by G. A. Henty
Chapter 19: Liegnitz.
"I have news," the count said, when he came in to lunch, after hehad been down into the town; "a messenger has come in with adespatch this morning, saying that the king, with his army, ismarching hither with all speed."
An exclamation of alarm broke from Thirza, and one of surprise fromFergus. They had been in the garden together all the morning.
"It will be but a day or two earlier," Fergus said in a low tone toher. "I told you that in three days, at the most, I must leave. Thesurgeon gave me six weeks, but I have so thoroughly recovered thatI feel I ought to be with the king."
Then he raised his voice.
"That is startling news indeed, count; but I can hardly believethat he intends to besiege Dresden. He has no siege guns with him,and though, I suppose, he has as usual got a start of Daun, he canhardly hope to capture the city before the Austrians come up. Atany rate, I must ride out and report myself, and join him as soonas he gets close. It is hard, indeed, at this moment. Still, thereis no question but that it is my duty."
"I see that, and I am sure that Thirza would not wish to keep youfrom it. As long as you are a soldier, duty is the first thing.However, as the king is coming hither, we shall doubtless see yousometimes. As we are half a mile outside the walls, we shall bewithin the besieging lines."
"I hope that if the king besieges, count, it will not be on thisside, for you might be exposed to shot from the town batteries."
"If we are so, we must move beyond their range and go to our placeat Wirzow. That is but twelve miles away. It is a small house, butwill do very well for a time."
"I should hope, count, that there will be no occasion for that. Theking cannot hope to lay siege in regular form, though he may try anassault. Slow as Daun is, he must be here within ten days or so ofFrederick's arrival; and it is probable that the march here isintended rather to draw Daun away from his Russian allies, thanwith any hope of taking Dresden."
"Will you go this afternoon?"
"I think that I ought to, count. If the news has come thatFrederick is marching to besiege Dresden, he cannot be far away;for it is certain that he will march as fast as he can, and willhimself follow closely on the news. 'Tis plain that Lacy feelshimself unable to oppose him, and must be falling back with allspeed before him. If I were to report myself this evening asconvalescent, I can join him tomorrow, if I find that he is but amarch away."
"I will take you in my carriage, as before," the count said. "I canget back here before dark."
Two hours later they started, Thirza consoled to some extent by theassurance that, in all probability, Fergus would be back again inthe course of two or three days. They found that the Austrianadvanced posts had already been withdrawn, and experienced nodifficulty with the Prussians; so that by five o'clock they arrivedat the hospital, the count at once starting on his return journey.
Karl was delighted at seeing his master looking himself again.
"I hardly thought that a month could do so much for you," he said,"especially as you were mending but slowly, before you went."
"Yes, I was a poor creature then, Karl; and I did not think,myself, that I should be really fit for work for some time to come;but at any rate, in such weather as this, I have no fear ofbreaking down."
Putting on his uniform, he went to the principal medical officer,and reported his return and his fitness for duty.
"You have certainly gained strength a great deal faster than Iexpected, Colonel Drummond. I don't know that you are fit for anyreally hard work, but I suppose that you will be at least a weekbefore you join the king; and by that time you may be able to do afair amount of work."
"I fancy I shall join the king tomorrow, doctor."
"Tomorrow?" the surgeon repeated in surprise.
"Yes, sir. Have you not heard the news? The king is marching withall speed this way. I do not know what his intention is--to forceLacy to give battle single handed before Daun can arrive, or tobesiege Dresden--but in the city they believe that they are goingto be besieged."
"This is news indeed," the surgeon said. "The scouts brought inword this morning that a considerable force was seen, coming alongthe road from Bautzen. It must be Lacy's army."
"We may be sure that the king is pretty close at his heels," Fergussaid. "I have no doubt that by tomorrow morning we shall have newsof him, and I fancy that I shall not have far to ride to join him."
The opinion was justified. That evening Lacy joined the Confederatearmy, in their strong position behind the gap of Plauen. He hadbeen hotly chased, indeed. Frederick had been manoeuvring to passDaun and carry on a campaign in Silesia; but the Austrian generalhad been too cautious, and it was impossible to pass him withoutfighting; so on the night of the 8th he left Bautzen suddenly andsilently, and marched all night, in hopes of catching Lacy atGodau. The latter's Croats, however, brought him news in time, andhe at once retreated.
After a short halt the Prussians pressed on for another eighteenmiles, capturing some of Lacy's hussars, but failing to come upwith his main body; which, marching all that day and the nextnight, arrived near Dresden on the morning of the 10th, Lacyhimself reaching the town the evening before. By Thursday eveningthe whole of his army had crossed Dresden bridge and got in safelybehind Plauen, leaving ten thousand men to aid the four thousand inthe garrison.
At noon Fergus, hearing that, without doubt, the whole of the enemyhad fallen back, started with Karl; and that evening rode into theroyal camp, and reported himself to the king.
"I am glad to see you back, Drummond," Frederick said heartily. "Ihave sorely missed you; and indeed, when I rode away the accountsof you were so bad that I doubted whether you would ever be able tobe with me again. You don't look quite yourself yet, but no doubtthe air and exercise will soon bring you round. Have you any news?"
"Lacy has left ten thousand men in Dresden, sire, and with the restof his force has joined the Confederate army at Plauen."
"Just what I wished," the king said. "It has saved me a long march,and we will now go straight to Dresden."
The next day the army marched forward, circled round the westernand southern sides of Dresden, and encamped at Gruna, a mile to thesoutheast of the city; and throughout the night laboured at gettingup batteries. The division under Holstein was planted on aneminence on the other side of the river, across which a pontoonbridge was at once thrown. There was no fear of disturbance fromLacy, the united force of the enemy having retreated to the oldSaxon camp at Pirna. The king, after seeing the batteries markedout, retired to bed early; and Fergus was able to ride round andpay a short visit to the count.
On the 14th the batteries opened fire--Maguire having refused thesummons to surrender--and continued for four days without makingmuch impression upon the walls, the heaviest guns being onlytwenty-five pounders.
On the 18th some heavy guns arrived from Magdeburg. The batterieswere all ready for them, and as soon as they arrived they were setto work. Maguire burnt the suburbs outside the town, and answeredthe cannonade hotly.
Finding that the guns on the walls did but little damage to thePrussian batteries, Maguire mounted two or three guns on to theleads of the Protestant church, and from this commanding positionhe was able to throw shot right into them. The Prussian fire was atonce concentrated on the church, which was speedily set on fire.This spread through the surrounding streets, and a tremendousconflagration raged for the next forty-eight hours. But by thistime Daun, who had lost some days before setting out in pursuit ofFrederick, was within five miles of the town, had driven Holsteinacross the river, and was in communication with Maguire.
On the night of the 21st-22nd Maguire's garrison, led by GeneralNugent, sallied out from Dresden; while four thousand of Daun's menmarched round from the north side. For a time the assault on thePrussian intrenchments was successful, although Nugent was, on hisfirst attack, repulsed and taken prisoner. But when Daun's peoplearrived the regiments defending the trenches were driven out. Thenfresh battalions came up and drove
the Austrians out, taking manyprisoners.
Daun remained passive for some days after this, and Frederickcontinued to cannonade the city until the 29th; making, however,his preparations for departure, and going off unmolested by theenemy towards Meissen. The news reached him that Glatz, one of thebarrier fortresses of Silesia, had been taken by Loudon, and thatthe latter was besieging Breslau.
Daun had guessed the way by which Frederick would retire, and hadbroken up the roads and bridges, and felled trees in the forests soas to render them impassable; and as soon as Frederick started hemoved in the same direction, his position so serving him that,marching by a road parallel to that taken by the king, he was aheadof him. Lacy had been warned to be prepared, and he too startedwith his army, so that the three forces moved eastward at acomparatively short distance apart.
Although hampered by the obstacles in their way, and by a train oftwo thousand wagons, the Prussians moved rapidly and covered ahundred miles in five days. Daun made what was, for him, prodigiousefforts also, and kept the lead he had gained.
On the 7th of August Frederick was thirty miles west of Liegnitz.Here he halted for a day, and on the 9th marched to the Katzbachvalley, only to find that Daun was securely posted on the otherside of the river, and Lacy on the hills a few miles off. The nextmorning Frederick marched down the bank of the Katzbach toLiegnitz, Daun keeping parallel with him on the other side of theriver.
Knowing that Daun had been joined during the night by Loudon, andthat they were vastly too strong to be attacked, Frederick startedat eleven at night, and at daybreak was back on his old campingground. He crossed the river, hoping to be able to fall upon Lacy;but the latter had moved off, and Frederick, pressing on, wouldhave got fairly ahead of his enemies if it had not been for theheavy baggage train, which delayed him for five hours; and by thetime it came up he found that Lacy, Daun, and Loudon were all roundhim again.
The situation seemed desperate. The army had but four days'provisions left, and a scout sent out on the 12th reported that theroads over the hills were absolutely impassable for baggage. Ateight o'clock the army set out again, recrossed the Katzbach, andagain made for Liegnitz, which they reached after a sixteen hours'march. Here the king halted for thirty hours, and his three enemiesgathered round him again.
They were ninety thousand strong, while he was but thirty. Daunmade elaborate reconnaissances, and Frederick had no doubt that hewould be attacked, that night or early the next morning. After darkthe army marched quietly away, and took up its position on theheights of Torberger, its fires being left burning brightly, withtwo drummers to beat occasionally.
Daun's and Lacy's fires were clearly visible; but they, like hisown, were deserted, both having marched to catch him, as theyhoped, asleep at Liegnitz; but it chanced that Loudon had beenordered to take post just where Frederick had halted, and histroops came suddenly upon the Prussians in the dark.
A battalion was despatched at once, with some cannon, to seize thecrest of the Wolfberg. Loudon, whose work was to prevent Frederickfrom flying eastward, had hurried forward; his scouts havinginformed him that a number of the Prussian baggage waggons werepassing, and hoped to effect a capture of them; and he was vastlysurprised when, instead of finding the baggage guard before him, hewas received with a tremendous musketry fire and volleys of caseshot.
He at once rallied his troops and, with five battalions in front,dashed forward. He was repulsed, but returned to the attack threetimes. He kept edging round towards the right, to take Frederick inflank; but the Prussians also shifted their ground, and met him.The Austrian cavalry poured down again and again, and freshbattalions of infantry were continually brought up.
At last Loudon felt that the contest was hopeless, and fell backacross the Katzbach. The Prussians captured six thousand of his menbefore they could get across the river, four thousand were killedand wounded, and eighty-two cannons captured. Thus his army ofthirty-five thousand strong had been wrecked by the Prussian leftwing, numbering fifteen thousand; the rest of the Prussian forces,under Ziethen, keeping guard lest Daun and Lacy should come on toaid him. Daun, however, was miles away, intent upon catchingFrederick; and did not know until morning that his camp had beendeserted, and Loudon beaten.
As soon as he was assured of this, he poured his cavalry across theriver, but Ziethen's cannon drove them back again; and he saw that,with Ziethen standing in order of battle, in a commanding position,with his guns sweeping the bridges, he could do nothing.
Frederick remained four hours on the battlefield, collected fivethousand muskets lying on the field and, with the six thousandprisoners, his wounded, and newly-captured cannon, marched away atnine o'clock in the morning.
A Russian force of twenty-four thousand still blocked the way; but,desirous above all things to effect a junction with Prince Henry,Frederick got rid of them, by sending a peasant with instructionsto let himself be taken by the Russians. The slip of paper hecarried contained the words:
"Austrians totally beaten this day. Now for the Russians, dearbrother, and swift. Do what we have agreed upon."
The ruse had its effect. The Russian general, believing thatFrederick and Prince Henry were both about to fall upon him,retreated at once, burning the bridge behind him; and the kingpushed on to Breslau, which he reached on the 16th; having, thanksto the wonderful marching of his troops, and his own talent,escaped as if by a miracle from what seemed certain destruction.
For a fortnight Frederick remained encamped, at a short distancefrom Breslau, waiting to see what Daun and Soltikoff intended todo. Daun was busy urging the Russians to come on. Soltikoff wassulky that Daun had failed in all his endeavours, and that thebrunt of the affair was likely, again, to fall on him and hisRussians.
Elsewhere things had gone more favourably for the king. Ferdinandof Brunswick had now twenty thousand British with him, and fiftythousand Hanoverians and Brunswickers; while the French army underBroglio was one hundred and thirty thousand strong. A check wasfirst inflicted on the French at Korbach and, a few days later, anEnglish cavalry regiment and a battalion of Scotch infantry cut upor captured a brigade of French dragoons.
On the 29th of July, as Frederick was leaving Dresden, a seriousengagement took place at Warburg. Here Broglio's rear guard ofthirty thousand infantry and cavalry, under the Chevalier du Muy,were attacked; in the first place by a free corps called theBritish Legion, composed of men of many nationalities, who turnedDu Muy's right wing out of Warburg. Then the Prince of Brunswickfell upon the whole French line, and the fight was a stubborn onefor two or three hours, Maxwell's British brigade fighting mostobstinately. They were greatly outnumbered, but were presentlyjoined by Lord Granby, at the head of the English cavalry, andthese decided the battle.
The French lost fifteen hundred killed, over two thousandprisoners, and their guns; the allies twelve hundred killed andwounded, of whom eight hundred were British, showing how large ashare they had taken in the fighting.
Another good bit of news for Frederick was that Hulsen, whom he hadleft to watch the enemy in Saxony, had, with ten thousand men,defeated an army thirty thousand strong; who, as they thought, hadcaught him in a net. The Russians had fallen back, but only tobesiege Colbert again.
Prince Henry was ill, but Frederick had made a junction with hisarmy, bringing his force up to fifty thousand. During the whole ofSeptember there were marches and counter-marches, Frederick pushingDaun backwards, and preventing him from besieging any of hisfortresses, and gradually cutting the Austrians from theirmagazines.
General Werner on the 18th, with five thousand men, fell suddenlyupon fifteen thousand Russians covering the siege of Colbert,defeated, and scattered them in all directions. The Russian army atonce marched away from Colbert; not however, as Frederick hoped,back to Poland but, in agreement with Daun, to make a rush onBerlin.
One force, twenty thousand strong, crossed the Oder. The main body,under Fermor, for Soltikoff had fallen sick, moved to Frankfort;while Lacy, with fifteen thousand, marched from S
ilesia. On the 3rdof October the Russian vanguard reached the neighbourhood ofBerlin, and summoned it to surrender, and pay a ransom of fourmillion thalers. The garrison of twelve hundred strong, joined byno small part of the male population, took post at the gates andthrew up redoubts; and Prince Eugene of Wuertemberg, after atremendous march of forty miles, threw himself into the city.
The Russian vanguard drew off, until joined by Lacy. Hulsen, withnine thousand, had followed Lacy with all speed; and managed tothrow himself into Berlin before the twenty thousand Russiansarrived. There were now fourteen thousand Prussians in the city,thirty-five thousand Russians and Austrians outside.
The odds were too great. Negotiations were therefore begun with theRussian general Tottleben, and Berlin agreed to pay one million anda half thalers, in the debased coin that now served as the mediumof circulation. Lacy was furious and, when he and the Russiansmarched in, his men behaved so badly that the Russians had, two orthree times, to fire upon them. Saxon and Austrian parties sackedPotsdam and other palaces in the neighbourhood, but the Russiansbehaved admirably; and so things went on until, on October 11th,came the news that Frederick was coming.
Lacy at once marched off with all speed towards Torgau; whileTottleben and the Russians made for Frankfort-on-Oder, the Cossackscommitting terrible depredations on the march.
The king halted when he heard that Berlin had been evacuated. Hewas deeply grieved and mortified that his capital should have beenin the hands of the invaders, even for three days; and his ownloss, from the sacking of Potsdam and other palaces, was veryheavy. However, he paid the ransom from his own pocket, andbitterly determined to get even with the enemy, before winter cameon.
While Hulsen was away, the Confederate army had captured all thestrongholds in Saxony. Daun had, as usual, advanced with his sixtythousand men, and intended to winter in Saxony; but before he couldget there, Frederick had dashed south and recaptured Wittenberg andLeipzig, crossed the Elbe, and driven the scattered corps of theConfederate army before him. Prince Eugene had also hurried thatway, and defeated his brother, the reigning Duke of Wuertemberg.
Daun moved with the intention of aiding the Confederate army, butbefore he could reach them Hulsen had driven them across themountain range into Bohemia, and fell back towards Torgau.
Long before this Fergus had received a reply, from his mother, tohis letter announcing the glad news of the restoration of theestate:
"It will be doubly dear to me," she said, "as having been won backby your own exertions and bravery. These four years have been ananxious time, indeed, for me, Fergus; but the thought that you arerestored to your own, as the result of what you have done, makes upfor it all. I quite see that as long as the war continues youcannot, with honour, leave the king; but I cannot think that thiswar will go on very much longer, and I can wait patiently for theend.
"And, Fergus, I am not quite sure that the end will be that youwill quietly settle down in the glens. A mother's eye is sharp, andit seems to me that that young countess near Dresden is a veryconspicuous figure in your letters. During the four years that youhave been out, you have not mentioned the name of any lady but herand her mother; and you always speak of going back there, as if itwere your German home. That is natural enough, after the servicethat you have rendered them. Still, 'tis strange that you shouldapparently have made the acquaintance of no other ladies. I don'tthink that you have written a single letter, since you have beenaway, in which you have not said something about this Saxon countand his family.
"However, even if it should be so, Fergus, I should not bediscontented. It is only natural that you should sooner or latermarry; and although I would rather that it had been into a Scotchfamily, it is for you to choose, not me. I am grateful already,very grateful for the kindness the family have shown you; and amquite inclined to love this pretty young countess, if she, on herpart, is inclined to love you. I don't think I could have said soquite as heartily, before I received your last letter; for I had agreat fear that you might marry and settle down, altogether, inGermany; but now that the estate is yours, and you are the head ofyour clan, I feel sure that you will, at any rate, spend a part ofyour time among your own people."
A second letter reached Fergus at the beginning of October; inanswer to his from the camp in front of Dresden, in the middle ofJuly, which had been delayed much on its way, owing to the rapidmarches of the army, until it had shaken itself free from itspursuers after the battle of Liegnitz. It began:
"I congratulate you, my dear Fergus, congratulate you with all myheart; and if there is just a shadow of regret that you should nothave married and settled here entirely, it is but a small regret,in proportion to the pleasure I feel. It is not even reasonable,for when I consented to your going abroad to take service inPrussia, I knew that this would probably end in your settling downthere altogether; for it was hardly likely that you could win afortune that would admit of your coming back to live here.
"Of course, had your estate at that time been restored to you, youwould probably not have gone at all; or if you had done so, itwould have been but to stay for a few years, and see service underyour cousin Keith, and then return to live among your own people.As it was, there was no reason why you should greatly wish toreturn to Scotland, where you were landless, with no avenues opento employment. However, what you tell me, that the count andcountess are willing that you should spend some months here, everyyear, is far better than I could have expected or even hoped; and,as you may imagine, quite reconciles me to the thought of yourmarrying abroad.
"In all other respects, nothing could be more satisfactory thanwhat you tell me. Your promised wife must be a charming young lady,and her father and mother the kindest of people. Of course, yourworldly prospects will be vastly beyond anything that even mywildest dreams have ever pictured for you, and in this respect allmy cares for you are at an end.
"It will be delightful, indeed, to look forward to your homecomingevery year; and I consider myself in every way a fortunate woman. Iam sure that I shall come to love your Thirza very dearly.
"The only question is, when is the first visit to take place?Everyone says that it does not seem that the war can go on verymuch longer; and that, wonderful as the king's resistance to somany enemies has been, it cannot continue. However, from what yousay of his determination, and the spirit of the people, I cannotthink that the end can be so near as people think. They have beensaying nearly the same thing for the last three years; and yet,though everything seemed as dark as possible, he always extricatedhimself somehow from his difficulties.
"Besides, his enemies must at last get tired of a war in which, sofar, they have had more defeats than victories, and have lavishedsuch enormous sums of money. France has already impoverishedherself, and Russia and Austria must feel the strain, too. In everychurch here prayers are offered for the success of the champion ofProtestantism; and I am sure that if he had sent Scottish officers,as Gustavus Adolphus did, to raise troops in Scotland, he couldhave obtained forty or fifty thousand men in a very few weeks, soexcited is everyone over the struggle.
"You would be surprised what numbers of people have called upon me,to congratulate me upon your rising to be a colonel in Frederick'sarmy--people I have never seen before; and I can assure you that Inever felt so important a person, even before the evil days ofCulloden. When you come back the whole countryside will flock togive you welcome."
This letter was a great comfort to Fergus. That his mother wouldrejoice at his good fortune, he knew; but he feared that hismarriage with a German lady, whatever her rank, would be a soredisappointment to her, not so much perhaps for her own sake as forthat of the clansmen.
The English ambassador was no longer with the army. At the fiercefight of Liegnitz he had been with Frederick, but had passed thenight in his carriage, which was jammed up among the baggagewagons, and had been unable to extricate himself or to discover howthe battle was going on. Several times the Austrian cavalry hadfallen upon the baggage, and had with great diffi
culty been beatenoff by its guard; and the discomforts of the time, and the anxietythrough which he had gone, so unhinged him that he was unable tofollow Frederick's rapid movements throughout the rest of thecampaign.
Fergus had confided to Earl Marischal Keith, later, his engagementto the Count Eulenfurst's daughter.
"You are a lucky young dog, Fergus," he said. "My brother and Icame abroad too late for any young countess to fall in love withus. There is nothing like taking young to the business ofsoldiering abroad. Bravery is excellent in its way; but youth andbravery, combined with good looks, are irresistible to the femalemind. I am heartily glad that one of our kin should have wonsomething more than six feet of earth by his sword.
"Count Eulenfurst is one of the few men everyone speaks well of.There is no man in Saxony who stands higher. In any other countryhe would have been the leading statesman of his time, but thewretched king, and his still more wretched minister, held indisfavour all who opposed their wanton extravagance and theirdangerous plans.
"It is an honour indeed to be connected with such a family, puttingaside all question of money; but indeed, in this respect nothingcould be more satisfactory. His daughter is the sole heiress of hiswide estates, and as her husband you will have a splendid position.
"I am very glad, lad, that the count has no objection to yourpassing a portion of your time in Scotland. They say, you know,that much as Scotchmen boast of their love of their country, theyare always ready to leave it to better themselves; and that it isvery seldom they ever return to it. Such was, unhappily, the casewith my brother; such will probably be the case with myself; but Iam glad that you will be an exception, and that you will still keepup your connection with your old home.
"I hope, lad, that you will have more than one son. The first, ofcourse, will make Saxony his home; but bring up the second as aScotchman, send him home to be educated, and let him succeed you inthe glens. If he has the family instinct for fighting, let him gointo the British army--he can go into no better--but let yourpeople have some one who will be their own laird, and whoseinterests will be identified with their own."
Fergus smiled at the old man's earnestness.
"That is rather looking ahead, sir," he said. "However, it iscertainly what I should like to do, myself; and if, as you say, Ihave more than one son, I will certainly give the second thetraining you suggest, and make a Scotchman of him. Certainly, if hehas fighting instincts, he will see that he will have moreopportunities of active service, in the British army, than he couldhave in that of Saxony; which has been proved unable to standalone, and can only act as a small ally to either Prussia orAustria. Even putting aside my nationality, I would rather befighting under Clive, in India, than in any service in theworld--even in that of Prussia."
"You are right, lad. Since the days of Marlborough, people havebegun to think that the British were no longer a fighting people;but the way in which they have wrested Canada from the French, andachieved marvels in India, to say nothing of the conduct of theirinfantry at Minden, shows that the qualities of the race areunchanged; and some day they will astonish the world again, as theyhave done several times in their history."
The king soon heard the news from the Earl, and one evening said toFergus:
"So, as the Earl Marischal tells me, you have found time, ColonelDrummond, for love making. I thought, that day I went to express myregrets for the outrage that had been committed at CountEulenfurst's, that it would make a pretty romance if the young ladywho received me should take a fancy to you; which was notaltogether unlikely, after the gallant manner in which you hadsaved them all from those rascals of mine; and when you told me, atDresden, that they had been nursing you, the idea again occurred tome. Well, I am glad you have done so well for yourself. As a king,I rejoice that one who has fought so bravely should obtain a meetreward; and as one who dabbles in poetry, the romance of the thingis very pleasant to me.
"But I am not to lose your services, I hope?"
"No, sire. So long as the war goes on, I shall continue to serveyour majesty to the best of my powers."
The king nodded.
"It is what I should have expected, from one of Marshal Keith'srelations," he said; "but it is not everyone who would care to goon leading this dog's life, when a pretty and well-endowed bride isawaiting him.
"However, it cannot last much longer. The crisis must come, erelong. If we can defeat Daun, it may be put off for a time. If weare beaten, I do not see that I can struggle longer against fate.With Berlin already in their hands, with the country denuded of menand almost exhausted in means, with the Russian and Austrian armiesalready planted on Prussian soil, I can do no more, if I loseanother great battle."
"We must hope that it will not be so, sire. The spirit of thesoldiers is as high as ever and, now that they will be fightingnearly within sight of their homes, they can be trusted to achievealmost impossibilities."
"The men are good men," the king said, "and if I had Keith andSchwerin by my side, I should feel more hopeful; but they are gone,and there are none to fill their places. My brother Henry is a goodsoldier, but he is over cautious. Seidlitz has not recovered fromhis wounds. Hulsen has done well of late, and has shown wonderfulenergy, considering that he is an old man. But there are none ofthem who are at once prudent when it behoved them to be prudent,and quick to strike when they see an opening, like Schwerin andKeith.
"Ziethen is a splendid cavalry officer, but he is fit to commandcavalry only; and the whole burden falls upon my shoulders, whichare getting too old to bear so heavy a weight."
"I trust, sire, that they will not have to bear the burden muchlonger. Just at present Russia and Austria are doubtless encouragedby success; but the strain must be heavy on them also, and anotherdefeat might well cause them to doubt whether it is worthwhile tocontinue to make sacrifices that produce such small results."
"Heaven grant that it may be so!" the king said earnestly. "Godknows that I never wanted this war, and that from the day it beganI have eagerly grasped every chance that presented itself of makingpeace, short of the dismemberment of my kingdom. I would at thismoment willingly accede to any terms, however onerous, in order tosecure peace for my country."
