History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVIII Part 19

The Castle of Custrin, built by good Johann of Custrin, and "roofed with copper," in the Reformation times,--we know it from of old, and Friedrich has since had some knowledge of it. Custrin itself is a rugged little Town, with some moorland traffic, and is still a place of great military strength, the garrison of those parts. Its rough pavements, its heavy stone battlements and barriers, give it a guarled obstinate aspect,--stern enough place of exile for a Crown-Prince fallen into such disfavor with Papa! A rugged, compact, by no means handsome little Town, at the meeting of the Warta and the Oder; stands naturally among sedges, willows and drained mire, except that human industry is pleasantly busy upon it, and has long been. So that the neighborhood is populous beyond expectation; studded with rough cottages in white-wash; hamlets in a paved condition; and comfortable signs of labor victoriously wrestling with the wilderness. Custrin, an a.r.s.enal and garrison, begirt with two rivers, and with awful bulwarks, and bastions cased in stone,--"perhaps too high," say the learned,--is likely to be impregnable to Russian engineering on those terms. Here, with brevity, is the catastrophe of Custrin.

TUESDAY, 15th AUGUST, 1758. At two in the morning, several thousand Russians, grenadiers, under Quartermaster General Stoffeln, whom the readers of Mannstein know from old Oczakow times, are astir; pus.h.i.+ng along from Gross Kamin, through the scraggy firwoods, and flat peat countries; intending a stroke on Custrin, if perhaps they can get it: [Tempelhof, ii. 217; but Tielcke, ii. 69 et seq., the real source.]--not the slightest chance to get Custrin; Prussian soldiers.h.i.+p and Turkish being two quite different things! The pickeering and manoeuvring of Stoffeln shall not detain us. Stoffeln came along by the Landsberg road (course of the now Konigsberg-Custrin Railway); and drove in the Prussian out-parties, who at first took him for Cossacks. Stoffeln set himself down on the north side of the place; planted cannon in certain clay-pits thereabouts, and about nine o'clock began firing sh.e.l.ls and incendiary grenadoes at a great rate. Tielcke saw everything,--and had the honor to take luncheon, that evening, with certain chief Officers, sitting on the ground, after all was over, and only a few shots from the Garrison still dropping. [Tielcke, ii. 75 n.]

At the third grenade, which, it seems, fell into a straw magazine, Custrin took fire; could not be quenched again, so much dry wood in it, so much disorder too, the very soldiers some of them disorderly (a bad deserter set); so that it soon flamed aloft,--from side to side one sea of flame: and man, woman and child, every soul (except the Garrison, which sat enclosed in strong stone), had to fly across the River, under penalty of death by fire. Of Custrin, by five in the evening, there was nothing left but the black ashes; the Garrison standing unharmed, and the Church, School-house and some stone edifices in a charred skeleton condition. "No life was lost, except that of one child in arms." All Neumark had lodged its valuables in this place of strength; all are fled now in horror and terror across the Oder, by the Bridge, before it also unquenchably takes fire, at the western or non-Russian end of the place.

Such a day as was seldom seen in human experience;--Fermor responsible for it, happily not we.

Fermor, in the evening, said to his Artillery People: "Why have you ceased to fire grenadoes?" "Excellency, the Town is out; nothing now but ashes and stone." "Never mind; give them the rest, one every quarter of an hour. We shall not need the grenadoes again. The cannon-b.a.l.l.s we shall; them, therefore, do not waste." On the morrow morning, after this performance on the Town, Fermor sends a Trumpeter: "Surrender or else--!" rather in the tremendous style. "Or else?" answers the Commandant, pointing to the ashes, to the black inconsumable stones; and is deaf to this EX-POST-FACTO Trumpeter. The Russians say they sent one yesterday morning, not EX-POST-FACTO, but he was killed in the pickeerings, and never heard of again. A mile or so to rear of Custrin, on the westward or Berlin side of the River, lies Dohna for the last four days; expecting that the Laws of Nature will hold good, and Custrin prove tenable against such sieging. So stands it on Friedrich's arrival.

We left Friedrich in the Lebus Suburb of Frankfurt, Sunday, August 20th, listening to the distant cannonade. Next morning, he is here himself; at Dohna's Camp of Gorgast, taking survey of affairs; came early, under rapid small escort, leaving his Army to follow; scorn and contemptuous indignation the humor of him, they say; resolution to be swiftly home upon that surprising Russian armament, and teach it new manners. The black skeleton of Custrin stares hideously across the River; "Custrin Siege" so called still going on;--had better make despatch now, and take itself away! He greatly despises Russian soldiers.h.i.+p: "Pooh, pooh," he would answer, if Keith from experience said, "Your Majesty does not do it justice;"--and Keith has been known to hint, "If the trial ever come, your Majesty will alter that opinion." A day or two hence, amid these hideous Russian fire-traceries, the Hussars bring him a dozen of Cossacks they have made prisoners: Friedrich looks at the dirty green vagabonds; says to one of his Staff: "And this is the kind of Doggery I have to bother with!"--The sight of the poor country-people, and their tears of joy and of sorrow on his reappearance among them, much affected him. Taking inspection of Dohna, he finds Dohna wonderfully clean, pipe-clayed, complete: "You are very fine indeed, you;--I bring you a set of fellows, rough as GRASTEUFELN ["gra.s.s-devils," I never know whether insects or birds]; but they can bite,"--hope you can!

Tuesday, August 32d, at five in the morning our Army has all arrived, the Frankfurt people just come in; 30,000 of us now in Camp at Gorgast.

Friedrich orders straightway that a certain Russian Redoubt on the other side of the River, at Schaumburg, a mile or two down stream, be well cannonaded into ruin,--as if he took it for some incipiency of a Russian Bridge, or were himself minded to cross here, under cover of Custrin.

Friedrich's intention very certainly is to cross,--here or not just here;--and that same night, after some hours of rest to the Frankfurt people,--night of Tuesday-Wednesday, Friedrich, having persuaded the Russians that his crossing-place will be their Redoubt at Schaumburg, marches ten or twelve miles down the River, silently his 30,000 and he, till opposite the Village of Gustebiese; rapidly makes his Bridges there, unmolested: Fermor, with his eye on the cannonaded Redoubt only, has expected no such matter; and is much astonished when he hears of it, twenty hours after. Friedrich, across with the vanguard, at an early hour of Wednesday, gets upon the knoll at Gustebiese for a view; and all Gustebiese, hearing of him, hurries out, with low-voiced tremulous blessings, irrepressible tears: "G.o.d reward your Majesty, that have come to us!"--and there is a hustling and a struggling, among the women especially, to kiss the skirts of his coat. Poor souls: one could have stood tremendous cheers; but this is a thing I forgive Friedrich for being visibly affected with.

Friedrich leaves his baggage on the other side of the Oder, and the Bridge guarded; our friend Hordt, with his Free-Corps, doing it, Friedrich marches forward some ten miles that night; eastward, straight for Gross Kamin, as if to take the Russians in rear; encamps at a place called Klossow, spreading himself obliquely towards the Mutzel (black sluggish tributary of the Oder in those parts), meaning to reach Neu Damm on the Mutzel to-morrow, there almost within wind of the Russians, and be ready for crossing on them. It was at Klossow (23d August, evening), that the Hussars brought in their dozen or two of Cossacks, and he had his first sight of Russian soldiery; by no means a favorable one, "Ugh, only look!"--As we are now approaching Zorndorf, and the monstrous tug of Battle which fell out there, readers will be glad of the following:--

"From Damm on the Mutzel, where Friedrich intends crossing it to-morrow night, south to Gross Kamin, not far from the Warta, where Fermor's head-quarter lately was, may be about five miles. From Custrin, Kamin lies northeast about eight or ten miles: Zorndorf, the most considerable Village in this tract, lies--little dreaming of the sad glory coming to it--pretty much in the centre between big Warta and smaller Mutzel. The Country is by nature a peat wilderness, far and wide; but it has been tamed extensively; grows crops, green pastures; is elsewhere covered with wood (Scotch fir, scraggy in size, but evidently under forest management); perhaps half the country is in Fir tracts, what they call HEIDEN (Heaths); the cultivated s.p.a.ces lying like light-green islands with black-green channels and expanses of circ.u.mambient Fir. The Drewitz Heath, the Ma.s.sin or Zither Heath, and others about Zorndorf, will become notable to us. The Country is now much drier than in Friedrich's time; the human spade doing its duty everywhere: so that much of the Battle-ground has become irrecognizable, when compared with the old marshy descriptions given of it. Zorndorf, a rough substantial Hamlet, has nothing of boggy now visible near by; lies east to west, a firm broad highway leading through: a sea of forest before it, to south; to north, good dry barley-grounds or rye-grounds, sensibly rising for half a mile, then waving about in various slow slight changes of level towards Quartschen, Zicher, &c.: forming an irregular cleared 'island,' altogether of perhaps four miles by three, with unlimited circ.u.mambiencies of wood. It was here, on this island as we call it, that the Battle, which has made Zorndorf famous, was fought.

"Zorndorf (or even the open ground half a mile to north of it, which will be more important to us) is probably not 50 feet above the level of the Mutzel, nor 100 above Warta and Oder, six miles off; but it is the crown of the Country;--the ground dropping therefrom every way, in lazy dull waves or swells; towards Tamsel and Gross Kamin on southeast; towards Birken-Busch, Quartschen, Darmutzel [DAR of the Mutzel, whatever "DAR" may be.] on northwest; as well as towards Damm and its Bridge northeast, where Friedrich will soon be, and towards Custrin southwest, where he lately was, each a five or six miles from Zorndorf.

"Such is the poor moorland tract of Country; Zorndorf the centre of it,--where the battle is likely to be:--Zorndorf and environs a bare quasi-island among these woods; extensive bald crown of the landscape, girt with a frizzle of firwoods all round. Boggy pools there are, especially on the western side (all drained in our time). Mutzel, or north side, is of course the lowest in level: and accordingly," what is much to be marked by readers here, "from the south, or Zorndorf side, at wide intervals, there saunter along, in a slow obscure manner, Three miserable continuous Leakages, or oozy Threads of Water, all making for Quartschen, to north or northwest, there to disembogue into the Mutzel.

Each of these has its little Hollow; of which the westernmost, called Zabern Hollow (ZABERNGRUND), is the most considerable, and the most important to us here: GALGENGRUND (Gallows-Hollow) is also worth naming in this Battle; the third Leakage, though without importance, invites us to name it, HOSEBRUCH, quasi STOCKING-quagmire,--because you can use no stockings there, except with manifest disadvantage."--Take this other concluding trait:--

... "Inexpressible fringe of marsh, two or three miles broad, mostly bottomless, woven with sluggish creeks and stagnant pools, borders the Warta for many miles towards Landsberg; Custrin-Landsberg Causeway the alone sure footing in it; after which, the country rises insensibly, but most beneficially, and is mainly drier till you get to the Mutzel again, and find the same fringe of mud lace-work again, Zorndorf we called the crown of it. Tamsel, Wilkersdorf, Klein Kamin, Gross Kamin, and other places known to us, lie on the dry turf-fuel country, but looking over close upon the hem of that marsh-fringe, and no doubt getting peats, wild ducks, pike-fishes, eels, and s.n.a.t.c.hes of summer pasture and cow-hay out of it."

Thursday, August 24th, Friedrich is again speeding on; occupying Darmutzel and other crossing-places of the Mutzel; [Mitch.e.l.l to Holderness, "DErmItzel, 24th August, 1758" (MEMOIRS AND PAPERS, i.

425; Ib. ii. 40-47, Mitch.e.l.l's Private Journal).]--by no means himself crossing there; on the contrary, carefully breaking all the Bridges before he go ("No retreat for those Russian vagabonds, only death or surrender for them!")--himself not intending to cross till he be up at Damm, Neu Damm, well eastward of his Russians, and have got them all pinfolded between Mutzel and Oder in that way. In the evening, he reaches Damm and the Mill of Damm, some three or four miles higher up the Mutzel;--and there pushes partly across at once. That is to say, his vanguard at once, and takes a defensive position; his Artillery and other Divisions by degrees, in the silent night hours; and, before daybreak to-morrow, every soul will be across, and the Bridge broken again;--and Fermor had better have his accounts settled.

Fermor's roving Cossack clouds seldom bring him in intelligence; but only return stained with charcoal grime and red murder: up to late last night, he had not known where Friedrich was at all; had idly thought him busy with the Schaumburg Redoubt, on the other side of Oder, fencing and precautioning: but now (night of the 23d), these Cossacks do come in with news, "Indisputable to our poor minds, the Prussians are at Klossow yonder,--captured a dozen green vagabonds of us, and have sent us galloping!"--which news, with the night closing in on him, was astonis.h.i.+ng, thrice and four times important to Fermor.

Instantly he raises the siege of Custrin, any siege there was; gets his immense baggage-train shoved off that night to Klein Kamin, Landsberg way; summons the force from Landsberg to join him without loss of a moment;--and in the meanwhile pitches himself in long bivouac in the Drewitz Wood or Fir-Heath, with the quaggy Zaberngrund in front. Quaggy Zaberngrund,--do readers remember it; one of those "Three continuous Leakages," very important, to Fermor and us at present? This is the safest place Fermor can find for himself; scraggy firs around, good quagmires and Zabern Hollow in front; looking to the east, waiting what a new day will bring. That was Fermor's posture, while Friedrich quitted Klossow in the dawn of the 24th. Be busy, ye Cossack doggeries; return with news, not with mere grime and marks of blood on your mouths!

Evening of the 24th, Cossacks report that Friedrich has got to Damm Mill; has hold of the Bridge there; and may be looked for, sure as the daylight, to-morrow. Fermor is 50,000 odd, his Landsberg forces all coming in; one Detachment out Stettin way, which cannot come in; Fermor finds that his baggage-train is fairly on the road to Klein Kamin;--and that he will have to quit this bosky bivouac, and fight for himself in the open ground, or do worse.

THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR OVER AGAIN,--THAT IS TO SAY, FRIEDRICH AT HAND-GRIPS WITH FERMOR AND HIS RUSSIANS (25TH AUGUST, 1758).

Artless Fermor draws out to the open ground, north of Zorndorf, south of Quartschen; arranges himself in huge quadrilateral ma.s.s, with his "staff-baggage" (lighter baggage) in the centre, and his front, so to speak, everywhere. [Excellent Plan of him, or rather Plans, in his successive shapes, in Tielcke, ii. (PLATES 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).] Ma.s.s, say two miles long by one mile broad; but it is by no means regular, and has many zigzags according to the ground, and narrows and droops southward on the eastern end: one of the most artless arrangements; but known to Fermor, and the readiest on this pinch of time. Munnich devised this quadrilateral mode; and found it good against the Turks, and their deluges of raging horse and foot: Fermor could perhaps do better; but there is such a press of hurry. Fermor's western flank, or biggest breadth of quadrilateral, leans on that Zabern Hollow, with its fine quagmires; his eastern, narrowest part, droops down on certain mud-pools and conveniences towards Zicher. Gallows Hollow, a slighter than the Zabern, runs through the centre of him; and with his best people he fronts towards the Mutzel Bridges, especially towards Damm-Mill Bridge whence Friedrich will emerge, sure as the sunrise, one knows not with what issue. Artless Fermor is nothing daunted; nor are his people; but stand patiently under arms, regardless of future and present, to a degree not common in soldiering.

Friday, August 25th, by half-past three in the morning, Friedrich is across the Mutzel; self and Infantry by Damm-Mutzel Bridge, cavalry by another Bridge (KERSTEN-BRUGGE, means "Christian Bridge," in the dialect of Charlemagne's time, a very old arrangement of Successive Logs up there!) some furlongs higher up. The Bridge at Damm is perhaps some three miles from the nearest Russians about Zicher; but Friedrich has no thought of attacking Fermor there; he has a quite other program laid, and will attack Fermor precisely on the side opposite to there.

Friedrich's intention is to sweep quite round this monstrous Russian quadrilateral; to break in upon it on the western flank, and hurl it back upon Mutzel and its quagmires. He has broken his two bridges after pa.s.sing, all bridges are gone there, and the country is bottomless: surrender at discretion if once you are driven thither! And Friedrich's own retreat, if he fail, is short and open to Custrin. "Admirable," say the Critics, "and altogether in Friedrich's style!"--Friedrich, adds one Critic, was not aware that the Russian Heavy-Baggage Train, which is their powder-flask and bread-basket and staff of life, lies at Klein Kamin, within few miles on his left just now, Russians themselves on his right; that the Russians could have been abolished from those countries without fighting at all! [Retzow, i. 305-329.] This is very true.

Friedrich's haste is great, his humor hot; and he has not heard of this Klein-Kamin fact, which in common times he would have done, and of which in a calmer mood he would, with a fine scientific gusto, have taken his advantage.

Friedrich pours incessant southward; cavalry parallel to infantry and a certain distance beyond it, eastward of it; and they have burnt the Bridges; which is a curious fact! Continually southward, as if for Tamsel:--poor old Tamsel, do readers recollect it at all, does Friedrich at all? No pleasant dinner, or lily-and-rose complexions, there for one to-day!--Some distance short of Tamsel, Friedrich, emerging, turns westward;--intending what on earth? thinks Fermor. Friedrich has been mostly hidden by the woods all this while, and enigmatic to Fermor.

Fermor does now at last see the color of the facts;--and that one's chief front must change itself to southward, one's best leg and arm be foremost, or towards Zorndorf, not towards the Mutzel as. .h.i.therto.

Fermor stirs up his Quadrilateral, makes the required change, "You, best or northern line, step across, and front southward; across to southward, I say; second-best go northward in their stead:" and so, with some other slight polis.h.i.+ngs, suggested by the ground and phenomena, we anew await this Prussian Enigma with our best leg foremost. The march or circular sweep of these Prussian lines, from Damm Bridge through the woods and champaign to their appointed place of action, is seven or eight miles; lines when halted in battle-order will be two miles long or more.

Friedrich pours steadily along, horse and foot, by the rear cf Wilkersdorf, of Zorndorf,--Russian Minotaur scrutinizing him in that manner with dull bloodshot eyes, uncertain what he will do. It is eight in the morning, hot August; wind a mere lull, but southernly if any.

Small Hussar pickets ride to right of the main Army March; to keep the Cossacks in check: who are roving about, all on wing; and pert enough, in spite of the Hussar pickets, Desperado individuals of them gallop up to the Infantry ranks, and fire off their pistols there,--without reply; reply or firing, till the word come, is strictly forbidden. Infantry pours along, like a ploughman drawing his furrow, heedless of the circling crows. Crows or Cossacks, finding they are not regarded, set fire to Zorndorf, and gallop off. Zorndorf goes up readily, mainly wood and straw; rolls in big clouds of smoke far northward in upon the Russian Minotaur, making him still blinder in the important moments now coming.

Friedrich rides up to view the Zabern Hollow: "Beyond expectation deep; very boggy too, with its foul leakage or brook: no attacking of their western flank through this Zaberngrund;--attack the corner of them, then; here on the southwest!" That is Friedrich's rapid resource. The lines halt, accordingly; make ready. Behind flaming Zorndorf stands his extreme left, which is to make the attack; infantry in front; horse to rear and farther leftwards,--and under the command of Seidlitz in this quarter, which is an important circ.u.mstance. Right wing, reaching to behind Wilkersdorf, is to refuse itself; whole force of centre is to push upon that Russian corner, to support the left in doing it;--according to the Leuthen or LEUCTRA principle, once more. May no mistakes occur in executing it this day!--

The first division of the Prussian Infantry, or extreme Left, marches forward by the west end of flaming Zorndorf; next division, which should stand close to right of it, or even behind it in action, and follow it close into the Russian fire, has to march by the east end of Zorndorf; this is a farther road, owing to the flames; and not a lucky one. Second division could never get into fair contact with that first division again: that was the mistake: and it might have been fatal, but was not, as we shall see. First division has got clear of Zorndorf, in advancing towards its Russian business;--is striding forward, its left flank safe against the Zaberngrund; steadily by fixed stages, against the fated Russian Corner, which is its point of attack. First division, second division, are clear of Zorndorf, though with a wide gap between them; are steadily striding forward towards the Russian Corner. Two strong batteries, wide apart, have planted themselves ahead; and are playing upon the Russian Quadrilateral, their fires crossing at the due Corner yonder, with terrible effect; Russian artillery, which are mult.i.tudinous and all gathered down to this southwestern corner, are responding, though with their fire spread, and far less effectual. The Prussian line steps on, extreme left perhaps in too animated a manner; their cannon batteries enfilade the thick ma.s.s of Russians at a frightful rate ("forty-two men of a certain regiment blown away by a single ball," in one instance [Tielcke.]), drive the interior baggage-horses to despair: a very agitated Quadrilateral, under its grim canopy of cannon smoke, and of straw smoke, heaped on it from the Zorndorf side here.

Manteuffel, leader of that first or leftmost division, sees the internal simmering; steps forward still more briskly, to firing distance; begins his platoon thunder, with the due steady fury,--had the second division but got up to support Manteuffel! The second division is in fire too; but not close to Manteuffel, where it should be.

Fermor notices the gap, the wavering of Manteuffel unsupported; plunges out in immense torrent, horse and foot, into the gap, into Manteuffel's flank and front; hurls Manteuffel back, who has no support at hand: "ARAH, ARAH (Hurrah, Hurrah)! Victory, Victory!" shout the Russians, plunging wildly forward, sweeping all before them, capturing twenty-six pieces of cannon, for one item. What a moment for Friedrich; looking on it from some knoll somewhere near Zorndorf, I suppose; hastily bidding Seidlitz strike in: "Seidlitz, now!" The hurrahing Russians cannot keep rank at that rate of going, like a buffalo stampede; but fall into heaps and gaps: Seidlitz, with a swiftness, with a dexterity beyond praise, has picked his way across that quaggy Zabern Hollow; falls, with say 5,000 horse, on the flank of this big buffalo stampede; tumbles it into instant ruin;--which proves irretrievable, as the Prussian Infantry come on again, and back Seidlitz.

In fifteen minutes more (I guess it now to be ten o'clock), the Russian Minotaur, this end of it, on to the Gallows Ground, is one wild ma.s.s.

Seldom was there seen such a charge; issuing in such deluges of wreck, of chaotic flight, or chaotic refusal to fly. The Seidlitz cavalry went sabring till, for very fatigue, they gave it up, and could no more. The Russian horse fled to Kutzdorf,--Fermor with them, who saw no more of this Fight, and did not get back till dark;--had not the Bridges been burnt, and no crossing of the Mutzel possible, Fermor never would have come back, and here had been the end of Zorndorf. Luckier if it had!

But there is no crossing of the Mutzel, there is only drowning in the quagmires there:--death any way; what can be done but die?

The Russian infantry stand to be sabred, in the above manner, as if they had been dead oxen. More remote from Seidlitz, they break open the sutlers' brandy-casks, and in few minutes get roaring drunk. Their officers, desperate, split the brandy-casks; soldiers flap down to drink it from the puddles; furiously remonstrate with their officers, and "kill a good many of them" (VIELE, says Tielcke), especially the foreign sort. "A frightful blood-bath," by all the Accounts: blood-bath, brandy-bath, and chief Nucleus of Chaos then extant aboveground. Fermor is swept away: this chaos, the very Prussians drawing back from it, wearied with ma.s.sacring, lasts till about one o'clock. Up to the Gallows-ground the Minotaur is mere wreck and delirium: but beyond the Gallows-ground, the other half forms a new front to itself; becomes a new Minotaur, though in reduced shape. This is Part First of the Battle of Zorndorf; Friedrich--on the edge of great disaster at one moment, but miraculously saved--has still the other half to do (unlucky that he left no Bridges on the Mutzel), and must again change his program.

Half of the Minotaur is gone to shreds in this manner; but the attack upon it, too, is spent: what is to be done with the other half of the monster, which is again alive; which still stands, and polypus-like has arranged a new life for itself, a new front against the Galgengrund yonder? Friedrich brings his right wing into action. Rapidly arranges right wing, centre, all of the left that is disposable, with batteries, with cavalry; for an attack on the opposite or southeastern end of his monster. If your monster, polypus-like, come alive again in the tail-part, you must fell that other head of him. Batteries, well in advance, begin work upon the new head of the monster, which was once his tail; fresh troops, long lines of them, pus.h.i.+ng forward to begin platoon-volleying:--time now, I should guess, about half-past two. Our infantry has not yet got within musket-range,--when torrents of Russian Horse, Foot too following, plunge out; wide-flowing, stormfully swift; and dash against the coming attack. Dash against it; stagger it; actually tumble it back, in the centre part; take one of the batteries, and a whole battalion prisoners. Here again is a moment! Friedrich, they say, rushed personally into this vortex; rallied these broken battalions, again rallied and led them up; but it was to no purpose: they could not be made to stand, these centre battalions;--"some sudden panic in them, a thing unaccountable," says Tempelhof; "they are Dohna's people, who fought perfectly at Jagersdorf, and often elsewhere" (they were all in such a finely burnished state the other day; but have not biting talent, like the gra.s.s-devils): enough, they fairly scour away, certain disgraceful battalions, and are not got ranked again till below Wilkersdorf, above a mile off; though the gra.s.s-devils, on both hands of them, stand grimly steady, left in this ominous manner.

What would have become of the affair one knows not, if it had not been that Seidlitz once more made his appearance. On Friedrich's order, or on his own, I do not know; but sure it is, Seidlitz, with sixty-one squadrons, arriving from some distance, breaks in like a DEUS EX MACHINA, swift as the storm-wind, upon this Russian Horse-torrent; drives it again before him like a mere torrent of chaff, back, ever back, to the sh.o.r.e of Acheron and the Stygian quagmires (of the Mutzel, namely); so that it did not return again; and the Prussian infantry had free field for their platoon exercise. Their rage against the Russians was extreme; and that of the Russians corresponded. Three of these gra.s.s-devil battalions, who stood nearest to Dohna's runaways, were natives of this same burnt-out Zorndorf Country; we may fancy the Platt-Teutsch hearts of them, and the sacred lightning, with a moisture to it, that was in their eyes. Platt-Teutsch platooning, bayonet-charging,--on such terms no Russian or mortal Quadrilateral can stand it. The Russian Minotaur goes all to shreds a second time; but will not run. "No quarter!"--"Well, then, none!"

"Shortly after four o'clock," say my Accounts, "the firing," regular firing, "altogether ceased; ammunition nearly spent, on both sides; Prussians s.n.a.t.c.hing cartridge-boxes of Russian dead;" and then began a tug of deadly ma.s.sacring and wrestling man to man, "with bayonets, with b.u.t.ts of muskets, with hands, even with teeth [in some Russian instances], such as was never seen before." The Russians, beaten to fragments, would not run: whither run? Behind is Mutzel and the bog of Acheron;--on Mutzel is no bridge left; "the sh.o.r.e of Mutzel is thick with men and horses, who have tried to cross, and lie there swallowed in the ooze"--"like a pavement," says Tielcke. The Russians,--never was such VIS INERTIAE as theirs now. They stood like sacks of clay, like oxen already dead; not even if you shot a bullet through them, would they fall at once, says Archenholtz, but seem to be deliberate about it.

Complete disorder reigned on both sides; except that the Prussians could always form again when bidden, the Russians not. This lasted till nightfall,--Russians getting themselves shoved away on these horrid terms, and obstinate to take no other. Towards dark, there appeared, on a distant knoll, something like a ranked body of them again,--some 2,000 foot and half as many horse; whom Themicoud (superlative Swiss Cossack, usually written Demikof or Demikow) had picked up, and persuaded from the sh.o.r.e of Acheron, back to this knoll of vantage, and some cannon with them. Friedrich orders these to be dispersed again: General Forcade, with two battalions, taking the front of them, shall attack there; you, General Rauter, bring up those Dohna fellows again, and take them in flank. Forcade pushes on, Rauter too,--but at the first taste of cannon-shot, these poor Dohna-people (such their now flurried, disgraced state of mind) take to flight again, worse than before; rush quite through Wilkersdorf this time, into the woods, and can hardly be got together at all. Scandalous to think of. No wonder Friedrich "looked always askance on those regiments that had been beaten at Gross Jagersdorf, and to the end of his life gave them proofs of it:"

[Retzow;--and still more emphatically, _Briefe eines alten Preussischen Officiers_ (Hohenzollern, 1790), i. 34, ii. 52, &c.] very natural, if the rest were like these!

Of poor General Rauter, Tempelhof and the others, that can help it, are politely silent; only Saxon Tielcke tells us, that Friedrich dismissed him, "Go, you, to some other trade!"--which, on Prussian evidence too, expressed in veiled terms, I find to be the fact: _Militair-Lexikon,_ obliged to have an article on Rauter, is very brief about it; hints nothing unkind; records his personal intrepidity; and says, "in 1758 he, on his request, had leave to withdraw,"--poor soul, leave and more!

Forcade, left to himself, kept cannonading Themicoud; Themicoud responding, would not go; stood on his knoll of vantage, but gathered no strength: "Let him stand," said Friedrich, after some time; and Themicoud melted in the shades of night, gradually towards the hither sh.o.r.e of Acheron,--that is, of Acheron-Mutzel, none now attempting to PAVE it farther, but simmering about at their sad leisure there.

Feldmarschall Fermor is now got to his people again, or his people to him; reunited in place and luck: such a chaos as Fermor never saw before or after. No regiment or battalion now is; mere simmering monads, this fine Army; officers doing their utmost to cobble it into something of rank, without regard to regiments or qualities. Darkness seldom sank on such a scene.

Wild Cossack parties are scouring over all parts of the field; robbing the dead, murdering the wounded; doing arson, too, wherever possible; and even s.n.a.t.c.hing at the Prussian cannon left rearwards, so that the Hussars have to go upon them again. One large ma.s.s of them plundering in the Hamlet of Zicher, the Hussars surrounded: the Cossacks took to the outhouses; squatted, ran, called in the aid of fire, their constant friend: above 400 of them were in some big barn, or range of straw houses; and set fire to it,--but could not get out for Hussars; the Hussars were at the outgate: Not a devil of you! said the Hussars; and the whole four hundred perished there, choked, burnt, or slain by the Hussars,--and this poor Planet was at length rid of them.

[_Helden-Geschichte,_ v. 166.]

Friedrich sends for his tent-equipages; and the Army pitches its camp in two big lines, running north and south, looking towards the Russian side of things; Friedrich's tent in front of the first line; a warrior King among his people, who have had a day's work of it. The Russian loss turns out, when counted, to have been 21,529 killed, wounded and missing, 7,990 of them killed; the Prussian sum-total is 11,390 (above the Prussian third man), of whom 3,680 slain. And on the sh.o.r.es of Acheron northward yonder, there still is a simmering. And far and wide the country is alight with incendiary fires,--many devils still abroad.

Excellency Mitch.e.l.l, about eight in the evening, is sent for by the King; finds various chief Generals, Seidlitz among them, on their various businesses there; congratulates "on the n.o.ble victory [not so conclusive hitherto] which Heaven has granted your Majesty." "Had it not been for him," said Friedrich,--"Had it not been for him, things would have had a bad look by this time!" and turned his sun-eyes upon Seidlitz, with a fine expression in them. [Preuss, ii. 153. Mitch.e.l.l (ii. 432) mentions the Interview, nothing of Seidlitz.] To which Seidlitz's reply, I find, was an embarra.s.sed blush and of articulate only, "Hm, no, ha, it was your Majesty's Cavalry that did their duty,--but Wakenitz [my second] does deserve promotion!"--which Wakenitz, not in a too overflowing measure, got.

Fermor, during the night-watches, having cobbled himself into some kind of ranks or rows, moves down well westward of Zabern Hollow; to the Drewitz Heath, where he once before lay, and there makes his bivouac in the wood, safe under the fir-trees, with the Zabern ground to front of him. By the above reckoning, 28 or 29,000 still hang to Fermor, or float vaporously round him; with Friedrich, in his two lines, are some 18,000:--in whole, 46,000 tired mortals sleeping thereabouts; near 12,000 others have fallen into a deeper sleep, not liable to be disturbed;--and of the wounded on the field, one shudders to imagine.

Next day, Sat.u.r.day, 26th, Fermor, again brought into some kind of rank, and safe beyond the quaggy Zabern ground, sent out a proposal, "That there be Truce of Three Days for burying the dead!"--Dohna, who happened to be General in command there, answers, "That it is customary for the Victor to take charge of burying the slain; that such proposal is surprising, and quite inadmissible, in present circ.u.mstances." Fermor, in the mean while, had drawn himself out, fronting his late battle-field and the morning sun; and began cannonading across the Zabern ground; too far off for hitting, but as if still intending fight: to which the Prussians replied with cannon, and drew out before their tents in fighting order. In both armies there was question, or talk, of attacking anew; but in both "there was want of ammunition," want of real likelihood. On Fermor's side, that of "attacking" could be talk only, and on Friedrich's, besides the scarcity of ammunition, all creatures, foot and especially horse, were so worn out with yesterday's work, it was not judged practically expedient. A while before noon, the Prussians retired to their Camp again; leaving only the artillery to respond, so far as needful, and bow-wow across the Zabern ground, till the Russians lay down again.

Friedrich's Hussars knew of the Russian WAGENBURG, or general baggage reservoirs, at Klein Kamin, by this time. The Hussars had been in it, last night; rummaging extensively, at discretion for some time; and had brought away much money and portable plunder. Why Friedrich, who lay direct between Fermor and his Wagenburg, did not, this day, extinguish said Wagenburg, I do not know; but guess it may have been a fault of omission, in the great welter this was now grown to be to the weary mind. Beyond question, if one had blown up Fermor's remaining gunpowder, and carried off or burnt his meal-sacks, he must have cowered away all the faster towards Landsberg to seek more. Or perhaps Friedrich now judged it immaterial, and a question only of hours?

About midnight of Sat.u.r.day-Sunday, there again rose bow-wowing, bellowing of Russian cannon; not from beyond the Zabern ground this time, nor stationary anywhere, but from the south some transient part of it, and not far off;--one ball struck a carriage near the King's tent, and shattered it. Thick mist mantles everything, and it is difficult to know what the Russians have on hand in their sylvan seclusions. After a time, it becomes manifest the Russians are on retreat; winding round, through the southern woods, behind Zorndorf and the charred Villages, to Klein Kamin, Landsberg way. Friedrich, following now on the heel of them, finds all got to Klein Kamin, to breakfast there in their Wagenburg refectory,--sharply vigilant, many FLECHES (little arrow-shaped redoubts, so named) and much artillery round them. Nothing considerable to be done upon them, now or afterwards, except pick up stragglers, and distress their rear a little. The King himself, in the first movement, was thought to be in alarming peril, such a blaze of case-shot rose upon him, as he went reconnoitring foremost of all.

[Tempelhof, ii. 216-238; Tielcke, ii. 79-154; Archenholtz, i. 253-264; _Helden-Geschichte,_ v. 156-179 (with many LISTS, private LETTERS and the like details); &c. &c.]

And this was, at last, the end of Zorndorf Battle; on the third day this. Was there ever seen such a fight of Theseus and the Minotaur!

Theseus, rapid, dexterous, with Heaven's lightning in his eyes, seizing the Minotaur; la.s.soing him by the hinder foot, then by the right horn; pouring steel and destruction into him, the very dust darkening all the air. Minotaur refusing to die when killed; tumbling to and fro upon its Theseus; the two lugging and tugging, flinging one another about, and describing figures of 8 round each other for three days before it ended.

Minotaur walking off on his own feet, after all. It was the bloodiest battle of the Seven-Years War; one of the most furious ever fought; such rage possessing the individual elements; rage unusual in modern wars.

Must have altered Friedrich's notion of the Russians, when he next comes to speak with Keith. It was not till the fourth day hence (August 31st), so unattackably strong was this position at Klein Kamin, that the Russian Minotaur would fairly get to its feet a second time, and slowly stagger off, in real earnest, Landsberg way and Konigsberg way;--Friedrich right glad to leave Dohna in attendance on it; and hasten off (September 2d) towards Saxony and Prince Henri, where his presence is now become very needful.