Friedrich marched, on the morrow, likewise to Bolkenhayn; which the enemy have just left; our hussars hanging on their rear, and bickering with Nadasti. Then again on the morrow, Sunday,--"twelve hours of continuous rain," writes Valori; but there is no down-pour, or distress, or disturbance that will shake these men from their ranks, writes Valori. And so it goes on, march after march, the Austrians ahead, Dumoulin and our hussars infesting their rear, which skilfully defended itself: through Landshut down into Bohemia; where are new successive marches, the Prussian quarterstaff stuck into the back of defeated Austria, "Home with you; farther home!"--and shogging it on,--without pause, for about a fortnight to come. And then only with temporary pause; that is to say, with intricate manoeuvrings of a month long, which shove it to Konigsgratz, its ultimatum, beyond which there is no getting it.
The stages and successive campings, to be found punctually in the old Books and new, can interest only military readers. Here is a small theological thing at Landshut, from first hand:--JUNE 8th, 1745. "The Army followed Dumoulin's Corps, and marched upon Landshut. On arriving in that neighborhood, the King was surrounded by a troop of 2,000 Peasants,"--of Protestant persuasion very evidently! (which is much the prevailing thereabouts),--"who begged permission of him 'to massacre the Catholics of these parts, and clear the country of them altogether.' This animosity arose from the persecutions which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination, when their churches used to be taken from them and given to the Popish priests,"--churches and almost their children, such was the anxiety to make them orthodox. The patience of these peasants had run over; and now, in the hour of hope, they proposed the above sweeping measure. "The King was very far from granting them so barbarous a permission. He told them, 'They ought rather to conform to the Scripture precept, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that despitefully used them;such was the way to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.' The peasants,"rolling dubious eyes for a moment, "answered, His Majesty was right; and desisted from their cruel pretension." [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii.218.] ...--"On Hohenfriedberg Day,"says another Witness, "as far as the sound of the cannon was heard, all round, the Protestants fell on their knees, praying for victory to the Prussians;" [In Ranke, iii. 259.] and at Breslau that evening, when the "Thirteen trumpeting Postilions" came tearing in with the news, what an enthusiasm without limit!
Prince Karl has skill in choosing camps and positions:
his Austrians are much cowed; that is the grievous loss in his late fight. So, from June 8th, when they quit Silesia,--by two roads to go more readily,--all through that month and the next, Friedrich spread to the due width, duly pricking into the rear of them, drives the beaten hosts onward and onward. They do not think of fighting; their one thought is to get into positions where they can have living conveyed to them, and cannot be attacked; for the former of which objects, the farther homewards they go, it is the better. The main pursuit, as I gather, goes leftward from Landshut, by Friedland,--the Silesian Friedland, once Wallenstein's.
Through rough wild country, the southern slope of the Giant Mountains, goes that slow pursuit, or the main stream of it, where Friedrich in person is; intricate savage regions, cut by precipitous rocks and soaking quagmires, shaggy with woods:
watershed between the Upper Elbe and Middle Oder; Glatz on our left,--with the rain of its mountains gathering to a Neisse River, eastward, which we know; and on their west or hither side, to a Mietau, Adler, Aupa and other many-branched feeders of the Elbe.
Most complex military ground, the manoeuvrings on it endless,--which must be left to the reader's fancy here.
About the end of June, Karl and his Austrians find a place suitable to their objects: Konigsgratz, a compact little Town, in the nook between the Elbe and Adler; covered to west and to south by these two streams; strong enough to east withal; and sure and convenient to the southern roads and victual. Against which Friedrich's manoeuvres avail nothing; so that he at last (20th July) crosses Elbe River; takes, he likewise, an inexpugnable Camp on the opposite shore, at a Village called Chlum; and lies there, making a mutual dead-lock of it, for six weeks or more. Of the prior Camps, with their abundance of strategic shufflings, wheelings, pushings, all issuing in this of Chlum, we say nothing: none of them,--except the immediately preceding one, called of Nahorzan, called also of Drewitz (for it was in parts a shifting entity, and flung the LIMBS of it about, strategically clutching at Konigsgratz),--had any permanency: let us take Chlum (the longest, and essentially the last in those parts) as the general summary of them, and alone rememberable by us. ["Camp of Gross-Parzitz [across the Mietau, to dislodge Prince Karl from his shelter behind that stream], June 14th:" "Camp of Nahorzan, June 18th [and abstruse manoeuvrings, of a month, for Konigsgratz]: 20th July," cross Elbe for Chlum;and lie, yourself also inexpugnable, there. See OEuvres de Frederic, (iii. 120 et seq.); especially see Orlich (ii. pp. 193, 194, 203, &c. &c.),--with an amplitude of inorganic details, sufficient to astonish the robustest memory!]
Friedrich's purposes, at Chlum or previously, are not towards conquests in Bohemia, nor of fighting farther, if he can help it.
But, in the mean while, he is eating out these Bohemian vicinages;no invasion of Silesia possible from that quarter soon again.
That is one benefit: and he hopes always his enemies, under screw of military pressure with the one hand, and offer of the olive-branch with the other, will be induced to grant him Peace.