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8th July 1778.

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they have in battery no fewer than 1,500 cannon. position very considerable indeed:-must have taken time to deliberate, delve and invest; but it is done. Near fifty miles of it: here, clear to your glass, has the head of Lacy visibly emerged on us, as if for survey of phenomena :-head of Lacy sure enough (body of him lying invisible in the heights, passes and points of vantage); and its neck of fifty miles, like the neck of a war-horse clothed with thunder. On which (thinks Schmettau privately) you may, too late, make your reflexions!

Schmettau asserts that the position, though strong, was nothing like so infinitely strong; and that Friedrich in his younger days would very soon have assaulted it, and turned Lacy inside out: but Friedrich, we know, had his reasons against hurry. He reconnoitered diligently; rode out reconnoitering 'fifteen miles the first day' (July 6th), ditto the second and following; and was nearly shot by Croats,-by one specific Croat, says Prussian Mythology, supported by Engraving. An old Engraving, which I have never seen, represents Friedrich reconnoitering those five-and-twenty miles of Elbe, which have so many redoubts on their side of it, and swarm with Croat parties on both sides: this is all the truth that is in the Engraving.15 Fact says: Friedrich ('on the 8th,' if that were all the variation) was a 'mark for the Austrian sharpshooters for half-an-hour.' Myth says, and engraves it, with the date of July 7th:' Friedrich, skirting some thicket, suddenly came upon a single Croat with musket levelled at him, wild creature's finger just on the trigger;-and quietly admonishing, Friedrich lifts his finger with a "Du, Du (Ah you!);" upon which, such the divinity that hedges

15 Rödenbeck, p. 188.

13th July-10th Aug. 1778. one, the wild creature instantly flings down his murderweapon, and, kneeling, embraces the King's boot,with kisses, for anything I know. It is certain, Friedrich, about six times over in this paltry War or Quasi No-War, set his attendants on the tremble; was namely, from Croateries and Artilleries, in imminent peril of life; so careless was he, and dangerous to speak to in his sour humour. Humour very sour, they say, for most part; being in reality altogether backward and loth for grand enterprise; and yet striving to think he was not; ashamed that any War of his should be a No-War. Schmettau says:

"On the day of getting into Jaromirtz' (July 8th), 'the King, 'tired of riding about while the Columns were slowly getting in, lay down on the ground with his Adjutants about him. A 'young Officer came riding past; whom the King beckoned to ' him ;-wrote something with pencil (an Order, not of the least 'importance), and said: "Here; that Order to General Lossow, " and tell him he is not to take it ill that I trouble him, as I have "none in my Suite that can do anything." Let the Suite take it as they can! A most pungent, severe old King; quite perverse at times, thinks Schmettau. Thus again, more than once:

'On arriving with his Column where the Officer, a perfectly ❝ skilful man, had marked out the Camp, the King would lift his 'spyglass; gaze to right and left, riding round the place at per6 haps a hundred yards distance; and begin : "Sieht er, Herr, But "look, Herr, what a botching you have made of it again (was er "da wieder für dumm Zeug gemacht hat)!" and grumbling and blaming would alter the Camp, till it was all out of rule; and then say, "See there, that is the way to mark out Camps." "16

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In a week's time, July 13th, came another fine excuse for inaction; Plenipotentiary Thugut, namely, and the Kaiserinn's Letter, which we spoke of. Autograph from Maria Theresa herself, inspired by the terror of 16 Schmettau, xxv. 30, 24. QQ

VOL. VI.

13th July-10th Aug. 1778. Vienna and of her beautiful motherly heart. Negotiation to be private utterly: "My Son, the Kaiser, knows nothing of it; I beg the most absolute secrecy;" which was accordingly kept, while Thugut, with Finkenstein and Herzberg again, held "Congress of Braunau" in those neighbourhoods,-with as little effect as ever. Thugut's Name, it seems, was originally Tunicotto (Tyrolese-Italian); which the ignorant Vienna people changed into "Thu-nicht-gut (Do-no-good)," till Maria Theresa, in very charity, struck out the negative, and made him "Dogood." Do-good and his Congress held Friedrich till August 10th: five more weeks gone; and nothing but reconnoitering,-with of course foraging, and diligently eating the Country, which is a daily employment, and produces fencing and skirmishing enough.

Henri, in the interim, has invaded from the West; seen Leitmeritz, Lobositz;-Prag Nobility all running, and I suppose Prayers to St. Vitus going again,—and Loudon in alarm. Loudon, however, saved Prag 'by two masterly positions' (not mentionable here); upon which Henri took camp at Niemes; Loudon, the weaker in this part, seizing the Iser as a bulwark, and ranking himself behind it, back-to-back of Lacy. Here for about five weeks sat Henri, nothing on hand but to eat the Country. Over the heads of Loudon and Lacy, as the crow flies, Henri's Camp may be about 70 miles from Jaromirtz, where the King is. Hussar Belling, our old Anti-Swede friend, a brilliant cutting-man, broke over the Iser once, perhaps twice; and there was pretty fencing by him and the like of him: 'but Prince Henri did nothing,' says the King,1-was, in fact, helping the King to do nothing. By the 10th of September, as

17 Euvres de Frédéric, vi. 154.

6th Aug. 1778.

Henri has computed, this Country will be eaten; "Forage, I find, will be quite done here on September 10th," writes Henri, after a week or two's experience.

There was always talk of Henri and the King, who are 100,000 each, joining hands by the post of Arnau, or some weak point of Lacy's well north of Königsgrätz; thus of cutting off the meal-carts of that backto-back copartnery, and so of tumbling it off the ground (which was perfectly possible, says Schmettau); and small detachments and expeditions were pushed out, General Dahlwig, General Anhalt, partly for that object: but not the least of it ever took effect. "Futile, lost by loitering, as all else was," groans Schmettau. Prince Henri was averse to attempt, intimates the King, as indeed (though refusing to own it) was I. "September 10th, my forage will be out, your Majesty," says Henri, always a punctual calculating man.

The Austrians, on their side, were equally stagnant; and, except the continual skirmishing with the Prussian foragers, undertook nothing. "Shamefully ill-done our foraging, too," exclaims Schmettau again and again: “Had we done it with neatness, with regularity, the Country would have lasted us twice as long. Doing it headlong, wastefully, and by the rule-of-thumb, the Country was a desert, all its inhabitants fled, all its edibles consumed, before six weeks were over. Friedrich is not now himself at all; in great things or in little; what a changed Friedrich!" exclaims Schmettau, with wearisome iteration.

From about August 6th, or especially August 10th, when the Maria-Theresa Correspondence, or "Congress of Braunau," ended likewise in zero, Friedrich became impatient for actual junction with Prince Henri, actual push of business; and began to hint of an excellent plan

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15th Aug.-8th Sept. 1778.

he had: "Burst through on their left flank; blow up their post of Hohenelbe yonder: thence is but one march to Iser river; junction with Prince Henri there; and a Lacy and a Loudon tumbled to the winds." A plan perfectly feasible,' says Schmettau; 'which solaced the King's humour, but which he never really intended 'to execute.' Possibly not; otherwise, according to old wont, he would have forborne to speak of it beforehand. At all events, August 15th, in the feeling that one ought really to do something, the rather as forage hereabouts was almost or altogether running out, he actually set about this grand scheme.

Got on march to leftward, namely, up the Aupa river, through the gloomy chasms of Kingdom-Wood, memorable in old days: had his bakery shifted to Trautenau; his heavy cannon getting tugged through the mire and the rains, which by this time were abundant, towards Hohenelbe, for the great enterprise: and sat encamped on and about the Battleground of Sohr for a week or so, waiting till all were forward; eating Sohr Country, which was painfully easy to do. The Austrians did next to nothing on him; but the rains, the mud, and scarcity were doing much. Getting on to Hohenelbe region, after a week's wet waiting, he, on ocular survey of the ground about, was heard to say, "This cannot be done, then!" 'Had never meant to do it,' sneers Schmettau, 'and only wanted some excuse.' Which is very likely. Schmettau gives an Anecdote of him here: In regard to a certain Hill, the Key of the Austrian position, which the King was continually reconnoitering, and lamenting the enormous height of, "Impossible, so high!" One of the Adjutants took his theodolite, ascertained the height, and, by way of comforting his Majesty, reported the exact

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