leuthen to maxen (december, 1757, to december, 1759.)
what profit would leuthen bring to prussia? was frederick’s first thought after the glorious fifth of december, and may well be ours. he himself was worn and ill. in the excitement of victory he had closed the long day of leuthen with a jest. pressing on to the castle of lissa, he found it full of austrian officers. “bonjour, messieurs,” cried the king, suddenly appearing out of the darkness, “can you find room for me?” but reaction and depression followed the strain of 1757. “if the year upon which i am entering,” he wrote on his birthday (january 24, 1758), “is to be as cruel as that which is at an end, i hope it will be my last.”
every kind of anxiety, public and private alike, pressed at the same time upon the hero of rossbach and leuthen. his brother, augustus william, for whom a chance bullet might at any moment clear the throne, had not yet succumbed under the burden252 of disgrace, and wearied frederick with complaints and acid congratulations. his brother-in-law, ferdinand of brunswick, was stricken with fever, and the king’s mind was full of vague fears which he confessed but could not account for. upon his sister, wilhelmina, who had more need of it, he lavished sympathy and encouragement in a flood of tender messages.
“i am delighted that you are having some music and a little dissipation,” he writes, early in the new year; “believe me, dear sister, there is nothing in life that can console us but a little philosophy and the fine arts.... i swear to give thanks to heaven on the day when i can descend from the tight-rope on which i am forced to dance.”
if we must choose a simile from the circus to describe frederick during this war, he might be likened to an acrobat juggling with five bomb-shells at once. of three, the swedes, the russians, and the imperialists, he had not yet felt the full weight, and with a supreme effort he had flung the french and the austrians high into the air. what would be his task in 1758?
while he harvested the fruits of leuthen without pause frederick permitted himself to hope that his victory would bring peace. after the fall of breslau on december 19, 1757, he estimated the austrian losses and found them overwhelming. he even gave out that at a sacrifice of less than 4000 prussians killed and wounded, he had reduced the enemy’s force by 47,707 men. he was still gathering in prisoners253 and deserters every day. before the year was out he could assure prince henry that, according to sound opinion, prince charles’s army consisted of no more than 13,000 foot and 9000 horse. “if this does not lead to peace,” writes frederick on december 21st, “no success in war will ever pave the way thither.” a week later he is still hopeful, “but even if one were sure of it, we must none the less labour to make our position formidable, since force is the only argument that one can use with these dogs of kings and emperors.” leuthen indeed gave maria theresa another opportunity to prove her constancy and courage. frederick made overtures to her for peace, but she refused to engage in any negotiation apart from her allies. early in january, 1758, the king became aware that austria whatever it might cost her, was determined on another campaign.
gradually the prospect grew clearer. almost beyond the hopes of the queen her alliance with france survived the double shock of rossbach and leuthen. at the beginning of february louis promised to send 24,000 men into bohemia. since his encounter with soubise, frederick regarded the french as brigands rather than warriors, but their onset compelled him to place a sturdy watch-dog in the west. this part was played by ferdinand of brunswick, who drove them across the rhine before march was over. another foe, the swedes, were even less considerable. frederick jeered at them as “cautious people who run away eighty miles so as not to be taken,” and assured his sister, the queen of sweden, of his254 willingness to grant them peace. so long as france was willing to pay subsidies, however, the swedes were willing to provide 30,000 men. they still occupied their “bastion,” pomerania, in force, and therefore lehwaldt must still act as the ferdinand of the north. the king himself proposed to astonish europe by his dealings with the austrians and imperialists. from his ally he might look for the same assistance as in the previous year. he laboured in vain to persuade the sea powers that the protestant cause and their own interests demanded that they should attack france with their own troops. but in april pitt undertook to furnish an annual subsidy of ￡670,000, and for four years the money was punctually paid.
map for the silesian and seven years wars
g. p. putnam’s sons, london & new york.
with silesia at his back, the french and swedes held in check, and england in close alliance, frederick’s prospects for the campaign of 1758 might seem almost brilliant. he had some 206,000 men under arms. ready money was not plentiful, but frederick procured it in a thoroughly prussian fashion—unscrupulous but practical. his own subjects he spared so far as possible. at times indeed he treated even them in the manner of his father. in january, 1758, the merchants of breslau answered “impossible” to a royal demand that they should advance 300,000 thalers to the jews who had charge of the coinage. frederick’s minister reported the fact, adding that the jews enjoyed no credit in the mercantile world. the king’s annotation, scrawled in german on the back of the report, is still treasured in the archives pf the general staff at berlin, it runs as follows:255 “i will cook something for the president if he don’t get the money out of those merchants at once without arguing.”
in general, however, with the exception of a few loans, no new demands were made upon the ill-lined purses of the prussians. indirectly, of course, they felt the burden of the war. the coin with which the state supplied them was debased and therefore purchased less goods. the pensions of those who had served the king in the past, but could serve him no longer, were left unpaid or paid only in paper. but the chief granary of the prussian army was, whenever possible, the territory of the enemy. the second great source of supplies consisted in those countries which the fortune of war had placed in their hands. “mark well the contributions of mecklenburg,” was frederick’s order to general dohna. “take hostages, and threaten the duke’s bailiffs with fire and plundering to make them pay promptly.” but by far the heaviest burden fell upon the saxons. besides systematically draining them of cash, frederick resorted to what he termed “reprisals” at their expense whenever “the allies of the king of poland” pillaged any of his dominions. men who were thus made scapegoats for the sins of half europe betrayed with seasonable treachery the allegiance which the king of prussia had compelled them to swear against their will.
in 1758, however, frederick allowed the notorious disaffection of the saxons to fetter him no more than the armies of france and sweden. he had a great plan of campaign, and he began to execute it256 with a speed and secrecy which no one in the world could equal. on march 15th he left breslau. within five weeks he had captured schweidnitz, the sole fortress in silesia which remained austrian, and was making for moravia in order to besiege olmütz. the austrians, he argued, must relieve it and might be vanquished in a battle in which he would have choice of ground. olmütz could then be taken and vienna threatened. this would compel the enemy to concentrate in defence of the capital. prince henry would thus be free to swoop down from dresden upon bohemia and to erase the traces of kolin.
frederick’s idea was brilliant, and for a time success waited upon his arms. daun, who, to the great profit of the austrians, had replaced prince charles in the chief command, continued to fortify bohemia against the attack which he expected from the east. on may 3rd frederick reached olmütz. consternation reigned at vienna, but for eight weeks the cautious daun did not venture to disturb the siege. till the last day of june all went well. then came what the king frankly terms a terrible contretemps. at domst?dtl a convoy of some 4000 waggons from neisse was destroyed by general laudon, who made himself a great name by a victory which cost zieten’s command at least 2400 men. the prussians were thus deprived of the supplies which were indispensable to their success.
frederick recognised at once that the siege must be abandoned, and with it his whole enterprise. he admitted that he had lost the superiority over the257 austrians which he had gained in 1757. threatening to imprison and cashier officers who should make faces or say that all was lost, he slipped cleverly past daun’s left into bohemia, and for a month remained there at his ease. then he sped swiftly northward. on august 22, 1758, he was at cüstrin dictating a fresh testament on the eve of the encounter with a new and gigantic foe.
in estimating frederick’s prospects for the campaign of 1758, no account has yet been taken of russia. the action of the muscovite forces was proverbially uncertain and of necessity slow. it was possible that they would not influence the main struggle at all, or that frederick’s plan of aggression in the south would be accomplished before they had time to become formidable. since the new year, however, storm-clouds had been massing to the north-eastward. it is fortunately no part of our task to peer behind them into the dark secrets of the russian court. suffice it to say that elizabeth still lived, and that so long as she remained on the throne peace with prussia was impossible. her armies might be ill-found and her ministers corrupt, but it would be strange if the mistress of russia proved too weak to wound frederick in his ill-guarded flank beyond the oder.
fermor received the chief command of an army 34,000 strong. in january, 1758, he overran ost-preussen and forced the inhabitants to swear fealty to the czarina. in february k?nigsberg was illuminated in honour of russian royalty. frederick avenged the first offence by reprisals upon the258 saxons, the second by withdrawing his favour for ever from the polluted province. his power of self-restraint is attested by the fact that he attempted nothing by way of rescue. he calculated dispassionately that fermor’s advance would at best be slow, that a broad expanse of barren polish territory separated the invader from the rest of the prussian dominions, and that offensive action in the south was more likely to be profitable than defensive in the north. k?nigsberg had been a russian city for more than three months when frederick dashed into moravia.
the danger, however, grew greater throughout the summer months. the muscovite tide rolled slowly across poland into frederick’s dominions east of the oder. europe now had an opportunity of learning something of the nature of the society which peter the great had brought within her pale. in the russian army, as in the nation, the highest classes were men of honour when not too sorely tried, but the lowest were filthy savages, who made the country a desert and tortured and burned men and women alike. what the rank and file might be, frederick had yet to learn. but that his trusted field-marshal, keith, gave him timely warning, he might well have been pardoned for his belief that fermor’s unseasoned horde would not face the heroes of leuthen led by himself, the foremost captain in the world.
as the king sped towards his old prison, cüstrin, the trembling peasants came in crowds to kiss the hem of his coat. he found the fortress unharmed,259 but the defenceless town reduced to ashes by fermor’s bombs. the russians, more than 40,000 strong, lay on the eastern side of the oder, having an open road to poland, but all others barred by swamps and rivers. before frederick’s arrival, dohna, with perhaps a third of their numbers, the waters of the oder, and the walls of cüstrin had been the only defences of berlin. now, however, the prussians were some 36,000 strong and as much superior to their foes in mobility as were drake and hawkins to the spanish armada. fermor was short of supplies. he could not go forward and had hundreds of miles of desert at his rear. was the time at the king’s disposal so scanty that he could not starve, harry, and crush the enemy without the sacrifice of more than a few hundred prussian lives?
frederick was, however, in no mood for a war of strategy. he had published his fixed resolve to conquer or die. he was impatient to return to silesia, where he had left 40,000 men under charles of brandenburg-schwedt. he was still more impatient to annihilate the bloody vagabonds, who, he wrote, were burning villages every day and committing horrors which made nature groan. in the spirit of leuthen, though perhaps without like need, he resolved to attack fermor without an hour’s delay. knowing every inch of the dismal country-side, he swiftly planned a massacre that should avenge the past and safeguard the future. the russians had abandoned the siege of cüstrin and taken up a position so sheltered by the oder and its tributary, the mietzel, that fermor believed it to be unassailable.260 frederick crossed the oder some miles below cüstrin, marched right round their camp, and prepared to hurl them into the waters in which they trusted for defence.
the plan seems a sound one only on the supposition that keith’s opinion was ill-founded and that the russians would not show fight. they had much in their favour. they were a national army, roused to enthusiasm by the benedictions of a mob of orthodox popes. they outnumbered the enemy and were far better furnished with cannon. in cavalry, it is true, frederick had a great advantage, but this was discounted by the russian formation in dense masses, which cavalry could hardly hope to pierce. above all, the king provided his opponents with the best possible argument against running away when he left them no road by which to run. with no alternative save drowning or suffocation, the russians chose to die where they stood, but to sell their lives dear.
plan of zorndorf, august 25, 1758.
these conditions made the battle fought near zorndorf on august 25, 1758, one of the bloodiest of the whole war. it was in great part a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, kept up with mutual fury until the russians were cut to pieces. according to the prussian histories, seydlitz, the matchless dragoon, refused point-blank to obey frederick’s order to advance on the russian guns. when and where needed, he replied, he would be at hand with his men. “after the battle,” came the king’s message, “you will answer for it with your head.” “after the battle,” answered the imperturbable261 general, “my head will be at the service of the king.” he justified his insubordination by twice charging at the enemy on his own initiative. he thereby saved the day, and, instead of being cashiered, was embraced by his delighted master. but when the issue had once been decided by sheer rage maintained for ten hours, some of the prussian infantry showed themselves equally insubordinate and less successful. it seems not the least strange feature of this chaotic death-grapple that in an attack upon an army strongly posted the cavalry should have formed the chief factor in frederick’s success.
success, though much qualified, frederick might indeed fairly claim. fermor, it is true, bivouacked on the field, fought again, though languidly, next day, sent off bulletins of victory, and retired unmolested a week later. his troops had endured the prussian whirlwind with a steadfastness beyond all praise. but of the 30,000 killed and wounded nearly two-thirds were his, and frederick had achieved, though at a great cost, his prime object of securing his dominions on the eastern side.
against a new foe the king had displayed once more those qualities which readers of his history have by this time learned to regard as characteristic of him. he had been brave, secret, and masterful, swift to plan and to carry out, tireless in body and teeming in brain. he had at the same time proved himself exacting, overbearing, and rash, adroit at supplying the need of the moment rather than far-sighted and sagacious in providing for the future. though he accepted victory and defeat like a philosopher, there262 was too much of the despot, both in what he exacted from his troops and in what he expected from his foes. in this, though in this alone, it seemed as though the common infirmity of the overpowerful had at last assailed a hohenzollern, and that frederick had lost something of his power of seeing facts as they are. all the torrents of prussian blood wasted at prague, at kolin, and at zorndorf had not swept away his belief that prussians led by himself could carry out any order that he chose to give.
it is chiefly these virtues and foibles of the king that shape the story of the remaining months of the campaign. while he was on the banks of the oder the austrians and imperialists had begun the reconquest of saxony and silesia. frederick by speed and cleverness saved both, but his conceit doomed nearly nine thousand of his army to wounds, captivity, or death.
first, by wonderful marches, he snatched dresden from the jaws of daun. the cautious general took up a strong position, which barred frederick’s road to silesia, where the austrians were besieging neisse. having failed to tempt him to battle, frederick next stole round his army, but daun retorted with a similar man?uvre and encamped near hochkirch with some 65,000 men. on october 10th, frederick with less than half the number actually insisted upon occupying an untenable position hard by. his generals, among whom were the young dessauer, seydlitz, and zieten, remonstrated with him in vain. next day keith arrived and spoke his mind quite frankly:263 “if the austrians leave us quiet in a position like this, they deserve to be hanged.” “it is to be hoped that they fear us more than the gallows,” rejoined the king, and planned a flank attack on daun, who, he believed, was about to retreat into bohemia. the result was that before daybreak, on october 14, 1758, the prussian camp was surprised. five generals, keith among them, perished. frederick’s obstinate foolhardiness cost him more than one-fourth of his army, with more than a hundred guns and much material of war. kolin, domst?dtl, and hochkirch, three victories over the king of prussia within sixteen months, formed a splendid chaplet for a general whose forte was caution. the pope was said to have rewarded daun with a consecrated hat and sword.
“it may be safely reckoned,” so the king informed the berlin public a week later, “that our loss does not exceed 3000 men.... these disasters are sometimes inevitable in the great game of chance which we call war.” the hour of disaster had again proved frederick superior to the shrewdest blows of fate. at the moment when the austrians, creeping through the darkness, began to butcher his men in their tents, he proved himself once more a hero. disdaining to order a retreat, he extricated his army from its terrible position and formed a new line only half a league to the rear. daun, who had lost more than 6000 men, entrenched himself on the field, and was soon plying his old trade of circumspectly hanging upon the skirts of the foe. within ten days of the battle frederick robbed him264 of the fruits of victory by marching round him once more. he flung himself between daun and the besiegers of neisse, and silesia was saved.
daun’s counterstroke was, as was almost inevitable, an invasion of saxony while frederick’s back was turned. he alarmed dresden, but was once more frustrated by prussian speed. frederick hurried back in time to save both saxony and its capital. in mid-december he went into winter quarters at breslau, master of dominions as broad as when he had quitted the city nine months before.
plan of hochkirch, october 14, 1758.
in those months he had, however, lost much that cannot be marked upon the map. faithful officers by hundreds, trained soldiers by thousands, hard-wrung thalers by millions had been sacrificed, and nothing but glory and a respite had been gained. no lands outside ost-preussen were as yet conquered by foreign kings, but many had been wasted by foreign armies, and some, at the dictate of urgent need, by their own defenders. these losses weighed upon frederick, whose task it was to gather men and money for next year. but as a man he had cause for more poignant grief, for death had knocked hard at the door of his own household. the loss of his heir, augustus william, once his father’s favourite, now the victim of frederick’s cruelty, probably afflicted him only because prince henry avenged it by refusing to see him except on business. but the death of wilhelmina, who died on the eve of hochkirch, was the most crushing calamity of his life. “great god, my sister of baireuth!” scrawled the afflicted king as postscript to a brief despatch in265 cipher to his brother henry. the message is more pregnant than much fine writing. “the death of her highness the margravine of baireuth embarrasses me with regard to his majesty the king more than all war matters,” wrote the faithful eichel from dresden on the day after frederick received the news, “since i can judge how highly afflicting and crushing it must be to him. councillor coeper writes to me yesterday that although every care was taken to prepare his majesty gradually for sad tidings it has none the less made an indescribably great impression upon him, and he does not believe that deeper woe is possible.” “if my head had within it a lake of tears it would not be enough for my grief,” sighed the king to another mourner, keith’s brother, when the hard fighting and marching came to an end.
after three campaigns the war had now, at the close of the year 1758, reached what may be called a chronic state. thrice had frederick lunged at the heart of his enemies and each time they had parried the thrust. at vienna alone could the coalition receive a mortal wound. st. petersburg, stockholm, and paris were equally out of reach, and the states of the empire might be squeezed and harried for ever without terminating the war. if the prussians failed to dictate peace at vienna, their one hope must be that they might defend themselves until some of the hostile powers should change their minds. their opponents, too, felt the strain of prolonged and unprofitable war. it was true that they had not to strain themselves like the nation whose266 very existence was at stake, but neither russia nor austria nor france knew the secret of prussian thrift. the time might come when even elizabeth and the pompadour would confess that the game was no longer worth the candle. the french, in particular, were not all blind to the fact that they were losing their empire to england in order to gratify the spite of the king’s mistress against the king of prussia. would they hold to the austrian alliance even for another year?
the event falsified the hopes of frederick. with some relaxation of intimacy, the austro-french league was renewed, and the king perceived that he must henceforward hold prussia like a huge beleaguered fortress. five powers were still encamped upon his frontiers and ready to break in upon him. like all resolute garrisons, therefore, the prussians had recourse to sallies, and some of these met with much success. by sudden forays henry and ferdinand destroyed the magazines that were being formed by the austrians and imperialists and so retarded the invasion of prussia, which could not proceed without them. mere partisan inroads like these were, however, insufficient to prevent daun from taking up a strong position at mark-lissa, with bohemia at his back and saxony and silesia open on either hand. there he menaced frederick while the russian host once more drew near to the oder, overthrowing as it came a prussian force which had been sent into poland to destroy its magazines and pen it in the swamps of the vistula.
the story of this polish campaign throws much267 light on the strength and weakness of the prussian army. rightly neglecting the lesser danger in order to make adequate head against the greater, the king had sent against the russians the force which usually defended the north against the swedes. the rank and file were good, but without leadership they could accomplish nothing. “your polish campaign deserves to be printed as an eternal example of what every intelligent officer must avoid. you have done every silly thing which can be done in war and nothing whatever that an intelligent man can approve. i tremble to open my letters.” such were the concluding words of a long indictment which frederick addressed to their commander, general wobersnow.
nothing but the royal presence, it seemed, could save the situation. the king himself was not yet free to leave daun. he therefore invented a deputy-king, and despatched general wedell to poland “with the powers of a dictator in roman times.” twelve curt instructions were drafted for his guidance. he was “(4) to forbid lamentation and depreciatory talk among the officers on pain of dismissal. (5) to disgrace also those who cry out on every occasion that the enemy is too strong. (6) first to check the enemy by occupying a good position. (7) then to attack in my own fashion.” from the king’s own lips wedell received the order to fight the russians whenever he should find them, and officers and men alike were commanded to obey him as though he were indeed the king. but frederick was never sanguine that these attempts to win a268 russian leuthen by proxy would succeed. his instructions were followed to the letter, and within four days he was condoling with the dictator upon the disaster of kay (july 23, 1759), where the prussians lost more than 8000 men killed and wounded. nothing could now hold back soltykoff and his russians from the oder, and across the oder lay frederick’s helpless capital.
but worse was yet in store. the russians, for all their numbers and their greed, were ill-fed, irresolute, and slow. they dreaded the victor of zorndorf and they were determined not to be the catspaw of their allies. if only they could be kept at a distance from the austrians they might starve before they could agree upon the next step in advance. from kay to mark-lissa is some ninety miles as the crow flies, and the oder and frederick’s army lay between. to strengthen the barrier the king was prepared even to leave saxony almost without defence. he summoned henry to observe daun while he himself made “cruel and terrible marches” through the burning sand towards wedell in the north. so severe was the strain that he passed six of the torrid nights without sleep. but he was racing a fleet adversary—laudon, the hero of domst?dtl and probably the best partisan soldier in the world. knowing that he had served ten years in the russian army, daun now detached him with 36,000 men to allay soltykoff’s suspicions of the austrians and to speed his coming. frederick disturbed the march, but started too late to stop it altogether. when laudon found the russians269 at frankfurt he was still master of nearly 20,000 men.
this reinforcement vastly increased the effectiveness of soltykoff’s army as a fighting force. the russians were well furnished with guns, and their infantry had proved its toughness at zorndorf. but their cavalry was bad and laudon added to it some 6000 men, well-mounted and well-trained. none the less he was received with extreme discourtesy. the russians abused him because he brought no supplies. they refused to cross the oder unless daun’s whole army should appear. until fresh orders from st. petersburg produced some change of tone, laudon felt certain that they were on the eve of retreat. then came the news that the king of prussia was upon them and the voice of discord was hushed.
frederick had set himself a harder task than the destruction of fermor on the banks of the oder in 1758. only overwhelming necessity made him give battle. he suspected that an austrian detachment was threatening his capital. “i believe that hadik means berlin,” he wrote, “and i am obliged to make haste here to parry his blow in time. a lost soul in purgatory is not in a more wretched situation than i am.” in mere numbers, it is true, the disparity between the combatants was not much greater than at zorndorf. frederick had now nearly 50,000 men against a composite force of about 68,000, but of the enemy nearly one-quarter were light horse, who in the shock of battle counted for next to nothing.
270 in quality and in position, however, his army was worse off than before, while the enemy was much better. in the previous year he had led seasoned troops whose ranks had been purged by incessant marches under a scorching sun to join the army of dohna, which was at least unbeaten and unwearied. their meeting had provoked one of frederick’s best-remembered sayings: “your men have made themselves wonderfully smart; mine look like grass-devils, but they can bite.” now, however, a great part of his command consisted of troops mishandled by wobersnow and decimated by the russians at kay. it was unlikely that they would fight like the victors of leuthen.
plan of kunersdorf, august 12, 1759.
nor was frederick favoured by the ground. the most casual glance at the two fields is sufficient to show that kunersdorf, the scene of the bloody drama of august 12, 1759, presented difficulties such as the assailant at zorndorf never had to overcome. the allies were again encamped on the right bank of the oder, and were now separated by the broad river from the town of frankfurt. to march round their position was far more arduous than at zorndorf. their left wing was shielded by impassable morasses, and the right by forest. behind them lay a fortress commanding a well-bridged river, before them a tangled mass of sand-hills, woods, and lakes which seemed to have been designed by nature to impede an attacking force and which was now made still more formidable by art. this position, even if the 16,000 irregulars be ignored, was held by some 40,000 russians, now veterans in271 western warfare, aided by 13,000 of the flower of the austrian army under a captain worthy to cross swords with frederick himself.
on the other hand, the king had still seydlitz, but such men as wedell could ill supply the place of schwerin, the old dessauer, and keith. some of his troops were men who had fled before the russians every year, at gross-j?gersdorf, at zorndorf, and at kay, and whom he could not even trust. owing to the difficulties of the ground and the king’s impatience, most of the prussians went into action suffering under privations that would have well-nigh killed ordinary men. they lacked food and drink. after two nights without sleep they must drag themselves and their accoutrements through a man?uvre of nine hours’ duration, now tugging cannon through pine-woods, now clambering over sand-hills under the broiling august sun. then at noon they were ordered to attack an enemy more numerous than themselves who was resting quietly behind entrenchments in ground of his own choosing.
that they accomplished what they did proves that the prussians were heroes. frederick’s design was, as at zorndorf, to cross the oder below the russian camp, to march round it, and then to strike. but the barren waste east of frankfurt was to him unfamiliar country. at leuthen and at zorndorf he had profited greatly by his knowledge of the field. but at kunersdorf he knew neither the difficulties of the ground nor the extent to which, in one most important particular, those272 difficulties had been surmounted by the enemy. when he scanned their position from the north-east before completing his plan of attack, he could discern laudon’s force encamped in a seemingly isolated peninsula in the great marsh which protected the left. he was informed that laudon and soltykoff could communicate only by a roundabout way. not till the issue of the day was dubious did he learn that a new causeway connected the austrians with the main body of the enemy, and the error proved fatal. twice in his life frederick paid dear for imperfect information, but the price of the blunder at prague was a trifle by the side of the price paid here.
the beginning of the fray was such as to make the end a doubly crushing blow to the king. after long and toilsome preparations it seemed as though victory was assured. when the prussian van went into action they advanced like fresh men and turned the russians out of their entrenchments at the point of the bayonet. a second onslaught, better supported, took the enemy in flank and by two o’clock the russian left was beaten, with a loss of seventy guns. frederick sent off a courier to carry the tidings of victory to berlin. the third attack, however, made on difficult ground in the face of cannon at 800 yards and musketeers at fifty, did not succeed until the prussian infantry had been decimated and its strength almost spent. at this point frederick’s generals cried “enough”; but the king, as at hochkirch, preferred his own opinion. once more the prussians stormed forward and for the273 fourth time they annihilated the russian line. if one knoll more, the spitzberg, and the battery upon it were taken, the victory, it seemed, would be complete.
but at this crisis laudon intervened to save the battery and the day. his grenadiers climbed the knoll when the prussians were still 150 paces from the top, and drove them back with a volley of case-shot. frederick ordered up his artillery, but the heavy guns stuck fast in the sand and light field-pieces were of no avail. in the agony of the moment the king lost his head and ordered the cavalry to storm the spitzberg. as at zorndorf, seydlitz declined to sacrifice his troops to a blunder, but this time frederick was deaf to the voice of reason. he repeated the order and was obeyed. seydlitz was wounded and his superb squadrons shattered, without the smallest gain. a crushing countercharge headed by laudon completed the ruin of the prussian horse, and thenceforward the allies were the attacking side.
frederick, almost beside himself, continued to demand victory from his men, and the infantry, though it could not go forward, held its ground against the russians. laudon, however, contrived the coup de grace. at about five o’clock he suddenly hurled a fresh austrian host upon the heroes who had been fifteen hours under arms. the overthrow was complete. frederick, who sought death in vain, was borne from the field by a party of his own hussars. amid the chaos he wrote a terse note in french to inform his capital that the274 game was up. “my coat is riddled with balls; two horses were killed under me; it is my misfortune to be still alive. our loss is great; not 3000 men out of 48,000 are with me. at this moment all are in flight and i am no longer master of my troops.”
the king’s first thought was that he himself was crushed and that therefore prussia was ruined. there was indeed good reason for his despair. even if soltykoff should allow him to recross the oder and to rally the remnants of his army he dared not hope to save berlin. he had fought at kunersdorf in the belief that an austrian force under hadik was advancing towards his capital from the south. if he now attacked hadik he must expose his rear to the victors of kunersdorf; if he stood firm against them, hadik would take him in flank. “only a miracle could save us,” wrote the secretary of state.
the downfall of his country seemed inevitable and frederick was resolved not to witness it. for years he had carried poison. before using it he spent two days in arranging his affairs. on the plea of a severe illness, he entrusted the army to general finck and gave directions that it should swear allegiance to the son of augustus william. he advised the well-to-do citizens of berlin to fly to hamburg, the government to make magdeburg their asylum, and schmettau, the commandant at dresden, to surrender on good terms if he saw no means of succour when attacked.
frederick’s life-drama, it seemed, was played out,275 but the curtain did not fall. the allies, who had bought victory dear, made no move, and on the fourth day after the battle the king was himself again. “all my troops have done wonders,” had been his words when he gave up hope. now he sent a new version to the same correspondent, finckenstein. “the victory was ours, when suddenly my wretched infantry lost courage. the silly fear of being carried off to siberia turned their head and there was no stopping them.” his loss at kunersdorf amounted to at least 18,500 men, but he found himself master of an army 20,000 strong. they were, he said, not to be compared with the worst troops of former years, but he prepared to sacrifice them and himself for the defence of the capital, and awaited soltykoff on the river spree.
a letter to prince henry written on august 16, 1759, shows the temper of the prussian leonidas.
“the moment that i sent you word of our mishap everything seemed desperate. do not think that the danger is not still very great, but be assured that until my eyes are closed i will sustain the state, as is my duty. a case that i had in my pocket was smashed by a shot, but saved my leg. we are all in tatters; there is hardly anyone who has not had two or three balls through his clothes or his hat. but we would cheerfully sacrifice our wardrobe, if that were all.”
despite these signs of reviving courage, frederick felt with tenfold intensity what he expressed years afterwards when he said that after kunersdorf the enemy had only to give him the finishing stroke.276 yet it is highly characteristic of him that already his thoughts ran upon another battle. to carry on defensive warfare, he argued, the support of a fortress was indispensable. but he had only cüstrin and spandau to choose from, and to sit down near either would be to sacrifice berlin. desperate evils, he held, needed desperate remedies, and he would court fortune sword in hand. eight days after kunersdorf he hoped soon to have 33,000 men in his camp, but he protested that he feared them more than the enemy. “i count on the firmness and honesty of pitt, and it is on him alone that we can at this juncture base some hope.”
frederick expected day by day the catastrophe of prussia. yet the only direct result of kunersdorf was that for a time he lost a great part of saxony. early in september dresden was wrested from him by the motley army of the empire, which was accounted the most despicable member of the coalition. schmettau had acted too mechanically in following the king’s counsels of despair. but the swedes, though their opponents had withdrawn, failed to strike south. the french, who had set out in earnest to conquer hanover, were routed at minden by ferdinand of brunswick on august 1, 1759. they were driven headlong through the narrow gorge at the spot where the weser cleaves the bulwark of hills which guards the northern plain, and thus before the day of kunersdorf frederick knew that he had nothing to fear on the western side. but how, it may well be wondered, could daun and soltykoff, with 120,000 men at their disposal and277 only half the number against them, neglect to follow up their victory? the sequel even suggests that frederick’s desperate measures beyond the oder had been superfluous. prussia was far weaker than before, yet she did not fall. the king was crippled, austrians and russians were now massed into one unbroken force, triumph at dresden followed triumph at kunersdorf, yet they accomplished nothing.
their opponents, it is true, were tacticians of the first rank. prince henry, by wonderful marches, evaded daun, and frederick, returning to the oder, frustrated all soltykoff’s efforts to gain silesia. it was, moreover, beyond the power of daun to furnish the russians with supplies, and if their ally did not supply them they refused point-blank to proceed. but the chief cause of prussia’s salvation was that victory, though it united the armies of her enemies, could not unite their interests. russians and austrians remained as before separate armies with divergent interests to consult. at no time did frederick draw greater profit than after kunersdorf from the fact that prussia was one and her opponents many.
soon berlin breathed freely and even breslau felt safe. before october was at an end soltykoff was marching home, while daun was struggling to save dresden at least from prince henry’s reconquest of saxony. the te deums ceased at vienna and dejection reigned there. daun’s sluggishness in aggressive action extinguished the renown due to his triumphs of defence. his wife dared not show herself in public. at court the story ran that she opened a package addressed to the field-marshal,278 and discovered that some wag had mocked his sluggishness by sending him a night-cap.
at this juncture, however, it would have been well for prussia if her king’s activity had been less superhuman. flushed with the triumph of his strategy and confident of the devotion of pitt, he had the audacity to demand that compensation for prussia should be the basis of negotiation for peace. during the greater part of october, 1759, he was tormented by gout and fever. he spent his enforced leisure in writing an essay on charles xii., the madman of the north, a warrior who would have prized the bloody afternoon of kunersdorf far more than the strategy which drove soltykoff empty-handed from silesia. then, when the russian peril had vanished, frederick set out in a litter for saxony. “i am very weak, but although still a cripple, i will do all that my feebleness allows me to attempt,” he wrote on november 4th. his heart beat high with the hope of repeating the miracles of 1757, and of regaining, by a new leuthen, all that had been lost during the summer, and peace.
“i make them carry me like the relics of a saint,” wrote the king after the first day’s journey. though sleepless and crippled, he concocted daily bulletins to prince henry in the spirit of a schoolboy. since it had been noised abroad that daun had received the papal benediction he had more than ever been the butt of frederick’s jests. now, to create “a favourable impression on the mind of the blessed creature and his council,” he bids his brother announce his little escort as 4000 strong, and sends a list of279 the regiments of which it may be said to consist. “daun and his austrians shall not perceive that i have the gout,” he boasted.
two days later, on november 14th, he took over the command. pleased that daun paid him the compliment of retreating, he ordered finck to pursue. all the general’s objections were overruled, and he took refuge in wooden obedience to the letter of the king’s orders. “in a few days,” frederick wrote on the 17th, “we shall reap the fruit of this disposition.” in four the royal prophecy was fulfilled, but the harvester was daun. finck’s command, some 15,000 strong, with seventy guns, was entangled in the hills south of dresden. believing themselves to be surrounded by thrice their number, the prussians laid down their arms at maxen (november 21, 1759).
the blow was more crushing than kunersdorf, for the whisper now sped through the world that the prussians were turning cowards. eichel confessed that his heart was so full of bitterness and chagrin that it was quite out of his power that day to write anything in cipher. the king, who had boasted to voltaire that he would despatch his next letter from dresden, complained bitterly that ill-luck pursued him all his days. he strove to atone for his over-confidence by exertion, and for many weeks kept the field, defying the stern winter. he thereby averted an austrian reconquest of saxony, but the gates of dresden never opened to him again. the prussian cause and the prussian king, thought the world, were failing together. “if you saw me, you280 would scarcely know me again,” frederick wrote to voltaire. “i am old, broken, grayheaded, wrinkled. i am losing my teeth and my gaiety.” yet this dejected veteran alone kept together the prussian army. that army was the sole bulwark of the state. if frederick had in truth lost health, skill, and fortune, what hope was left to prussia?