



Produced by D.R. Thompson





HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle




BOOK XX.--FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR
GRADUALLY ENDS--25th April, 1760-15th February, 1763.




Chapter I.--FIFTH CAMPAIGN OPENS.

There were yet, to the world's surprise and regret, Three Campaigns
of this War; but the Campaign 1760, which we are now upon, was what
produced or rendered possible the other two;--was the crisis of them,
and is now the only one that can require much narrative from us here.
Ill-luck, which, Friedrich complains, had followed him like his shadow,
in a strange and fateful manner, from the day of Kunersdorf and earlier,
does not yet cease its sad company; but, on the contrary, for long
months to come, is more constant than ever, baffling every effort of
his own, and from the distance sending him news of mere disaster and
discomfiture. It is in this Campaign, though not till far on in it,
that the long lane does prove to have a turning, and the Fortune of War
recovers its old impartial form. After which, things visibly languish:
and the hope of ruining such a Friedrich becomes problematic, the effort
to do it slackens also; the very will abating, on the Austrian part,
year by year, as of course the strength of their resources is still
more steadily doing. To the last, Friedrich, the weaker in material
resources, needs all his talent,--all his luck too. But, as the
strength, on both sides, is fast abating,--hard to say on which side
faster (Friedrich's talent being always a FIXED quantity, while all
else is fluctuating and vanishing),--what remains of the once terrible
Affair, through Campaigns Sixth and Seventh, is like a race between
spent horses, little to be said of it in comparison. Campaign 1760
is the last of any outward eminence or greatness of event. Let us
diligently follow that, and be compendious with the remainder.

Friedrich was always famed for his Marches; but, this Year, they
exceeded all calculation and example; and are still the admiration of
military men. Can there by no method be some distant notion afforded
of them to the general reader? They were the one resource Friedrich had
left, against such overwhelming superiority in numbers; and they came
out like surprises in a theatre,--unpleasantly surprising to Daun.
Done with such dexterity, rapidity and inexhaustible contrivance and
ingenuity, as overset the schemes of his enemies again and again, and
made his one army equivalent in effect to their three.

Evening of April 25th, Friedrich rose from his Freyberg cantonments;
moved back, that is, northward, a good march; then encamped himself
between Elbe and the Hill-Country; with freer prospect and more
elbow-room for work coming. His left is on Meissen and the Elbe; his
right at a Village called the Katzenhauser, an uncommonly strong camp,
of which one often hears afterwards; his centre camp is at Schlettau,
which also is strong, though not to such a degree. This line extends
from Meissen southward about 10 miles, commanding the Reich-ward Passes
of the Metal Mountains, and is defensive of Leipzig, Torgau and the
Towns thereabouts. [Tempelhof, iv. 16 et seq.] Katzenhauser is but a
mile or two from Krogis--that unfortunate Village where Finck got his
Maxen Order: "ER WEISS,--You know I can't stand having difficulties
raised; manage to do it!"

Friedrich's task, this Year, is to defend Saxony; Prince Henri having
undertaken the Russians,--Prince Henri and Fouquet, the Russians and
Silesia. Clearly on very uphill terms, both of them: so that Friedrich
finds he will have a great many things to assist in, besides defending
Saxony. He lies here expectant till the middle of June, above seven
weeks; Daun also, for the last two weeks, having taken the field in a
sort. In a sort;--but comes no nearer; merely posting himself astride of
the Elbe, half in Dresden, half on the opposite or northern bank of the
River, with Lacy thrown out ahead in good force on that vacant side; and
so waiting the course of other people's enterprises.

Well to eastward and rearward of Daun, where we have seen Loudon about
to be very busy, Prince Henri and Fouquet have spun themselves out into
a long chain of posts, in length 300 miles or more, "from Landshut,
along the Bober, along the Queiss and Oder, through the Neumark,
abutting on Stettin and Colberg, to the Baltic Sea." [Tempelhof, iv.
21-24.] On that side, in aid of Loudon or otherwise, Daun can attempt
nothing; still less on the Katzenhauser-Schlettau side can he dream of
an attempt: only towards Brandenburg and Berlin--the Country on that
side, 50 or 60 miles of it, to eastward of Meissen, being vacant of
troops--is Daun's road open, were he enterprising, as Friedrich hopes
he is not. For some two weeks, Friedrich--not ready otherwise, it being
difficult to cross the River, if Lacy with his 30,000 should think of
interference--had to leave the cunctatory Feldmarschall this chance or
unlikely possibility. At the end of the second week ("June 14th," as we
shall mark by and by), the chance was withdrawn.

Daun and his Lacy are but one, and that by no means the most harassing,
of the many cares and anxieties which Friedrich has upon him in those
Seven Weeks, while waiting at Schlettau, reading the omens. Never
hitherto was the augury of any Campaign more indecipherable to him, or
so continually fluctuating with wild hopes, which proved visionary, and
with huge practical fears, of what he knew to be the real likelihood.
"Peace coming?" It is strange how long Friedrich clings to that fond
hope: "My Edelsheim is in the Bastille, or packed home in disgrace:
but will not the English and Choiseul make Peace? It is Choiseul's one
rational course; bankrupt as he is, and reduced to spoons and kettles.
In which case, what a beautiful effect might Duke Ferdinand produce,
if he marched to Eger, say to Eger, with his 50,000 Germans (Britannic
Majesty and Pitt so gracious), and twitched Daun by the skirt, whirling
Daun home to Bohemia in a hurry!" Then the Turks; the Danes,--"Might not
the Danes send us a trifle of Fleet to Colberg (since the English
never will), and keep our Russians at bay?"--"At lowest these hopes are
consolatory," says he once, suspecting them all (as, no doubt, he often
enough does), "and give us courage to look calmly for the opening of
this Campaign, the very idea of which has made me shudder!" ["To Prince
Henri:" in _Schoning,_ ii. 246 (3d April, 1760): ib. 263 (of the DANISH
outlook); &c. &c.]

Meanwhile, by the end of May, the Russians are come across the
Weichsel again, lie in four camps on the hither side; start about June
1st;--Henri waiting for them, in Sagan Country his head-quarter; and on
both hands of that, Fouquet and he spread out, since the middle of May,
in their long thin Chain of Posts, from Landshut to Colberg again, like
a thin wall of 300 miles. To Friedrich the Russian movements are, and
have been, full of enigma: "Going upon Colberg? Going upon Glogau; upon
Breslau?" That is a heavy-footed certainty, audibly tramping forward on
us, amid these fond visions of the air! Certain too, and visible to a
duller eye than Friedrich's; Loudon in Silesia is meditating mischief.
"The inevitable Russians, the inevitable Loudon; and nothing but
Fouquet and Henri on guard there, with their long thin chain of posts,
infinitely too thin to do any execution!" thinks the King. To whom their
modes of operating are but little satisfactory, as seen at Schlettau
from the distance. "Condense yourself," urges he always on Henri; "go
forward on the Russians; attack sharply this Corps, that Corps, while
they are still separate and on march!" Henri did condense himself, "took
post between Sagan and Sprottau; post at Frankfurt,"--poor Frankfurt, is
it to have a Kunersdorf or Zorndorf every year, then? No; the cautious
Henri never could see his way into these adventures; and did not attack
any Corps of the Russians. Took post at Landsberg ultimately,--the
Russians, as usual, having Posen as place-of-arms,--and vigilantly
watched the Russians, without coming to strokes at all. A spectacle
growing gradually intolerable to the King, though he tries to veil his
feelings.

Neither was Fouquet's plan of procedure well seen by Friedrich in the
distance. Ever since that of Regiment Manteuffel, which was a bit of
disappointment, Loudon has been quietly industrious on a bigger scale.
Privately he cherishes the hope, being a swift vehement enterprising
kind of man, to oust Fouquet; and perhaps to have Glatz Fortress taken,
before his Russians come! In the very end of May, Loudon, privately
aiming for Glatz, breaks in upon Silesia again,--a long way to eastward
of Fouquet, and as if regardless of Glatz. Upon which, Fouquet, in dread
for Schweidnitz and perhaps Breslau itself, hastened down into the Plain
Country, to manoeuvre upon Loudon; but found no Loudon moving that way;
and, in a day or two, learned that Landshut, so weakly guarded, had been
picked up by a big corps of Austrians; and in another day or two, that
Loud