With Frederick the Great Part 45

"We may be sure that the king is pretty close at his heels," Fergus said. "I have no doubt that by tomorrow morning we shall have news of him, and I fancy that I shall not have far to ride to join him."

The opinion was justified. That evening Lacy joined the Confederate army, in their strong position behind the gap of Plauen. He had been hotly chased, indeed. Frederick had been manoeuvring to pa.s.s Daun and carry on a campaign in Silesia; but the Austrian general had been too cautious, and it was impossible to pa.s.s him without fighting; so on the night of the 8th he left Bautzen suddenly and silently, and marched all night, in hopes of catching Lacy at G.o.dau. The latter's Croats, however, brought him news in time, and he at once retreated.

After a short halt the Prussians pressed on for another eighteen miles, capturing some of Lacy's hussars, but failing to come up with his main body; which, marching all that day and the next night, arrived near Dresden on the morning of the 10th, Lacy himself reaching the town the evening before. By Thursday evening the whole of his army had crossed Dresden bridge and got in safely behind Plauen, leaving ten thousand men to aid the four thousand in the garrison.

At noon Fergus, hearing that, without doubt, the whole of the enemy had fallen back, started with Karl; and that evening rode into the royal camp, and reported himself to the king.

"I am glad to see you back, Drummond," Frederick said heartily. "I have sorely missed you; and indeed, when I rode away the accounts of you were so bad that I doubted whether you would ever be able to be with me again. You don't look quite yourself yet, but no doubt the air and exercise will soon bring you round. Have you any news?"

"Lacy has left ten thousand men in Dresden, sire, and with the rest of 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 western and southern sides of Dresden, and encamped at Gruna, a mile to the southeast of the city; and throughout the night laboured at getting up batteries. The division under Holstein was planted on an eminence on the other side of the river, across which a pontoon bridge was at once thrown. There was no fear of disturbance from Lacy, the united force of the enemy having retreated to the old Saxon camp at Pirna. The king, after seeing the batteries marked out, retired to bed early; and Fergus was able to ride round and pay a short visit to the count.

On the 14th the batteries opened fire--Maguire having refused the summons to surrender--and continued for four days without making much impression upon the walls, the heaviest guns being only twenty-five pounders.

On the 18th some heavy guns arrived from Magdeburg. The batteries were all ready for them, and as soon as they arrived they were set to work. Maguire burnt the suburbs outside the town, and answered the cannonade hotly.

Finding that the guns on the walls did but little damage to the Prussian batteries, Maguire mounted two or three guns on to the leads of the Protestant church, and from this commanding position he was able to throw shot right into them. The Prussian fire was at once concentrated on the church, which was speedily set on fire.

This spread through the surrounding streets, and a tremendous conflagration raged for the next forty-eight hours. But by this time Daun, who had lost some days before setting out in pursuit of Frederick, was within five miles of the town, had driven Holstein across the river, and was in communication with Maguire.

On the night of the 21st-22nd Maguire's garrison, led by General Nugent, sallied out from Dresden; while four thousand of Daun's men marched round from the north side. For a time the a.s.sault on the Prussian intrenchments was successful, although Nugent was, on his first attack, repulsed and taken prisoner. But when Daun's people arrived the regiments defending the trenches were driven out. Then fresh battalions came up and drove the Austrians out, taking many prisoners.

Daun remained pa.s.sive for some days after this, and Frederick continued to cannonade the city until the 29th; making, however, his preparations for departure, and going off unmolested by the enemy towards Meissen. The news reached him that Glatz, one of the barrier fortresses of Silesia, had been taken by Loudon, and that the latter was besieging Breslau.

Daun had guessed the way by which Frederick would retire, and had broken up the roads and bridges, and felled trees in the forests so as to render them impa.s.sable; and as soon as Frederick started he moved in the same direction, his position so serving him that, marching by a road parallel to that taken by the king, he was ahead of him. Lacy had been warned to be prepared, and he too started with his army, so that the three forces moved eastward at a comparatively short distance apart.

Although hampered by the obstacles in their way, and by a train of two thousand wagons, the Prussians moved rapidly and covered a hundred miles in five days. Daun made what was, for him, prodigious efforts 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 Katzbach valley, only to find that Daun was securely posted on the other side of the river, and Lacy on the hills a few miles off. The next morning Frederick marched down the bank of the Katzbach to Liegnitz, Daun keeping parallel with him on the other side of the river.

Knowing that Daun had been joined during the night by Loudon, and that they were vastly too strong to be attacked, Frederick started at eleven at night, and at daybreak was back on his old camping ground. He crossed the river, hoping to be able to fall upon Lacy; but the latter had moved off, and Frederick, pressing on, would have got fairly ahead of his enemies if it had not been for the heavy baggage train, which delayed him for five hours; and by the time it came up he found that Lacy, Daun, and Loudon were all round him again.

The situation seemed desperate. The army had but four days'

provisions left, and a scout sent out on the 12th reported that the roads over the hills were absolutely impa.s.sable for baggage. At eight o'clock the army set out again, recrossed the Katzbach, and again made for Liegnitz, which they reached after a sixteen hours'

march. Here the king halted for thirty hours, and his three enemies gathered round him again.

They were ninety thousand strong, while he was but thirty. Daun made elaborate reconnaissances, and Frederick had no doubt that he would be attacked, that night or early the next morning. After dark the army marched quietly away, and took up its position on the heights of Torberger, its fires being left burning brightly, with two drummers to beat occasionally.

Daun's and Lacy's fires were clearly visible; but they, like his own, were deserted, both having marched to catch him, as they hoped, asleep at Liegnitz; but it chanced that Loudon had been ordered to take post just where Frederick had halted, and his troops came suddenly upon the Prussians in the dark.

A battalion was despatched at once, with some cannon, to seize the crest of the Wolfberg. Loudon, whose work was to prevent Frederick from flying eastward, had hurried forward; his scouts having informed him that a number of the Prussian baggage waggons were pa.s.sing, and hoped to effect a capture of them; and he was vastly surprised when, instead of finding the baggage guard before him, he was received with a tremendous musketry fire and volleys of case shot.

He at once rallied his troops and, with five battalions in front, dashed forward. He was repulsed, but returned to the attack three times. He kept edging round towards the right, to take Frederick in flank; but the Prussians also s.h.i.+fted their ground, and met him.

The Austrian cavalry poured down again and again, and fresh battalions of infantry were continually brought up.

At last Loudon felt that the contest was hopeless, and fell back across the Katzbach. The Prussians captured six thousand of his men before they could get across the river, four thousand were killed and wounded, and eighty-two cannons captured. Thus his army of thirty-five thousand strong had been wrecked by the Prussian left wing, numbering fifteen thousand; the rest of the Prussian forces, under Ziethen, keeping guard lest Daun and Lacy should come on to aid him. Daun, however, was miles away, intent upon catching Frederick; and did not know until morning that his camp had been deserted, and Loudon beaten.

As soon as he was a.s.sured of this, he poured his cavalry across the river, 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 five thousand muskets lying on the field and, with the six thousand prisoners, his wounded, and newly-captured cannon, marched away at nine 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 instructions to let himself be taken by the Russians. The slip of paper he carried contained the words:

"Austrians totally beaten this day. Now for the Russians, dear brother, and swift. Do what we have agreed upon."

The ruse had its effect. The Russian general, believing that Frederick and Prince Henry were both about to fall upon him, retreated at once, burning the bridge behind him; and the king pushed on to Breslau, which he reached on the 16th; having, thanks to 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 distance from Breslau, waiting to see what Daun and Soltikoff intended to do. Daun was busy urging the Russians to come on. Soltikoff was sulky that Daun had failed in all his endeavours, and that the brunt of the affair was likely, again, to fall on him and his Russians.

Elsewhere things had gone more favourably for the king. Ferdinand of Brunswick had now twenty thousand British with him, and fifty thousand Hanoverians and Brunswickers; while the French army under Broglio was one hundred and thirty thousand strong. A check was first inflicted on the French at Korbach and, a few days later, an English cavalry regiment and a battalion of Scotch infantry cut up or captured a brigade of French dragoons.

On the 29th of July, as Frederick was leaving Dresden, a serious engagement took place at Warburg. Here Broglio's rear guard of thirty thousand infantry and cavalry, under the Chevalier du Muy, were attacked; in the first place by a free corps called the British Legion, composed of men of many nationalities, who turned Du Muy's right wing out of Warburg. Then the Prince of Brunswick fell upon the whole French line, and the fight was a stubborn one for two or three hours, Maxwell's British brigade fighting most obstinately. They were greatly outnumbered, but were presently joined by Lord Granby, at the head of the English cavalry, and these decided the battle.

The French lost fifteen hundred killed, over two thousand prisoners, and their guns; the allies twelve hundred killed and wounded, of whom eight hundred were British, showing how large a share they had taken in the fighting.

Another good bit of news for Frederick was that Hulsen, whom he had left to watch the enemy in Saxony, had, with ten thousand men, defeated an army thirty thousand strong; who, as they thought, had caught him in a net. The Russians had fallen back, but only to besiege Colbert again.

Prince Henry was ill, but Frederick had made a junction with his army, bringing his force up to fifty thousand. During the whole of September there were marches and counter-marches, Frederick pus.h.i.+ng Daun backwards, and preventing him from besieging any of his fortresses, and gradually cutting the Austrians from their magazines.

General Werner on the 18th, with five thousand men, fell suddenly upon fifteen thousand Russians covering the siege of Colbert, defeated, and scattered them in all directions. The Russian army at once marched away from Colbert; not however, as Frederick hoped, back to Poland but, in agreement with Daun, to make a rush on Berlin.

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 Silesia. On the 3rd of October the Russian vanguard reached the neighbourhood of Berlin, and summoned it to surrender, and pay a ransom of four million thalers. The garrison of twelve hundred strong, joined by no small part of the male population, took post at the gates and threw up redoubts; and Prince Eugene of Wuertemberg, after a tremendous march of forty miles, threw himself into the city.

The Russian vanguard drew off, until joined by Lacy. Hulsen, with nine thousand, had followed Lacy with all speed; and managed to throw himself into Berlin before the twenty thousand Russians arrived. 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 the Russian general Tottleben, and Berlin agreed to pay one million and a half thalers, in the debased coin that now served as the medium of circulation. Lacy was furious and, when he and the Russians marched in, his men behaved so badly that the Russians had, two or three times, to fire upon them. Saxon and Austrian parties sacked Potsdam and other palaces in the neighbourhood, but the Russians behaved 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; while Tottleben and the Russians made for Frankfort-on-Oder, the Cossacks committing terrible depredations on the march.

The king halted when he heard that Berlin had been evacuated. He was deeply grieved and mortified that his capital should have been in the hands of the invaders, even for three days; and his own loss, from the sacking of Potsdam and other palaces, was very heavy. However, he paid the ransom from his own pocket, and bitterly determined to get even with the enemy, before winter came on.

While Hulsen was away, the Confederate army had captured all the strongholds in Saxony. Daun had, as usual, advanced with his sixty thousand men, and intended to winter in Saxony; but before he could get there, Frederick had dashed south and recaptured Wittenberg and Leipzig, crossed the Elbe, and driven the scattered corps of the Confederate army before him. Prince Eugene had also hurried that way, and defeated his brother, the reigning Duke of Wuertemberg.

Daun moved with the intention of aiding the Confederate army, but before he could reach them Hulsen had driven them across the mountain range into Bohemia, and fell back towards Torgau.

Long before this Fergus had received a reply, from his mother, to his letter announcing the glad news of the restoration of the estate:

"It will be doubly dear to me," she said, "as having been won back by your own exertions and bravery. These four years have been an anxious time, indeed, for me, Fergus; but the thought that you are restored to your own, as the result of what you have done, makes up for it all. I quite see that as long as the war continues you cannot, with honour, leave the king; but I cannot think that this war will go on very much longer, and I can wait patiently for the end.

"And, Fergus, I am not quite sure that the end will be that you will quietly settle down in the glens. A mother's eye is sharp, and it seems to me that that young countess near Dresden is a very conspicuous figure in your letters. During the four years that you have been out, you have not mentioned the name of any lady but her and her mother; and you always speak of going back there, as if it were your German home. That is natural enough, after the service that you have rendered them. Still, 'tis strange that you should apparently have made the acquaintance of no other ladies. I don't think that you have written a single letter, since you have been away, in which you have not said something about this Saxon count and his family.

"However, even if it should be so, Fergus, I should not be discontented. It is only natural that you should sooner or later marry; and although I would rather that it had been into a Scotch family, it is for you to choose, not me. I am grateful already, very grateful for the kindness the family have shown you; and am quite inclined to love this pretty young countess, if she, on her part, is inclined to love you. I don't think I could have said so quite as heartily, before I received your last letter; for I had a great fear that you might marry and settle down, altogether, in Germany; but now that the estate is yours, and you are the head of your clan, I feel sure that you will, at any rate, spend a part of your time among your own people."

A second letter reached Fergus at the beginning of October; in answer to his from the camp in front of Dresden, in the middle of July, which had been delayed much on its way, owing to the rapid marches of the army, until it had shaken itself free from its pursuers after the battle of Liegnitz. It began: