The Prussian loss was, 165 killed, 376 wounded;--between a sixteenth and a fifteenth part of theirs: in number the Prussians had been little more than one to three; 22,000 of all arms,--not above half of whom ever came into the fire; Seidlitz and seven battalions doing all the fighting that was needed, St. Germain tried to cover the retreat; but "got broken," he says,--Mayer bursting in on him,--and soon went to slush like the others.
Seldom, almost never, not even at Crecy or Poictiers, was any Army better beaten. And truly, we must say, seldom did any better deserve it, so far as the Chief Parties went. Yes, Messieurs, this is the PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG; you will know this one, when you meet him again! The flight, the French part of it, was towards Freiburg Bridge; in full gallop, long after the chase had ceased;crossing of the Unstrut there, hoarse, many-voiced, all night;burning of the Bridge; found burnt, when Friedrich arrived next morning. He had encamped at Obschutz, short way from the field itself. French Army, Reichs Army, all was gone to staves, to utter chaotic wreck. Hildburghausen went by Naumburg; crossed the Saale there; bent homewards through the Weimar Country; one wild flood of ruin, swift as it could go; at Erfurt "only one regiment was in rank, and marched through with drums beating." His Army, which had been disgustingly unhappy from the first, and was now fallen fluid on these mad terms, flowed all away in different rills, each by the course straightest home; and Hildburghausen arriving at Bamberg, with hardly the ghost or mutilated skeleton of an Army, flung down his truncheon,--"A murrain on your Reichs Armies and regimental chaoses!"--and went indignantly home. Reichs Army had to begin at the beginning again; and did not reappear on the scene till late next Year, under a new Commander, and with slightly improved conditions.
Dauphiness Proper was in no better case; and would have flowed home in like manner, had not home been so far, and the way unknown.
Twelve thousand of them rushed straggling through the Eichsfeld;plundering and harrying, like Cossacks or Calmucks: "Army blown asunder, over a circle of forty miles' radius," writes St. Germain:
"had the Enemy pursued us, after I got broken [burst in upon by Mayer and his Free-Corps people] we had been annihilated.
Never did Army behave worse; the first cannon-salvo decided our rout and our shame." [St. Germain to Verney: different Excerpts of Letters in the two weeks after Rossbach and before (given in Preuss, ii. 97).]
In two days' time (November 7th), the French had got to Langensalza, fifty-five miles from the Battle-field of Rossbach;plundering, running, SACRE-DIEU-ing; a wild deluge of molten wreck, filling the Eichsfeld with its waste noises, making night hideous and day too;--in the villages Placards were stuck up, appointing Nordhausen and Heiligenstadt for rallying place. [Muller, p. 73.]
Soubise rode, with few attendants, all night towards Nordhausen,--eighty miles off, foot of the Bracken Country, where the Richelieu resources are;--Soubise with few attendants, face set towards the Brocken; himself, it is like, in a somewhat hag-ridden condition.
"The joy of poor Teutschland at large," says one of my Notes, "and how all Germans, Prussian and Anti-Prussian alike, flung up their caps, with unanimous LEBE-HOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see.
The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though the least braggart, very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them);so long insulted, snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a braver:--has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs of the interior,--let no man ask whitherward! 'SI UN ALLEMAND PEUTAVOIR DE L'ESPRIT (Can a German possibly have sharpness of wits)?'
Well, yes, it would seem: here is one German graduate who understands his medicine-chest, and the quality of patients!--Dauphiness got no pity anywhere; plenty of epigrams, and mostly nothing but laughter even in Paris itself. Napoleon long after, who much admires Friedrich, finds that this Victory of Rossbach was inevitable; 'but what fills me with astonishment and shame,' adds he, 'is that it was gained by six battalions and thirty squadrons [seven properly, and thirty-eight] over such a multitude!'
[Montholon, MEMOIRES &C. DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon's Precis des Guerres de Frrederic II., vii. 210).]--It is well known, Napoleon, after Jena, as if Jena had not been enough for him, tore down the first Monument of Rossbach, some poor ashlar Pyramid or Pillar, raised by the neighborhood, with nothing more afflictive inscribed on it than a date; and sent it off in carts for Paris (where no stone of it ever arrived, the Thuringen carmen slinking off, and leaving it scattered in different places over the face of Thuringen in general); so that they had the trouble of a new one lately." [Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i.
299; ib. p. 385, Lithograph of the poor extinct Monument itself.]
From Friedrich the "Army of the Circles," that is, Dauphiness and Company,--called HOOPERS or "Coopers" (TONNELIERS), with a desperate attempt at wit by pun,--get their Adieu in words withal.
This is the famed CONGE DE L'ARMEE DES CERCLES ET DES TONNELIERS;a short metrical Piece; called by Editors the most profane, most indecent, most &c.; and printed with asterisk veils thrown over the worst passages. Who shall dare, searching and rummaging for insight into Friedrich, and complaining that there is none, to lift any portion of the veil; and say, "See--Faugh!" The cynicism, truly, but also the irrepressible honest exultation, has a kind of epic completeness, and fulness of sincerity; and, at bottom, the thing is nothing like so wicked as careless commentators have given out.
Dare to look a little: -