at four in the morning on sunday, december 4th, frederick marched from parchwitz; intending to make neumarkt, a small town some fourteen miles off, his quarters. when within two or three miles of this town he learned, to his deep satisfaction, that the austrians had just established a great bakery there, and that a party of engineers were marking out the site for a camp; also that there were but a thousand croats in the town. the news was satisfactory, indeed, for two reasons: the first being that the bakery would be of great use for his own troops; the second, that it was clear that the austrians intended to advance across the schweidnitz water to give battle. it was evident that they could have had no idea that he was pressing on so rapidly, or they would never have established their bakery so far in advance, and protected by so small a force.
he lost no time in taking advantage of their carelessness, but sent a regiment of cavalry to seize the hills on both sides of the town; then marched rapidly forward, burst in the gates, and hurled the croats in utter confusion from neumarkt, while the cavalry dashed down and cut off their retreat. one hundred and twenty of them were killed, and five hundred and seventy taken prisoners. in the town the austrian bakery was found to be in full work, and eighty thousand bread rations, still hot, were ready for delivery.
this initial success, and the unexpected treat of hot bread, raised the spirits of the troops greatly, and was looked upon as a happy augury.
two or three hours before neumarkt had been captured, the austrian army was crossing the river, and presently received the unpleasant news of what had happened. surprised at the news that the prussians were so near, their generals at once set to work to choose a good position. this was not a difficult task, for the country was swampy, with little wooded rises and many villages.
they planted their right wing at the village of nypern, which was practically unapproachable on account of deep peat bogs. their centre was at a larger village named leuthen, their left at sagschuetz. the total length of its front was about six miles.
the prussians started before daybreak next morning in four columns, frederick riding on ahead with the vanguard. when near borne, some eight miles from neumarkt, he caught sight in the dim light of a considerable body of horse, stretching across the road in front of him as far as he could make out the line. the prussian cavalry were at once ordered to charge down on their left flank.
the enemy proved to be five regiments of cavalry, placed there to guard the army from surprise. they, however, were themselves surprised; and were at once overthrown, and driven in headlong flight to take shelter behind their right wing at nypern, five hundred and forty being taken prisoners, and a large number being killed or wounded.
frederick rode on through borne, ascended a small hill called the scheuberg, to the right of the road, and as the light increased could, from that point, make out the austrian army drawn up in battle array, and stretching from nypern to sagschuetz. well was it for him that he had reviewed troops over the same ground, and knew all the bogs and morasses that guarded the austrian front. for a long time he sat there on horseback, studying the possibilities of the situation.
the austrian right he regarded as absolutely impregnable. leuthen might be attacked with some chance of success, but sagschuetz offered by far the most favourable opening for attack. the formation of the ground offered special facilities for the movement being effected without the austrians being aware of what was taking place, for there was a depression behind the swells and broken ground in front of the austrian centre, by which the prussians could march from borne, unseen by the enemy, until they approached sagschuetz.
it was three hours after frederick had taken up his place before the four columns had all reached borne. as soon as they were in readiness there, they were ordered to march with all speed as far as radaxford, thence to march in oblique order against the austrian left.
the austrians, all this time, could observe a group of horsemen on the hill, moving sometimes this way sometimes that, but more than this they could not see. the conjectures were various, as hour passed after hour. daun believed that the prussians must have marched away south, with the intention of falling upon the magazines in bohemia, and that the cavalry seen moving along the hills were placed there to defend the prussians from being taken in flank, or in rear, while thus marching. general lucchesi, who commanded the austrian right wing, was convinced that the cavalry formed the prussian right wing, and that the whole army, concealed behind the slopes, was marching to fall upon him.
in the belfry of the church at leuthen, on the tops of windmills, and on other points of vantage, austrian generals with their staffs were endeavouring to obtain a glimpse beyond those tiresome swells, and to discover what was going on behind them, but in vain. there were the cavalry, moving occasionally from crest to crest, but nothing beyond that.
lucchesi got more and more uneasy, and sent message after message to headquarters that he was about to be attacked, and must have a large reinforcement of horse. the prince and daun at first scoffed at the idea, knowing that the bogs in front of nypern were impassable; but at last he sent a message to the effect that, if the cavalry did not come, he would not be responsible for the issue.
it was thought, therefore, that he must have some good ground for his insistence; and daun sent off the reserve of horse, and several other regiments drawn from the left wing, and himself went off at a trot, at their head, to see what was the matter.
it was just as he started that the prussians--with their music playing, and the men singing:
gieb dass ich thu mit fleiss was mir zu thun gebuhret
(grant that with zeal and strength this day i do)
had passed radaxford and reached lobetintz, and were about to advance in an oblique line to the attack. the king saw with delight the removal of so large a body of horse from the very point against which his troops would, in half an hour, be hurling themselves. nothing could have suited his plans better.
at a rapid pace, and with a precision and order as perfect as if upon level ground, suddenly the prussians poured over the swells on the flank of sagschuetz. nadasti, who commanded the austrians there, was struck with astonishment at the spectacle of the prussian army, which he believed to be far away, pouring down on his flank. the heads of the four columns, the artillery, and ziethen's cavalry appeared simultaneously, marching swiftly and making no pause.
being a good general, he lost not a moment in endeavouring to meet the storm. his left was thrown back a little, a battery of fourteen guns at the angle so formed opened fire, and he launched his cavalry against that of ziethen. for the moment ziethen's men were pushed back, but the fire from an infantry battalion, close by, checked the austrian horse. they fell back out of range, and ziethen, making a counter charge, drove them away.
in the meantime the prussian infantry, as they advanced, poured a storm of fire upon the austrian line, aided by a battery of ten heavy guns that prince maurice, who commanded here, had planted on a rise. a clump of fir trees, held by croats in advance of the austrian line, was speedily cleared; and then the prussians broke down the abattis that protected the enemy's front, charged furiously against the infantry, and drove these before them, capturing nadasti's battery.
in ten minutes after the beginning of the fight, the position of the austrian left was already desperate. the whole prussian army was concentrated against it and, being on its flank, crumpled the line up as it advanced. prince karl's aides-de-camp galloped at the top of their speed to bring daun and the cavalry back again, and austrian battalions from the centre were hurried down to aid nadasti's, but were impeded by the retreating troops; and the confusion thickened, until it was brought to a climax by ziethen's horse, which had been unable to act until now. but fir wood, quagmire, and abattis had all been passed by the prussians, and they dashed into the mass, sabring and trampling down, and taking whole battalions prisoners.
prince karl exerted himself to the utmost to check the prussian advance. batteries were brought up and advantageously posted at leuthen, heavy bodies of infantry occupied the village and its church, and took post so as to present a front to the advancing tide. another quarter of an hour and the battle might have been retrieved; but long before the dispositions were all effected, the prussians were at hand.
battle of leuthen
nevertheless, by great diligence the austrians had to some extent succeeded. leuthen was the centre of the new position. lucchesi was hastening up, while nadasti swung backwards and tried, as he arrived, to form the left flank of the new position. all this was being done under a storm of shot from the whole of the prussian artillery, which was so terrible that many battalions fell into confusion as fast as they arrived.
leuthen, a straggling hamlet of over a mile in length, and with two or three streets of scattered houses, barns, farm buildings, and two churches, was crowded with troops; ready to fight but unable to do so, line being jammed upon line until sometimes a hundred deep, pressed constantly behind by freshly arriving battalions, and in front by the advancing prussians. some regiments were almost without officers.
into this confused, straggling, helpless mass, prevented from opening out by the houses and inclosures, the prussians, ever keeping their formation, poured their volleys with terrible effect; in such fashion as drake's perfectly-handled ships poured their broadsides into the huge helpless spanish galleons at gravelines. with a like dogged courage as that shown by the spanish, the austrian masses suffered almost passively, while those occupying the houses and churches facing the prussians resisted valiantly and desperately. from every window, every wall, their musketry fire flashed out; the resistance round the churchyard being specially stubborn. the churchyard had a high and strong wall, and so terrible was the fire from the roof of the church, and other spots of advantage, that the tide of prussian victory was arrested for a time.
at last they made a rush. the churchyard gate was burst in, and the austrians driven out. leuthen was not yet won, but frederick now brought up the left wing, which had till this time been held in reserve. these came on with levelled bayonets, and rushed into the fight.
the king was, as always, in the thick of the battle; giving his orders as coolly as if at a review, sending fresh troops where required, changing the arrangements as opportunity offered, keeping the whole machine in due order; and by his presence animating all with the determination to win or die, and an almost equal readiness to accept either alternative.
at last, after an hour's stubborn resistance, the austrians were hurled out of leuthen, still sternly resisting, still contesting every foot of the ground. lucchesi now saw an opportunity of retrieving, with his great cavalry force, the terrible consequences of his own blunder, and led them impetuously down upon the flank of the prussians. but frederick had prepared for such a stroke; and had placed draisen, with the left wing of the cavalry, in a hollow sheltered from the fire of the austrian batteries, and bade him do nothing, attempt nothing, but cover the right flank of the infantry from the austrian horse. he accordingly let lucchesi charge down with his cavalry, and then rushed out on his rear, and fell suddenly and furiously upon him.
astounded at this sudden and unexpected attack, and with their ranks swept by a storm of prussian bullets, the austrian cavalry broke and fled in all directions, lucchesi having paid for his fault by dying, fighting to the last. his duty thus performed, draisen was free to act, and fell upon the flank and rear of the austrian infantry; and in a few minutes the battle was over, and the austrians in full retreat.
they made, however, another attempt to stand at saara; but it was hopeless, and they were soon pushed backwards again and, hotly pressed, poured over the four bridges across the schweidnitz river, and for the most part continued their flight to breslau. until the austrians had crossed the river the prussian cavalry were on their rear, sabring and taking prisoners, while the infantry were halted at saara, the sun having now set.
exhausted as they were by their work, which had begun at midnight and continued until now without pause or break, not yet was their task completely done. the king, riding up the line, asked if any battalion would volunteer to follow him to lissa, a village on the river bank. three battalions stepped out. the landlord of the little inn, carrying a lantern, walked by the king's side.
as they approached the village, ten or twelve musket shots flashed out in the fields to the right. they were aimed at the lantern, but no one was hurt. there were other shots from lissa, and it was evident that the village was still not wholly evacuated.
the infantry rushed forward, scattered through the fields, and drove out the lurking croats. the king rode quietly on into the village, and entered the principal house. to his astonishment, he found it full of austrian officers, who could easily have carried him off, his infantry being still beyond the village. they had but a small force remaining there and, believing that the prussians had halted for the night at saara, they were as much astonished as frederick at his entrance. the king had the presence of mind to hide his surprise.
"good evening, gentlemen!" he said. "is there still room left for me, do you think?"
the austrian officers, supposing, of course, that he had a large force outside, bowed deeply, escorted him to the best room in the house, and then slipped out at the back, collected what troops they could as they went, and hurried across the bridge. the prussians were not long in entering, and very speedily cleared out the rest of the austrians. they then crossed the bridge, and with a few guns followed in pursuit.
the army at saara, on hearing the firing, betook itself again to arms and marched to the king's assistance, the twenty-five thousand men and their bands again joining in the triumphant hymn, "nun danket alle gott," as they tramped through the darkness. when they arrived at lissa they found that all was safe, and bivouacked in the fields.
never was there a greater or more surprising victory, never one in which the military genius of the commander was more strikingly shown. the austrians were in good heart. they were excellent soldiers and brave, well provided with artillery, and strongly placed; and yet they were signally defeated by a force little over one-third their number. had there been two more hours of daylight, the austrians would have been not only routed but altogether crushed. their loss was ten thousand left on the field, of whom three thousand were killed. twelve thousand were taken prisoners, and one hundred and sixteen cannon captured.
to this loss must be added that of seventeen thousand prisoners taken when breslau surrendered, twelve days later, together with a vast store of cannon and ammunition, including everything taken so shortly before from bevern. liegnitz surrendered, and the whole of silesia, with the exception only of schweidnitz, was again wrested from the austrians. thus in killed, wounded, and prisoners the loss of the austrians amounted to as much as the total force of the prussians.
the latter lost in killed eleven hundred and forty one, and in wounded about five thousand. prince maurice, upon whose division the brunt of the battle had fallen, was promoted to the rank of field marshal.
fergus drummond had been with the king throughout that terrible day. until the battle began his duties had been light, being confined to the carrying of orders to prince maurice; after which he took his place among the staff and, dismounting, chatted with his acquaintances while karl held his horse.
when, however, the fir tree wood was carried, and the king rode forward and took his place there during the attack upon the austrian position at sagschuetz, matters became more lively. the balls from the austrian batteries sung overhead, and sent branches flying and trees crashing down. sagschuetz won, the king followed the advancing line, and the air was alive with bullets and case shot.
the roar of battle was so tremendous that his horse was well-nigh unmanageable
after that fergus knew little more of the battle, being incessantly employed in carrying orders through the thick of it to generals commanding brigades, and even to battalions. the roar of battle was so tremendous that his horse, maddened with the din and the sharp whiz of the bullets, at times was well-nigh unmanageable, and occupied his attention almost to the exclusion of other thoughts; especially after it had been struck by a bullet in the hind quarters, and had come to understand that those strange and maddening noises meant danger.
not until after all was over was fergus aware of the escapes he had had. a bullet had cut away an ornament from his headdress, one of his reins had been severed at a distance of an inch or two from his hand, a bullet had pierced the tail of his coatee and buried itself in the cantle of his saddle, and the iron guard of his claymore had been pierced. however, on his return to the king after carrying a despatch, he was able to curb his own excitement and that of his horse, and to make the formal military salute as he reported, in a calm and quiet voice, that he had carried out the orders with which he had been charged.
it was with great gratification that he heard the king say that evening, as he and his staff supped together at the inn at lissa:
"you have done exceedingly well today, captain drummond. i am very pleased with you. you were always at my elbow when i wanted you, and i observed that you were never flurried or excited; though indeed, there would have been good excuse for a young soldier being so, in such a hurly burly. you are over young for further promotion, for a year or two; but i must find some other way of testifying my satisfaction at your conduct."
and, indeed, when the list of promotions for bravery in the field was published, a few days later, fergus's name appeared among those who received the decoration of the prussian military order, an honour fully as much valued as promotion.
for a time he lost the service of karl, who had been seriously although not dangerously wounded, just before the austrians were driven out of leuthen.
the news of the battle filled the confederates with stupefaction and dismay. prince karl was at once recalled, and was relieved from military employment, daun being appointed to the supreme command. the prince withdrew to his government of the netherlands, and there passed the remainder of his days in peace and quiet. his army was hunted by ziethen's cavalry to koeniggraetz, losing two thousand prisoners and a large amount of baggage; and thirty-seven thousand men only, of the eighty thousand that stood in battle array at leuthen, reached the sheltering walls of the fortress, and those in so dilapidated and worn out a condition that, by the end of a week after arriving there, no less than twenty-two thousand were in hospital.
thus, after eight months of constant and weary anxiety, frederick, by the two heavy blows he had dealt successfully at the confederates, stood in a far better position than he had occupied at the opening of the first campaign; when, as his enemies fondly believed, prussia would be captured and divided without the smallest difficulty.
frederick wintered at breslau, whither came many visitors from prussia, and there was a constant round of gaieties and festivity. frederick himself desired nothing so much as peace. once or twice there had been some faint hope that this might be brought about by his favourite sister, wilhelmina, who had been ceaseless in her efforts to effect it; but the two empresses and the pompadour were alike bent on avenging themselves on the king, and the reverses that they had suffered but increased their determination to overwhelm him.
great as frederick's success had been, it did not blind him to the fact that his position was almost hopeless. when the war began, he had an army of a hundred and fifty thousand of the finest soldiers in the world. the two campaigns had made frightful gaps in their ranks. at prague he had fought with eighty thousand men, at leuthen he had but thirty thousand. his little kingdom could scarcely supply men to fill the places of those who had fallen, while his enemies had teeming populations from which to gather ample materials for fresh armies. it seemed, even to his hopeful spirit, that all this could have but one ending; and that each success, however great, weakened him more than his adversaries.
the winter's rest was, however, most welcome. for the moment there was nothing to plan, nothing to do, save to order that the drilling of the fresh levies should go on incessantly; in order that some, at least, of the terrible gaps in the army might be filled up before the campaign commenced in the spring.
1758 began badly, for early in january the russians were on the move. the empress had dismissed, and ordered to be tried by court martial, the general who had done so little the previous year; had appointed field marshal fermor to command in his place, and ordered him to advance instantly and to annex east prussia in her name.
on the 16th of january he crossed the frontier, and six days later entered koenigsberg and issued a proclamation to the effect that his august sovereign had now become mistress of east prussia, and that all men of official or social position must at once take the oath of allegiance to her.
east prussia had been devastated the year before by marauders, and its hatred of russia was intense; but the people were powerless to resist. some fled, leaving all behind them; but the majority were forced to take the required oath, and for a time east prussia became a russian province. nevertheless its young men constantly slipped away, when opportunity offered, to join the prussian army; and moneys were frequently collected by the impoverished people to despatch to frederick, to aid him in his necessities.
a far greater assistance was the english subsidy of 670,000 pounds, which was paid punctually for four years, and was of supreme service to him. it was spent thriftily, and of all the enormous sums expended by this country in subsidizing foreign powers, none was ever laid out to a tenth of the advantage of the 2,680,000 pounds given to frederick.
in the north the campaign also opened early. ferdinand of brunswick bestirred himself, defeated the french signally at krefeld, and drove them headlong across the rhine. frederick, too, took the field early, and on the 15th of march moved from breslau upon schweidnitz. the siege began on the 1st of april, and on the 16th the place surrendered. four thousand nine hundred prisoners of war were taken, with fifty-one guns and 7000 pounds in money.
three days later frederick, with forty thousand men, was off; deceived daun as to his intentions, entered moravia, and besieged olmuetz. keith was with him again, and fergus had returned to his staff. the march was conducted with the marvellous precision and accuracy that characterized all frederick's movements, but olmuetz was a strong place and stoutly defended.
the prussian engineers, who did not shine at siege work, opened their trenches eight hundred yards too far away. the magazines were too far off, and daun, who as usual carefully abstained from giving battle, so cut up the convoys that, after five weeks of vain endeavours, the king was obliged to raise the siege; partly owing to the loss of the convoy that would have enabled him to take the town, which was now at its last extremity; and partly that he knew that the russians were marching against brandenburg.
he made a masterly retreat, struck a heavy blow at daun by capturing and destroying his principal magazine, and then took up a very strong position near koeniggraetz. here he could have maintained himself against all daun's assaults, for his position was one that daun had himself held and strongly fortified; but the news from the north was of so terrible a nature that he was forced to hurry thither.
the cossacks, as the russian army advanced, were committing most horrible atrocities; burning towns and villages, tossing men and women into the fire, plundering and murdering everywhere; and the very small prussian force that was watching them was powerless to check the swarming marauders.
frederick therefore, evading daun's attempts to arrest his march, crossed the mountains into silesia again. at landshut he gave his army two days' rest; wrote and sent a paper to his brother prince henry, who was commander of the army defending saxony from invasion, telling him that he was on the point of marching against the russians and might well be killed; and giving him orders as to the course to be pursued, in such an event.
he left keith, in command of forty thousand men, to hold daun in check should the latter advance against silesia; and he again took fergus with him, finding the young officer's talk a pleasant means of taking his mind off the troubles that beset him.
in nine days the army, which was but fifteen thousand strong, marched from landshut to frankfort-on-oder. here the king learned that though kuestrin, which the russians were besieging, still held out, the town had been barbarously destroyed by the enemy.
in fierce anger the army pressed forward. the russian army itself, officers and men, were indignant in the extreme at the brutalities committed by the cossacks, but were powerless to restrain them; for indeed these ruffians did not hesitate to attack and kill any officer who ventured to interfere between them and their victims.
the next morning, early, frederick reached the camp of his general dohna; who had been watching, although unable to interfere with the russians' proceedings. the king had a profound contempt for the russians, in spite of the warning of keith, who had served with them, that they were far better soldiers than they appeared to be; and he anticipated a very easy victory over them.
early on the 22nd of august the army from frankfort arrived. dohna's strength was numerically about the same as the king's, and with his thirty thousand men frederick had no doubt that he would make but short work of the eighty thousand russians, of whom some twenty-seven thousand were the cossack rabble, who were not worth being considered, in a pitched battle. deceiving the russians as to his intentions by opening a heavy cannonade on one of their redoubts, as if intending to ford the river there, he crossed that evening twelve miles lower down and, after some manoeuvring, faced the russians, who had at once broken up the siege on hearing of his passage.
fermor sent away his baggage train to a small village called kleinkalmin, and planted himself on a moor, where his front was covered by quagmires and the zaborn stream. hearing, late at night on the evening of the 24th, that frederick was likely to be upon them the next morning, the russian general drew out into the open ground north of zorndorf, which stands on a bare rise surrounded by woods and quagmires, and formed his army into a great square, two miles long by one broad, with his baggage in the middle--a formation which had been found excellent by the russians in their turkish wars, but which was by no means well adapted to meet frederick's methods of impetuous attack. being ignorant as to the side upon which frederick was likely to attack, and having decided to stand on the defensive, he adopted the methods most familiar to him.
frederick had cut all the bridges across the rivers warta and oder, and believed that he should, after defeating the russians, drive them into the angle formed by the junction of these two streams, and cause them to surrender at discretion. unfortunately, he had not heard that the great russian train had been sent to kleinkalmin. had he done so he could have seized it, and so have possessed himself of the russian stores and all their munitions of war, and have forced them to surrender without a blow; for the cossacks had wasted the country far and wide, and deprived it of all resources. but he and his army were so burning with indignation, and the desire to avenge the cossack cruelties, that they made no pause, and marched in all haste right round the russian position, so as to drive them back towards the junction of the two rivers.
battle of zorndorf
fermor's cossacks brought him in news of frederick's movements, which were hidden from him by the forests; and seeing that he was to be attacked on the zorndorf side, instead of from that on which he had expected it to come, he changed his front, and swung round the line containing his best troops to meet it.
on arriving at zorndorf, frederick found that the cossacks had already set the village on fire. this was no disadvantage to him, for the smoke of the burning houses rolled down towards the russians, and so prevented them from making observation of the prussian movements. the king rode up to the edge of the zaborn hollow and, finding it too deep and boggy to be crossed, determined to attack at the southwest with his left and centre, placing his cavalry in rear, and throwing back his right wing.
the first division marched forward to the attack, by the west end of the flaming village. the next division, which should have been its support, marched by the east end of zorndorf. its road was a longer one, and there was consequently a wide gap between the two divisions. heralded by the fire of two strong batteries--which swept the southwestern corner of the russian quadrilateral, their crossfire ploughing its ranks with terrible effect--the first division, under manteufel, fell upon the enemy.
the fire of the prussian batteries had sorely shaken the russians, and had produced lively agitation among the horses of the light baggage train in the centre of the square; and, heralding their advance with a tremendous fire of musketry, the prussian infantry forced its way into the mass. had the second division been close at hand, as it should have been, the victory would already have been won; but although also engaged it was not near, and fermor poured out a torrent of horse and foot upon manteufel's flank and front. without support, and surrounded, the prussians could do nothing, and were swept back, losing twenty-four pieces of cannon; while the russians, with shouts of victory, pressed upon them.
at this critical moment seidlitz, with five thousand horse, dashed down upon the disordered mass of russians, casting it into irretrievable confusion. at the same time the infantry rallied and pressed forward again.
in fifteen minutes the whole russian army was a confused mass. fermor, with the russian horse, fled to kratsdorf and, had not the bridge there been burnt by frederick, he would have made off, leaving his infantry to their fate. these should now, according to all rules, have surrendered; but they proved unconquerable save by death. seidlitz's cavalry sabred them until fatigued by slaughter, the prussian infantry poured their volleys into them, but they stood immovable and passive, dying where they stood.
at one o'clock in the day the battle ceased for a moment. the prussians had marched at three in the morning and, seeing that although half the russian army had been destroyed, the other half had gradually arranged itself into a fresh front of battle, frederick formed his forces again, and brought up his right wing for the attack on the side of the russian quadrilateral which still stood. forward they went, their batteries well in advance; but before the infantry came within musket range, the russian horse and foot rushed forward to the attack, and with such force that they captured one of the batteries, took a whole battalion prisoners, and broke the centre.
here were the regiments of dohna, perfectly clean and well accoutred; but, being less accustomed to war than frederick's veterans, they gave way at once before the russian onslaught and, in spite of frederick's efforts to prevent them, fled from the field and could not be rallied until a mile distant from it.
the veterans stood firm, however; until seidlitz, returning from pursuit, again hurled his horsemen upon the russian masses, broke them up, and drove their cavalry in headlong flight before him.
