15th-18th June 1760.

Tuesday June 17th, second day of Friedrich's stay at Broschwitz, Mitchell, in a very confidential Dialogue they had together, learned from him, under seal of secrecy, That it was his purpose to march for Radeburg tomorrow morning, and attack Lacy and his 30,000, who lie encamped at Moritzburg out yonder; for which step his Majesty was pleased farther to show Mitchell a little what the various inducements were : One Russian Corps is aiming as if for Berlin; the Austrians are about besieging Glatz,-pressing need that Fouquet were ' reinforced in his Silesian post of difficulty. Then here are 'the Reichs-people close by; can be in Dresden three days 'hence, joined to Daun: 80,000 odd there will then be of Ene'mies in this part: I must beat Lacy, if possible, while time 'still is!'-and ended by saying: "Succeed here, and all may yet be saved; be beaten here, I know the consequences: but "what can I do? The risk must be run; and it is now smaller "than it will ever again be."

66

Mitchell, whose account is a fortnight later than the Dialogue itself, does confess, My Lord, these reasons, though un'happily the thing seems to have failed, “appear to me to be solid "and unanswerable."' Much more do they to Tempelhof, who sees deeper into the bottom of them than Mitchell did; and finds that the failure is only superficial. The real success, thinks Tempelhof, would be, Could the King manœuvre himself into Silesia, and entice a cunctatory Daun away with him thither. A cunctatory Daun to preside over matters there, in his superstitiously cautious way; leaving Saxony free to the Reichsfolk,-whom a Hülsen, left with his small remnant in Schlettau, might easily take charge of, till Silesia were settled? • The plan was bold, was new, and completely worthy of Friedrich,' votes Tempelhof; and it required the most consummate delicacy of execution. To lure Daun on, always with the

' prospect opened to him of knocking you on the head, and always by your rapidity and ingenuity to take care that he 'never got it done.' This is Tempelhof's notion: and this, sure enough, was actually Friedrich's mode of management in the weeks following; though whether already altogether planned in his head, or only gradually planning itself, as is more likely, nobody can say. We will look a very little into the execution, concerning which there is no dubiety :

6 Mitchell, Memoirs and Papers, ii, 160 (Despatch, 'June 30th, 1760'); Tempelhof, iv. 44.

19th June 1760.

Wednesday 18th June, Friedrich,' as predicted to Mitchell, the night before, did start punctually, in three columns, at 3 A.M.' (Sun just rising); and, after a hot march, got encamped on the southward 'side of Radeburg: ready to cross the Rödern Stream there tomorrow, as if intending for the Lausitz' (should that prove needful for alluring Lacy),—' and in the mean while very inquisitive where Lacy might be. 'One of Lacy's outposts, those Saxon light horse, was fallen-in with; was chased home, and Lacy's camp discovered, that night. At Berns'dorf, not three miles to southward or right of us; Daun only another 'three to south of him. Let us attack Lacy tomorrow morning; wind 'round to get between Daun and him,'-with fit arrangements; rapid as light! In the King's tent, accordingly, his Generals are assembled to take their Orders; brief, distinct, and to be done with brevity. 'And all are on the move for Bernsdorf at 4 next morning; when, 'behold,

Thursday 19th, 'At Bernsdorf there is no Lacy to be found. Cau'tious Daun has ordered him in,-and not for Lacy's sake, as appears, 'but for his own : "Hitherward, you alert Lacy; to cover my right 'flank here, my Hill of Reichenberg,-lest it be not impregnable ' enough against that feline enemy!" And there they have taken post, say 60,000 against 30,000; and are palisading to a quite extraordinary degree. No fight possible with Lacy or Daun.'

This is what Mitchell counts the failure of Friedrich's enterprise : and certainly it grieved Friedrich a good deal. Who, on riding out to reconnoitre Reichenberg (Quintus Icilius and Battalion Quintus part of his escort, if that be an interesting circumstance), finds Reichenberg a plainly unattackable post; finds, by Daun's rate of palisading, that there will be no attack from Daun either. No attack from Daun ;and, therefore, that Hülsen's people may be sent home to Schlettau again; and that he, Friedrich, will take post close by, and wearisomely be content to wait for some new opportunity.

Which he does for a week to come; Daun sitting impregnable, intrenched and palisaded to the teeth,-rather wishing to be attacked, you would say; or hopeful sometimes of doing something of the Hochkirch sort again (for the country is woody, and the enemy audacious); -at all events, very clear not to attack. A man erring, sometimes to a notable degree, by over-caution. 'Could hardly have failed to over'whelm Friedrich's small force, had he at once, on Friedrich's crossing 'the Elbe, joined Lacy, and gone-out against him,' thinks Tempelhof, pointing out the form of operation too. Caution is excellent; but not quite by itself. Would caution alone do it, an Army all of Druidic whinstones, or innocent clay-sacks, incapable of taking hurt, would be the proper one!-Daun stood there; Friedrich looking daily into him, -visibly in ill-humour, says Mitchell; and no wonder; gloomy and surly words coming out of him, to the distress of his Generals: "Which I took the liberty of hinting, one evening, to his Majesty ;" hint gra7 Tempelhof, iv. 47-49. 8 Ib. iv. 42, 48.

23d June 1760.

ciously received, and of effect perceptible, at least to my imagining.

Wednesday June 25th, After nearly a week of this, there rose, towards sunset, all over the Reichenberg, and far and wide, an exuberant joy-firing: "For what in the world?" thinks Friedrich. Alas, your Majesty, since your own messenger has not arrived, nor indeed ever will, being picked-up by Pandours,-here, gathered from the Austrian outposts or deserters, are news for you, fatal enough! Landshut is done; Fouquet and his valiant 13,000 are trodden out there. Indignant Fouquet has obeyed you, not wisely but too well. He has kept Landshut six nights and five days. here is what befell :

On the morning of the sixth day,

"Landshut, Monday 23d June, About a quarter to two in the morning, Loudon, who had gathered 31,000 horse and foot for the business, and taken his measures, fired aloft, by way of signal, four "howitzers into the gray of the summer morning; and burst loose upon Fouquet, in various columns, on his southward front, on both "flanks, ultimately in his rear too: columns all in the height of fight"ing humour, confident as three to one,—and having brandy in them, "it is likewise said. Fouquet and his people stood to arms, in the temper Fouquet had vowed they would: defended their Hills with an energy, with a steady skill, which Loudon himself admired; but "their Hill-works would have needed thrice the number ;-Fouquet, by detaching and otherwise, has in arms only 10,680 men. Toughly "as they strove, after partial successes, they began to lose one Hill, "and then another; and in the course of hours, nearly all their Hills. "Landshut Town Loudon had taken from them, Landshut and its "roads: in the end, the Prussian position is becoming permeable, (6 plainly untenable;-Austrian force is moving to their rearward to "block the retreat.

"Seeing which latter fact, Fouquet throws-out all his Cavalry, a poor 1, 500, to secure the Passes of the Bober; himself forms square "with the wrecks of his Infantry; and, at a steady step, cuts way "for himself with bayonet and bullet. With singular success for some "time, in spite of the odds. And is clear across the Bober; when lo,

among the knolls ahead, masses of Austrian Cavalry are seen waiting "him, besetting every passage! Even these do not break him; but "these, with infantry and cannon coming up to help them, do. Here, "for some time, was the fiercest tug of all,―till a bullet having killed "Fouquet's horse, and carried the General himself to the ground, the spasm ended. The Lichnowski Dragoons, a famed Austrian regiment, who had charged and again charged with nothing but repulse "on repulse, now broke in, all in a foam of rage; cut furiously upon Fouquet himself; wounded Fouquet thrice; would have killed him, "had it not been for the heroism of poor Trautschke, his Groom" (let us name the gallant fellow, even if unpronounceable), "who flung him"self on the body of his Master, and took the bloody strokes instead

23d June 1760.

"of him; shrieking his loudest, 'Will you murder the Commanding General, then!' Which brought up the Colonel of Lichnowski; a "Gentleman and Ritter, abhorrent of such practices. To him Fouquet 66 gave his sword ;-kept his vow never to draw it again.

"The wrecks of Fouquet's Infantry were, many of them, massacred, "no quarter given; such the unchivalrous fury that had risen. His "Cavalry, with the loss of about 500, cut their way through. They "and some stragglers of Foot, in whole about 1,500 of both kinds, were what remained of those 10, 680 after this bloody morning's "work. There had been about six hours of it; 'all over by 8 o'clock.'” Fouquet has obeyed to the letter: "Did not my King wrong me?" Fouquet may say to himself. Truly, Herr General, your King's Order was a little unwise; as you (who were on the ground, and your King not) knew it to be. An unwise Order;—perhaps not inexcusable in the sudden circumstances. And perhaps a still more perfect Bayard would have preferred obeying such a King in spirit, rather than in letter, and thereby doing him vital service against his temporary will? It is not doubted but Fouquet, left to himself and his 13,000, with the Fortresses and Garrisons about him, would have maintained himself in

Silesia till help came. The issue is, Fouquet has probably lost this fine King his Silesia, for the time being; and beyond any question, has lost him 10,000 Prussian-Spartan fighters, and a fine General whom he could ill spare!--In a word, the Gate of Silesia is burst open; and Loudon has every prospect of taking Glatz, which will keep it so.

What a thunderbolt for Friedrich! One of the last pillars struck away from his tottering affairs. "Inevitable, then? We are over with it, then ?" One may fancy Friedrich's reflections. But he showed nothing of them to anybody; in a few hours, had his mind composed, and new plans on the anvil. On the morrow of that Austrian Joy-Firing,-morrow, or some day close on it (ought to have been dated, but is not),—there went from him, to Magdeburg, the Order: "Have me such and such quantities of Siege-Artillery in a state of readiness."10 Already meaning, it is thought, or contemplating as possible a certain Siege, which surprised everybody before long! A most inventive, enterprising being; no end to his contrivances and unexpected outbreaks; especially when you have him jammed into a corner, and fancy it is all over with him!

To no other General,' says Tempelhof, 'would such a no'tion of besieging Dresden have occurred; or if it had sug

9 Hofbericht von der am 23 Junius 1760 bey Landshuth vorgefallenen Action (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 669-671); Helden-Geschichte, vi. 258-284; Tempelhof, iv. 26-41; Stenzel, v. 241 (who, by oversight, this Volume being posthumous to poor Stenzel,-protracts the Action to 'half-past 7 in the evening').

10 Tempelhof, iv. 51.

23d June 1760.

gested itself, the hideous difficulties would at 'ished it again, or left it only as a pious wish.

' of this kind that characterise the great man.

once have ban

But it is strokes
Often enough

they have succeeded, been decisive of great campaigns and

wars, and become splendid in the eyes of all mankind; sometimes, as in this case, they have only deserved to succeed, ' and to be splendid in the eyes of judges. How get these masses of enemies lured away, so that you could try such a thing? There lay the difficulty; insuperable altogether, except by the most fine and appropriate treatment. Of a truth, it required a connected series of the wisest measures and most 'secret artifices of war;-and withal, that you should throw over them such a veil as would lead your enemy to see in 'them precisely the reverse of what they meant. How all this was to be set in action, and how the Enemy's own plans, in⚫tentions and moods of mind were to be used as raw material ' for attainment of your object,-studious readers will best see ' in the manœuvres of the King in his now more than critical condition; which do certainly exhibit the completest masterpiece in the Art of leading Armies that Europe has ever 'seen.'

་

The

Tempelhof is well enough aware, as readers should continue to be, that, primarily, and onward for three weeks more, not Dresden, but the getting to Silesia on good terms, is Friedrich's main enterprise: Dresden only a supplement or substitute, a second string to his bow, till the first fail. But, in effect, the two enterprises or strings coincide, or are one, till the first of them fail; and Tempelhof's eulogy will apply to either. initiatory step to either is a Second Feat of Marching;-still notabler than the former, which has had this poor issue. Soldiers of the studious or scientific sort, if there are yet any such among us, will naturally go to Tempelhof, and fearlessly encounter the ruggedest Documents and Books, if Tempelhof leave them dubious on any point (which he hardly will): to ingenuous readers of other sorts, who will take a little pains for understanding the thing, perhaps the following intermittent faroff glimpses may suffice.11

On ascertaining the Landshut disaster, Friedrich falls back a little; northward to Gross-Dobritz: " Possibly Daun will think us cowed by

11 Mitchell, ii. 162 et seq.; and Tempelhof (iv. 50-53 et seq), as a scientific check on Mitchell, or unconscious fellow-witness with him,-agreeing beautifully almost always.