Chapter VIII. Battle of Rossbach.
Friedrich left Leipzig Sunday, October 30th; encamped, that night, on the famous Field of Lutzen, with the vanguard, he (as usual, and Mayer with him, who did some brisk smiting home of what French there were); Keith and Duke Ferdinand following, with main body and rear.
Movements on the Soubise-Hildburghausen part are all retrograde again;—can Dauphiness Bellona do nothing, then, except shuttle forwards and then backwards according to Friedrich’s absence or presence? The Soubise-Hildburghausen Army does immediately withdraw on this occasion, as on the former; and makes for the safe side of the Saale again, rapidly retreating before Friedrich, who is not above one to two of them,—more like one to three, now that Broglio’s Detachment is come to hand. Broglio got to Merseburg October 26th,—guess 15,000 strong;—considerably out of repair, and glad to have done with such a march, and be within reach of Soubise. This is the Second Son of our old Blusterous Friend; a man who came to some mark, and to a great deal of trouble, in this War; and ended, readers know how, at the Siege of the Bastille thirtytwo years afterwards!
So soon as rested, Broglio, by order, moves leftwards to Halle, to guard Saale Bridge there; Soubise himself edging after him to Merseburg, on a similar errand; and leaving Hildburghausen to take charge of Weissenfels and the Third Saale Bridge. That is Dauphiness’s posture while Friedrich encamps at Lutzen:—let impatient human nature fix these three places for itself, and hasten to the catastrophe of wretched Dauphiness. Soubise, it ought to be remembered, is not in the highest spirits; but his Officers in over-high, "Doing this PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG the honor to have a kind of War with him (DE LUI FAIRE UNE ESPECE DE GUERRE)," as they term it. Being puffed up with general vanity, and the newspaper rumor about Haddick’s feat,—which, like the gloves it got, is going all to left-hand in this way. Hildburghausen and the others overrule Soubise; and indeed there is no remedy; "Provision almost out;—how retreat to our magazines and our fastnesses, with Friedrich once across Saale, and sticking to the skirts of us?" Here, from eye-witnesses where possible, are the successive steps of Dauphiness towards her doom, which is famous in the world ever since.
"Monday, 31st October, 1757," as the Town-Syndic of Weissenfels records, "about eight in the morning, [Muller, SCHLACHT BEI ROSSBACH ("a Centenary Piece," Berlin, 1857,—containing several curious Extracts), p. 44, <italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 643, 651-668.] the King of Prussia, with his whole Army" (or what seemed to us the whole, though it was but a half; Keith with the other half being within reach to northward, marching Merseburg way), "came before this Town." Has been here before; as Keith has, as Soubise and others have: a town much agitated lately by transit of troops. It was from the eastern, or high landward side, where the so-called Castle is, that Friedrich came: Castle built originally on some "White Crag (WEISSE FELS" not now conspicuous), from which the town and whilom Duchy take their name.
"We have often heard of Weissenfels, while the poor old drunken Duke lived, who used to be a Suitor of Wilhelmina’s, liable to hard usage; and have marched through it, with the Salzburgers, in peaceable times. A solid pleasant-enough little place (6,000 souls or so); lies leant against high ground (White Crags, or whatever it once was) on the eastern or right bank of the Saale; a Town in part flat, in part very steep; the streets of it, or main street and secondaries, running off level enough from the River and Bridge; rising by slow degrees, but at last rapidly against the high ground or cliffs, just mentioned; a stiff acclivity of streets, till crowned by the so-called Castle, the ’Augustus Burg’ in those days, the ’Friedrich-Wilhelm Barrack’ in ours. It was on this crown of the cliffs that his Prussian Majesty appeared.
"Saale is of good breadth here; has done perhaps two hundred miles, since he started, in the Fichtelgebirge (PINE MOUNTAINS), on his long course Elbe-ward; received, only ten miles ago, his last big branch, the wide-wandering Unstrut, coming in with much drainage from the northern parts:—in breadth, Saale may be compared to Thames, to Tay or Beauley; his depth not fordable, though nothing like so deep as Thames’s; main cargo visible is rafts of timber: banks green, definite, scant of wood; river of rather dark complexion, mainly noiseless, but of useful pleasant qualities otherwise."
From this Castle or landward side come Friedrich and his Prussians, on Monday morning about eight. "The garrison, some 4,000 Reichs folk and a French Battalion or two, shut the Gates, and assembled in the Market-place,"—a big square, close at the foot of the Heights; "on the other hand, from the top of the Heights [KLAMMERK the particular spot], the Prussians cannonaded Town and Gates; to speedy bursting open of the same; and rushed in over the walls of the Castle-court, and by other openings into the Town: so that the garrison above said had to quit, and roll with all speed across the Saale Bridge, and set the same on fire behind them." This was their remedy for all the Three Bridges, when attacked; but it succeeded nowhere so well as here.
"The fire was of extreme rapidity; prepared beforehand:" Bridge all of dry wood coated with pitch;—"fire reinforced too, in view of such event, by all the suet, lard and oleaginous matter the Garrison could find in Weissenfels; some hundredweights of tallowdips, for one item, going up on this occasion." Bridge, "worth 100,000 thalers," is instantly ablaze: some 400 finding the bridge so flamy, and the Prussians at their skirts, were obliged to surrender;—Feldmarschall Hildburghausen, sleeping about two miles off, gets himself awakened in this unpleasant manner. Flying garrison halt on the other side of the River, where the rest of their Army is; plant cannon there against quenching of the Bridge; and so keep firing, answered by the Prussians, with much noise and no great mischief, till 3 P.M., when the Bridge is quite gone (Toll-keeper’s Lodge and all), and the enterprise of crossing there had plainly become impossible.
Friedrich quickly, about a mile farther down the River, has picked out another crossing-place, in the interim, and founded some new adequate plank or raft bridge there; which, by diligence all night, will be crossable to-morrow. So that, except for amusing the enemy, the cannonading may cease at Weissenfels. A certain Duc de Crillon, in command at this Weissenfels Bridge-burning and cannonade, has a chivalrous Anecdote (amounting nearly to zero when well examined) about saving or sparing Friedrich’s life on this interesting occasion: How, being now on the safe side of the River, he Crillon with his staff taking some refection of breakfast after the furious flurry there had been; there came to him one of his Artillery Captains, stationed in an Island in the River, asking, "Shall I shoot the King of Prussia, Monseigneur? He is down reconnoitring his end of the Bridge: sha’n’t I, then?" To whom Crillon gives a glass of wine and smilingly magnanimous answer to a negative effect. [<italic> "Memoires militaires de Louis &c. Duc de Crillon <end italic> (Paris, 1791), p. 166;"—as cited by Preuss, ii. 88.] Concerning which, one has to remark, Not only, FIRST, that the Artillery Captain’s power of seeing Friedrich (which is itself uncertain) would indeed mean the power of aiming at him, but differs immensely from that of hitting him with shot; so that this "Shall I kill the King?" was mainly thrasonic wind from Captain Bertin. But SECONDLY, that there is no "Island" in the River thereabouts, for Captain Bertin to fire from! So that probably the whole story is wind or little more: dreamlike, or at best some idle thrasonic-theoretic question, on the part of Bertin; proper answer thereto (consisting mainly in a glass of wine) from Monseigneur:— all which, on retrospection, Monseigneur feels, or would fain feel, to have been not theoretic-thrasonic but practical, and of a rather godlike nature. Zero mainly, as we said; Friedrich thanks you for zero, Monseigneur.
"The Prussians were billeted in the Town that night," says our Syndic; "and in many a house there came to be twenty men, and even thirty and above it, lodged. All was quiet through the night; the French and the Reichs folk were drawn back upon the higher grounds, about Burgwerben and on to Tagwerben; and we saw their watch-fires burning." Friedrich’s Bridge meanwhile, unmolested by the enemy, is getting ready.
Keith, looking across to Merseburg on the morrow morning (Tuesday, Nov. 1st), whither he had marched direct with the other Half of the Army, finds Merseburg Bridge destroyed, or broken; and Soubise with batteries on the farther side, intending to dispute the passage. Keith despatches Duke Ferdinand to Halle, another twelve miles down, who finds Halle Bridge destroyed in like manner, and Broglio intending to dispute; which, however, on second thoughts, neither of them I did. Friedrich’s new Bridge at Herren-Muhle (LORDSHIPS’ MILL) is of course an important point to them; Friedrich’s passage now past dispute! "Let us fall back," say they, "and rank ourselves a little; we are 50 or 60,000 strong; ill off for provisions; but well able to retreat; and have permission to fight on this side of the River."
The combined Army, "Dauphiness," or whatever we are to call it, does on Wednesday morning (November 2d) gather in its cannon and outskirts, and give up the Saale question; retire landwards to the higher grounds some miles; and diligently get itself united, and into order of battle better or worse, near the Village of Mucheln (which means Kirk MICHAEL, and is still written "SANCT MICHEL" by some on this occasion). There Dauphiness takes post, leaning on the heights, not in a very scientific way; leaving Keith and Ferdinand to rebuild their Bridges unmolested, and all Prussians to come across at discretion. Which they have diligently done (2d-3d November), by their respective Bridges; and on Thursday afternoon are all across, encamped at Bedra, in close neighborhood to Mucheln; which Friedrich has been out reconnoitring and finds that he can attack next morning very early.
Next morning, accordingly, "by 2 o’clock, with a bright moon shining," Friedrich is on horseback, his Army following. But on examining by moonlight, the enemy have shifted their position; turned on their axis, more or less, into new wood-patches, new batteries and bogs; which has greatly mended their affair. No good attacking them so, thinks Friedrich; and returns to his Camp; slightly cannonaded, one wing of him, from some battery of the enemy; and immoderately crowed over by them: "Dare not, you see! Tried, and was defeated!" cry their newspapers and they,—for one day. Friedrich lodges again in Bedra this night, others say in Rossbach; shifts his own Camp a little; left wing of it now at Rossbach (HOME-BROOK, or BECK, soon to be a world-famous Hamlet): the effects of hunger on the Dauphiness, so far from her supplies, will, he calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one may have fine clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness would play the prank she did next morning, Friedrich had not ventured to calculate.
CATASTROPHE OF DAUPHINESS (Saturday, 5th November, 1757).
Meandering Saale is on one of his big turns, as he passes Weissenfels; turning, pretty rapidly here, from southeastward, which he was a dozen miles ago, round to northeastward again or northward altogether, which he gets to be at Merseburg, a dozen farther down. Right across from Weissenfels, lapped in this crook of the Saale, or washed by it on south side and on east, rises, with extreme laziness, a dull circular lump of country, six or eight miles in diameter; with Rossbach and half a dozen other scraggy sleepy Hamlets scattered on it;—which, till the morning of Saturday, 5th November, 1757, had not been notable to any visitor. The topmost point or points, for there are two (not discoverable except by tradition and guess), the country people do call Hills, JANUS-HUGEL, POLZEN-HUGEL—Hill sensible to wagon-horses in those bad loose tracks of sandy mud, but unimpressive on the Tourist, who has to admit that there seldom was so flat a Hill. Rising, let us guess, forty yards in the three or four miles it has had. Might be called a perceptibly pot-bellied plain, with more propriety; flat country, slightly puffed up;—in shape not steeper than the mould of an immense tea-saucer would be. Tea-saucer 6 miles in diameter, 100 feet in depth, and of irregular contour, which indeed will sufficiently represent it to the reader’s mind.
Saale, at four or five miles distance, bounds this scraggy lump on the east and on the south. Westward and northward, springing about Mucheln on each hand, and setting off to right and to left Saaleward, are what we take to be two brooks; at least are two hollows: and behind these, the country rises higher; undulating still on lazy terms, but now painted azure by the distance, not unpleasant to behold, with its litter all lapped out of sight, and its poor brooks tinkling forward (as we judge) into the Saale, Merseburg way, or reverse-wise into the Unstrut, the last big branch of Saale. Southward from our Janus Height, eight or nine miles off, may be seen some vestige of Freiburg; steeple or gilt weathercock faintly visible, on the Unstrut yonder;—which I take to be Soubise’s bread-basket at present. And farther off, and opposite the MOUTH of the Unstrut, well across the Saale, lies another namable Town (visible in clear weather, as a smoke-cloud at certain hours, about meal-time, when the kettles are on boil), the Town of Naumburg,—one of several German Naumburgs,—the Naumburg of Gustaf Adolf; where his slain body lay, on the night of Lutzen Battle, with his poor Queen and others weeping over it. Naumburg is on the other side of Saale, not of importance to Soubise in such posture.
This is the circular block or lump of country, on the north or northwest side of which Friedrich now lies, and which will become, he little thinks how memorable on the morrow. Over the heights, immediately eastward of Friedrich, there is a kind of hollow, or scooped-out place; shallow valley of some extent, which deserves notice against to-morrow: but in general the ground is lazily spherical, and without noticeable hollows or valleys when fairly away from the River. A dull blunt lump of country; made of sand and mud,—may have been grassy once, with broom on it, in the pastoral times; is now under poor plough-husbandry, arable or scratchable in all parts, and looks rather miserable in winter-time. No vestige of hedge on it, of shrub or bush; one tree, ugly but big, which may have been alive in Friedrich’s time, stands not far from Rossbach Hamlet; one, and no more, discoverable in these areas.
Various Hamlets lie sprinkled about: very sleepy, rusty, irregular little places; huts and cattle-stalls huddled down, as if shaken from a bag; much straw, thick thatch and crumbly mud-brick; but looking warm and peaceable, for the Four-footed and the Twofooted; which latter, if you speak to them, are solid reasonable people, with energetic German eyes and hearts, though so illlodged. These Hamlets, needing shelter and spring-water, stand generally in some slight hollow, if well up the Height, as Rorschach is; sometimes, if near the bottom, they are nestled in a sudden dell or gash,—work of the primeval rains, accumulating from above, and ploughing out their way. The rains, we can see, have been busy; but there is seldom the least stream visible, bottom being too sandy and porous. On the western slope, there is in our time a kind of coal, or coal-dust, dug up; in the way of quarrying, not of mining; and one or two big chasms of this sort are confusedly busy: the natives mix this valuable coal-dust with water, mould it into bricks, and so use as fuel: one of the features of these hamlets is the strange black bricks, standing on edge about the cottage-doors, to drip, and dry in the sun. For this or for other reasons, the westward slope appears to be the best; and has a major share of hamlets on it: Rossbach is high up, and looks over upon Mucheln, and its dim belfry and appurtenances, which lie safe across the hollow, perhaps two miles off,—safe from Friedrich, if there were eatables and lodging to be had in such a place. Friedrich’s left wing is in Rossbach. Bedra where Friedrich’s right wing is; Branderode where the Soubise right is; then Grost; Schevenroda, Zeuchfeld, Pettstadt, Lunstadt,—especially Reichartswerben, where Soubise’s right will come to be: these the reader may take note of in his Map. Several of them lie in ashes just then; plundered, replundered, and at last set fire to; so busy have Soubise’s hungry people been, of late, in the Country they came to "deliver." The Freiburg road, the Naumburg road, both towards Merseburg, cross this Height; straight like the string, Saale by Weissenfels being the bow.
The HERRENHAUS (Squire’s Mansion) still stands in Rossbach, with the littery Hamlet at its flank: a high, pavilion-roofed, and though dilapidated, pretentious kind of House; some kind of court round it, some kind of hedge or screen of brushwood and brick-wall: terribly in need of the besom, it and its environment throughout. King, I suppose, did lodge there overnight: certain it is the Squire was absent; and the Squire’s Man, three days afterwards, reported to him as follows: ... "Saturday, the 5th, about 8 A.M., his Majesty mounted to the roof of the Herrenhaus here, some tiles having been removed [for that end, or by accident, is not said], and saw how the French and Reichs Army were getting in movement"— wriggling out of their Camp leftwards, evidently aiming towards Grost. "In about an hour, near half their Army was through Grost, and had turned southward, rather southeastward, from Grost, out in the Rossbach and Almsdorf region, and proceeding still towards Pettstadt,"—towards Schevenroda more precisely, not towards Pettstadt yet. "His Majesty looked always through the perspective: and to me was the grace done to be ever at his side, and to name for him the roads the French and Reichs Army was marching." [Muller, p. 50; Rodenbeck, p. 326.]
The King had heard of this phenomenon hours before, and had sent out Hussars and scouts upon it; but now sees it with his eyes:— "Going for Freiburg, and their bread-cupboard," thinks the King; who does not as yet make much of the movement; but will watch it well, and calculates to have a stroke at the rear end of it, in due season. With which view, the cavalry, Seidlitz and Mayer, are ordered to saddle; foot regiments, and all else, to be in readiness. This French-Reichs Dauphiness is not rapid in her fieldexercise; and has a great deal of wriggling and unwinding before she can fairly pick herself out, and get forward towards Schevenroda on the Freiburg road. In three or in two parallel columns, artillery between them, horse ahead, horse arear; haggling along there;—making for their bread-baskets, thinks the King. A body of French, horse chiefly, under St. Germain, come out, in the Schortau-Almsdorf part, with some salvoing and prancing, as if intending to attack about Rossbach, where our left wing is: but his Majesty sees it to be a pretence merely; and St. Germain, motionless, and doing nothing but cannonade a little, seems to agree that it is so. Dauphiness continues her slow movements; King, in this Squire’s Mansion of Rossbach, sits down to dinner, dinner with Officers at the usual hour of noon,—little dreaming what the Dauphiness has in her head.
Truth is, the Dauphiness is in exultant spirits, this morning; intending great things against a certain "little Marquis of Brandenburg," to whom one does so much honor. Generals looking down yesterday on the King of Prussia’s Camp, able to count every man in it (and half the men being invisible, owing to bends of the ground), counted him to 10,000 or so; and had said, "Pshaw, are not we above 50,000; let us end it! Take him on his left. Round yonder, till we get upon his left, and even upon his rear withal, St. Germain co-operating on the other side of him: on left, on rear, on front, at the same moment, is not that a sure game?" A very ticklish game, answers surly sagacious Lloyd: "No general will permit himself to be taken in flank with his eyes open; and the King of Prussia is the unlikeliest you could try it with!"
Trying it meanwhile they are; marching along by the low grounds here, intending to sweep gradually leftwards towards Janus-Hill quarter; there to sweep home upon him, coil him up, left and rear and front, in their boa-constrictor folds, and end his trifle of an Army and him. "Why not, if we do our duty at all, annihilate his trifle of an Army; take himself prisoner, and so end it?" Report says, Soubise had really, in some moment of enthusiasm lately, warned the Versailles populations to expect such a thing; and that the Duchess of Orleans, forgetful of poor King Louis’s presence, had in HER enthusiasm, exclaimed: "TANT MIEUX, I shall at last see a King, then!" But perhaps it is a mere French epigram, such as the winds often generate there, and put down for fact.— Friedrich’s retreat to Weissenfels is cut off for Friedrich: an Austrian party has been at the Herren-Muhle Bridge this morning, has torn it up and pitched it into the river; planks far on to Merseburg by this time. And, in fact, unless Friedrich be nimble— But that he usually is.
Friedrich’s dinner had gone on with deliberation for about two hours, Friedrich’s intentions not yet known to any, but everybody, great and small, waiting eagerly for them, like greyhounds on the slip,—when Adjutant Gaudi, who had been on the House-top the while, rushes into the Dining-room faster than he ought, and, with some tremor in his voice and eyes, reports hastily: "At Schevenroda, at Pettstadt yonder! Enemy has turned to left. Clearly for the left."—"Well, and if he do? No flurry needed, Captain!" answered Friedrich,—(NOT in these precise words; but rebuking Gaudi, with a look not of laughter wholly, and with a certain question, as to the state of Gaudi’s stomachic part, which is still known in traditionary circles, but is not mentionable here);—and went, with due gravity, himself to the roof, with his Officers. "To the left, sure enough; meaning to attack us there:" the thing Friedrich had despaired of is voluntarily coming, then;— and it is a thing of stern qualities withal; a wager of life, with glorious possibilities behind.
Friedrich earnestly surveys the phenomenon for some minutes; in some minutes, Friedrich sees his way through it, at least into it, and how he will do it. Off, eastward; march! Swift are his orders; almost still swifter the fulfillment of them. Prussian Army is a nimble article in comparison with Dauphiness! In half an hour’s time, all is packed and to the road; and, except Mayer and certain Free-Corps or Light-Horse, to amuse St. Germain and his Almsdorf people, there is not a Prussian visible in these localities to French eyes. "At half-past two," says the Squire’s Man,—or let us take him a sentence earlier, to lose nothing of such a Document: "At noon his Majesty took dinner; sat till about two o’clock; then again went to the roof; and perceived that the Enemy’s Army at Pettstadt were turning about the little Wood there northeastward, as if for Lunstadt [into the Lunstadt road];—such cannonading too," from those Almsdorf people, "that the balls flew over our heads,"—or I tremulously thought so. "At half-past two, the word was given, March! And good speed they made about it, in this Herrenhaus, and out of doors too, striking their tents, and cording up and trimly shouldering everything with incredible brevity," as if machinery were doing it; "and at three, on the Prussian part, all was packed and out into the court for being carried off; and, in fact, the Prussian Army was on march at three." Seidlitz, with all his Horse, vanishing round the corner of the Height; speeding along, invisible on his northern slope there, straight for the Janus-Polzen Hill part; the Infantry following, double-quick;—well knowing, each, what he has got to do.
But at this interesting point, the Editors—small thanks to them, authentic but thrice-stupid mortals—cut short our Eye-witness, not so much as telling us his name, some of them not even his date or whereabouts; and so the curtain tumbles down (as if its string had been cut, or suddenly eaten by unwise animals), and we are left to gray hubbub, and our own resources at second-hand. Except only that a French Officer—one of those cannonading from Almsdorf, no doubt —declares that "it was like a change of scene in the Opera (DECORATION D’OPERA)," [Letter in MULLER: p. 60. In WESTPHALEN (ii. 128-133) is a much superior French Letter, intercepted somewhere, and fallen to Duke Ferdinand; well worth reading, on Rossbach and the previous Affairs.] so very rapid; and that "they all rolled off eastward at quick time." At extremely quick time; —and soon, in the slight hollow behind Janus Hugel, vanished from sight of these Almsdorf French, and of the Soubise-Hildburghausen Army in general. Which latter is agreeably surprised at the phenomenon; and draws a highly flattering conclusion from it. "Gone, then; off at double-quick for Merseburg; aha!" think the Soubise-Hildburghausen people: "Double-quick you too, my pretty men, lest they do whisk away, and we never get a stroke at them,!"—
Seidlitz meanwhile, with his cavalry (thirty-eight squadrons, about 4,000 horse), is rapidly doing the order he has had. Seidlitz at a sharp military trot, and the infantry at doublequick to keep up near him, which they cannot quite do, are, as we have said, making right across for the Polzen-Hill and Janus-Hill quarter; their route the string, French route the bow; and are invisible to the French, owing to the heights between. Seidlitz, when he gets to the proper point eastward, will wheel about, front to southward, and be our left wing; infantry, as centre and right, will appear in like manner; and—we shall see!
The exultant Dauphiness, or Soubise-Hildburghausen Army (let us call it, for brevity’s sake, Dauphiness or French, which it mainly was), on that rapid disappearance of the Prussians, never doubted but the Prussians were off on flight for Merseburg, to get across by the Bridge there. Whereat Dauphiness, doubly exultant, mended her own pace, cavalry at a sharp trot, infantry double-quick, but unable to keep up,—for the purpose of capturing or intercepting the runaway Prussians. Speed, my friends,—if you would do a stroke upon Friedrich, and show the Versailles people a King at last! Thus they, hurrying on, in two parallel columns,—infantry, long floods of it, coming double-quick but somewhat fallen behind; cavalry 7,000 or so, as vanguard,—faster and faster; sweeping forward on their southern side of the Janus-and-Polzen slope, and now rather climbing the same.
Seidlitz has his hussar pickets on the top, to keep him informed as to their motions, and how far they are got. Seidlitz, invisible on the south slope of the Polzen Hugel, finds about half-past three P.M. that he is now fairly ahead of Dauphiness; Seidlitz halts, wheels, comes to the top, "Got the flank of them, sure enough!"— and without waiting signal or farther orders, every instant being precious, rapidly forms himself; and plunges down on these poor people. "Compact as a wall, and with an incredible velocity (D’UNE VITESSE INCROYABLE)," says one of them. Figure the astonishment of Dauphiness; of poor Broglio, who commands the horse here. Taken in flank, instead of taking other people; intercepted, not in the least needing to intercept! Has no time to form, though he tried what he could. Only the two Austrian regiments got completely formed; the rest very incompletely; and Seidlitz, in the blaze of rapid steel, is in upon them. The two Austrian regiments, and two French that are named, made what debate was feasible;—courage nowise wanting, in such sad want of captaincy; nay Soubise in person galloped into it, if that could have helped. But from the first, the matter was hopeless; Seidlitz slashing it at such a rate, and plunging through it and again through it, thrice, some say four times: so that, in the space of half an hour, this luckless cavalry was all tumbling off the ground; plunging downhill, in full flight, across its own infantry or whatever obstacle, Seidlitz on the hips of it; and galloping madly over the horizon, towards Freiburg as it proved; and was not again heard of that day.
In about half an hour that bit of work was over; and Seidlitz, with his ranks trimmed again, had drawn himself southward a little, into the Hollow of Tageswerben, there to wait impending phenomena. For Friedrich with the Infantry is now emerging over Janus Hill, in a highly thunderous manner,—eighteen pieces of artillery going, and "four big guns taken from the walls of Leipzig;" and there will be events anon. It is said, Hildburghausen, at the first glimpse of Friedrich over the hill-top, whispered to Soubise, "We are lost, Royal Highness!"—"Courage!" Soubise would answer; and both, let us hope, did their utmost in this extremely bad predicament they had got into.
Friedrich’s artillery goes at a murderous rate; had come in view, over the hill-top, before Seidlitz ended,—"nothing but, the muzzles of it visible" (and the fire-torrents from it) to us poor French below. Friedrich’s lines; or rather his one line, mere tip of his left wing,—only seven battalions in it, five of them under Keith from the second or reserve line; whole centre and right wing standing "refused" in oblique rank, invisible, BEHIND the Hill,— Friedrich’s line, we say, the artillery to its right, shoots out in mysterious Prussian rhythm, in echelons, in potences, obliquely down the Janus-Hill side; straight, rigid, regular as iron clockwork; and strides towards us, silent, with the lightning sleeping in it:—Friedrich has got the flank of Dauphiness, and means to keep it. Once and again and a third time, poor Soubise, with his poor regiments much in an imbroglio, here heaped on one another, there with wide gaps, halt being so sudden,—attempts to recover the flank, and pushes out this regiment and the other, rightward, to be even with Friedrich. But sees with despair that it cannot be; that Friedrich with his echelons, potences and mysterious Prussian resources, pulls himself out like the pieces of a prospect-glass, piece after piece, hopelessly fast and seemingly no end to them; and that the flank is lost, and that—Unhappy Generals of Dauphiness, what a phenomenon for them! A terrible Friedrich, not fled to Merseburg at all; but mounted there on the Janus Hill, as on his saddle-horse, with face quite the other way;—and for holster-pistol, has plucked out twenty-two cannon. Clad verily in fire; Chimera-like, RIDING the Janus Hill, in that manner; left leg (or wing) of him spurning us into the abysses, right one ready to help at discretion!
Hildburghausen, I will hope, does his utmost; Soubise, Broglio, for certain do. The French line is in front, next the Prussians: poor Generals of Dauphiness are panting to retrieve themselves. But with regiments jammed in this astonishing way, and got collectively into the lion’s throat, what can be done? Steady, rigid as iron clock-work, the Prussian line strides forward; at forty paces’ distance delivers its first shock of lightning, bursts into platoon fire; and so continues, steady at the rate of five shots a minute,—hard to endure by poor masses all in a coil. "The artillery tore down whole ranks of us," says the Wutenberg Dragoon; [His Letter in MULLER, p. 83.] "the Prussian musketry did terrible execution."
Things began %o waver very soon, French reeling back from the Prussian fire, Reichs troops rocking very uneasy, torn by such artillery; when, to crown the matter, Seidlitz, seeing all things rock to the due extent, bursts out of Tageswerben Hollow, terribly compact and furious, upon the rear of them. Which sets all things into inextricable tumble; and the Battle is become a rout and a riding into ruin, no Battle ever more. Lasted twenty-five minutes, this second act of it, or till half-past four: after which, the curtains rapidly descending (Night’s curtain, were there no other) cover the remainder; the only stage-direction, EXEUNT OMNES. Which for a 50 or 60,000, ridden over by Seidlitz Horse, was not quite an easy matter! They left, of killed and wounded, near 3,000; of prisoners, 5,000 (Generals among them 8, Officers 300): in sum, about 8,000; not to mention cannon, 67 or 72; with standards, flags, kettle-drums and meaner baggages AD LIBITUM in a manner. The Prussian loss was, 165 killed, 376 wounded;—between a sixteenth and a fifteenth part of theirs: in number the Prussians had been little more than one to three; 22,000 of all arms,—not above half of whom ever came into the fire; Seidlitz and seven battalions doing all the fighting that was needed, St. Germain tried to cover the retreat; but "got broken," he says,—Mayer bursting in on him,—and soon went to slush like the others.
Seldom, almost never, not even at Crecy or Poictiers, was any Army better beaten. And truly, we must say, seldom did any better deserve it, so far as the Chief Parties went. Yes, Messieurs, this is the PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG; you will know this one, when you meet him again! The flight, the French part of it, was towards Freiburg Bridge; in full gallop, long after the chase had ceased; crossing of the Unstrut there, hoarse, many-voiced, all night; burning of the Bridge; found burnt, when Friedrich arrived next morning. He had encamped at Obschutz, short way from the field itself. French Army, Reichs Army, all was gone to staves, to utter chaotic wreck. Hildburghausen went by Naumburg; crossed the Saale there; bent homewards through the Weimar Country; one wild flood of ruin, swift as it could go; at Erfurt "only one regiment was in rank, and marched through with drums beating." His Army, which had been disgustingly unhappy from the first, and was now fallen fluid on these mad terms, flowed all away in different rills, each by the course straightest home; and Hildburghausen arriving at Bamberg, with hardly the ghost or mutilated skeleton of an Army, flung down his truncheon,—"A murrain on your Reichs Armies and regimental chaoses!"—and went indignantly home. Reichs Army had to begin at the beginning again; and did not reappear on the scene till late next Year, under a new Commander, and with slightly improved conditions.
Dauphiness Proper was in no better case; and would have flowed home in like manner, had not home been so far, and the way unknown. Twelve thousand of them rushed straggling through the Eichsfeld; plundering and harrying, like Cossacks or Calmucks: "Army blown asunder, over a circle of forty miles’ radius," writes St. Germain: "had the Enemy pursued us, after I got broken [burst in upon by Mayer and his Free-Corps people] we had been annihilated. Never did Army behave worse; the first cannon-salvo decided our rout and our shame." [St. Germain to Verney: different Excerpts of Letters in the two weeks after Rossbach and before (given in Preuss, ii. 97).]
In two days’ time (November 7th), the French had got to Langensalza, fifty-five miles from the Battle-field of Rossbach; plundering, running, SACRE-DIEU-ing; a wild deluge of molten wreck, filling the Eichsfeld with its waste noises, making night hideous and day too;—in the villages Placards were stuck up, appointing Nordhausen and Heiligenstadt for rallying place. [Muller, p. 73.]
Soubise rode, with few attendants, all night towards Nordhausen,— eighty miles off, foot of the Bracken Country, where the Richelieu resources are;—Soubise with few attendants, face set towards the Brocken; himself, it is like, in a somewhat hag-ridden condition.
"The joy of poor Teutschland at large," says one of my Notes, "and how all Germans, Prussian and Anti-Prussian alike, flung up their caps, with unanimous LEBE-HOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see. The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though the least braggart, very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them); so long insulted, snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a braver:—has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs of the interior,—let no man ask whitherward! ’SI UN ALLEMAND PEUT AVOIR DE L’ESPRIT (Can a German possibly have sharpness of wits)?’ Well, yes, it would seem: here is one German graduate who understands his medicine-chest, and the quality of patients!— Dauphiness got no pity anywhere; plenty of epigrams, and mostly nothing but laughter even in Paris itself. Napoleon long after, who much admires Friedrich, finds that this Victory of Rossbach was inevitable; ’but what fills me with astonishment and shame,’ adds he, ’is that it was gained by six battalions and thirty squadrons [seven properly, and thirty-eight] over such a multitude!’ [Montholon, MEMOIRES &C. DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon’s <italic> Precis des Guerres de Frrederic II., <end italic> vii. 210).]—It is well known, Napoleon, after Jena, as if Jena had not been enough for him, tore down the first Monument of Rossbach, some poor ashlar Pyramid or Pillar, raised by the neighborhood, with nothing more afflictive inscribed on it than a date; and sent it off in carts for Paris (where no stone of it ever arrived, the Thuringen carmen slinking off, and leaving it scattered in different places over the face of Thuringen in general); so that they had the trouble of a new one lately." [Rodenbeck, <italic> Beitrage, <end italic> i. 299; ib. p. 385, Lithograph of the poor extinct Monument itself.]
From Friedrich the "Army of the Circles," that is, Dauphiness and Company,—called HOOPERS or "Coopers" (TONNELIERS), with a desperate attempt at wit by pun,—get their Adieu in words withal. This is the famed CONGE DE L’ARMEE DES CERCLES ET DES TONNELIERS; a short metrical Piece; called by Editors the most profane, most indecent, most &c.; and printed with asterisk veils thrown over the worst passages. Who shall dare, searching and rummaging for insight into Friedrich, and complaining that there is none, to lift any portion of the veil; and say, "See—Faugh!" The cynicism, truly, but also the irrepressible honest exultation, has a kind of epic completeness, and fulness of sincerity; and, at bottom, the thing is nothing like so wicked as careless commentators have given out. Dare to look a little: -
"ADIEU, GRANDS ERASEURS DE ROIS," so it starts: "Adieu, grand crushers of Kings; arrogant wind-bags, Turpin, Broglio, Soubise,— Hildburghausen with the gray beard, foolish still as when your beard was black in the Turk-War time:—brisk journey to you all!" That is the first stanza; unexceptionable, had we room. The second stanza is,—with the veils partially lifted; with probably "MOISE" put into the first blank, and into the third something of or belonging to "CESAR,"—
<italic> "Je vows ai vu comme ...
Dans des ronces en certain lieu
Eut l’honneur de voir ...
Ou comme au gre de sa luxure
Le bon Nicomede a l’ecart
Aiguillonnait sa flamme impure
Des ..." <end italic>
Enough to say, the Author, with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, sings the charms of the rearward part of certain men; and what a royal ecstatic felicity there sometimes is in indisputable survey of the same. He rises to the heights of Anti- Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision; sinks to the bottomless of human or ultra-human depravity, quoting King Nicomedes’s experiences on Caesar (happily known only to the learned); and, in brief, recognizes that there is, on occasion, considerable beauty in that quarter of the human figure, when it turns on you opportunely. A most cynical profane affair: yet, we must say by way of parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to Voltaire’s atrocities of rumor about Friedrich himself in this matter; the reverse rather, if well read; being altogether theoretic, scientific; sings with gusto the glow of beauty you find in that unexpected quarter,—while KICKING it deservedly and with enthusiasm. "To see the"—what shall we call it: seat of honor, in fact, "of your enemy:" has it not an undeniable charm? "I own to you in confidence, O Soubise and Company, this fine laurel I have got, and was so in need of, is nothing more or other than the sight of your"—FOUR ASTERISKS. "Oblige me, whenever clandestine Fate brings us together, by showing me that"—always that, if you would give me pleasure when we meet. "And oh," next stanza says, "to think what our glory is founded on,"—on view of that unmentionable object, I declare to you!—And through other stanzas, getting smutty enough (though in theory only), which we need not prosecute farther. [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xii. 70-73 (WRITTEN at Freiburg, 6th November, when his Majesty got thither, and found the Bridge burnt).] A certain heartiness and epic greatness of cynicism, life’s nakedness grown almost as if innocent again; an immense suppressed insuppressible Haha, on the part of this King. Strange TE-DEUM indeed. Coming from the very heart, truly, as few of them do; but not, in other points, recommendable at all!—Here, of the night before, is something better:—
TO WILHELMINA.
"NEAR WEISSENFELS [OBSCHUTZ, in fact; does not know yet what the Battle will be CALLED], 5th November, 1757.
"At last, my dear Sister, I can announce you a bit of good news. You were doubtless aware that the Coopers with their circles had a mind to take Leipzig. I ran up, and hove them beyond Saale. The Duc de Richelieu sent them a reinforcement of twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons [say 15,000 horse and foot]; they then called themselves 63,000 strong. Yesterday I went to reconnoitre them; could not attack them in the post they held. This had rendered them rash. Today they came out with the intention of attacking me; but I took the start of them (LES AI PREVENU). It was a Battle EN DOUCEUR (soft to one’s wish). Thanks to God I have not a hundred men killed; the only General ill wounded is Meinecke. My Brother Henri and General Seidlitz have slight hurts [gun-shots, not so slight, that of Seidlitz] in the arm. We have all the Enemy’s cannon, all the ... I am in full march to drive them over the Unstrut [already driven, your Majesty; bridge burning].
"You, my dear Sister, my good, my divine and affectionate Sister [faithful to the bone, in good truth, poor Wilhelmina], who deign to interest yourself in the fate of a Brother who adores you, deign also to share in my joy. The instant I have time, I will tell you more. I embrace you with my whole heart; Adieu. F." [<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xxvii. i. 310.]
ULTERIOR FATE OF DAUPHINESS; FLIES OVER THE RHINE IN BAD FASHION: DAUPHINESS’S WAYS WITH THE SAXON POPULATION IN HER DELIVERANCE-WORK.
Friedrich had no more fighting with the French. November 9th, at Merseburg, in all stillness, Duke Ferdinand got his Britannic Commission, his full Powers, from Friedrich and the parties interested; in all stillness made his arrangements, as if for Magdeburg and his Governorship there,—Friedrich hastening off for Silesia the while. Duke Ferdinand did stay six days in Magdeburg, inspecting or pretending to inspect; very pleasant with his Sister and the Royalties that, are now there; but, at midnight of day sixth shot off silently on wider errand. And, in sum, on Thursday, 24th November, 1757, appeared in Stade, on horseback at morning parade there; intimating, to what joy of the poor Brunswick Grenadiers and others, That he was come to take command; that Kloster-Zeven is abolished; that we are not an "Observation Army," rotting here in the parish pound, any longer, but an "Allied Army" (such now our title), intending to strike for ourselves, and get out of pound straightway!—
"THURSDAY, 24th NOVEMBER-TUESDAY, 29th. Duke Ferdinand did accordingly pick up the reins of this distracted Affair; and, in a way wonderful to see, shot sanity into every fibre of it; and kept it sane and road-worthy for the Five Years coming. With a silent velocity, an energy, an imperturbable steadfastness and clear insight into cause and effect; which were creditable to the school he came from; and were a very joyful sight to Pitt and others concerned. So that from next Tuesday, ’November 29th, before daylight,’ when Ferdinand’s batteries began playing upon Harburg (French Fortress nearest to Stade), the reign of the French ceased in those Countries; and an astonished Richelieu and his French, lying scattered over all the West of Germany, in readiness for nothing but plunder, had to fall more or less distracted in their turn; and do a number of astonishing things. To try this and that, of futile, more or less frantic nature; be driven from post after post; be driven across the Aller first of all;—Richelieu to go home thereupon, and be succeeded by one still more incompetent.
"DECEMBER 13th, a fortnight after Ferdinand’s appearance, Richelieu had got to the safe side of the Aller (burning of Zelle Bridge and Zelle Town there, his last act in Germany); Ferdinand’s quarters now wide enough; and vigorous speed of preparation going on for farther chase, were the weather mended. FEBRUARY 17th, 1758, Ferdinand was on foot again; Prince de Clermont, the still more incompetent successor of Richelieu, gazing wide-eyed upon him, but doing nothing else: and for the next six weeks there was seen a once triumphant Richelieu-D’Estrees French Army, much in rags, much in disorder, in terror, and here and there almost in despair,— winging their way; like clouds of draggled poultry caught by a mastiff in the corn. Across Weser, across Ems, finally across the Rhine itself, every feather of them,—their long-drawn cackle, of a shrieky type, filling all Nature in those months; the mastiff steadily following. [Mauvillon, i. 252-284 ("9th November, 1757-1st April, 1758"); Westphalen, i. 316-503 (abundantly explicit, authentic and even entertaining,—with the ample Correspondences, ib. ii. 147-350); Schaper, <italic> Vie militaire du Marechal Prince Ferdinand <end italic> (2 tomes, 8vo, Magdebourg, 1796, 1799), i. 7-100 (a careful Book; of an official exactitude, like Westphalen’s,—and appears to be left incomplete like his).] To the astonishment of Pitt and mankind. Can this be the same Army that Royal Highness led to the Sea and the Parish Pound? The same identically, wasted to about two-thirds by Royal Highness; not a drum in it changed otherwise, only One Man different,—and he is the important one!
"Pitt, when the news of Rossbach came, awakening the bonfires and steeple-bells of England to such a pitch, had resolved on an emphatic measure: that of sending English Troops to reinforce our Allied Army, and its new General;—such an Ally as that Rossbach one being rare in the eyes of Pitt. ’Postpone the meeting of Parliament, yet a few days, your Majesty,’ said Pitt, ’till I get the estimates ready!’ [Thackeray, i. 310.] To which Majesty assented, and all England with him: ’England’s own Cause,’ thinks Pitt, with confidence: ’our way of Conquering America,—and, in the circumstances, our one way!’ English did land, accordingly; first instalment of them, a 12,000 (in August next), increased gradually to 20,000; with no end of furnishings to them and everybody; with results again satisfactory to Pitt; and very famous in the England that then was, dim as they are now grown."
The effect of all which was, that Pitt, with his Ferdinands and reinforcements, found work for the French ever onwards from Rossbach; French also turning as if exclusively upon perfidious Albion: and the thing became, in Teutschland, as elsewhere, a duel of life and death between these natural enemies,—Teutschland the centre of it,—Teutschland and the accessible French Sea-Towns,— but the circumference of it going round from Manilla and Madras to Havana and Quebec again. Wide-spread furious duel; prize, America and life. By land and sea; handsomely done by Pitt on both elements. Land part, we say, was always mainly in Germany, under Ferdinand,—in Hessen and the Westphalian Countries, as far west as Minden, as far east as Frankfurt-on-Mayn, generally well north of Rhine, well south of Elbe: that was, for five years coming, the cockpit or place of deadly fence between France and England. Friedrich’s arena lies eastward of that, occasionally playing into it a little, and played into by it, and always in lively sympathy and consultation with it: but, except the French subsidizings, diplomatizings. and great diligenae against him in foreign Courts, Friedrich is, in practical respects, free of the French; and ever after Rossbach, Ferdinand and the English keep them in full work,— growing yearly too full. A heavy Business for England and Ferdinand; which is happily kept extraneous to Friedrich thenceforth; to him and us; which is not on the stage of his affairs and ours, but is to be conceived always as vigorously proceeding alongside of it, close beyond the scenes, and liable at any time to make tragic entry on him again:—of which we shall have to notice the louder occurrences and cardinal phases, but, for the future, nothing more.
Soubise, who had crept into the skirts of the Richelieu Army in Hanover or Hessen Country, had of course to take wing in that general fright before the mastiff. Soubise did not cross the Rhine with it; Soubise made off eastward; [Westphalen, i. 501 ("end of March, 1758"].]—found new roost in Hanau-Frankfurt Country; and had thoughts of joining the Austrians in Bohemia next Campaign; but got new order,—such the pinches of a winged Clermont with a mastiff Ferdinand at his poor draggled tail;—and came back to the Ferdinand scene, to help there; and never saw Friedrich again. Both Broglio and he had a good deal of fighting (mostly beating) from Ferdinand; and a great deal of trouble and sorrow in the course of this War; but after Rossbach it is not Friedrich or we, it is Ferdinand and the Destinies that have to do with them. Poor Soubise, except that he was the creature of Generalissima Pompadour, which had something radically absurd in it, did not deserve all the laughter he got: a man of some chivalry, some qualities. As for Broglio, I remember always, not without human emotion, the two extreme points of his career as a soldier: Rossbach and the Fall of the Bastille. He was towards forty, when Friedrich bestrode the Janus Hill in that fiery manner; he was turned of seventy when, from the pavements of Paris, the Chimera of Democracy rose on him, in fire of a still more horrible description.
Dauphiness-Bellona, in her special and in her widest sense, has made exit, then. Gone, like clouds of draggled poultry home across the Rhine. She was the most marauding Army lately seen, also the most gasconading, and had the least capacity for fighting: three worse qualities no army could have. How she fought, we have seen sufficiently. Before taking leave of her forever, readers, as she is a paragon in her kind, would perhaps take a glance or two at her marauding qualities,—by a good opportunity that offers. Plotho at Regensburg, that a supreme Reichs Diet may know what a "deliverance of Saxony" this has been, submits one day the following irrefragable Documents, "which have happened," not without good industry of my own, "to fall into my [Plotho’s] hands." They are Documents partly of epistolary, partly of a Petitionary form, presented to Polish Majesty, out of that Saxon Country; and have an AFFIDAVIT quality about them, one and all.
1. BIG DAUPHINESS (that is, D’Estrees) IN THE WESEL COUNTRIES, AT AN EARLY STAGE,—WHILE STILL ENDEAVORING WHAT SHE COULD TO BEHAVE WELL, HANGING 1,000 MARAUDERS AND THE LIKE (A private Letter):—
"COUNTY MARK, 20th JUNE, 1757. The French troops are going on here in a way to utterly ruin us. Schmidt, their President of Justice, whom they set up in Cleve, has got orders to change all the Magistracies of the Country [Protestant by nature], so as that half the members shall be Catholic. Bielefeld was openly plundered by the French for three hours long. You cannot by possibility represent to yourself what the actual state of misery in these Countries is. A SCHEFFEL of rye costs three thalers sixteen groschen [who knows how many times its natural price!]. And now we are to be forced to eat the spoiled meal those French troops brought with them; which is gone to such a state no animal would have it. This poisoned meal we are to buy from them, ready money, at the price they fix; and that famine may induce us, they are about to stop the mills, and forcibly take away what little breadcorn we have left. God have pity on us, and deliver us soon! Next week we are to have a transit of 6,000 Pfalzers [Kur-Pfalz, foolish idle fellow, and Kur-Baiern too, are both in subsidy of France, as usual; 6,000 Pfalzers just due here]; these, I suppose, will sweep us clean bare." [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 399.]:
Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by Friedrich: and the Hanover Incapables, and England still all in St. Vitus, would not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for the French; never could recover it, or get the Rhine-Gate barred again, during the whole War. One hopes they repented;—but perhaps it was only Pitt and Duke Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel Countries were at once occupied by the French; "a conquest of her Imperial Majesty’s;" continued to be administered in Imperial Majesty’s name,—and are thriving as above.
2. DAUPHINESS PROPER (that is, Soubise) IN THURINGEN, AT A LATE STAGE:—
"LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH.—It was on the 23d October, a Sunday, that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to take Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never emptied of French, who kept marching through it in extraordinary quantities. The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and marched for the last time]; and often the billeting was so heavy, that in a single house there were forty or fifty men. Who at all times had to be lodged and dieted gratis; nay many householders, over and above the ordinary meal, were obliged to give them money too; and many poor people, who can scarcely get their own bit of bread, had to run and bring at once their sixteen or eighteen groschen [pence] worth of wine, not to speak of coffee and sugar. And a great increase of the mischief it was always, that the soldiers and common people did not understand one another’s language."—Heavy billeting; but what was that? ... "Vast, nearly impossible, quantities of forage and provision," were wrung from us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under continual threatening to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did our French Colonel threaten, ’He would have the cannon opened on Freiburg straightway.’ Nay, had it stood by foraging, we might have reckoned ourselves lucky. But our straits increased day by day; and sheer plundering became more and more excessive.
"The robbing and torturing of travellers, the plundering and burning of Saxon Villages ... Almost all the Towns and Villages hereabouts are so plundered out, that many a one now has nothing but what he carries on his body. Plundering was universal: and no sooner was one party away, than another came, and still another; and often the same house was three or four times plundered. Branderode, a Village two leagues from this [stands on the Field of Rossbach, if we look], is so ruined out, that nobody almost has anything left: Chief Inspector Baron von Bose’s Schloss there, with its splendid appointments, they ruined utterly; took all money, victuals, valuables, furniture, clothes, linen and beds, all they could carry; what could not be carried away, they cut, hewed and smashed to pieces; broke the wine-casks; and even tore up the documents and letters they found lying in the place. Branderode Dorf was twice set fire to by them; and was, at last, with Zeuchfeld, which is an Amtsdorf,—after both had been plundered,—reduced to ashes. The Churches of Branderode and Zeuchfeld, with several other Churches, were plundered; the altars broken, the altar-cloths and other vestures cut to pieces, and the sacred vessels and cups carried away,—except [for we have a notarial exactness, and will exaggerate nothing] that in the case of Branderode they sent the cup back. Of the pollution of the altars, and of the blasphemous songs these people sang in the churches, one cannot think without horror.
"And it was merely our pretended Allies and Protectors that have desecrated our divine service, utterly wasted our Country, reduced the inhabitants to want and desperation, and, in short, have so behaved that you would not know this region again. Truly these troops have realized for us most of the infamies we heard reported of the Cossacks, and their ravagings in Preussen lately.
"It is one of their smallest doings that they robbed a Saxon Clergyman [name and circumstances can be given if required), three times over, on the public Highway; shot at him, tied him to a horse’s tail and dragged him along with them; so that he is now lying ill, in danger of his life. On the whole, it is our beloved Pastors, Clergymen most of all, that have been plundered of everything they had.
"Balgart and Zschieplitz, both Villages half a league from this, have likewise been heavily plundered; they have even left the Parson nothing but what he wore on his back. Grost," another Rossbach place, "which belongs to the Kammerjunker Heldorf, has likewise" ... OHE, SATIS!—"All this happened between the 23d and 3lst October; consequently before the Battle. ... In many Villages you see the trees and fields sprinkled with feathers from the beds that have been slit up.
"In several Villages belonging to the Royal Electoral privy Councillor von Bruhl [who is properly the fountain of all this and of much other misery to us, if we knew it!] the plundering likewise had begun; and a quantity of about a hundred swine [so ho!] had been cut in pieces: but in the midst of their work, the Allies heard that these were Bruhl estates, and ceased their havoc of them. These accordingly are the only lands in all this region whose fate has been tolerable.
"The appellation, every moment renewed, of ’Heretic!’ was the courteous address from these people to our fellow-Christians; ’heretic dogs (KETZERISCHE HUNDE)’ was a PRADICAT always in their mouth.
"In Weischutz," a mile or two from us, up the Unstrut, "a French Colonel who wanted to ride out upon the works, made the there Pastor, Magister Schren, stoop down by way of horse-block, and mounted into the saddle from his back. [Messieurs, you will kindle the wrath of mankind some day, and get a terrible plucking, with those high ways of yours!]
"Churches are all smashed; obscene songs were sung, in form of litany, from the pulpits and altars; what was done with the communion-vessels, when they were not worth stealing,"—is hideous to the religious sense, and shall not be mentioned in human speech.
3. THE BROGLIO REINFORCEMENT COMING ACROSS TO JOIN SOUBISE, AND
PERFORM AT ROSSBACH (Humble Petition from the Magistrates of
Sangerhausen, To the King of Poland’s Majesty):—
SANGERHAUSEN, 23d OCTOBER, 1757.—"Scarcely had we, with profound submission (ALLERUNTERTHANIGST), under date of the 13th current, represented to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency how heavily we were pressed down by the forage requisitions and transits of troops, and the consequent, expenditure in food, drinking, in oats and hay, which no one pays,—when directly thereafter, on the 14th of October, a new French party, of the Fischer Corps,"—Fischer is a mighty Hussar, scarcely inferior to Turpin;, and stands in astonishing authority with Richelieu, and an Army whose object is plunder, [Ferdinand’s Correspondente, SOEPIUS (<italic> Westphalen, <end italic> i. 40-127); &c. &c.]—"new party of the Fischer Corps, of some sixty men and horse, arrived in the Town; demanded meat, drink, oats aud hay, and all things necessary; which they received from us;—and not only paid not one farthing for all this, but furthermore some of them, instead of thanks to their Landlord, Rossold, forcibly broke up his press, drank his brandy, and carried off a TOUTE (gather-all) with money in it. From a Tanner, Lindauer by name, they bargained for a buckskin; and having taken, would not pay it. In the RATHSKELLER (Town Public-house) they drank much wine, and gave nothing for it: nay on marching off,—because no mounted guide (REITENDER BOTE) was at hand, and though they had before expressly said none such would be needed,—they rushed about like distracted persons (WIE RASENDE LEUTE) in the market-place and in the streets; beat the people, tumbled them about, and lugged them along, in a violent manner; using abusive language to a frightful extent, and threatening every misfortune.
"Hardly were we rid of this confusion and astonishment when, on October 21st, a whole swarm of horses, men, women, children and wagons, which likewise all belonged to the Fischer Corps, and were commanded by First-Lieutenant Schmidt, came into our Town. This troop consisted of 80 men, part infantry, part cavalry; with some 80 work-horses, 10 baggage-wagons, and about 100 persons, women, sick people and the like. They stayed the whole night here; made meat, drink, corn, hay and whatever they needed be brought them; and went off next day without paying anything.
"Our Inns were now almost quite exhausted of forage in corn or hay; and we knew not how we were to pay what had been spent,—when the thirty French Light Cavalry, of whom we, with profound submission, on the 13th HUJUS gave your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency account, renewed their visit upon us; came, under the command of Rittmeister de Mocu, on the 22d of October [while the baggage-wagons, work-horses, women, sick, and so forth, were hardly gone], towards evening, into the Town; consumed in meat and drink, oats and hay, and the like, what they could lay hold of; and next morning early marched away, paying, as their custom is, nothing.
"Not enough that,—besides the great forage-contribution (LIEFERUNG), which we already, with profound submission, notified to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency as having been laid upon us; and that, by order of the Duc de Broglio, a new requisition is now laid on us, and we have had to engage for sixtyfour more sacks of wheat, and thirty-two of rye (as is noted under head A, in the enclosed copy),—there has farther come on us, on the part of the Reichs Army, from Kreis-Commissarius Heldorf [whose Schloss of Grost, we perceive, they have since burnt, by way of thanks to him [Supra, No. 2.]], the simultaneous Order for instant delivery of Forage (as under head B, here enclosed)! Thus are we, at the appointed places, all at once to furnish such quantities, more than we can raise; and know not when or where we shall, either for what has been already furnished, or for what is still to be, receive one penny of money: nay, over and above, we are to sustain the many marchings of troops, and provide to the same what meat, drink, oats, hay and so on, they require, without the least return of payment!
"So unendurable, and, taken all together, so hard (SIC) begins the conduct of these troops, that profess being come as friends and helpers, to appear to us. And Heaven alone knows how long, under a continuance of such things, the subjects (whom the Hail-storm of last year had at any rate impoverished) shall be able to support the same. We would, were a reasonable delivery of forage laid upon us even at a low price, and the board and billet of the marching troops paid to us even in part, lay out our whole strength in helping to bear the burdens of the Fatherland; but if such things go on, which will soon leave us only bare life and empty huts, we can look forward to nothing but our ruin and destruction. But, as it is not your Royal Majesty’s and Electoral Translucency’s most gracious will that we, your Most Supreme Self’s most faithful subjects, should entirely perish, therefore we repeat our former most submissive prayer once again with hot (SIC) sorrow of mind to Highest-the-Same; and sob most submissively for that help which your Most Supreme Self, through most gracious mediation with the Duc de Richelieu, with the Reichs Army or wherever else, might perhaps most graciously procure for us. Who, in deepest longing thitherwards, with the most deepest devotion, remain—" [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 688-691.] (NAMES, unfortunately, not given).
How many Saxons and Germans generally—alas, how many men universally—cry towards celestial luminaries of the governing kind with the most deepest devotion, in their extreme need, under their unsufferable injuries; and are truly like dogs in the backyard barking at the Moon. The Moon won’t come down to them, and be eaten as green cheese; the Moon can’t!
4. DAUPHINESS AFTER ROSSBACH. "Excise-Inspector Neitsche, at Bebra,
near Weissenfels [Bebra is well ahead from Freiburg and the burnt
Bridge, and a good twenty-five miles west of Weissenfels], writes
To the King of Poland’s Majesty, 9th NOVEMBER, 1757:—
"May it please your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency, out of your highest grace, to take knowledge, from the accompanying Registers SUB SIGNO MARTIS [sign unknown to readers here], of the things which, in the name of this Township of Bebra, the Burgermeister Johann Adam, with the Raths and others concerned, have laid before the Excise-Inspection here. As follows:—
"It will be already well known to the Excise-Inspection that on the 7th of November (A. C.) of the current year [day before yesterday, in fact!], the French Army so handled this place as to have not only taken from the inhabitants, by open force, all bread and articles of food, but likewise all clothes, beds, linens (WASCHE), and other portable goods; that it has broken, split to pieces, and emptied out, all chests, boxes, presses, drawers; has shot dead, in the backyards and on the thatch-roofs, all manner of featheredstock, as hens, geese, pigeons; also carried forth with it all swine, cow, sheep and horse cattle; laid violent hands on the inhabitants, clapped guns, swords, pistols to their breast, and threatened to kill them unless they showed and brought out whatever goods they had; or else has hunted them wholly out of their houses, shooting at them, cutting, sticking and at last driving them away, thereby to have the freer room to rob and plunder: flung out hay and other harvest-stock from the barns into the mud and dung, and had it trampled to ruin under the horses, feet; nay, in fact, has dealt with this place in so unpermitted a way as even to the most hard-hearted man must seem compassionable."—Poor fellows: CETERA DESUNT; but that is enough! What can a Polish Majesty and Electoral Translucency do? Here too is a sorrowful howling to the Moon. [<italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic> iv. 692.]
... "For a hundred miles round," writes St. Germain, "the Country is plundered and harried as if fire from Heaven had fallen on it; scarcely have our plunderers and marauders left the houses standing. ... I lead a band of robbers, of assassins, fit for breaking on the wheel; they would turn tail at the first gunshot, and are always ready to mutiny. If the Government (LA COUR," with its Pompadour presiding, very unlikely for such an enterprise!) "cannot lay the knife to the root of all this, we may give up the notion of War." [St. Germain, after Rossbach and before (in Preuss, UBI SUPRA).] ...
Such a pitch have French Armies sunk to. When was there seen such a Bellona as Dauphiness before? Nay, in fact, she is the same devilserving Army that Marechal de Saxe commanded with such triumph,— Marechal de Saxe in better luck for opponents; Army then in a younger stage of its development. Foaming then as sweet must, as new wine, in the hands of a skilful vintner, poisonous but brisk; not run, as now, to the vinegar state, intolerable to all mortals. She can now announce from her camp-theatres the reverse of the Roucoux program, "To-morrow, Messieurs, you are going to fight; our Manager foresees"—you will be beaten; and we cannot say what or where the next Piece will be! Impious, licentious, high-flaring efflorescence of all the Vices is not to be redeemed by the one Quasi-Virtue of readiness to be shot;—sweet of that kind, and sour of this, are the same substance, if you only wait. How kind was the Devil to his Saxe; and flew away with him in rose-pink, while it was still time!