Friedrich gallops down, with his plan clear enough; and already the Austrians, horse and foot, are deploying upon those Heights he has quitted; Fifty Squadrons of Horse for left wing to them, and a battery of Twenty-eight big Guns is establishing itself where Friedrich's Piquet lately stood.
Friedrich's right flank has to become his front, and face those formidable Austrian Heights and Batteries; and this with more than Prussian velocity, and under the play of those twenty-eight big guns, throwing case-shot (GRENADES ROYALES) and so forth, all the while. To Valori, when he heard of the thing, it is inconceivable how mortal troops could accomplish such a movement;Friedrich himself praises it, as a thing honorably well done.
Took about half an hour; case-shot raining all the while;soldier honorably never-minding: no flurry, though a speed like that of spinning-tops. And here we at length are, Staudentz now to rear of us, behind our centre a good space; Burgersdorf in front of us to right, our left reaching to Prausnitz: Austrian lines, three deep of them, on the opposite Height; we one line only, which matches them in length.
They, that left wing of horse, should have thundered down on us, attacking us, not waiting our attack, thinks Friedrich; but they have not done it. They stand on their height there, will perhaps fire carbines, as their wont is. "You, Buddenbrock, go into them with your Cuirassiers!" Buddenbrock and the Cuirassiers, though it is uphill, go into them at a furious rate; meet no countercharge, mere sputter of carbines;--tumble them to mad wreck, back upon their second line, back upon their third: absurdly crowded there on their narrow height, no room to manoeuvre; so that they plunge, fifty squadrons of them, wholly into the Georgengrund rearward, into the Kingdom Wood, and never come on again at all.
Buddenbrock has done his job right well.
Seeing which, our Infantry of the right wing, which stood next to Buddenbrock, made impetuous charge uphill, emulous to capture that Battery of Twenty-eight; but found it, for some time, a terrible attempt. These Heights are not to be called "hills," still less "mountains" (as in some careless Books); but it is a stiff climb at double-quick, with twenty-eight big guns playing in the face of you. Storms of case-shot shear away this Infantry, are quenching its noble fury in despair; Infantry visibly recoiling, when our sole Three Regiments of Reserve hurry up to support. Round these all rallies; rushes desperately on, and takes the Battery,--of course, sending the Austrian left wing rapidly adrift, on loss of the same.
This, I consider, is the crisis of the Fight; the back of the Austrian enterprise is already broken, by this sad winging of it on the left. But it resists still; comes down again,--the reserve of their left wing seen rapidly making for Burgersdorf, intending an attack there; which we oppose with vigor, setting Burgersdorf on fire for temporary screen; and drive the Austrian reserve rapidly to rearward again. But there is rally after rally of them.
They rank again on every new height, and dispute there; loath to be driven into Kingdom Wood, after such a flourish of arms.
One height, "bushy steep height," the light-limbed valiant Prince, little Ferdinand of Brunswick, had the charge of attacking; and he did it with his usual impetus and irresistibility:--and, strangely enough, the defender of it chanced to be that Brother of his, Prince Ludwig, with whom he had the little Interview lately.
Prince Ludwig got a wound, as well as lost his height. The third Brother, poor Prince Albrecht, who is also here, as volunteer apprentice, on the Prussian side, gets killed. There will never be another Interview, for all three, between the Camps! Strange times for those poor Princes, who have to seek soldiering for their existence.
Meanwhile the Cavalry of Buddenbrock, that is to say of the right wing, having now no work in that quarter, is despatched to reinforce the left wing, which has stood hitherto apart on its own ground; not attacked or attacking,--a left wing REFUSED, as the soldiers style it. Reinforced by Buddenbrock, this left wing of horse does now also storm forward;--"near the Village of Prausnitz"(Prausnitz a little way to rear of it), thereabouts, is the scene of its feat. Feat done in such fashion that the Austrians opposite will not stand the charge at all; but gurgle about in a chaotic manner; then gallop fairly into Kingdom Wood, without stroke struck; and disappear, as their fellows had done. Whereupon the Prussian horse breaks in upon the adjoining Infantry of that flank (Austrian right flank, left bare in this manner); champs it also into chaotic whirlpools; cuts away an outskirt of near 2,000prisoners, and sets the rest running. This seems to have been pretty much the COUP-DE-GRACE of the Fight; and to have brought the Austrian dispute to finis. From the first, they had rallied on the heights; had struggled and disputed. Two general rallies they made, and various partial, but none had any success. They were driven on, bayonet in back, as the phrase is: with this sad slap on their right, added to that old one on their left, what can they now do but ebb rapidly; pour in cataracts into Kingdom Wood, and disappear there? [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 135-143;Stille, pp. 144-163; Orlich, ii. 227-243; Feldzuge, i. 357, 363, 374.]