He is now, therefore, over into that Triangular piece of Country between Elbe and Aupa (if readers will consult their Map); in that triangle, his subsequent notable operations all lie. He here proposes to move northward, by degrees,--through Trautenau, Schatzlar, and home; well eating this bit of Country too, the last uneaten bit, as he goes. This well eaten, there will be no harbor anywhere for Invasion, through the Winter coming. One of my old Notes says of it, in the topographic point of view:--"It is a triangular patch of Country, which has lain asleep since the Creation of the World; traversed only by Boii (BOI-HEIM-ERS, Bohemians), Czechs and other such populations, in Human History;but which Friedrich has been fated to make rather notable to the Moderns henceforth. Let me recommend it to the picturesque tourist, especially to the military one. Lovers of rocky precipices, quagmires, brawling torrents and the unadulterated ruggedness of Nature, will find scope there; and it was the scene of a distinguished passage of arms, with notable display of human dexterity and swift presence of mind. For the rest, one of the wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant regions in the world. Wild stony upland; topmost Upland, we may say, of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland;for the rainstorms hereabouts run several roads,--into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder, into the Black Sea by the Donau;--and it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeks-journeys, from many sides.
"Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest' (KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in area, the longer side of which lies along the Elbe.
A Country of rocky defiles; lowish hills chaotically shoved together, not wanting their brooks and quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood. Some poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are scattered about;there may be patches ploughable for rye [modern Tourist says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained;reminded me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine afternoon!]--ploughable for rye, buckwheat;boggy grass to be gathered in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable, among these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor ploughing, moiling creatures, they little thought of becoming notable so soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the least notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no more notice than if they also had been stocks and moss-grown stones. Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years past, in a dim manner;--and are much terrified to have become the seat of war, all on a sudden. Their poor Hamlets, Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz, Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them, languidly, the live-coal of mysterious human existence, in those woods,--to judge by the last maps that have come out. A thing worth considering by the passing tourist, military or other."It is in this Kingdom Forest (which he calls ROYAUME DE SILVA, instead of SYLVA DE ROYAUME) that Friedrich now nmrches;keeping the body of the Forest well on his left, and skirting the southern and eastern sides of it. Rough marching for his Majesty;painfully infested by Nadastian Tolpatches; who run out on him from ambushes, and need to be scourged; one ambush in particular, at a place called Liebenthal (second day's march, and near the end of it),-- where our Prussian Hussars, winding like fiery dragons on the dangerous precipices, gave them better than they brought, and completely quenched their appetite for that day. After Liebenthal, the march soon ends; three miles farther on, at the dim wold-hamlet of Staudentz: here a camp is pitched; here, till the Country is well eaten out, or till something else occur, we propose to tarry for a time.
Horse-forage abounds here; but there is no getting of it without disturbance from those dogs; you must fight for every truss of grass: if a meal-train is coming, as there does every five days, you have to detach 8,000 foot and 3,000 horse to help it safe in.
A fretting fatiguing time for regular troops. Our bakery is at Trautenau,--where Valori is now lodging. The Tolpatchery, unable to take Trautenau, set fire to it, though it is their own town, their own Queen's town; thatchy Trautenau, wooden too in the upper stories of it, takes greedily to the fire; goes all aloft in flame, and then lies black. A scandalous transaction, thinks Friedrich.
The Prussian corn lay nearly all in cellars; little got, even of the Prussians, by such an atrocity: and your own poor fellow-subjects, where are they? Valori was burnt out here; again exploded from his quarters, poor man;--seems to have thought it a mere fire in his own lodging, and that he was an unfortunate diplomatist.
Happily he got notice (PRIVATISSIME, for no officer dare whisper in such cases) that there is an armed party setting out for Silesia, to guard meal that is coming: Valori yokes himself to this armed party, and gets safe over the Hills with it,--then swift, by extra post, to Breslau and to civilized (partially civilized)accommodation, for a little rest after these hustlings and tossings.
Friedrich had lain at Staudentz, in this manner, bickering continually for his forage, and eating the Country, for about ten days: and now, as the latter process is well on, and the season drawing to a close: he determines on a shift northward.
Thursday, 30th September next, let there be one other grand forage, the final one in this eaten tract, then northward to fresh grounds.