One Wedell, Wedell and Ziethen, who keep watch in this part, start instantly at sound of these shots; and make a dreadful day of it for these invasive Saxon and Austrian multitudes. Naturally, too, they send off scouts, galloping for more help, to the right and to the left. But that avails not. Wild doggery of Pandours, it would seem, have already swum or waded the River, above Teinitz and below:--"Want of vigilance!" barks Friedrich impatiently: but such a doggery is difficult to watch with effect. At any rate, to the right and to the left, the woods are already beset with Pandours;every scout sent out is killed: and to east or to west there comes no news but an echoing of musketry, a boom of distant cannon.
[Orlich, ii. 82-85.] Saxon-Austrian battalions, four or five, with unlimited artillery going, VERSUS Wedell's one battalion, with musketry and Ziethen's hussars: it is fearful odds. The Prussians stand to it like heroes; doggedly, for four hours, continue the dispute,--till it is fairly desperate; "two bridges of the enemy's now finished;"--whereupon they manoeuvre off, with Parthian or Prussian countenance, into the woods, safe, towards Kolin;"despatching definite news to Friedrich, which does arrive about 11 A.M., and sets him at once on new measures."This is a great feat in the Prussian military annals; for which, sad as the news was, Wedell got the name of Leonidas attached to him by Friedrich himself. And indeed it is a gallant passage of war; "Forcing of the Elbe at Teinitz;" of which I could give two Narratives, one from the Prussian, and one from the Saxon side;[Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 595-598;
Helden-Geschichte, ii. 1175-1181.] didactic, admonitory to the military mind, nay to the civic reader that has sympathy with heroisms, with work done manfully, and terror and danger and difficulty well trampled under foot. Leonidas Wedell has an admirable silence, too; and Ziethen's lazily hanging under-lip is in its old attitude again, now that the spasm is over. "WASTHUTS? They are across, without a doubt. We would have helped it, and could not. Steady!"--FRIEDRICH'S RETREAT; ESPECIALLY EINSIEDEL'S FROM PRAG.
Seeing, then, that they are fairly over, Friedrich, with a creditable veracity of mind, sees also that the game is done;and that same night he begins manoeuvring towards Silesia, lest far more be lost by continuing the play. One column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes through Glatz, takes the Magazine of Pardubitz along with it: good to go in several columns, the enemy will less know which to chase. Friedrich, with another column, will wait for Nassau about Konigsgratz, then go by the more westerly road, through Nachod and the Pass of Braunau. Nassau, who is to get across from Kolin, and join us northwards, has due rendezvous appointed him in the Konigsgratz region. Einsiedel, in Prag, is to spike his guns, since he cannot carry them; blow up his bastions, and the like; and get away with all discretion and all diligence,--northwestward first, to Leitmeritz, where our magazines are;there to leave his heavier goods, and make eastward towards Friedland, and across the "Silesian Combs" by what Passes he can.
Will have a difficult operation; but must stand to it. And speed;steady, simultaneous, regular, unresting velocity; that is the word for all. And so it is done,--though with difficulty, on the part of poor Einsiedel for one. It was Thursday, 19th November, when the Austrians got across the Elbe: on Monday, 23d, the Prussian rendezvousings are completed; and Friedrich's column, and the Glatz one under Leopold, are both on march; infinite baggage-wagons groaning orderly along ("sick-wagons well ahead," and the like precautions and arrangements), on both these highways for Silesia:
and before the week ends, Thursday, 26th, even Einsiedel is under way. Let us give something of poor Einsiedel, whose disasters made considerable noise in the world, that Winter and afterwards.
"The two main columns were not much molested; that which went by Glatz, under Leopold, was not pursued at all. On the rear of Friedrich's own column, going towards Braunau, all the way to Nachod or beyond, there hung the usual doggery of Pandours, which required whipping off from time to time; bnt in the defiles and difficult places due precaution was taken, and they did little real damage. Truchsess von Waldburg [our old friend of the Spartan feat near Austerlitz in the MORAVIAN-FORAY time, whom we have known in London society as Prussian Envoy in bygone years] was in one of the divisions of this column; and one day, at a village where there was a little river to cross (river Mietau, Konigsgratz branch of the Elbe), got provoked injudiciously into fighting with a body of these people. Intent not on whipping them merely, but on whipping them to death, Truchsess had already lost some forty men, and the business with such crowds of them was getting hot; when, all at once a loud squeaking of pigs was heard in the village,"--apprehensive swineherd hastily penning his pigs belike, and some pig refractory;--"at sound of which, the Pandour multitude suddenly pauses, quits fighting, and, struck by a new enthusiasm, rushes wholly into the village; leaving Truchsess, in a tragi-comic humor, victorious, but half ashamed of himself. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 73.] In the beginning of December, Friedrich's column reached home, by Braunau through the Mountains, the same way part of it had come in August; not quite so brilliant in equipment now as then.