The disaster of October 1st--for which they were trying to sing TE-DEUMS at Vienna--fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage at Pirna: "Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people, in their lines here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as Retzow has seldom heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires, starting out, artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high;and borne by the echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;--intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th stand to your tools, and it shall be done."Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse and foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the foot of Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and scouts; to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa, Kamnitz, Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau region, quite from the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn;an eligible Village, which is but seven miles or so from the Konigstein, with the chasmy country and the river intervening.
Monday, October llth, Browne will arrive at Lichtenhayn (sixty miles of circling march from Budin); privately post himself near Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying ahead of him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get yourselves across,--near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover of the Konigstein's cannon,--on the front or riverward side of those same Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can be Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets of Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your bridge and your building of it.
"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts resolute, with powder dry; there, about the eastern roots of the Lilienstein [beautiful Show Mountain, with stair-steps cut on it for Tourist people, by August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian battery and abatis which is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced for action, through that Monday night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein, at your beckoning, shall fire two cannon-shots; which shall mean, 'All ready here!'
Then forward, you, on those Prussian posts by the front; I will attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am told, they are but weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and dead-lift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only force them,--you are in the open field again; and you march away with me, colors flying; your hunger-cage and all your tribulations left behind you!"--This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,--what choice have they?--though the question of crossing and bridge-building has its intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the 11th" is a sore clause to them; for not only are there short and ever shorter rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with large strides. The "daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half that quantity; the "ounce or so of butcher's-meat once a week" has vanished, or become HORSE of extreme leanness. The cavalry horses have not tasted oats, nothing but hay or straw (not even water always); the artillery horses had to live by grazing, brown leaves their main diet latterly. Not horses any longer; but walking trestles, poor animals! And the men,--well, they are fallen pale;but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which they have in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all the cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about;no hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they hope, utter hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made.
[PRECIS DE LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 482-494).]
Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure.
Browne arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn, evening of the 11th;bivouacs, hidden in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather;stealthily reconnoitres the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims himself for assault, at sound of the two cannons to-morrow.