History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 18
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Where the Austrian Camp or various Tent-groups were, at the time
Friedrich first cast eye on them, is no great concern of his or
ours; inasmuch as, in two or three hours hence, the Austrians were
obliged, rather suddenly, to take Order of Battle; and that, and
not their camping, is the thing we are curious upon. Let us step
across, and take some survey of that Austrian ground, which
Friedrich is now surveying from the distance, fully intending that
it shall be a battle-ground in few hours; and try to explain how
the Austrians drew up on it, when they noticed the Prussian
symptoms to become serious more and more. By nine in the
morning,--some two hours after Friedrich began his scanning, and
the Austrian outposts their firing of stray cannon-shots on
him,--it is Battle-lines, not empty Tents (which there was not time
to strike), that salute the eye over yonder.
From behind that verdant Horse-shoe Chasm we spoke of, buttressed
by the inaccessible steeps, and the Moldau, double-folded in the
form of Horse-shoe, all along the brow of that sloping expanse,
stands (by 9 A.M. "foragers all suddenly called in") the Austrian
front; the second line and the reserve, parallel to it, at good
distances behind. Ranked there; say 65,000 regulars (Prussian force
little short of the same), on the brow of Ziscaberg slope, some
four miles long. Their right wing ends, in strong batteries, in
intricate marshes, knolls, lakelets, between Hlaupetin and Kyge:
the extreme of their left wing looks over on that Horse-shoe
Hollow, where Moldau tried to dig his way, but could not and had to
turn back. They have numerous redoubts, in front and in all the
good places; and are busy with more, some of them just now getting
finished, treble-quick, while the Prussians are seen under way.
As many as sixty heavy cannon in battery up and down: of field-
pieces they have a hundred and fifty. Excellent always with their
Artillery, these Austrians; plenty of it, well-placed and well-
served: thanks to Prince Lichtenstein's fine labors within these
ten years past. [ OEuvres de Frederic, (in
several places); see Hormayr, ? Lichtenstein.] The villages, the
farmsteads, are occupied; every rising ground especially has its
battery,--Homoly Berg, Tabor Berg, "Mount of Tabor;" say KNOLL of
Tabor (nothing like so high as Battersea Rise, hardly even as
Constitution Hill), though scriptural Zisca would make a Mount of
it;--these, and other BERGS of the like type.
That is the Austrian Battle Order (as it stood about 9, though it
had still to change a little, as we shall see): their first line,
straight or nearly so, looking northward, stands on the brow of the
Zisca Slope; their second and their third, singularly like it, at
the due distances behind;--in the intervals, their tents, which
stand scattered, in groups wide apart, in the ample interior to
southward. The cavalry is on both wings; left wing, behind that
Moldau Chasm, cannot attack nor be attacked,--except it were on
hippogriffs, and its enemy on the like, capable of fighting in the
air, overhead of these Belvedere Pleasure-grounds: perhaps Prince
Karl will remedy this oversight; fruit of close following of the
orthodox practice? Prince Karl, supreme Chief, commands on the left
wing; Browne on the right, where he can attack or be attacked, NOT
on hippogriffs. As we shall see, and others will! Light horse, in
any quantity, hang scattered on all outskirts. With foot, with
cannon batteries, with horse, light or heavy, they cover in long
broad flood the whole of that Zisca Slope, to near where it ceases,
and the ground to eastward begins perceptibly to rise again.
In this latter quarter, Zisca Slope, now nearly ended, begins to
get very swampy in parts; on the eastern border of the Austrian
Camp, at Kyge, Hostawitz, and beyond it southward, about Sterbohol
and Michelup, there are many little lakelets; artificial fish-
ponds, several of them, with their sluices, dams and apparatus:
a ragged broadish lacing of ponds and lakelets (all well dried in
our day) straggles and zigzags along there, connected by the
miserablest Brook in nature, which takes to oozing and serpentizing
forward thereabouts, and does finally get emptied, now in a rather
livelier condition, into the Moldau, about the TOE-part of that
Horse-shoe or Belvedere region. It runs in sight of the King, I
think, where he now is; this lower livelier part of it: little does
the King know how important the upper oozing portion of it will be
to him this day. Near Michelup are lakelets worth noticing;
a little under Sterbohol, in the course of this miserable Brook, is
a string of fish-ponds, with their sluices open at this time, the
water out, and the mud bottom sown with herb-provender for the
intended carps, which is coming on beautifully, green as leeks, and
nearly ready for the fish getting to it again.
Friedrich surveys diligently what he can of all this, from the
northern verge. We will now return to Friedrich; and will stay on
his side through the terrible Action that is coming. Battle of
Prag, one of the furious Battles of the World; loud as Doomsday;--
the very Emblem of which, done on the Piano by females of energy,
scatters mankind to flight who love their ears! Of this great
Action the Narratives old and modern are innumerable; false some of
them, unintelligible well-nigh all. There are three in Lloyd, known
probably to some of my readers. Tempelhof, with criticisms of these
three, gives a fourth,--perhaps the one Narrative which human
nature, after much study, can in some sort understand.
Human readers, especially military, I refer to that as their
finale. [In Lloyd, i. 38 et seq. (the Three): in Tempelhof, i. 123
(the Fourth); ib. i. 144 (strength of each Army), 105-149 (remarks
of Tempelhof).--The "HISTORY," or Series of Lectures on the Battles
&c. of this War, "BY THE ROYAL STAFF-OFFICERS"--which, for the last
thirty or forty years, is used as Text-Book, or Military EUCLID, in
the Prussian Cadet-Schools,--appears to possess the fit
professorial lucidity and amplitude; and, in regard to all Official
details, enumerations and the like, is received as of CANONICAL
authority: it is not accessible to the general Public,--though
liberally enough conceded in special cases; whereby, in effect, the
main results of it are now become current in modern Prussian Books.
By favor in high quarters, I had once possession of a copy, for
some months; but not, at that time, the possibility of thoroughly
reading any part of it.] Other interest than military-scientific
the Action now has not much. The stormy fire of soul that blazed
that day (higher in no ancient or modern Fight of men) is extinct,
hopeless of resuscitation for English readers. Approximately what
the thing to human eyes might be like; what Friedrich's procedure,
humor and physiognomy of soul was in it: this, especially the
latter head, is what we search for,--had lazy Dryasdust given us
almost anything on this latter head! What little can be gleaned
from him on both heads let us faithfully give, and finish our sad
part of the combat.
Friedrich, with his Schwerin and Winterfeld, surveying these things
from the northern edge, admits that the Austrian position is
extremely strong; but he has no doubt that it must be, by some good
method, attacked straightway, and the Austrians got beaten.
Indisputably the enterprise is difficult. Unattackable clearly, the
Austrians, on that left wing of theirs; not in the centre well
attackable, nor in the front at all, with that stiff ground, and
such redoubts and points of strength: but round on their right
yonder; take them in flank,--cannot we? On as far as Kyge, the
Three have ridden reconnoitring; and found no possibility upon the
front; nor at Kyge, where the front ends in batteries, pools and
quagmires, is there any. "Difficult, not undoable," persists the
King: "and it must be straightway set about and got done."
Winterfeld, always for action, is of that opinion, too: and,
examining farther down along their right flank, reports that there
the thing is feasible.
Feasible perhaps: "but straightway?" objects Schwerin. His men have
been on foot since midnight, and on forced marches for days past:
were it not better to rest for this one day? "Rest:--and Daun,
coming on with 30,000 of reinforcement to them, might arrive this
night? Never, my good Feldmarschall;"--and as the Feldmarschall was
a man of stiff notions, and had a tongue of some emphasis, the
Dialogue went on, probably with increasing emphasis on Friedrich's
side too, till old Schwerin, with a quite emphatic flash of
countenance, crushing the hat firm over his brow, exclaims: "Well,
your Majesty: the fresher fish the better fish (FRISCHE FISCHE,
GUTE FISCHE): straightway, then!" and springs off on the gallop
southward, he too, seeking some likely point of attack. He too,--
conjointly or not with Winterfeld, I do not know: Winterfeld
himself does not say; whose own modest words on the subject readers
shall see before we finish. But both are mentioned in the Books as
searching, at hand-gallop, in this way: and both, once well round
to south, by the Podschernitz ["Podschernitz" is pronounced
PotSHERnitz (should we happen to mentionn it again); "Kyge,"
KEEGA.] quarter, with the Austrian right flank full in view, were
agreed that here the thing was possible. "Infantry to push from
this quarter towards Sterbohol yonder, and then plunge into their
redoubts and them! Cavalry may sweep still farther southward, if
found convenient, and even take them in rear." Both agree that it
will do in this way: ground tolerably good, slightly downwards for
us, then slightly upwards again; tolerable for horse even:--the
intermediate lacing of dirty lakelets, the fish-ponds with their
sluices drawn, Schwerin and Winterfeld either did not notice at
all, or thought them insiginificant, interspersed with such
beautiful "pasture-ground,"--of unusual verdure at this early
season of the year.
The deployment, or "marching up (AUFMARSCHIREN)" of the Prussians
was wonderful; in their squadrons, in their battalions, horse,
foot, artillery, wheeling, closing, opening; strangely checkering a
country-side,--in movements intricate, chaotic to all but the
scientific eye. Conceive them, flowing along, from the Heights of
Chaber, behind Prossik Hamlet (right wing of infantry plants itself
at Prossik, horse westward of them); and ever onwards in broad
many-checkered tide-stream, eastward, eastward, then southward
("our artillery went through Podschernitz, the foot and horse a
little on this westward side of it"): intricate, many-glancing tide
of coming battle; which, swift, correct as clock-work, becomes two
lines, from Prossik to near Chwala ("baggage well behind at
Gbell"); thence round by Podschernitz quarter; and descends,
steady, swift, tornado-storm so beautifully hidden in it, towards
Sterbohol, there to grip to. Gradually, in stirring up those old
dead pedantic record-books, the fact rises on us: silent whirlwinds
of old Platt-Deutsch fire, beautifully held down, dwell in those
mute masses; better human stuff there is not than that old Teutsch
(Dutch, English, Platt-Deutsch and other varieties); and so
disciplined as here it never was before or since. "In an hour and
half," what military men may count almost incredible, they are
fairly on their ground, motionless the most of them by 9 A.M.;
the rest wheeling rightward, as they successively arrive in the
Chwala-Podschernitz localities; and, descending diligently,
Sterbohol way; and will be at their harvest-work anon.
Meanwhile the Austrians, seeing, to their astonishment, these
phenomena to the north, and that it is a quite serious thing, do
also rapidly bestir themselves; swarming like bees;--bringing in
their foraging Cavalry, "No time to change your jacket for a coat:"
rank, double-quick! Browne is on that right wing of theirs:
"Bring the left wing over hither," suggests Browne; "cavalry is
useless yonder, unless they had hippogriffs!"--and (again Browne
suggesting) the Austrians make a change in the position of their
right wing, both horse and foot: change which is of vital
importance, though unnoted in many Narratives of this Battle.
Seeing, namely, what the Prussians intend, they wheel their right
wing (say the last furlong or two of their long Line of Battle)
half round to right; so that the last furlong or two stands at
right angles ("EN POTENCE," gallows-wise, or joiner's-square-wise
to the rest); and, in this way, make front to the Prussian
onslaught,--front now, not flank, as the Prussians are
anticipating. This is an important wheel to right, and formation in
joiner's-square manner; and involves no end of interior wheeling,
marching and deploying; which Austrians cannot manage with Prussian
velocity. "Swift with it, here about Sterbohol at least, my men!
For here are the Prussians within wind of us!" urges Browne. And
here straightway the hurricane does break loose.
Winterfeld, the van of Schwerin's infantry (Schwerin's own
regiment, and some others, with him), is striding rapidly on
Sterbohol; Winterfeld catches it before Browne can. But near by,
behind that important post, on the Homely Hill (BERG or "Mountain,"
nothing like so high as Constitution Mountain), are cannon-
batteries of devouring quality; which awaken on Winterfeld, as he
rushes out double-quick on the advancing Austrians; and are fatal
to Winterfeld's attempt, and nearly to Winterfeld himself.
Winterfeld, heavily wounded, sank in swoon from his horse;
and awakening again in a pool of blood, found his men all off,
rushing back upon the main Schwerin body; "Austrian grenadiers
gazing on the thing, about eighty paces off, not venturing to
follow." Winterfeld, half dead, scrambled across to Schwerin, who
has now come up with the main body, his front line fronting the
Austrians here. And there ensued, about Sterbohol and neighborhood,
led on by Schwerin, such a death-wrestle as was seldom seen in the
Annals of War. Winterfeld's miss of Sterbohol was the beginning of
it: the exact course of sequel none can describe, though the end is
well known.
The Austrians now hold Sterbohol with firm grip, backed by those
batteries from Homoly Hill. Redoubts, cannon-batteries, as we said,
stud all the field; the Austrian stock of artillery is very great;
arrangement of it cunning, practice excellent; does honor to Prince
Lichtenstein, and indeed is the real force of the Austrians on this
occasion. Schwerin must have Sterbohol, in spite of batteries and
ranked Austrians, and Winterfeld's recoil tumbling round him:--and
rarely had the oldest veteran such a problem. Old Schwerin (fiery
as ever, at the age of 73) has been in many battles, from Blenheim
onwards; and now has got to his hottest and his last.
"Vanguard could not do it; main body, we hope, kindling all the
hotter, perhaps may!" A most willing mind is in these Prussians of
Schwerin's: fatigue of over-marching has tired the muscles of them;
but their hearts,--all witnesses say, these (and through these,
their very muscles, "always fresh again, after a few minutes of
breathing-time") were beyond comparison, this day!
Schwerin's Prussians, as they "march up" (that is, as they front
and advance upon the Austrians), are everywhere saluted by case-
shot, from Homoly Hill and the batteries northward of Homoly;
but march on, this main line of them, finely regardless of it or of
Winterfeld's disaster by it. The general Prussian Order this day
is: "By push of bayonet; no firing, none, at any rate, till you see
the whites of their eyes!" Swift, steady as on the parade-ground,
swiftly making up their gaps again, the Prussians advance, on these
terms; and are now near those "fine sleek pasture-grounds,
unusually green for the season." Figure the actual stepping upon
these "fine pasture-grounds:"--mud-tanks, verdant with mere
"bearding oat-crop" sown there as carp-provender! Figure the
sinking of whole regiments to the knee; to the middle, some of
them; the steady march become a wild sprawl through viscous mud,
mere case-shot singing round you, tearing you away at its ease!
Even on those terrible terms, the Prussians, by dams, by footpaths,
sometimes one man abreast, sprawl steadily forward, trailing their
cannon with them; only a few regiments, in the footpath parts,
cannot bring their cannon. Forward; rank again, when the ground
will carry; ever forward, the case-shot getting ever more
murderous! No human pen can describe the deadly chaos which ensued
in that quarter. Which lasted, in desperate fury, issue dubious,
for above three hours; and was the crisis, or essential agony, of
the Battle. Foot-chargings, (once the mud-transit was
accomplished), under storms of grape-shot from Homoly Hill; by and
by, Horse-chargings, Prussian against Austrian, southward of Homoly
and Sterbohol, still farther to the Prussian left; huge whirlpool
of tumultuous death-wrestle, every species of spasmodic effort, on
the one side and the other;--King himself present there, as I dimly
discover; Feldmarschall Browne eminent, in the last of his fields;
and, as the old NIEBELUNGEN has it, "a murder grim and great"
going on.
Schwerin's Prussians, in that preliminary struggle through the mud-
tanks (which Winterfeld, I think, had happened to skirt, and
avoid), were hard bested. This, so far as I can learn, was the
worst of the chaos, this preliminary part. Intolerable to human
nature, this, or nearly so; even to human nature of the Platt-
Teutsch type, improved by Prussian drill. Winterfeld's repulse we
saw; Schwerin's own Regiment in it. Various repulses, I perceive,
there were,--"fresh regiments from our Second Line" storming in
thereupon; till the poor repulsed people "took breath," repented,
"and themselves stormed in again," say the Books. Fearful tugging,
swagging and swaying is conceivable, in this Sterbohol problem!
And after long scanning, I rather judge it was in the wake of that
first repulse, and not of some other farther on, that the veteran
Schwerin himself got his death. No one times it for us; but the
fact is unforgettable; and in the dim whirl of sequences, dimly
places itself there. Very certain it is, "at sight of his own
regiment in retreat," Feldmarschall Schwerin seized the colors,--as
did other Generals, who are not named, that day. Seizes the colors,
fiery old man: "HERAN, MEINE KINDER (This way, my sons)!" and rides
ahead, along the straight dam again; his "sons" all turning, and
with hot repentance following. "On, my children, HERAN!" Five bits
of grape-shot, deadly each of them, at once hit the old man;
dead he sinks there on his flag; and will never fight more.
"HERAN!" storm the others with hot tears; Adjutant von Platen takes
the flag; Platen, too, is instantly shot; but another takes it.
"HERAN, On!" in wild storm of rage and grief:--in a word, they
manage to do the work at Sterbohol, they and the rest. First line,
Second line, Infantry, Cavalry (and even the very Horses, I
suppose), fighting inexpressibly; conquering one of the worst
problems ever seen in War. For the Austrians too, especially their
grenadiers there, stood to it toughly, and fought like men;--and
"every grenadier that survived of them," as I read afterwards, "got
double pay for life."
Done, that Sterbohol work;--those Foot-chargings, Horse-chargings;
that battery of Homoly Hill; and, hanging upon that, all manner of
redoubts and batteries to the rightward and rearward:--but how it
was done no pen can describe, nor any intellect in clear sequence
understand. An enormous MELEE there: new Prussian battalions
charging, and ever new, irrepressible by case-shot, as they
successively get up; Marshal Browne too sending for new battalions
at double-quick from his left, disputing stiffly every inch of his
ground. Till at length (hour not given), a cannon-shot tore away
his foot; and he had to be carried into Prag, mortally wounded.
Which probably was a most important circumstance, or the most
important of all.
Important too, I gradually see, was that of the Prussian Horse of
the Left Wing. Prussian Horse of the extreme left, as already
noticed, had, in the mean while, fallen in, well southward, round
by certain lakelets about Michelup, on Browne's extreme right;
furiously charging the Austrian Horse, which stood ranked there in
many lines; breaking it, then again half broken by it; but again
rallying, charging it a second time, then a third time, "both to
front and flank, amid whirlwinds of dust" (Ziethen busy there, not
to mention indignant Warnery and others);--and at length, driving
it wholly to the winds: "beyond Nussel, towards the Sazawa
Country;" never seen again that day. Prince Karl (after Browne's
death-wound, or before, I never know) came galloping to rally that
important Right Wing of horse. Prince Karl did his very utmost
there; obtesting, praying, raging, threatening:--but to no purpose;
the Zietheners and others so heavy on the rear of them:--and at
last there came a cramp, or intolerable twinge of spasm, through
Prince Karl's own person (breast or heart), like to take the life
of him: so that he too had to be carried into Prag to the doctors.
And his Cavalry fled at discretion; chased by Ziethen, on
Friedrich's express order, and sent quite over the horizon.
Enough, "by about half-past one," Sterbohol work is thoroughly
done: and the Austrian Battle, both its Commanders gone, has heeled
fairly downwards, and is in an ominous way.
The whole of this Austrian Right Wing, horse and foot, batteries
and redoubts, which was put EN POTENCE, or square-wise, to the main
battle, is become a ruin; gone to confusion; hovers in distracted
clouds, seeking roads to run away by, which it ultimately found.
Done all this surely was; and poor Browne, mortally wounded, is
being carried off the ground; but in what sequence done, under what
exact vicissitudes of aspect, special steps of cause and effect, no
man can say; and only imagination, guided by these few data, can
paint to itself. Such a chaotic whirlwind of blood, dust, mud,
artillery-thunder, sulphurous rage, and human death and victory,--
who shall pretend to describe it, or draw, except in the gross, the
scientific plan of it?
For, in the mean time,--I think while the dispute at Sterbohol, on
the extreme of the Austrian right wing "in joiner's-square form,"
was past the hottest (but nobody will give the hour),--there has
occurred another thing, much calculated to settle that.
And, indeed, to settle everything;--as it did. This was a volunteer
exploit, upon the very elbow or angle of said "joiner's-square;" in
the wet grounds between Hlaupetin and Kyge, a good way north of
Sterbohol. Volunteer exploit; on the part of General Mannstein, our
old Russian friend; which Friedrich, a long way off from it, blames
as a rash fault of Mannstein's, made good by Prince Henri and
Ferdinand of Brunswick running up to mend it; but which Winterfeld,
and subsequent good judges, admit to have been highly salutary, and
to have finished everything. It went, if I read right, somewhat
as follows.
In the Kyge-Hlaupetin quarter, at the corner of that Austrian right
wing EN POTENCE, there had, much contrary to Browne's intention, a
perceptible gap occurred; the corner is open there; nothing in it
but batteries and swamps. The Austrian right wing, wheeling
southward, there to form POTENCE; and scrambling and marching, then
and subsequently, through such ground at double-quick, had gone too
far (had thinned and lengthened itself, as is common, in such
scrambling, and double-quick movement, thinks Tempelhof), and left
a little gap at elbow; which always rather widened as the stress at
Sterbohol went on. Certain enough, a gap there is, covered only by
some half-moon battery in advance: into this, General Mannstein has
been looking wistfully a long time: "Austrian Line fallen out at
elbow yonder; clouted by some battery in advance?"--and at length
cannot help dashing loose on it with his Division. A man liable to
be rash, and always too impetuous in battle-time.
He would have fared ill, thinks Friedrich, had not Henri and
Ferdinand, in pain for Mannstein (some think, privately in
preconcert with him), hastened in to help; and done it altogether
in a shining way; surmounting perilous difficulties not a few.
Hard fighting in that corner, partly on the Sterbohol terms;
batteries, mud-tanks; chargings, rechargings: "Comrades, you have
got honor enough, KAMERADEN, IHR HABT EHRE GENUG [the second man of
you lying dead]; let us now try!" said a certain Regiment to a
certain other, in this business. [Archenholtz, i. 75; Tempelhof,
&c.] Prince Henri shone especially, the gallant little gentleman:
coming upon one of those mud-tanks with battery beyond, his men
were spreading file-wise, to cross it on the dams; "BURSCHE, this
way!" cried the Prince, and plunged in middle-deep, right upon the
battery; and over it, and victoriously took possession of it. In a
word, they all plunge forward, in a shining manner; rush on those
half-moon batteries, regardless of results; rush over them, seize
and secure them. Rush, in a word, fairly into that Austrian hole-
at-elbow, torrents more following them,--and irretrievably ruin
both fore-arm and shoulder-arm of the Austrians thereby.
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