Part 11

The king determined to attack Prince Charles whenever and wherever he should meet him. He called together his general officers and made them one of those stirring speeches which lead captive the heart of every soldier: “You know, Meine Herrn, our disasters. Schweidnitz and Breslau and a good part of Silesia are gone. The Duke of Bevern is beaten. There would be nothing left but for my boundless trust in you and your courage. Each of you has distinguished himself by some memorable act. These services I know and remember. The hour is at hand. I shall have done nothing if I do not keep Silesia. I intend, in spite of all the rules of art, to seek Prince Charles, who has thrice our strength, and to attack him wherever I find him. It is not numbers I rely on, but your gallantry and whatever little skill I myself possess. This risk I must take or everything is lost. We must beat the enemy, or perish every one of us before his guns. Tell my determination to your officers, and prepare the men for the work to be done. I demand of you and them exact obedience. You are Prussians, and will act as such. But if any one of you dreads to share my dangers, he may now have his discharge without a word of reproach.” The king paused. A murmur and the soldier’s look of pride were his answer. “Ah! I knew it,” said the king, “not one of you would desert me. With your help victory is sure!” After a few more words the king added, “I demand again exact obedience. The cavalry regiment which does not on the instant, on orders given, dash full plunge into the enemy, I will unhorse and make a garrison regiment. The infantry battalion which, meet it what may, pauses but an instant shall lose its colors and sabres, and I will cut the trimmings from its uniform. And now, goodnight. Soon we shall have beaten the enemy, or we shall never meet again.”

Having learned of the approach of the Prussian army, Prince Charles, relying on his vast preponderance of forces, left his intrenched camp at Breslau and marched out to meet the king. He felt certain of victory, as how could he otherwise? Had not Frederick been beaten at the last encounter and his territory overrun? He imagined that he would stand on the defence along the Katzbach. He little knew this iron-hearted king.

The Austrian van, with the bread bakery, was sent to Neumarkt. In his own advance, Frederick ran across this outpost and bakery and captured it. It was on a Sunday, and furnished the men a holiday dinner. He was glad to learn that the enemy had come out to meet him. Prince Charles, surprised at the Neumarkt incident, lost heart and retired to receive battle in front of Schweidnitz Water. The Austrian army was posted at Leuthen, extending from Nypern to Sägeschütz. The villages in its front were prepared for defence.

The king broke up from Neumarkt long before day. He was advancing by his right, in four columns, on the straight road toward Breslau. Prince Charles lay across his path (Dec. 5). In Frederick’s mind was nothing but the firm determination he had expressed to his officers. He proposed to attack the enemy on sight, and under any conditions. In boldness alone for him lay safety, and he never doubted himself or his men.

Riding with the vanguard, as was his wont in an advance, the king ran across a cavalry outpost at Borne. Quickly surrounding it, he captured almost the entire body. The few who escaped carried confused tidings back to Prince Charles, who believed the king’s party to be only scouts. From here Frederick rode to the Scheuberg, from whence he could see the Austrian line, and gauge its strength. Careful to occupy this hill and a range of knolls running south from it and parallel with the Austrian line, the king speedily perfected his plan of battle. He was never at a loss. His vanguard he sent beyond Borne to engage the enemy’s attention. He knew the ground well. On the Austrian right it was swampy and unsuited to manœuvring. On their centre and left it was open and firm. The Austrian position, in two lines, had been well chosen, but, almost five miles long, was open to be broken by well-concentrated columns. Nadasti held the left, Lucchesi the right. Frederick filed his entire army off the main road in columns of platoons to the right, behind the swelling hills, and ployed his four columns of advance into two, which would thus become the first and second lines when the column should wheel to the left into line. Upon doing this they were to advance in echelon and obliquely upon the Austrian left flank. On good manœuvring ground and with Prussian troops, the king felt confident that he could strike a formidable blow to the enemy.

Frederick’s officers and men had become familiar with this oblique order of attack, from the frequency of its use on the drill-ground and in battle. Its origin was Epaminondas’ manœuvre at Leuctra, but the details the king himself had introduced. The cumulative effect of the impact, acquiring power as every additional battalion came into line, was apt to impose strongly upon the enemy. And at the actual point of contact Frederick would have the larger force, though outnumbered three to one.

Prince Charles occupied Leuthen belfry. He could not see beyond the Scheuberg hills. The Prussian cavalry here he assumed to be the Prussian right wing, as it extended some distance south of the main road. The attention of Lucchesi was particularly called to the Prussian van of horse, and he conceived that the Austrian right was to be attacked in overwhelming numbers. He sent for reënforcements. These were denied him by Daun, who was second in command; but the request was repeated so urgently that Daun, finally convinced, moved the bulk of the cavalry and part of the reserve from the Austrian left over to the right, an operation requiring nearly two hours. Here was an unfortunate blunder to begin with. To read aright your enemy’s intentions savors of the divine.

The king’s columns soon emerged from the shelter of the Scheuberg hills, opposite the strongly posted Austrian left. To the distant observer they appeared a confused mass, without form or purpose. But the king well knew how certainly, at the proper moment, his perfectly drilled battalions would wheel into line. Eye-witnesses state that the movement was conducted as if on parade; that the heads of columns remained absolutely even, and that the echeloning of the line was done at exact intervals. Each battalion followed the one on its right at a distance of fifty paces. The line was not only oblique from its echeloned character, but was formed at an angle to the Austrian front as well. The Austrian left was thrown back in a crochet. It was the salient of line and crochet which was to be the centre of attack. The manœuvre had lasted two hours. The Austrians had not budged.

It was one P.M. A battery of ten heavy guns was placed opposite the abatis which protected the Austrian left and shortly broke this down. Ziethen headed his cavalry for an attack upon the extreme left of the enemy, to complement that of the main line. Lest his own right should be turned, he reënforced it with some infantry troops. Nadasti had been weakened by the removal of his cavalry, but nothing daunted, he sallied out without waiting for Ziethen’s shock, and all but countered the Prussian blow. But though the Prussian horse, charging uphill, for a moment wavered, the infantry on its right was undisturbed. Nadasti was hustled back.

While the cavalry was thus advancing to the assault, the batteries posted by the king to sustain the attack of his infantry delivered an effective fire. Under its cover the Prussian regiments, despite the abatis which, now quite levelled, still retained them under fire, after a sanguinary struggle, broke the salient at its apex, while Ziethen turned its extreme left. The crochet was thus taken in double reverse, a battery of fourteen guns was captured, and the main line of the enemy was outflanked. It was barely two o’clock, but the left wing of the Austrians had been completely broken.

Prince Charles, alarmed, hurried troops and guns from the centre to the assistance of Nadasti; but the more came up the greater the confusion. Ziethen was taking whole regiments prisoners. Seeing that all efforts to rally the left were useless, and that Nadasti could probably retreat upon the centre while the Prussians were gathering for a second blow, the prince made a desperate effort to form a new line at Leuthen. Lucchesi moved forward by a left wheel. Nadasti fell back as best he might. Prince Charles posted a strong force in Leuthen churchyard as a _point d’appui_.

The Prussian army was now advancing almost north. The new Austrian line lay at right angles to its first position, and, as drawn, encircled the village. The Prussians, within half an hour, attacked them in this new position. A bitter contest ensued around the churchyard and some windmills on the hills beyond. The Austrian line was badly mixed up. In places it was thirty to one hundred men deep, and the Prussian guns cut great furrows through the mass. Still the resistance was so stubborn that Frederick was compelled to put in his last man.

Meanwhile Lucchesi, whose misconception had caused the defeat of the Austrian left, debouched with his cavalry upon the Prussian left, which was engaging the enemy on the west of Leuthen. This diversion was well intentioned and came near to being fatal. But the Prussian squadrons left by the king on the Scheuberg hills, emerging from their hiding when the Austrians had somewhat passed, fell smartly upon their flank and rear. Lucchesi was killed and his cavalry scattered; the flank of the enemy’s new line was thus taken in reverse, and the position soon made untenable. Prince Charles was compelled again to beat a hasty retreat.

A third stand was attempted at Saara, but to no effect. The defeated Austrians poured pell-mell over the bridges spanning Schweidnitz Water. The Prussian cavalry followed them some distance.

In this astonishing victory, which was won in three hours, the Prussian loss was six thousand two hundred killed and wounded out of thirty thousand men. The Austrians, out of over eighty thousand men, lost ten thousand in killed and wounded, and twelve thousand prisoners on the field of battle, fifty-one flags, and one hundred and sixteen guns. Within a fortnight after, nearly twenty thousand more men, left by Prince Charles at Breslau, were taken prisoners.

Prince Charles crossed the mountains and reached Königsgrätz with a force of but thirty-seven thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were invalided. So much alone was left of the proud army which was to give the _coup de grace_ to doughty Frederick.

By this victory, whose like had not been seen since Cannæ, and which is, tactically considered, distinctly the most splendid of modern days, Frederick rescued himself from immediate disaster, and earned a winter’s leisure in which to prepare for the still desperate difficulties before him. The most threatening matter was the Russian army; the one comfort a subsidy from England. Pitt was clear-sighted in his help to the king.

Frederick is by no means as distinguished a strategist as Napoleon, but he is a more brilliant tactician. He was not a conqueror; he was a king defending his territory. While theoretically on the defensive, he kept the initiative and was always the attacking party. Surrounded as he was by enemies, his strategy was confined to selecting the, for the time, most dangerous opponent and making an uncompromising onslaught upon him. During the Seven Years’ War he was placed somewhat as was Napoleon in the campaign around Paris, in 1814, and flew from one margin of his theatre of operations to the other. But Frederick won; Napoleon lost. It was Frederick’s fortitude, unmatched save by Hannibal, which carried him through.

In 1758, true to his custom, Frederick took the field before the enemy and surprised him by a march into Moravia and a sudden siege of Olmütz. But Frederick, like Hannibal, was never happy in his sieges. This one was interrupted by Daun from Königsgrätz, and ended in the capture of one of Frederick’s convoys by the active partisan chieftain Laudon. Frederick was forced to retire, but he did so deliberately and with all his trains. One of the most remarkable qualities of the king was the dread he inspired, even in defeat. As the Romans avoided Hannibal, so the Austrians never ventured to attack Frederick in disaster. Napoleon by no means rose superior to misfortune in the manner of Frederick. In this instance the enemy attempted no pursuit, and to Daun’s utter consternation, instead of retreating on Silesia from whence he had come, Frederick made a forced march around the Austrian flank, captured and established himself in Daun’s own fortified camp, and there feasted his men on Daun’s supplies. He had absolutely checkmated the Austrian general. This turning of the tables almost provokes a smile. (July.)

From Königsgrätz, however, Frederick was soon called against the Russians, who had advanced as far into Prussian territory as Frankfurt. He marched rapidly northward, met the enemy at Zorndorf, and by a beautiful movement around their position established himself on their communications. Then with his thirty thousand men he boldly assailed the fifty thousand Russians strongly entrenched on Zorndorf heights (August 25). The Russians have always been stubborn fighters, but they now met a man who would not take less than victory. There ensued one of those horrible butcheries which these tenacious troops have so often suffered rather than yield. Frederick won the day, but it was with a loss of ten thousand four hundred killed and wounded out of his thirty thousand men,--more than one-third,--in a few hours, while the Russians lost twenty-one thousand men and one hundred and thirty guns. Frederick, however, from sheer exhaustion, allowed the Russians to retire without pursuit, and singularly enough he neglected to seize the Russian wagon-camp, which was absolutely under his hand. This was an undoubted error; but he had eliminated the most grievous danger from his problem, which was all he had in view.

He was now obliged to hurry back to draw Daun away from Dresden. This he accomplished; but Daun still stood athwart his path to Silesia, which the king must reach to relieve the siege of Neisse. In endeavoring to elude the enemy he ran across him at Hochkirch, and, in one of his not unusual fits of unreasonable obstinacy, sat down in a recklessly bad position within a mile of the Austrian front. Here he remained four days. “The Austrians deserve to be hanged if they do not attack us here,” said grim Field-Marshal Keith. “They fear us worse than the gallows,” replied the king. But just as Frederick was preparing a new flank march, Daun, who had ninety thousand men, fell upon the Prussian army of less than forty thousand, and, despite the best of fighting, fairly wrested a victory and one hundred guns from the king (Oct. 14). For all which Frederick retired from the field in parade order--merely shifted his ground, as it were--and again camped within four miles of the battle-field. “The marshal has let us out of check; the game is not lost yet,” quoth he. From here, within a few days, Frederick made another of his wonderful turning movements, and this time actually seized the road to Silesia. Thus in spite of a defeat and of numbers he had gained his point. The Austrians raised the siege of Neisse at the mere rumor of his approach, and this campaign of marvellous marches left the king in possession of all that for which he had been contending.

But though Frederick had in every sense held his own, and had won battles such as the world had never yet seen, he had none the less lost ground. His three years’ hard fighting had robbed him of most of his trusted generals and the flower of his army. He had an inimitable knack of making recruits into soldiers, but these were not his old grenadiers, nor could his dead lieutenants be replaced. The Austrian troops were, on the contrary, distinctly improving. Their ranks contained more veterans, for, in their larger standing army, the losses of the Austrians did not decimate their battalions.

The king’s financiering during these years was remarkable. He never ran in debt. He always had money ahead. How he managed to arm, equip, supply, feed, and pay his men on less than eighty-five dollars per man per year, is beyond our comprehension. But he did it, and well too.

As 1759 opened, a cordon of over three hundred and fifty thousand men surrounded Frederick’s one hundred and fifty thousand. The king had, however, interior lines and undivided purpose. His difficulty in raising troops--and he had a press-gang in every country of Europe--obliged him to give up fighting for manœuvring, like Hannibal after Cannæ. He could afford battle only when he must wrench the enemy’s grip from his very throat. He remained in Silesia watching Daun, who induced the Prussians to advance into Brandenburg, by sending Soltikof some reënforcements under Laudon.

Frederick must parry this thrust at his heart. He marched on the allies and met them at Kunersdorf, and, though he had but half their force, he attacked them with his usual impetuous valor. But the king was over-impetuous that day. Ill luck beset him. His combinations would not work. He tore himself to shreds against the entrenchments and artillery of the enemy. He would have victory. Not until he had lost one-half his army, nineteen thousand out of forty-two thousand men, would he desist from repeated, obstinate assaults. He was the last to leave the field. No such stubborn fighting is elsewhere inscribed on the roll of fame. After the battle the king could assemble but three thousand men. The allies had been too roughly handled to pursue (Aug. 12).

For once despair seized poor Frederick. He thought the end had come. But his elasticity came to the rescue. In three days he was himself again. Every one was certain that Prussia was gone beyond rescue. Happily the allies were lax. Dresden was indeed lost, and Frederick was cut off by Soltikof and the Austrians from Prince Henry, who were on the confines of Saxony. But by a handsome series of manœuvres between him and the prince--as beautiful as any on record--he regained touch and reoccupied all Saxony except Dresden. And although he suffered another grievous blow, and again by his own obstinacy, as at Hochkirch, in the capture of twelve thousand men at Maxen, still Daun made no headway, and the end of the fourth year saw the king where he was at the beginning.

The characteristic of 1760 was a series of wonderful manœuvres. Frederick, from Saxony, had to march to the relief of Breslau, threatened by Laudon. He had thirty thousand men. The enemy barred his passage (August) with ninety thousand, and the Russians were near by with twenty-four thousand more. Despite this fearful odds of four to one, despite the unwonted activity of the enemy, Frederick, by unheard-of feats of marching, the most extraordinary schemes for eluding his adversaries, strategic turns and twists by day and night, the most restless activity and untiring watchfulness, actually made his way to Silesia, beat the Austrian right at Liegnitz and marched into Breslau safe and sound, and with martial music and colors flying. No parallel exhibition of clean grit and nimble-footedness can be found. From Breslau as base, Frederick then turned on Daun in the Glatz region.

The Russians and Austrians now moved on Berlin, and while Frederick followed, Daun marched towards Saxony (October). The king by no means proposed to give up this province. To its fruitful fields he was indebted for too much in breadstuffs and war material for a moment peaceably to yield them up. His stubbornness had grown by misfortune. Knowing full well that failure meant the dismemberment of Prussia, he was ready to sacrifice every man in the ranks and every coin in the treasury, and himself fall in his tracks, rather than yield his point. This wonderful man and soldier was made of stuff which, like steel, gains quality from fire and blows.

The Berlin incident proved more bark than bite, and in the battle of Torgau, though Daun and the Imperialists had over one hundred thousand men to Frederick’s forty-four thousand, the king attacked their intrenchments and won a superb victory (Nov. 3).

For 1761, Frederick’s forces dropped to ninety-six thousand men. The enemy had the usual number. This, too, was a year of manœuvres, which are of the greatest interest to the soldier, but need volumes to relate. At the camp of Bunzelwitz, for the first time, Frederick resorted to pure defence. The result of this year left the king where he had been, save the capture of Schweidnitz by General Laudon. Frederick was fighting to keep Silesia, and the close of each year, through good and evil alike, saw him still in possession of the cherished province.

The winter of 1761–2 was one of great bitterness to the king. His health had broken down. On every hand the situation was clearly desperate. No prospect but failure lay before him. He led the life of a dog, as he said. Still the iron-hearted man ceased not for a moment his preparations. He was resolved to die with honor if he could not win. Had the outlook been promising in the extreme, he could not have labored more consistently, even if more cheerfully. “All our wars should be short and sharp,” says he; “a long war is bad for our discipline and would exhaust our population and resources.” The theory of the strategy as well as the battle evolutions of the king was the saving of time by skill and rapidity.

The death of the Czarina and accession of Peter III. gave Frederick a breathing-spell. This lasted but a short while, when the death of Peter again changed the current. But the war from now on languished, and there finally came about a peace on the “as-you-were” principle. Frederick kept Silesia (1763).

Frederick had not been a strong boy, but in early manhood he had gained in physique. His life with troops had lent him a robustness of constitution equal to any drain or strain, and his wonderful determination drove him to ceaseless activity. Later in life he was troubled with gout. Even when seventy-three years old, and clinging to life by a mere thread, he never ceased daily, hourly work. His efforts were all for the good of Prussia, and his subjects recognized what he had done for the fatherland. Zimmermann, the Hanoverian physician, thus describes him in his old age:--

“He is not of tall stature, and seems bent under his load of laurels and his many years of struggle. His blue coat, much worn like his body, long boots to above the knees, and a white snuff-besprinkled vest, gave him a peculiar aspect. But the fire of his eyes showed that Frederick’s soul had not grown old. Though his bearing was that of an invalid, yet one must conclude from the quickness of his movements and the bold decisiveness of his look, that he could yet fight like a youth. Set up his unimportant figure among a million of men, and every one would recognize in him the king, so much sublimity and constancy resided in this unusual man!”

And the same writer says of his palace:--