Prince Karl's scheme was good, says Friedrich; but it was ill executed. He never should have let us form; his first grand fault was that he waited to be attacked, instead of attacking. Parts of his scheme were never executed at all. Duke d'Ahremberg, for instance, it is said, had so dim a notion of the ground, that he drew up some miles off, with his back to the Prussians. Such is the rumor,--perhaps only a rumor, in mockery of the hebetated old gentleman fallen unlucky? On the other hand, that Nadasti made a failure which proved important, is indubitable. Nadasti, with some thousands of Tolpatchery, was at Liebenthal, four miles to southeast of the action; Ruffian Trenck lay behind Eypel, perhaps as far to east, of it: Trenck and Nadasti were to rendezvous, to unite, and attack the Prussian Camp on its rear,--"Camp," so ran the order, for it was understood the Prussians would all be there, we others attacking it in front and both flanks;--which turned out otherwise, not for Nadasti alone!
Nadasti came to his rendezvous in time; Ruffian Trenck did not:
Nadasti grew tired of waiting for Trenck, and attacked the Camp by himself:--Camp, but not any men; Camp being now empty, and the men all fighting, ranked at right angles to it, furlongs and miles away. Nadasti made a rare hand of the Camp; plundered everything, took all the King's Camp-furniture, ready money, favorite dog Biche,--likewise poor Eichel his Secretary, who, however, tore the papers first. Tolpatchery exultingly gutted the Camp; and at last set fire to it,--burnt even some eight or ten poor Prussian sick, and also "some women whom they caught. We found the limbs of these poor men and women lying about," reports old General Lehwald;who knew about it. A doggery well worthy of the gallows, think Lehwald and I. "Could n't help it; ferocity of wild men," says Nadasti. "Well; but why not attack, then, with your ferocity?"Confused Court-martial put these questions, at Vienna subsequently;and Ruffian Trenck, some say, got injustice, Nadasti shuffling things upon him; for which one cares almost nothing. Lehwald, lying at Trautenau, had heard the firing at sunrise; and instantly marched to help: he only arrived to give Nadasti a slash or two, and was too late for the Fight. Oue Schlichtling, on guard with a weak party, saved what was in the right wing of the Camp,--small thanks to him, the Main Fight being so near: Friedrich's opinion is, an Officer, in Schlichtling's place, ought to have done more, and not have been so helpless.
This was the Battle of Sohr; so called because the Austrians had begun there, and the Prussians ended there. The Prussian pursuit drew bridle at that Village; unsafe to prosecute Austrians farther, now in the deeps of Kingdom Forest. The Battle has lasted five hours. It must be now getting towards noon; and time for breakfast, if indeed any were to be had; but that is next to impossible, Nadasti having been so busy. Not without extreme difficulty is a manchet of bread, with or without a drop of wine, procured for the King's Majesty this day. Many a tired hero will have nothing but tobacco, with spring-water, to fall back upon. Never mind! says the King, says everybody. After all, it is a cheap price to pay for missing an attack from Pandours in the rear, while such crisis went on ahead.
Lying COUSIN Trenck, of the Life-guard, who is now in Glatz, gives vivid eye-witness particulars of these things, time of the morning and so on; says expressly he was there, and what he did there, [Frederic Baron de Trenck, Memoires, traduits par lui-meme (Strasbnrg and Paris, 1789), i. 74-78, 79.]--though in Glatz under lock and key, three good months before. "How could Ihelp mistakes," said he afterwards, when people objected to this and that in his blusterous mendacity of a Book: "I had nothing but my poor agitated memory to trust to!" A man's memory, when it gets the length of remembering that he was in the Battle of Sohr while bodily absent, ought it not to--in fact, to strike work; to still its agitations altogether, and call halt? Trenck, some months after, got clambered out of Glatz, by sewers, or I forget how;and leaped, or dropped, from some parapet into the River Neisse,--sinking to the loins in tough mud, so that he could not stir MAP TO GO HERE----BOOK 15-- page 499----farther. "Fouquet let me stand there half a day, before he would pick me out again." Rigorous Bouquet, human mercy forbidding, could not let him stand there in permanence,--as we, better circumstanced, may with advantage try to do, in time coming!
Friedrich lay at Sohr five days; partly for the honor of the thing, partly to eat out the Country to perfection. Prince Karl, from Konigshof, soon fell back to Konigsgratz; and lay motionless there, nothing but his Tolpatcheries astir, Sohr Country all eaten, Friedrich, in the due Divisions, marched northward.
Through Trautenau, Schatzlar, his own Division, which was the main one;--and, fencing off the Tolpatches successfully with trouble, brings all his men into Silesia again. A good job of work behind them, surely! Cantons them to right and left of Landshut, about Rohnstock and Hohenfriedberg, hamlets known so well; and leaving the Young Dessauer to command, drives for Berlin (30th October),--rapidly, as his wont is. Prince Karl has split up his force at Konigsgratz; means, one cannot doubt, to go into winter-quarters.
If he think of invading, across that eaten Country and those bad Mountains,--well, our troops can all be got together in six hours' time.
At Trautenau, a week after Sohr, Friedrich had at last received the English ratification of that Convention of Hanover, signed 26th August, almost a month ago; not ratified till September 22d.
About which there had latterly been some anxiety, lest his Britannic Majesty himself might have broken off from it.