raising the Supplies.....
Messages from the King to the House of Commons..... Second
Treaty with the King of Prussia..... Bill for fortifying
Milford Haven..... Regulations with respect to Corn.....
Bills for the Encouragement of Seamen, and for explaining
the Militia Act..... Act for repairing London Bridge..... Act
for ascertaining the Qualification of voting..... Bill for
more effectually manning the Navy..... Amendments in the
Habeas-Corpus Act..... Scheme in Favour of the Foundling
Hospital..... Proceedings relative to the African
Company..... Session closed..... Vigorous Preparations for
War..... Death of the Princess Caroline..... Sea Engagement
off Cape Francois..... Remarkable success of Captain
Forest..... French evacuate Embden..... Success of Admiral
Osborne..... French Fleet driven ashore in Basque Road.....
Admiral Broderick’s Ship burnt at Sea..... Descent at
Cancalle-Bay..... Expedition against Cherbourg...... Descent
at St. Maloes..... English defeated at St. Cas..... Captures
from the Enemy..... Clamours of the Dutch Merchants on
Account of the Capture of their Ships..... Their famous
Petition to the States-general_
THE FRENCH ENTER THE PRUSSIAN DOMINIONS.
The Hanoverians being now quite subdued, and the whole force of the
French let loose against the king of Prussia by this treaty, mareschal
Richelieu immediately ordered lieutenant-general Berchini to march with
all possible expedition, with the troops under his command, to join the
prince de Soubise: the gens-d’-arms, and other troops that were in
the landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel, received the same order; and sixty
battalions of foot, and the greatest part of the horse belonging to the
French army, were directed to attack the Prussian territories. Mareschal
Richelieu himself arrived at Brunswick on the fifteenth of September;
and having, in a few days after, assembled an hundred and ten
battalions, and an hundred and fifty squadrons, with an hundred pieces
of cannon, near Wolfenbuttel, he entered the king of Prussia’s dominions
with his army on the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth of
the same month, in three columns, which penetrated into Halberstadt
and Brandenburgh, plundering the towns, exacting contributions, and
committing many enormities, at which their general is said to have
connived. In the meantime the duke of Cumberland returned to England,
where he arrived on the eleventh of October, and shortly after resigned
all his military commands.
Had the allied army, after the battle of Hastenbeck, marched directly
to the Leine, as it might easily have done, and then taken post on the
other side of Wolfenbuttel, Halberstadt, and Magdeburgh, it might have
waited securely under the cannon of the latter place for the junction of
the Prussian forces; instead of which, they injudiciously turned off
to the Lower Weser, retiring successively from Hamelen to Nienburgh,
Verden, Rothenburgh, Buxtehude, and lastly to Stade, where, for want of
subsistence and elbow-room, the troops were all made prisoners of war at
large. They made a march of an hundred and fifty miles to be cooped up
in a nook, instead of taking the other route, which was only about an
hundred miles, and would have led them to a place of safety. By this
unaccountable conduct, the king of Prussia was not only deprived of the
assistance of near forty thousand good troops, which, in the close of
the campaign, might have put him upon an equality with the French and
the army of the empire; but also exposed to, and actually invaded by,
his numerous enemies on all sides, insomuch that his situation became
now more dangerous than ever; and the fate which seemed to have
threatened the empress a few months before, through his means, was,
to all appearance, turned against himself. His ruin was predicted,
nor could human prudence foresee how he might be extricated from his
complicated distress; for, besides the invasion of his territories by
the French under the duke de Richelieu, the Russians, who had made for
a long time a dilatory march, and seemed uncertain of their own
resolutions, all at once quickened their motions, and entered Ducal
Prussia, under mareschal Apraxin and general Fermor, marking their
progress by every inhumanity that unbridled cruelty, lust, and rapine,
can be imagined capable of committing. A large body of Austrians entered
Silesia, and penetrated as far as Breslau; then, turning back, they laid
seige to the important fortress of Schweidnitz, the key of that
country. A second body entered Lusa-tia, another quarter of the Prussian
territories, and made themselves masters of Zittau. Twenty-two thousand
Swedes penetrated into Prussian Pomerania, took the towns of Anclam and
Demmin, and laid the whole country under contribution. The army of the
empire, reinforced by that of prince Soubise, after many delays, was at
last in full march to enter Saxony; and this motion left the Austrians
at liberty to turn the greatest part of their forces to the reduction of
Silesia. An Austrian general penetrating through Lusatia, passed by the
Prussian armies, and suddenly presenting himself before the gates of
Berlin, laid the whole country under contribution; and though he retired
on the approach of a body of Prussians, yet he still found means to
interrupt the communication of these last with Silesia. The Prussians,
it is true, exerted themselves bravely on all sides, and their enemies
fled before them; but whilst one body was pursuing, another gained upon
them in some other part. The winter approached, their strength decayed,
and their adversaries multiplied daily. Their king harassed, and almost
spent with incessant fatigue both of body and of mind, was in a manner
excluded from the empire. The greatest part of his dominions were
either taken from him, or laid under contribution, and possessed by
his enemies, who collected the public revenues, fattened on the
contributions, and with the riches which they drew from the electorate
of Hanover, and other conquests, defrayed the expenses of the war; and
by the convention of Closter-Seven he was deprived of his allies,
and left without any assistance whatever, excepting what the British
parliament might think fit to supply. How different is this picture
from that which the king of Prussia exhibited when he took arms to
enter Saxony! But, in order to form a clear idea of these events, of the
situation of his Prussian majesty, and of the steps he took to defeat
the designs of his antagonists, and extricate himself from his great and
numerous distresses, it will be proper now to take a view of the several
transactions of his enemies, as well during his stay in Bohemia, as from
the time of his leaving it, down to that which we are now speaking of.
A RUSSIAN FLEET BLOCKS UP THE PRUSSIAN PORTS IN THE BALTIC.
Whilst the king of Prussia was in Bohemia, the empress of Russia ordered
notice to be given to all masters of ships, that if any of them
were found assisting the Prussians, by the transportation of troops,
artillery, and ammunition, they should be condemned as legal prizes;
and her fleet, consisting of fifteen men of war and frigates, with two
bomb-ketches, was sent to block up the Prussian ports in the Baltic,
where it took several ships of that nation, which were employed in
carrying provisions and merchandise from one port to another. One of
these ships of war appearing before Memel, a town of Poland, but subject
to Prussia, the commandant sent an officer to the captain, to know
whether he came as a friend or an enemy? to which interrogation the
Russian captain replied, that, notwithstanding the dispositions of
the empress of both the Russias were sufficiently known, yet he would
further explain them, by declaring that his orders, and those of the
other Russian commanders, were, in conformity to the laws of war, to
seize on all the Prussian vessels they met with on their cruise. Upon
which the commandant of Memel immediately gave orders for pointing the
cannon to fire upon all Russian ships that should approach that place.
The land-forces of the Russians had now lingered on their march upwards
of six months; and it was pretty generally doubted, by those who were
supposed to have the best intelligence, whether they ever were designed
really to pass into the Prussian territories, not only on account of
their long stay on the borders of Lithuania, but also because several of
their cossacks had been severely punished for plundering the waggons of
some Prussian peasants upon the frontiers of Courland, and the damage of
the peasants compensated with money, though general Apraxin’s army was
at the same time greatly distressed by the want of provisions; when, on
a sudden, they quickened their motions, and showed they were in earnest,
determined to accomplish the ruin of Prussia. Their first act of
hostility was the attack of Memel, which surrendered: and, by the
articles of capitulation, it was agreed that the garrison should march
out with all the honours of war, after having engaged not to serve
against the empress, or any of her allies, for the space of one year.
His Prussian majesty, justly foreseeing the great enormities that were
to be expected from these savage enemies, who were unaccustomed to make
war, except upon nations as barbarous as themselves, who looked upon war
only as an opportunity for plunder, and every country through which
they happened to march as theirs by right of conquest, published the
following declaration: “It is sufficiently known, that the king of
Prussia, after the example of his glorious predecessors, has, ever
since his accession to the crown, laid it down as a maxim to seek the
friendship of the imperial court of Russia, and cultivate it by every
method. His Prussian majesty hath had the satisfaction to live, for
several successive years, in the strictest harmony with the reigning
empress: and this happy union would be still subsisting, if evil-minded
potentates had not broke it by their secret machinations, and carried
things to such a height, that the ministers on both sides have been
recalled, and the correspondence broken off. However melancholy these
circumstances might be for the king, his majesty was nevertheless most
attentive to prevent any thing that might increase the alienation of
the Russian court. He hath been particularly careful, during the
disturbances of the war that now unhappily rages, to avoid whatever
might involve him in a difference with that court, notwithstanding the
great grievances he hath to allege against it; and that it was publicly
known the court of Vienna had at last drawn that of Russia into its
destructive views, and made it serve as an instrument for favouring the
schemes of Austria. His majesty hath given the whole world incontestible
proofs, that he was under an indispensable necessity of having recourse
to the measures he hath taken against the courts of Vienna and Saxony,
who forced him by their conduct to take up arms for his defence. Yet,
even since things have been brought to this extremity, the king hath
offered to lay down his arms, if proper securities should be granted to
him. His majesty hath not neglected to expose the artifices by which the
imperial court of Russia hath been drawn into measures so opposite to
the empress’s sentiments, and which would excite the utmost indignation
of that great princess, if the truth could be placed before her without
disguise. The king did more: he suggested to her imperial majesty
sufficient means either to excuse her not taking any part in the present
war, or to avoid, upon the justest grounds, the execution of those
engagements which the court of Vienna claimed by a manifest abuse of
obligations, which they employed to palliate their unlawful views. It
wholly depended upon the empress of Russia to extinguish the flames of
the war, without unsheathing the sword, by pursuing the measures
suggested by the king. This conduct would have immortalized her reign
throughout all Europe. It would have gained her more lasting glory than
can be acquired by the greatest triumphs. The king finds with regret,
that all his precautions and care to maintain peace with the Russian
empire are fruitless, and that the intrigues of his enemies have
prevailed. His majesty sees all the considerations of friendship and
good neighbourhood set aside by the imperial court of Russia, as well as
the observance of its engagements with his majesty. He sees that court
marching its troops through the territories of a foreign power, and,
contrary to the tenor of treaties, in order to attack the king in his
dominions; and thus taking part in a war, in which his enemies have
involved the Russian empire. In such circumstances, the king hath no
other part to take, but to employ the power which God hath intrusted to
him in defending himself, protecting his subjects, and repelling every
unjust attack. His majesty will never lose sight of the rules which are
observed, even in the midst of war, among civilized nations. But if,
contrary to all hope and expectation, these rules should be violated by
the troops of Russia, if they commit in the king’s territories disorders
and excesses disallowed by the law of arms, his majesty must not be
blamed if he makes reprisals in Saxony; and if, instead of that good
order and rigorous discipline which have hitherto been observed by his
army, avoiding all sorts of violence, he finds himself forced, contrary
to his inclination, to suffer the provinces and subjects of Saxony to be
treated in the same manner as his own territories shall be treated. As
to the rest, the king will soon publish to the whole world the futility
of the reasons alleged by the imperial court of Russia to justify its
aggression; and as his majesty is forced upon making his defence, he
has room to hope, with confidence, that the Lord of Hosts will bless his
righteous arms: that he will disappoint the unjust enterprises of his
enemies, and grant him his powerful assistance to enable him to make
head against them.”
ARMY OF THE EMPIRE RAISED.
When the king of Prussia was put under the ban of the empire, the
several princes who compose that body were required, by the decree of
the Aulic council, as we observed before, to furnish their respective
contingents against him. Those who feared him looked upon this as a fair
opportunity of reducing him; and those who stood in awe of the house of
Austria were, through necessity, compelled to support that power which
they dreaded. Besides, they were accustomed to the influence of a family
in which the empire had, for a long time, been in a manner hereditary;
and were also intimidated by the appearance of a confederacy the most
formidable, perhaps, that the world had ever seen. Yet, notwithstanding
all this, the contingents, both of men and money, were collected slowly;
the troops were badly composed; and many of those, not only of the
protestant princes, but also of the catholics, showed the utmost
reluctance to act against his Prussian majesty, which, indeed, none of
them would have been able to do had it not been for the assistance of
the French under the prince de Soubise. The elector palatine lost above
a thousand men by desertion. Four thousand of the troops belonging to
the duke of Wirtemberg being delivered to the French commissary on the
twenty-fourth of June, were immediately reviewed; but the review was
scarcely finished, when they began to cry aloud that they were sold.
Next morning thirty of them deserted at once, and were soon followed
by parties of twenty and thirty each, who forced their way through the
detachments that guarded the gates of Stutgard, and in the evening the
mutiny became general. They fired upon the officers in their barracks,
and let their general know that if he did not immediately withdraw, they
would put him to death. Meanwhile, some of the officers having pursued
the deserters, brought back a part of them prisoners, when the rest of
the soldiers declared, that if they were not immediately released, they
would set fire to the stadthouse and barracks; upon which the prisoners
were set at liberty late in the evening. Next morning the soldiers
assembled, and having seized some of the officers, three or four hundred
of them marched out of the town at that time, with the music of the
regiments playing before them; and in this manner near-three thousand of
them filed off, and the remainder were afterwards discharged.
THE AUSTRIANS TAKE GABEL.
The king of Prussia, upon his leaving Bohemia after the battle of Kolin,
retired towards Saxony, as we observed before; and having sent his heavy
artillery and mortars up the Elbe to Dresden, fixed his camp on the
banks of the river, at Leitmeritz, where his main army was strongly
intrenched, whilst mareschal Keith, with the troops under his command,
encamped on the opposite shore; a free communication being kept open by
means of a bridge. At the same time detachments were ordered to
secure the passes into Saxony. As this position of the king of Prussia
prevented the Austrians from being able to penetrate into Saxony by
the way of the Elbe, they moved, by slow marches, into the circle
of Buntzla, and, at last, with a detachment commanded by the duke
d’Aremberg and M. Macguire, on the eighteenth! of June fell suddenly
upon, and took the important post at Gabel, situated between Boemish
Leypa and Zittau, after an obstinate defence made by the Prussian
garrison, under major-general Putkammer, consisting of four battalions,
who were obliged to surrender prisoners of war. The Austrians having by
this motion gained a march towards Lusatia, upon a corps which had been
detached under the command of the prince of Prussia to watch them, his
Prussian majesty thought proper to leave Leitmeritz on the twentieth
in the morning, and lay that night at Lickowitz, a village opposite to
Leitmeritz, of which a battalion of his troops still kept possession,
while the rest of his army remained encamped in the plain before that
place. Next morning, at break of day, prince Henry decamped, and made so
good a disposition for his retreat, that he did not lose a single man,
though he marched in sight of the whole body of Austrian irregulars. He
passed the bridge at Leitmeritz, after withdrawing the battalion that
was in the town, and having burnt the bridge, the whole army united, and
made a small movement towards the passes of the mountains; the king then
lying at Sulowitz, near the field where the battle of Lowoschutz was
fought on the first of October of the preceding year. The heavy baggage
was sent on in the afternoon, with a proper escort; and in the morning
of the twenty-second the army marched in two columns, and encamped on
the high grounds at Lusechitz, a little beyond Lenai, where it halted on
the twenty-third. No attack was made upon the rear-guard, though great
numbers of Austrian hussars, and other irregulars, had appeared
the evening before within cannon-shot of the Prussian camp. On the
twenty-fourth the army marched to Nellendorf; on the twenty-fifth, it
encamped near Cotta, on the twenty-sixth near Pirna, where it halted the
next day; and on the twenty-eighth it crossed the river near that place,
and entered Lusatia, where, by the end of the month, it encamped at
Bautzen.
The king’s army made this retreat with all the success that could be
wished; but the corps under the prince of Prussia had not the same good
fortune. For the Austrians, immediately after their taking Gabel, sent a
strong detachment against Zittau, a trading town in the circle of Upper
Saxony, where the Prussians had large magazines, and a garrison of six
battalions, and, in his sight, attacked it with uncommon rage. Paying no
regard to the inhabitants as being friends or allies, but determined to
reduce the place before the king of Prussia could have time to march to
its relief, they no sooner arrived before it, than they bombarded
and cannonaded it with such fury, that most of the garrison, finding
themselves unable to resist, made their escape, and carried off as much
as they could of the magazines, leaving only three or four hundred men
in the town, under colonel Diricke, to hold it out as long as possible;
which he accordingly did, till the whole place was almost destroyed. The
cannonading began on the twenty-third of July, at eleven in the morning,
and lasted till five in the evening. In this space of time four thousand
balls, many of them red hot, were fired into this unfortunate city, with
so little intermission, that it was soon set on fire in several places.
In the confusion which the conflagration produced, the Austrians entered
the town, and the inhabitants imagined that they had then nothing
further to fear; and that their friends the Austrians would assist
them in extinguishing the flames, and saving the place; but in this
particular their expectations were disappointed. The pan-dours and
Sclavonians, who rushed in with regular troops, made no distinction
between the Prussians and the inhabitants of Zittau: instead of helping
to quench the flames, they began to plunder the warehouses which
the fire had not readied: so that all the valuable merchandise they
contained was either carried off, or reduced to ashes. Upwards of six
hundred houses, and almost all the public buildings, the cathedrals of
St. John and St. James, the orphan house, eight parsonage-houses, eight
schools, the town-house and every thing contained in it, the public
weigh-house, the prison, the archives, and all the other documents of
the town-council, the plate and other things of value presented to the
town, from time to time, by the emperors, kings, and other princes and
noblemen, were entirely destroyed, and more than four hundred citizens
were killed in this assault. Of the whole town there was left standing
only one hundred and thirty-eight houses, two churches, the council,
library, and the salt-work. The queen of Poland was so affected by this
melancholy account, that she is said to have fainted away upon hearing
it. As this city belonged to their friend the king of Poland, the
Austrians thought proper to publish an excuse for their conduct,
ascribing it entirely to the necessity they were under, and the
obstinate defence made by the Prussian garrison. But what excuses can
atone for such barbarity?
{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}
THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA LEAVES THE ARMY.
The corps under the prince of Prussia, which had been witnesses to the
destruction of this unhappy place, was by the king’s march to Bautzen,
fortunately extricated from the danger of being surrounded by the
Austrians, who, upon his majesty’s approach, retired from their posts
on the right. Soon after this event, the prince of Prussia, finding his
health much impaired by the fatigues of the campaign,* quitted the army,
and returned to Berlin.
* This was the reason that was publicly assigned for his
quitting the army; but a much more probable one, which was
only whispered, seems to have been, that this prince, than
whom none ever was more remarkable for humanity and the
social virtues, disliking the violent proceedings of the
king his brother, could not refrain from expostulating with
him on that subject: upon which his majesty, with an air of
great disapprobation, told him, “That the air of Berlin
would be better for him than that of the camp.” The prince
accordingly retired to Berlin, where he died soon after;
grief and concern for the welfare of his brother, and for
the steps taken by him, having no small share in his death.
In the meantime, mareschal Keith, who had been left upon the frontier
to guard the passes of the mountains of Bohemia, arrived at Pima, having
been much harassed in his march by the enemy’s irregular troops, and
lost some waggons of provisions and baggage. After resting a day at
Pirna, he pursued his march through Dresden with twenty battalions and
forty squadrons, and encamped on the right of the Elbe, before the gate
of the new city, from whence he joined the king between Bautzen and
Coerlitz. The Prussian array, now re-assembled at this place, amounted
to about sixty thousand men, besides twelve battalions and ten squadrons
which remained in the famous camp at Pirna, under the prince of
Anhault-Dessau, to cover Dresden, secure the gorges of the mountains,
and check the incursions of the Austrian irregulars, with whom, as they
were continually flying about the skirts of the Prussian army, as
well in their encampments as on their marches, almost daily skirmishes
happened, with various success. Though some of these encounters were
very bloody, they cost the Prussians much fewer men than they lost by
desertion since the battle of Kolin. The reason seems obvious:--the
Prussian army had been recruited, in times of peace, from all parts of
Germany; and though this way of recruiting may be very proper in such
times, yet it cannot be expected to answer in a state of actual war,
especially an unfortunate war: because the fidelity of such soldiers can
never be so much depended on as that of natives, who serve their natural
sovereign from principle, and not merely for pay, and who must desert
their country, their parents, and their friends, at the same time that
they desert their prince.
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND OSTEND BROKE OFF.
It will be proper here to take notice of some events which could not
easily be mentioned before, without breaking through the order we
have proposed to ourselves in the writing of this history.--The
empress-queen, more embittered than ever against the king of Prussia and
his allies, recalled her ministers, count Coloredo and monsieur Zohern,
from London, towards the beginning of July; and about the same time
count Kaunitz, great chancellor of the empire, informed Mr. Keith, the
British minister at Vienna, that the court of London, by the succours it
had given, and still continued to give, the king of Prussia, as well as
by other circumstances relating to the present state of affairs, having
broken the solemn engagements which united this crown with the house of
Austria, her majesty the empress-queen had thought proper to recall her
minister from England, and consequently to break off all correspondence.
Mr. Keith, in pursuance of this notice, set out from Vienna on the
twenty-ninth of July; as did also Mr. Desrolles, his Britannic majesty’s
minister at the court of Brussels, from this last place, about the
same time. On the seventh of July, general Pisa, commandant of Ostend,
Nieuport, and the maritime ports of Flanders, sent his adjutant to the
English vice-consul at Ostend, at six o’clock in the morning, to tell
him, that by orders from his court all communication with England was
broke off; and desired the vice-consul to intimate to the packet-boats
and British shipping at Ostend, Bruges, and Nieuport, to depart in
twenty-four hours, and not to return into any of the ports of the
empress-queen till further disposition should be made. The reasons
alleged by the court of Vienna for debarring the subjects of his
Britannic majesty from the use of these ports, obtained for the house
of Austria by the arms and treasures of Great Britain, were, “That her
imperial majesty the empress-queen, could not, with indifference, see
England, instead of giving the succours due to her by the most solemn
treaties, enter into an alliance with her enemy the king of Prussia,
and actually afford him all manner of assistance, assembling armies to
oppose those which the most christian king, her ally, had sent to her
aid, and suffering privateers to exercise open violence in her roads,
under the cannon of her ports and coasts, without giving the least
satisfaction or answer to the complaints made on that account; and the
king of Great Britain himself, at the very time she was offering him a
neutrality for Hanover, publishing, by a message to his parliament, that
she had formed, with the most christian king, dangerous designs against
that electorate; therefore, her majesty, desirous of providing for the
security of her ports, judged it expedient to give the forementioned
orders; and at the same time to declare, that she could no longer permit
a free communication between her subjects and the English, which had
hitherto been founded upon treaties that Great Britain had, without
scruple, openly violated.” Notwithstanding these orders, the English
packet-boats, with letters, were allowed to pass as usual to and from
Ostend; the ministers of her imperial majesty wisely considering
how good a revenue the postage of English letters brings in to the
post-office of the Austrian Netherlands. Ostend and Nieuport, by order
of her imperial majesty, received each of them a French garrison; the
former on the nineteenth of July, and the latter next day, under the
command of M. de la Motte, upon whose arrival the Austrian troops
evacuated those places; though the empress-queen still reserved to
herself, in both of them, the full and free exercise of all her rights
of sovereignty; to which purpose an oath was administered to the French
commandant by her majesty’s minister-plenipotentiary for the government
of the Low-Countries. At the same time, their imperial and most
christian majesties notified to the magistracy of Hamburgh, that they
must not admit any English men of war, or transports, into their
port, on pain of having a French garrison imposed on them. The city
of Gueldres, which had been blocked up by the French ever since
the beginning of summer, was forced by famine to capitulate on the
twenty-fourth of August, and the garrison marched out with all the
honours of war, in order to be conducted to Berlin; but so many of them
deserted, that when they passed by Cologn, the whole garrison consisted
only of the commandant and forty-seven men. By the surrender of this
place the whole country lay open to the French and their allies quite
up to Magdeburgh; and the empress-queen immediately received two hundred
thousand crowns from the revenues of Cleves and la Marcke alone. To
return to the affairs more immediately relating to the king of Prussia.
The advanced posts of the prince of Anhault-Dessau at Pirna were
attacked, on the tenth of August, by a body of hussars and other
irregular troops of the Austrians; but the Prussians soon obliged them
to retire, with the loss of several men and two pieces of cannon. On the
nineteenth of the same month, early in the morning, a great number of
Austrian pan-dours surrounded a little town called Gotliebe, in which a
Prussian garrison was quartered, with a design to take it by surprise.
The pandours attacked it on all sides, and in the beginning killed
twenty-three Prussians, and wounded many; but the Prussians having
rallied, repulsed the assailants with great loss. These, however, were
but a sort of preludes to much more decisive actions which happened soon
after. Silesia, which had hitherto been undisturbed this year, began now
to feel the effects of war. Baron Jahnus, an Austrian colonel, entering
that country with only an handful of men, made himself master of
Hirschberg, Waldenberg, Gottesberg, Frankenstein, and Landshut. They
were, indeed, but open places; and he was repulsed in an attempt upon
Strigau. On the side of Franconia the army of the empire was assembling
with all speed, under the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen; the French were
marching a second army from their interior provinces into Alsace, in
order to join the Imperialists: the first division of their troops
had already entered the empire, and were advanced as far as Hanau.
The Swedes were now preparing, with the utmost expedition, to send a
numerous army into Pomerania; and the Russians, who since the taking
of Memel had not done the king of Prussia much damage, besides that of
obliging him to keep an army in Prussia to oppose them, and interrupting
the trade of Konigsberg by their squadrons, were again advancing
with hasty strides towards Prussia, marking their steps with horrid
desolation. Field-mareschal Lehwald, who had been left in Prussia with
an army of thirty thousand men, to guard that kingdom during the absence
of his master, was encamped near Velau, when the Russians, to the number
of eighty thousand, after taking Memel, advanced against the territories
of the Prussian king, whose situation now drew upon him the attention
of all Europe. In the night between the seventh and eighth of August,
colonel Malachowsti, one of mareschal Lehwald’s officers, marched to
reconnoitre the position of the enemy, when a skirmish happened,
which lasted near two hours, between his advanced ranks and a Russian
detachment three times stronger than the Prussians. The Russians were
repulsed, and fled into the woods, after having fifty men killed and a
great number wounded. The Prussians lost but one man, and had fourteen
wounded.
MARESCHAL LEHWALD ATTACKS THE RUSSIANS NEAR NORKITTEN.
Several other little skirmishes happened between straggling parties
of the two armies; and the Russians went on pillaging and laying waste
every thing before them, till at length the two armies having approached
one another in Brandenburgh-Prussia, mareschal Lehwald, finding it
impossible to spare detachments from so small a number as his was,
compared to that of the enemy, to cover the wretched inhabitants from
the outrages committed on them by the Russian cossacks, and other
barbarians belonging to them, judged it absolutely necessary to attack
their main army; and accordingly, notwithstanding his great disadvantage
in almost every respect, he resolved to hazard a battle on the thirtieth
of August. The Russians, consisting, as we before observed, of eighty
thousand regulars, under the command of mareschal Apraxin, avoiding the
open field, were intrenched in a most advantageous camp near Norkitten
in Prussia. Their army was composed of four lines, each of which was
guarded by an intrenchment, and the whole was defended by two hundred
pieces of cannon, batteries being placed upon all the eminences.
Mareschal Lehwald’s army scarcely amounted to thirty thousand men.
The action began at five in the morning, and was carried on with so much
vigour, that the Prussians entirely broke the whole first line of the
enemy, and forced all their batteries. The prince of Holstein-Grottorp,
brother to the king of Sweden, at the head of his regiment of dragoons,
routed the Russian cavalry, and afterwards fell upon a regiment of
grenadiers, which was cut to pieces; but when the Prussians came to the
second intrenchment, mareschal Lehwald, seeing that he could not attempt
to carry it without exposing his army too much, took the resolution to
retire. The Prussians returned to their former camp at Velau, and the
Russians remained in their present situation. The loss of the Prussians
little exceeding two thousand killed and wounded, was immediately
replaced out of the disciplined militia. The Russians lost a much
greater number. General Lapuchin was wounded and taken prisoner, with
a colonel of the Russian artillery; but the former was sent back on his
parole. The Prussia*: Army had, at first, made themselves masters of
above eighty pieces of cannon; but were afterwards obliged to abandon
them, with eleven of their own, for want of carriages. Three Russian
generals were killed; but the Prussians lost no general or officer
of distinction, of which rank count Dohna was the only one that was
wounded.
HASTY RETREAT OF THE RUSSIANS OUT OF PRUSSIA.
After this engagement, mareschal Lehwald changed the position of his
army, by drawing towards Peters-wald; and the Russians, after remaining
quite inactive till the thirteenth of September, on a sudden, to
the great surprise of every one, retreated out of Prussia with such
precipitation, that they left all their sick and wounded behind them,
to the amount of fifteen or sixteen thousand men, together with eighty
pieces of cannon, and a considerable part of their military stores.
Mareschal Apraxin masked his design by advancing all his irregulars
towards the Prussian army; so that mareschal Lehwald was not informed of
it till the third day, when he detached prince George of Plolstein with
ten thousand horse to pursue them but with little hopes of coming up
with them as they made forced marches, in order to be the sooner in
their own country. However, the Prussians took some of them prisoners,
and many stragglers were killed by the country people in their flight
towards Tilsit, which they abandoned, though they still kept Memel, and
shortly after added some new fortifications to that place. They made
their retreat in two columns, one of which directed its course towards
Memel; while the other took the nearest way through the bailiwick of
Absternen, and threw bridges over the river Jura. Both columns burnt
every village they passed through without distinction. The Prussians
were obliged to desist from the pursuit of these barbarians, because the
bridges, thrown over the river Memel, had been destroyed by the violence
of the stream. The Russian army suffered greatly for want of bread,
as all the countries were ruined through which it passed, so that they
could procure no sort of subsistence but herbage and rye-bread. All the
roads were strewed with dead bodies of men and horses. The real cause of
this sudden retreat is as great a mystery as the reason of stopping so
long, the year before, on the borders of Lithuania; though the occasion
of it is said to have been the illness of the czarina, who was seized
with a kind of apoplectic fit, and had made some new regulations in case
of a vacancy of the throne, which rendered it expedient that the
regular forces should be at hand to support the measures taken by the
government.
FRENCH AND IMPERIALISTS TAKE GOTHA.
The king of Prussia, after remaining for some time encamped between
Bautzen and Goerlitz, removed his head-quarters to Bernstedel; and on
the fifteenth of August his army came in sight of the Austrian camp, and
within cannon-shot of it: upon which the Austrians struck their tents,
and drew up in order of battle before their camp. The king formed his
army over against them, and immediately went to reconnoitre the ground
between the armies; but, as it was then late, he deferred the more
exact examination of that circumstance till the next day. The two armies
continued under arms all night. Next morning at break of day, the king
found the Austrians encamped with their right at the river Weisle; the
rest of their army extended along a rising ground, at the foot of a
mountain covered with wood, which protected their left; and before their
front, at the bottom of the hill on which they were drawn up, was a
small brook, passable only in three places, and for no more than four or
five men a-breast. Towards the left of their army was an opening, where
three or four battalions might have marched in front; but behind it they
had placed three lines of infantry, and on a hill which flanked this
opening, within musket-shot, were placed four thousand foot, with forty
or fifty pieces of cannon; so that, in reality, this was the strongest
part of their camp. The king left nothing undone to bring the Austrians
to battle; but finding them absolutely bent on avoiding it, after
lying four days before them, he and his army returned to their camp
at Bernstedel. They were followed by some of the enemy’s hussars and
pan-dours, who, however, had not the satisfaction to take the smallest
booty in this retreat. The Austrian army, which thus declined engaging,
was, by their own account, an hundred and thirty thousand strong, more
than double the number of the king of Prussia, who, the day he returned
to Bernstedel, after he had retired about two thousand yards, again drew
up his army in line of battle, and remained so upwards of an hour,
but not a man stirred from the Austrian camp. The army of the empire,
commanded by the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and that of the French
under the prince de Soubise, making together about fifty thousand men,
half of which were French, had by this time joined, and advanced as far
as Erfurth in Saxony; upon which his Prussian majesty, finding that all
his endeavours could not bring the Austrians to an engagement, set out
from Lusatia, accompanied by mareschal Keith, with sixteen battalions
and forty squadrons of his troops, and arrived at Dresden on the
twenty-ninth of August, leaving the rest of the army in a strong camp,
under the prince of Bevern. With this detachment, which, by the junction
of several bodies of troops, amounted to about forty thousand men,
he made a quick march, by the way of Leipsic towards Erfurth, to give
battle to the united army of the French and the empire. But by the time
he arrived at Erfurth, which was on the fourteenth of September, the
enemy had retreated towards Gotha; and upon his further approach, they
retired to Eyesenach, where they intrenched themselves in a very strong
camp. His majesty’s headquarters were at Kirschlaben, near Erfurth.
While the two armies were thus situated, major-general Seydelitz, who
occupied the town of Gotha, being informed, on the nineteenth, that a
large body of the enemy was coming towards him, and that it consisted of
two regiments of Austrian hussars, one regiment of French hussars, and
a detachment made up of French grenadiers, troops of the army of the
empire, and a great number of croats and pandours, retired, and posted
himself at some distance. The enemy immediately took possession of the
town and castle; but general Seydelitz, having been reinforced, attacked
the enemy with such vigour, that he soon obliged them to abandon this
new conquest, and to retire with great precipitation; a report having
been spread, that the Prussian army was advancing against them, with the
king himself in person. The Prussian hussars took a considerable booty
on this occasion, and general Seydelitz sent prisoners to the camp,
one lieutenant-colonel, three majors, four lieutenants, and sixty-two
soldiers of the enemy, who had also about an hundred and thirty killed.
After this action his Prussian majesty advanced near Eyesenach, with
a design to attack the combined army; but they were so strongly
intrenched, that he found it impracticable. His provisions falling
short, he was obliged to retire towards Erfurth, and soon after to
Naumburgh, on the river Sala; whereupon the combined army inarched, and
again took possession of Gotha, Erfurth, and Weiman: which last place,
however, they soon after quitted.
ACTION BETWEEN THE PRUSSIANS AND AUSTRIANS NEAR GOERLITZ.
Upon the king of Prussia’s leaving Bernstedel, the Austrians took
possession of it on the sixth of September, and made prisoners a
Prussian battalion which had been left there. The next day fifteen
thousand Austrians attacked two battalions of general Winterfield’s
troops, being part of the prince of Bevern’s army, who were posted on
a high ground on the other side of the Neiss, near Hennersdorff, in the
neighbourhood of Goerlitz; and, after being repulsed several times, at
last made themselves masters of the eminence. The loss, in this action,
was considerable on both sides, but greatest on that of the Prussians,
not so much by the number of their slain, which scarcely exceeded that
of the Austrians, as by the death of their brave general Win-terfield,
who, as he was leading up succours to the battalions that were engaged,
received a shot from a cannon, of which he died the night following.
The-generals Nadasti and Clerici, count d’Arberg, colonel Elrickhausen,
and several other persons of distinction, were wounded, and the young
count of Groesbeck and the marquis d’Asque killed, on the side of the
Austrians, who took six pieces of the Prussian cannon, six pair of their
colours, and made general Kemeke, the count d’Anhalt, and some other
officers, prisoners. After this skirmish, the prince of Bevern, with the
Prussian army under his command, retreated from Goerlitz to Rothen-berg,
then passed the Queiss at Sygersdorff, from whence he marched to
Buntzlau, in Silesia, and on the first of October reached Breslau,
without suffering any loss, though the numerous army of the Austrians
followed him for some days. Upon his arrival there, he chose a very
strong camp on the other side of the Oder, in order to cover the city of
Breslau, to the fortifications of which he immediately added several
new works. Though neither side had any very signal advantage in this
engagement, more than that the Austrians remained masters of the field,
yet great rejoicings were made at Vienna on account of it. The death of
general Win-terfield was, indeed, an irreparable loss to his Prussian
majesty, who received at the same time the news of this misfortune, and
of the Swedes having now actually begun hostilities in Pomerania.
THE FRENCH OBLIGE FERDINAND TO RETIRE.
A body of the French, who, let loose against the king of Prussia by the
ever-memorable and shameful convention of Closter-Seven, had entered the
territories of Halberstadt and Magdeburgh, were worsted at Eglen by a
party of six hundred men, under the command of count Horn, whom prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick had detached from a body of troops with which his
Prussian majesty had sent him to defend those countries. The Prussians
took prisoners the count de Lusignan, colonel, eighteen other French
officers, and four hundred soldiers, and made themselves masters of a
considerable booty in baggage, &c, with the loss of only two men;
and, moreover, a French officer and forty men were made prisoners
at Halberstadt. Upon this check the French evacuated the country of
Halberstadt for a little while, but returning again on the twenty-ninth
of September, with a considerable reinforcement from mareschal
Richelieu’s army, which he now could easily spare, prince Ferdinand was
obliged to retire to Winsleben, near the city of Magdeburgh. The dangers
which had been hitherto kept at a distance from the Prussian dominions,
by the surprising activity of their king, now drew nearer, and menaced
them on all sides. Mareschal Richelieu, with eighty battalions and
an hundred squadrons, entered the country of Halberstadt, and levied
immense contributions; whilst the allied army of the French and
Imperialists, being joined by six thousand men under general Laudohn,
who had just defeated a regiment of Prussian cavalry near Erfurt,
marched to Weissenfells, a city in the very centre of Thuringia. The
Swedes had actually taken some towns in Pomerania, and were advancing to
besiege Stetin, and the Austrians, who had made themselves masters
of Lignitz, and a considerable part of Silesia, had now laid siege to
Schweidnitz, and were preparing to pass the Oder, in order to attack
the prince of Bevern in his camp near Breslau. In the meantime they made
frequent and always destructive incursions into Brandenburgh; to oppose
which his Prussian majesty ordered detachments from all his regiments in
those parts to join the militia of the country, and sent the prince of
Anhault-Dessau from Leipsic, with a body of ten thousand men, to guard
Berlin, whilst he himself marched with the troops under his command to
Interbeck, on the frontier of the Lower Lusatia, to be the more at hand
to cover Brandenburgh, and to preserve the communication with Silesia.
While these precautions were taking, general Had-dick, with fifteen or
sixteen thousand Austrians, entered Brandenburgh on the sixteenth
of October, and the next day arrived before Berlin, of which city he
demanded a contribution of six hundred thousand crowns; but contented
himself with two hundred and ten thousand. The Austrians pillaged two
of the suburbs; but before they could do any further mischief, they
were obliged to retire in great haste, at the approach of the prince of
Anhault-Dessau, whose vanguard entered the city in the evening of their
departure. This alarm, however, obliged the queen and the royal family
of Prussia to remove to Magdeburgh on the twenty-third; and the most
valuable records were sent to the fort of Spandau, at the conflux of the
Havel and the Sphre. On the other hand, the unfortunate inhabitants of
Leipsic now felt most severely the cruel effects of the power of their
new master. The Prussian commandant in that city had, by order of the
king, demanded of them three hundred thousand crowns, a sum far greater
than it was in their power to raise. This truth they represented, but
in vain. The short time allowed them to furnish their contingents being
expired, and all their efforts to comply with this demand having proved
ineffectual, they were subjected to the rigours of military execution;
in consequence of which their houses were occupied by the soldiery, who
seized upon the best apartments, and lived at discretion; but the sum
demanded could not be found. Such was the situation of this distressed
city, when, on the fifteenth of October, an express arrived, with
advice that his Prussian majesty would soon be there; and accordingly
he arrived a few minutes after, attended by his life-guards. At the
same time, a rumour was spread that the city would be delivered up to
pillage, which threw the inhabitants into the utmost consternation.
Their fears, however, in that respect were soon abated, by his majesty’s
declaring, that he was willing to spare the place, upon condition that
half the sum required should be immediately paid. All that could be done
was to collect among the merchants, traders, and others, fifty thousand
crowns; bills of exchange were drawn upon Amsterdam and London for
seventy thousand crowns, and hostages were given, by way of security,
for the payment of thirty thousand more within a time which was
agreed on. But still, notwithstanding this, the military execution was
continued, even with greater rigour than before, and all the comfort
the wretched inhabitants could obtain was, that it should cease whenever
advice should be received that their bills were accepted.
BATTLE OF ROSBACH.
The king of Prussia had tried several times to bring the combined army
under the princes Saxe-Hilburghausen and Soubise to an engagement upon
fair ground, but finding them bent on declining it, notwithstanding the
superiority of their numbers, he had recourse to one of those strokes in
war, by which a general is better seen than by the gaining of a victory.
He made a feint, soon after the beginning of October, as if he intended
nothing more than to secure his own dominions, and march his army into
winter-quarters back to Berlin, leaving mareschal Keith, with only
seven or eight thousand men, to defend Leipsic. Upon this the enemy took
courage, passed the Sala, and having marched up to the city, summoned
the mareschal to surrender; to which he answered, that the king, his
master, had ordered him to defend the place to the last extremity, and
he would obey his orders. The enemy then thought of besieging the city;
but, before they could prepare any one implement for that purpose, they
were alarmed by the approach of the king of Prussia, who, judging that
his feint would probably induce them to take the step they did, had,
by previous and private orders, collected together all his distant
detachments, some of which were twenty leagues asunder, and was
advancing, by long marches, to Leipsic; upon notice of which the
enemy repassed the Sala. The Prussian army was re-assembled on the
twenty-seventh of October, and remained at Leipsic the twenty-eighth and
twenty-ninth, when everybody expected a battle would be fought in the
plains of Lutzen. On the thirtieth, the king drew nigh that place, and
on the thirty-first, in his way through Weissenfells and Meresbourg, he
made five hundred men prisoners of war. The combined army had repassed
the Sala at Weissenfells, Meresbourg, and Halle, where they broke down
the bridges; but these were soon repaired, and the whole Prussian army,
amounting to no more than twenty thousand men, having passed that river,
through these towns, in each of which they left a battalion, joined
again on the third of November, in the evening, over against the
enemy, whose forces consisted of forty thousand French, and twenty-five
thousand Imperialists. On the fifth, about nine o’clock in the morning,
the Prussians received intelligence that the enemy were every where in
motion. They likewise heard the drums beating the march, and, so near
were the two armies to each other, plainly perceived from their camp
that their whole infantry, which had drawn nearer upon the rising
grounds over against them, was filing off towards their right. No
certain judgment could, however, yet be formed of the enemy’s real
design, and as they were in want of bread, it was thought probable that
they intended to repass the Un-strut; but it was soon perceived that
their several motions were contradictory to each other. At the same time
that some of their infantry were filing off towards their right, a large
body of cavalry wheeled round towards their left, directing its march
all along to the rising grounds with which the whole Prussian camp,
that lay in a bottom between the villages of Eederow and Rosbach, was
surrounded within the reach of large cannon. Soon after that the cavalry
were seen to halt, and afterwards to fall back to the right; though some
of them still remained where they were, whilst the rest marched back.
About two in the afternoon the doubts of the Prussians were cleared up;
it plainly appearing then that the enemy intended to attack them, and
that their dispositions were made with a view to surround them, and to
open the action by attacking them in the rear. A body of reserve was
posted over against Eederow, to fall upon their routed troops, in case
they should be defeated, and to prevent their retiring to Meresbourg,
the only retreat which could then have been left them. In thiss
situation the king of Prussia resolved to attack them. His majesty had
determined to make the attack with one wing only, and the disposition
of the enemy made it necessary that it should be the left wing. The very
instant the battle was going to begin, his majesty ordered the general
who commanded the right wing to decline engaging, to take a proper
position in consequence thereof, and, above all, to prevent his being
surrounded. All the cavalry of the right wing of the Prussians, except
two or three squadrons, had already marched to the left at full gallop;
and being arrived at the place assigned them, they formed over against
that of the enemy. They then moved on immediately, the enemy advanced
to meet them, and the charge was very fierce, several regiments of the
French coming on with great resolution. The advantage, however, was
entirely on the side of the Prussians. The enemy’s cavalry being routed,
were pursued for a considerable time with great spirit, but having
afterwards reached an eminence, which gave them an opportunity of
rallying, the Prussian cavalry fell upon them afresh, and gave them so
total a defeat, that they fled in the utmost disorder. This happened
at four in the afternoon. Whilst the cavalry of the Prussians charged,
their infantry opened. The enemy cannonaded them briskly during this
interval, and did some execution, but the Prussian artillery was not
idle. After this cannonading had continued on both sides a full quarter
of an hour, without the least intermission, the fire of the infantry
began. The enemy could not stand it, nor resist the valour of the
Prussian foot, who gallantly marched up to their batteries. The
batteries were carried one after another, and the enemy were forced to
give way, which they did in great confusion. As the left wing of the
Prussians advanced, the right changed its position, and having soon met
with a small rising ground, they availed themselves of it, by planting
it with sixteen pieces of heavy artillery. The fire from thence was
partly pointed at the enemy’s right, to increase the disorder there, and
took their left wing in front, which was excessively galled thereby. At
five the victory was decided, the cannonading ceased, and the enemy
fled on all sides. They were pursued as long as there was any light
to distinguish them, and it may be said, that night alone was the
preservation of this army, which had been so formidable in the morning.
They took the benefit of the darkness to hurry into Fribourg, and there
to repass the Unstrut, which they did on the morning of the sixth, after
a whole night’s inarch. The king of Prussia set out early in the morning
to pursue them with all his cavalry, supported by four battalions of
grenadiers, the infantry following them in two columns. The enemy had
passed the Unstrut at Fribourg, when the Prussians arrived on its banks,
and as they had burnt the bridge, it became necessary to make another,
which, however, was soon done. The cavalry passed first, but could
not come up with the enemy till five in the evening, upon the hills of
Eckersberg. It was then too late to force them there, for which reason
the king thought proper to canton his army in the nearest villages, and
to be satisfied with the success his hussars had in taking near three
hundred baggage waggons, and every thing they contained. The whole
loss of the Prussians in this important engagement, did not exceed five
hundred men killed and wounded. Among the former was general Meincke,
and among the latter prince Henry and general Seydelitz. The enemy lost
sixty-four pieces of cannon, a great many standards and colours, near
three thousand men killed on the field of battle, and upwards of eight
thousand taken prisoners, among whom were several generals, and other
officers of distinction. Three hundred waggons were sent to Leipsic,
laden with wounded French and Swiss. Upon the approach of the Prussians
towards Eckersberg, the enemy retreated with great precipitation; and,
after marching all night, arrived the next day at Erfurth, in the utmost
want of every necessary of life, not having had a morsel of bread for
two days, during which they had been obliged to live upon turnips,
radishes, and other roots, which they dug out of the earth. The French,
under the duke de Richelieu, were preparing to go into winter-quarters;
but, upon the news of this defeat of the combined army, they again put
themselves in motion, and a large detachment of them advanced as far as
Duderstadt, to favour the retreat of their countrymen under the prince
de Soubise, who, with great precipitancy, made the best of their way
from Erfurth to the county of Hohenstein, and from thence bent their
march towards Halberstadt. Of the remains of the imperial army, which
was now almost entirely dispersed, whole bodies deserted, and went over
to the king of Prussia soon after the battle.
{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}
THE AUSTRIANS TAKE SCHWEIDNITZ.
Whilst his Prussian majesty was thus successful against the French and
Imperialists, the Austrians, who had carefully avoided coming to an open
engagement with him, gained ground apace in Silesia. A detachment of
their army, under the command of count Nadasti, had already invested
Schweidnitz, and opened the trenches before it on the twenty-sixth
of October. The Prussian garrison, commanded by general de la Motte
Fouquet, determined to defend the place as long as possible; and
accordingly on the thirtieth they made a sally, in which they killed,
wounded, and took prisoners, eight hundred of the besiegers, and did
some damage to their works; but on the sixth of November the Austrians
began to cannonade the city furiously, and on the eleventh made
themselves masters of the ramparts by assault. The garrison, however,
having taken care, during the siege, to throw up a strong in-trenchment
in the market-place, retreated thither, and held out till the next day,
when they surrendered themselves prisoners of war. After the reduction
of this place, general Nadasti, leaving in it a sufficient garrison,
marched with the remainder of his troops, and joined the main army
of the Austrians, under the command of prince Charles of Lorraine and
mareschal Daun, who, whilst he was busied in the siege of Schweidnitz,
had invested Breslau on the left of the Oder; the prince of Bevern
defending it on the right, where he was strongly encamped, with his
little army, under the cannon of the city. The whole army of the
Austrians being now re-assembled, and intelligence having been brought
not only of the king of Prussia’s late victory near Leipsic, but also
that he was advancing to the relief of the prince of Bevern, it
was resolved immediately to attack the last in his intrenchments.
Accordingly, on the twenty-second of November, about nine in the
morning, the Austrians began a most furious discharge of their cannon,
forty of which were twenty-four pounders, and this continued without
ceasing till one, when it was succeeded by a severe fire of their
small arms, which lasted till five in the evening. The Prussians, with
undaunted resolution, stood two of the most violent attacks that were
ever made; but at the third, overpowered by numbers, and assailed on
both sides, they began to lose ground, and were forced to retire from
one intrenchment to another. In this extremity, night coming on, the
Prussian generals fearing their intrenchments would be entirely forced,
and that they should then be totally defeated, thought proper to
retreat. The prince of Bevern, with the greatest part of the army,
retired to an eminence on the banks of the Oder, whilst the rest of the
troops threw themselves into Breslau, which they might have defended,
in all probability, till the king had come to its relief. But, on the
twenty-fourth, their commander-in-chief, the prince of Bevern, going to
reconnoitre the enemy, with only a single groom to attend him, fell in
among a party of croats, who took him prisoner.*
* We are told, that he mistook these croats for Prussian
hussars. But some of the circumstances of this mysterious
affair were interpreted into a premeditated design in the
prince to be taken prisoner. It cannot otherwise he supposed
that a man of his rank, a prince, a commander-in-chief,
should officiously undertake the always dangerous task of
reconnoitering the enemy with so slight an attendance as
only one man, and that but a groom, even if he had judged it
necessary to see things with his own eyes. Some secret
dissatisfaction, hitherto unknown to us, may possibly have
been the cause of his taking this step; or, which seems
still more probable, he might he ashamed, or, perhaps, even
afraid, to see the king his master, after having so
injudiciously abandoned the defence of Breslau, by quitting
his lines, which, it is asserted, his Prussian majesty had
sent him express orders not to quit on any account whatever,
for that he would certainly be with him by the fifth of
December, in which we shall find he kept his word.
His army, thus deprived of their general, retreated northward that
night, leaving in Breslau only four battalions, who, the next day,
surrendered the place by capitulation, one of the articles of which was,
that they should not serve against the empress, or her allies, for two
years. All the magazines, chests, artillery, &c, remained in the hands
of the Austrians. The garrison marched out with all military honours,
conducted by general Leswitz, governor of Breslau. Though the Austrians
sung _Te Deum_ for this victory, they owned that such another would put
an end to their army, for it cost them the lives of twelve thousand
men; a number almost equal to the whole of the Prussian army before
the battle. They had four almost inaccessible intrenchments to force,
planted thick with cannon, which fired cartridge shot from nine in the
morning till the evening, and the Prussians, when attacked, were never
once put into the least confusion. Among the slain on the side of
the Austrians, were general Wurben, and several other officers of
distinction. The loss of the Prussians did not much exceed three
thousand men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of which last there
were about sixteen hundred. Their general Kleist was found dead on the
field of battle.
MARESCHAL KEITH LAYS BOHEMIA UNDER CONTRIBUTION.
The king of Prussia, who, like Caesar, thought nothing was done while
any thing was left undone, stayed no longer at Rosbach than till the
routed forces of the French and Imperialists, whom he had defeated
there on the fifth of November, were totally dispersed. Then he marched
directly with the greatest part of his army for Silesia, and on the
twenty-fourth of that month arrived at Naumburgh on the Queiss, a little
river which runs into the Bobber, having in his route detached mareschal
Keith, with the rest of his army, to clear Saxony from all the Austrian
parties, and then to make an irruption into Bohemia, a service which he
performed so effectually, as to raise large contributions in the circles
of Satz and Leitmeritz, and even to give an alarm to Prague itself. His
majesty reserved for himself only fifteen thousand men, with whom he
advanced, with his usual rapidity, to Barchweitz, where, notwithstanding
all that had happened at Schweidnitz and at Breslau, he was joined by
twenty-four thousand more; part of them troops which he had ordered from
Saxony, part the remains of the army lately commanded by the prince of
Bevern, and part the late garrison of Schweidnitz, which had found means
to escape from the Austrians, and accidentally joined their king upon
his march.*
* While the Austrians were conducting them to prison, on
their route they chanced to hear of the victory their master
had gained at Rosbach. Animated by these tidings, they
unanimously rose upon the escort that guarded them, which
happening not to be very strong, they entirely dispersed.
Thus freed, they marched on, not very certain of their way,
in hopes to rejoin some corps of the Prussian troops, their
countrymen. The same fortune which freed them led them
directly to the army commanded by the king himself, which
was hastening to their relief, as well as to that of the
prince of Bevern. This unexpected meeting was equally
pleasing to both, the prisoners not having heard any thing
of his majesty’s march; and, at the same time, this lucky
incident, whilst it added a considerable strength to the
army, added likewise to its confidence, for the slightest
occurrence is construed into an omen by an army at the eve
of an engagement.
With this force, though greatly inferior in number to that of the enemy,
he resolved to attack the Austrians, who were intrenched at Lissa,
near Breslau. On the fourth of December he seized upon their ovens at
Neu-marck, and upon a considerable magazine, guarded by two regiments
of croats, who retired to a rising ground, where his majesty ordered his
hussars to surround them, and send a trumpet to summon them to surrender
themselves prisoners of war. Upon their refusal, the hussars of Ziethen
fell upon them sabre in hand, and some hundreds of them having been cut
in pieces, the rest threw down their arms, begging for quarter on their
knees. After this seizure, and after having distributed to his army
the bread prepared for his enemies, he began again the next morning
his march towards Lissa. General Ziethen, who led the vanguard of
light-horse, about seven in the morning fell in with a body of Austrian
hussars, and three regiments of Saxon dragoons, which were the very best
cavalry the enemy had left after the battle of the twenty-second. They
had been detached by the Austrians, in order to retard the king’s march,
and to conceal their own, till their batteries should be completed;
for, as they held the small number of the Prussians in contempt,
their intention was to have met the king two German miles from their
intrenchments. The Austrian cavalry having been vigorously repulsed to
a considerable distance, general Ziethen perceived that their whole
army was forming. He immediately acquainted the king with what he
had discovered, and his majesty, after having himself observed the
disposition of the enemy, made his own with that sagacity and despatch
for which he has always been remarkable. The action began by attacking a
battery of forty pieces of large cannon, which covered the right wing
of the enemy. The two battalions of guards, with the regiments of the
margrave Charles and of Itzenplitz, marched up amidst a most terrible
fire to the very mouths of the cannon, with their bayonets screwed.
In this attack the Prussians sustained their greatest loss, though the
battery was carried as soon almost as they could reach it; then the
enemy’s artillery, now turned against themselves, played furiously upon
them with their own powder. From that instant the two wings and the
centre of the Prussians continued to drive the enemy before them,
advancing all the time with that firm and regular pace for which they
have always been renowned, without ever halting or giving way. The
ground which the Austrians occupied was very advantageous, and every
circumstance that could render it more so had been improved to the
utmost by the diligence and skill of count Daun, who, remembering his
former success, was emboldened to enter the lists again with his royal
antagonist. The Prussians, however, no way terrified by the enemy’s
situation nor their numbers, went calmly and dreadfully forward. It was
almost impossible in the beginning for the Prussian cavalry to act, on
account of the impediments of fallen trees, which the enemy had cut
down and laid in the field of battle, to retard their approach; but a
judicious disposition which the king made overcame that disadvantage.
When he first formed his army, he had placed four battalions behind
the cavalry of his right wing, foreseeing that general Nadasti, who was
placed with a corps of reserve on the enemy’s left, designed to take him
in flank. It happened as he had foreseen, this general’s horse attacked
the king’s right wing with great fury; but he was received with so
severe a fire from the four battalions, that he was obliged to retire
in disorder. The enemy gave way on all sides; out at some distance
recovered themselves, and rallied three times, animated by their
officers, and by the superiority of their numbers. Every time they made
a stand, the Prussians attacked them with redoubled vigour, and
with success equal to their bravery. Towards night, the enemy, still
retreating, fell into disorder. Their two wings fled in confusion;
one of them, closely pressed by the king, retired towards Breslau, and
took shelter under the cannon of that city; the other, pursued by the
greatest part of the light cavalry, took their flight towards Canth and
Schweidnitz. Six thousand Austrians fell in this engagement, and the
Prussians, who had only five hundred men killed, and two thousand three
hundred wounded, made upwards of ten thousand of the enemy prisoners,
among whom were two hundred and ninety-one officers. They took also an
hundred and sixteen cannon, fifty-one colours and standards, and four
thousand waggons of ammunition and baggage. The consequences that
followed this victory declared its importance. Future ages will read
with astonishment, that the same prince, who but a few months before
seemed on the verge of inevitable ruin, merely by the dint of his own
abilities, without the assistance of any friend whatever, with troops
perpetually harassed by long and painful marches, and by continual
skirmishes and battles, not only retrieved his affairs, which almost
every one, except himself, thought past redress; but, in the midst of
winter, in countries where it was judged next to impossible for any
troops to keep the field at that season, conquered the united force of
France and the empire at Rosbach, on the fifth of November; and on the
same day of the very next month, with a great part of the same army, was
at Lissa, where he again triumphed over all the power of the house of
Austria. Pursuing his advantage, he immediately invested Breslau, and
within two days after this great victory every thing was in readiness to
besiege it in form. His troops, flushed with success, were at first for
storming it, but the king, knowing the strength of the garrison, which
consisted of upwards of thirteen thousand men, and considering both
the fatigues which his own soldiers had lately undergone, and the fatal
consequences that might ensue, should they fail of success in this
attempt, ordered the approaches to be carried on in the usual form. His
commands were obeyed, and Breslau surrendered to him on the twentieth of
December in the morning. The garrison, of which ten thousand bore arms,
and between three and four thousand lay sick or wounded, were made
prisoners of war. Fourteen of these prisoners were officers of high
rank. The military chest, a vast treasure, with eighty pieces of cannon,
fell into the hands of the victors, who lost only about twenty men in
their approaches. During the siege, a magazine of powder was set on
fire by a bomb, which occasioned great confusion among the besieged, and
damaged one of the bastions. The strong fortress of Schweidnitz still
remained in the enemy’s possession, defended by a garrison so numerous,
that it might be compared to a small army, and whilst that continued so,
the king of Prussia’s victories in Silesia were of no decisive effect.
For this reason, though it was now the dead of winter, and the soldiers
stood in need of repose, his majesty resolved, if possible, to become
master of that place before the end of the year; but as a close siege
was impracticable, a blockade was formed, as strictly as the rigour of
the season would permit.*
* Such was the rigour of the season, that some hundreds of
the sentinels dropped down dead on their several posts,
unable to sustain the severity of the cold. The Germans lie
under the general reproach of paying very little regard to
the lives of their soldiers, and indeed this practice of
winter campaigns, in such a cold country, bespeaks very
little regard to the dictates of humanity.
It was not, however, till the beginning of the ensuing campaign that
this place was taken. The Prussians opened their trenches before it
on the third of April, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight, and
erected two large batteries, which kept a continual fire upon the town.
The artillery of the besiegers consisted of three hundred pieces
of cannon, of different dimensions, and eighty mortars; an amazing
artillery, and such as we have never heard of in former campaigns. On
the night of the fourteenth, the Prussians carried one of the chief
works by assault, and lodged themselves therein: the commandant
capitulated the next day, with the garrison, which was now greatly
reduced in number, being not half of what it amounted to at the
beginning of the blockade. Thus, all the parts of Silesia which the
king of Prussia had lost by one unfortunate blow, fell again into
his possession; and his affairs, which but a few months before seemed
irretrievable, were now re-established upon a firmer basis than ever.
The Prussian parties not only re-possessed themselves of those parts of
Silesia which belonged to their king, but penetrated into the Austrian
division, reduced Jagerndorf, Troppau, Tretchen, and several other
places, and left the empress-queen scarce any footing in that country,
in which, a few days before, she reckoned her dominion perfectly
established.
HOSTILITIES of the SWEDES in POMERANIA.