With Frederick the Great Part 25

The consequences of this little success--magnified by report into "Berlin captured, Prussian royal family in flight."--turned out very advantageous to Frederick. The enthusiasm in Paris and Vienna was enormous, and orders were despatched to the armies to set to, without further delay, and finish the work. Fifteen thousand men were sent from Richelieu's army to reinforce Soubise, who thereupon issued from his mountain stronghold and marched against Leipzig.

Frederick, however, arrived there first, Ferdinand and Maurice joining him a day or two later; and while waiting there, Frederick received the joyful news that England requested him to appoint Duke Ferdinand, of Brunswick, commander-in-chief of the army until now commanded by the Duke of c.u.mberland, who had just sailed for England.

Pitt had now risen to almost absolute power in England, and was busied in reforming the abuses in the army and navy, dismissing incapable officials, and preparing to render some efficient aid to its hard-pressed ally. The proposal that Prince Ferdinand should a.s.sume the command of the army--whose efforts had hitherto been rendered nugatory by the utter incompetence of the Duke of c.u.mberland who, although personally as brave as a lion, was absolutely ignorant of war--afforded immense satisfaction to the king.

No better choice could have been made. Ferdinand was related to the royal families both of England and Prussia. He was a capable general, prudent and at the same time enterprising, firm under difficulties, ready to seize opportunities; and under his command there was no doubt that the northern army, which had hitherto been useless, and had only been saved from absolute destruction by the incompetence of the French generals, would now play a useful part.

On October 30th Soubise, in spite of his orders to fight, and the fact that he had double the strength of the Prussians, fell back before them. Soubise himself felt no confidence in his troops, but upon the other hand his officers and those of the Confederate army were puffed up with vanity, and remonstrated hotly against retreat.

The next day Frederick came in sight of Soubise's army, which was camped on a height near the town of Weissenfels. Frederick had but one-half of his force with him, the other half, under Keith, being still detached. Five thousand men garrisoned Weissenfels, but Frederick made short work of the place. His cannon burst down the gates, and his troops rushed forward with all speed; but the garrison fled across the bridge over the Saale, which had already been prepared for burning; and they set it on fire in such haste that four hundred were unable to cross, and were made prisoners.

The fugitives joined their army on the other side of the Elbe, and its guns opened upon the burning bridge, to prevent the Prussians from trying to extinguish the flames.

The Prussians returned the fire, and the artillery duel was kept up until three o'clock, by which time the bridge was consumed.

Frederick had already fixed upon a spot suitable for the erection of another, and during the night, while the enemy were falling back to take up a fresh position upon higher ground, the engineers, working diligently, succeeded in throwing a bridge across.

Keith arrived at Merseburg the next morning. A strong force lay opposite, ready to dispute the pa.s.sage; but when Soubise found that the king was crossing by his new bridge, he called in all his detachments and marched away, to a strong position, and there set himself in array ready to receive an attack. Keith's bridges were finished on the 3rd of November, and that afternoon he crossed and joined Frederick.

On the 4th the army was on the move by two o'clock in the morning.

A bright moon was shining and, by its light, it was discovered that the enemy had shifted his position for one much stronger, with approaches protected by patches of wood and bog. The Prussian army therefore marched back to their camp, the king hoping that, being so far from their base of supplies, the enemy would be forced ere long to make some movement that would afford him a chance of attacking them under better circ.u.mstances.

The ground from Weissenfels rises, very gradually, to a height of a hundred and twenty feet or so; which in so flat a country is regarded as a hill. On this slight swelling are several small villages. Of these Rossbach is the princ.i.p.al, standing high up on its crest. Here Frederick's right wing was posted, while his left was at Bedra. The king took up his quarters at a large house in Rossbach; and from its roof, at eight o'clock on the morning of the 5th, he saw that the enemy were getting into motion and moving away towards their left.

The movement had begun much earlier. Half an hour later they had pa.s.sed through the village of Grost, and were apparently making their way to Freiburg, where they had some magazines. Hoping to have a chance of attacking their rear, Frederick ordered the cavalry to saddle, and the whole army to be in readiness, and then sat down to dinner with his officers at noon. Little did he dream, at the time, that the slow and clumsy movement that he was watching was intended, by the enemy, to end in a flank attack on himself.

On the previous day Soubise, with his generals, looking down on the Prussian camp, had reckoned their force at ten thousand. In reality they had seen only a portion of their camp, the site being hidden by a dip of the ground. Even Soubise thought that, with the odds of over five to one in his favour, he could fight a battle with a certainty of success; and planned a masterly march, by which he would place himself on Frederick's left and rear, drive him into the bend made by the Saale, and annihilate his army. In his enthusiasm at this happy idea, he sent off a courier to carry the news, to Versailles, that he was about to annihilate the Prussian army, and take the king prisoner.

Frederick's dinner was prolonged. There was nothing to be done, and patience was one of the king's strong points. At two o'clock an officer, who had remained on watch on the housetop, hurried down with news that the enemy had suddenly turned to the left. The king went up to the roof with his officers, and at once divined the intention of his foes.

It was a glorious moment for him. At last, after three weary months, he was to meet them in battle. Instantly his orders were given, and in half an hour the Prussian army was all in movement, with the exception of some irregular corps which were left to occupy the attention of the enemy's horse, which had been posted as if to threaten Rossbach. By the line taken, the Prussians were at once hidden behind the crest of the hill from the enemy; and so Soubise thought that the Prussians, being afraid of his attack, were marching away with all speed for Keith's bridge at Merseburg.

He accordingly hurried on his cavalry, and ordered the infantry to go at a double, for the purpose of capturing the runaway Prussians.

In the meantime Seidlitz, with four thousand horse, trotted briskly along until he reached, still concealed from the enemy's sight, the spot towards which they were hurrying, in two great columns headed by seven thousand cavalry. He allowed them to move forward until he was on their flank, and then dashed over the crest of the hill, and charged like a thunderbolt upon them.

Taken completely by surprise, the enemy's cavalry had scarce time to form. Two Austrian regiments and two French were alone able to do so. But there was no withstanding the impetus of the Prussian charge. They rode right through the disordered cavalry; turned, formed, and recharged, and four times cut their way through them, until they broke away in headlong flight; and were pursued by Seidlitz until out of sight from the hill, when he turned and waited, to see where he could find an opportunity of striking another blow.

By this time Frederick, with the infantry, was now pouring over the crest of the hill, their advance heralded by the fire of twenty-four guns. Rapidly, in echelon, they approached the enemy.

In vain Soubise endeavoured to face round the column, thus taken in flank, to meet the coming storm. He was seconded by Broglio and the commander of the Confederate army, but the two columns were jammed together, and all were in confusion at this astounding and unexpected attack. Orders were unheard or disobeyed, and everything was still in utter disorder, when six battalions of Prussian infantry hurled themselves upon them.

When forty paces distant, they poured in their first terrible volley, and then continued their fire as fast as they could load; creating great havoc among the French troops on whom they had fallen, while away on each flank the Prussian artillery made deep gaps in the line. Soon the ma.s.s, helpless under this storm of fire, wavered and shook; and then Seidlitz, who had been concealed with his cavalry in a hollow a short distance away, hurled himself like a thunderbolt on their rear, and in a moment they broke up in headlong flight. In less than half an hour from the first appearance of the Prussians on the hill, the struggle had ended, and an army of from fifty to sixty thousand men was a mob of fugitives; defeated by a force of but twenty-two thousand men, not above half of whom were engaged.

The loss of the allies was three thousand killed and wounded, five thousand prisoners, and seventy-two guns; while the Prussians lost but one hundred and sixty-five killed, and three hundred and seventy-six wounded. The victory was one of the most remarkable and surprising ever gained, for these figures by no means represent the full loss to the defeated.

The German portion of the army, after being chased for many miles, scattered in all directions; and only one regiment reached Erfurt in military order, and in two days the whole of the men were on their way to their homes, in the various states composing the Confederation. The French were in no less disgraceful a condition.

Plundering as they went, a mere disorganized rabble, they continued their flight until fifty-five miles from the field of battle, and were long before they gathered again in fighting order.

The joy caused in Prussia and in England, by this astonishing victory, was shared largely by the inhabitants of the country through which the French army had marched. Everywhere they had plundered and pillaged, as if they had been moving through an enemy's country instead of one they had professed to come to deliver. The Protestant inhabitants had everywhere been most cruelly maltreated, the churches wrecked, and the pastors treated as criminals. The greater portion of Germany therefore regarded the defeat of the French as a matter for gratification, rather than the reverse.

In England the result was enormous. It had the effect of vastly strengthening Pitt's position, and twenty thousand British troops were, ere long, despatched to join the army under the Duke of Brunswick, which was now called the allied army, and from this time the French force under Richelieu ceased to be dangerous to Frederick. France and England were old antagonists, and entered upon a duel of their own; a duel that was to cost France Canada, and much besides; to establish England's naval preponderance; and to extinguish French influence in the Netherlands.

Fergus Drummond was not under fire, at the memorable battle of Rossbach. Keith's division was not, in fact, engaged; the affair having terminated before it arrived. Keith, however, had ridden to the position on the brow of the hill where the king had stationed himself; and his staff, following him, had the satisfaction of seeing the enemy's heavy columns melt into a ma.s.s of fugitives, and spread in all directions over the country, like dust driven before a sudden whirlwind.

"What next, I wonder?" Fergus said to Lindsay; who had, three days before, been promoted to the rank of captain, as much to the satisfaction of Fergus as to his own.

"I suppose some more marching," Lindsay replied. "You may be sure that we shall be off east again, to try conclusions with Prince Karl. Bevern seems to be making a sad mess of it there. Of course he is tremendously outnumbered, thirty thousand men against eighty thousand; but he has fallen back into Silesia without making a single stand, and suffered Prince Karl to plant himself between Breslau and Schweidnitz; and the Prince is besieging the latter town with twenty thousand men, while with sixty thousand he is facing Bevern."

Four days after the victory, indeed, Frederick set out with thirteen thousand men; leaving Prince Henry to maintain the line of the Saale, and guard Saxony; while Marshal Keith was to go into Bohemia, raise contributions there, and threaten as far as might be the Austrian posts in that country.

Fergus, however, went with the king's army, the king having said to the Marshal:

"Keith, lend me that young aide-de-camp of yours. I have seen how he can be trusted to carry a despatch, at whatever risk to his life. He is ingenious and full of devices; and he has luck, and luck goes for a great deal.

"I like him, too. I have observed that he is always lively and cheery, even at the end of the longest day's work. I notice too that, even though your relation, he never becomes too familiar; and his talk will be refreshing, when I want something to distract my thoughts from weighty matters."

So Fergus went with the king, who could ill afford to lose Keith from his side. With none was he more friendly and intimate and, now that Schwerin had gone, he relied upon him more implicitly than upon any other of his officers.

But Keith had been, for some time, unwell. He was suffering from asthma and other ailments that rendered rapid travel painful to him; and he would obtain more rest and ease, in Bohemia, than he could find in the rapid journey the king intended to make.

On the fifth day of his march Frederick heard, to his stupefaction, that Schweidnitz had surrendered. The place was an extremely strong one, and the king had relied confidently upon its holding out for two or three months. Its fortifications were constructed in the best manner; it was abundantly supplied with cannon, ammunition, and provisions; and its surrender was inexcusable.

The fault was doubtless, to a large degree, that of its commandant, who was a man of no resolution or resources; but it was also partly due to the fact that a portion of the garrison were Saxons, who had at Pirna been obliged to enter the Prussian service. Great numbers of these deserted; a hundred and eighty of them, in one day, going over from an advanced post to the enemy. With troops like these, there could be no a.s.surance that any post would be firmly held--a fact that might well shake the confidence of any commander in his power of resistance.

The blow was none the less severe, to Frederick, from being partly the result of his own mistaken step of enrolling men bitterly hostile in the ranks of the army. Still, disastrous as the news was, it did not alter his resolution; and at even greater speed than before he continued his march. Sometimes of an evening he sent for Fergus, and chatted with him pleasantly for an hour or two, asking him many questions of his life in Scotland, and discoursing familiarly on such matters, but never making any allusion to military affairs.

On the tenth day of the march they arrived at Gorlitz, where another piece of bad news reached Frederick. Prince Karl, after taking Schweidnitz, had fallen with sixty thousand men on Bevern.

He had crossed by five bridges across the Loe, but each column was met by a Prussian force strongly intrenched. For the s.p.a.ce of fifteen hours the battles had raged, over seven or eight miles of country. Five times the Austrians had attacked, five times had they been rolled back again; but at nine o'clock at night they were successful, more or less, in four of their attacks, while the Prussian left wing, under the command of Ziethen, had driven its a.s.sailants across the river again.

During the night Bevern had drawn off, marched through Breslau, and crossed the Oder, leaving eighty cannon and eight thousand killed and wounded--a tremendous loss, indeed, when the army at daybreak had been thirty thousand strong. Bevern himself rode out to reconnoitre, in the gray light of the morning, attended only by a groom, and fell in with an Austrian outpost. He was carried to Vienna, but being a distant relation of the emperor, was sent home again without ransom.

It was the opinion of Frederick that he had given himself up intentionally, and on his return he was ordered at once to take up his former official post at Stettin; where he conducted himself so well, in the struggle against the Russian armies, that two years later he was restored to Frederick's favour.

As if this misfortune was not great enough, two days later came the news that Breslau had surrendered without firing a shot; and this when it was known that the king was within two days' march, and pressing forward to its relief. Here ninety-eight guns and an immense store and magazine were lost to Prussia.

Frederick straightway issued orders that the general who had succeeded Bevern should be put under arrest, for not having at once thrown his army into Breslau; appointed Ziethen in his place, and ordered him to bring the army round to Glogau and meet him at Parchwitz on December 2nd, which Ziethen punctually did.

In spite of the terrible misfortunes that had befallen him, Frederick was still undaunted. Increased as it was by the arrival of Ziethen, his force was but a third of the strength of the Austrians. The latter were flushed with success; while Ziethen's troops were discouraged by defeat, and his own portion of the force worn out by their long and rapid marches, and by the failure of the object for which they had come. Calling his generals together on the 3rd, he recounted the misfortunes that had befallen them; and told them that his one trust, in this terrible position, was in their qualities and valour; and that he intended to engage the enemy, as soon as he found them, and that they must beat them or all of them perish in the battle.

Enthusiastically, the generals declared that they would conquer or die with him; and among the soldiers the spirit was equally strong, for they had implicit confidence in their king, and a well-justified trust in their own valour and determination. That evening Frederick, eager as he was to bring the terrible situation to a final issue, cannot but have felt that it would have been too desperate an undertaking to have attacked the enemy; posted as they were with a river (known as Schweidnitz Water) and many other natural difficulties covering their front, and having their flanks strengthened, as was the Austrian custom, with field works and batteries. Fortunately the Austrians settled the difficulty by moving out from their stronghold.

Daun had counselled their remaining there, but Prince Karl and the great majority of his military advisers agreed that it would be a shameful thing that ninety thousand men should shut themselves up, to avoid an attack by a force of but one-third their own strength; and that it was in all respects preferable to march out and give battle, in which case the Prussians would be entirely destroyed; whereas, if merely repulsed in an attack on a strong position, a considerable proportion might escape and give trouble in the future.

The Austrians, indeed, having captured Schweidnitz and Breslau, defeated Bevern, and in the s.p.a.ce of three weeks made themselves masters of a considerable portion of Silesia, were in no small degree puffed up, and had fallen anew to despising Frederick. The blow dealt them at Prague had been obliterated by their success at Kolin; and Frederick's later success over the French and Federal army was not considered, by them, as a matter affecting themselves, although several Austrian regiments had been among Soubise's force.

The officers were very scornful over the aggressive march of Frederick's small army, which they derisively called the Potsdam Guards' Parade; and many were the jokes cut, at the military messes, at its expense.

The difference, then, with which the two armies regarded the coming battle was great, indeed. On the one side there was the easy confidence of victory, the satisfaction that at length this troublesome little king had put himself in their power; on the other a deep determination to conquer or to die, a feeling that, terrible as the struggle must be, great as were the odds against them, they might yet, did each man do his duty, come out the victors in the struggle.

"And what think you of this matter, lad?" Frederick said, laying his hand familiarly on the young captain's shoulder.

"I know nothing about it, your majesty; but like the rest, I feel confident that somehow you will pull us through. Of one thing I am sure, that all that is possible for the men to do, your soldiers will accomplish."