4. DAUPHINESS AFTER ROSSBACH. "Excise-Inspector Neitsche, at Bebra, near Weissenfels [Bebra is well ahead from Freiburg and the burnt Bridge, and a good twenty-five miles west of Weissenfels], writes To the King of Poland's Majesty, 9th NOVEMBER, 1757:--"May it please your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency, out of your highest grace, to take knowledge, from the accompanying Registers SUB SIGNO MARTIS [sign unknown to readers here], of the things which, in the name of this Township of Bebra, the Burgermeister Johann Adam, with the Raths and others concerned, have laid before the Excise-Inspection here. As follows:--"It will be already well known to the Excise-Inspection that on the 7th of November (A. C.) of the current year [day before yesterday, in fact!], the French Army so handled this place as to have not only taken from the inhabitants, by open force, all bread and articles of food, but likewise all clothes, beds, linens (WASCHE), and other portable goods; that it has broken, split to pieces, and emptied out, all chests, boxes, presses, drawers; has shot dead, in the backyards and on the thatch-roofs, all manner of feathered-stock, as hens, geese, pigeons; also carried forth with it all swine, cow, sheep and horse cattle; laid violent hands on the inhabitants, clapped guns, swords, pistols to their breast, and threatened to kill them unless they showed and brought out whatever goods they had; or else has hunted them wholly out of their houses, shooting at them, cutting, sticking and at last driving them away, thereby to have the freer room to rob and plunder: flung out hay and other harvest-stock from the barns into the mud and dung, and had it trampled to ruin under the horses, feet; nay, in fact, has dealt with this place in so unpermitted a way as even to the most hard-hearted man must seem compassionable."--Poor fellows: CETERADESUNT; but that is enough! What can a Polish Majesty and Electoral Translucency do? Here too is a sorrowful howling to the Moon.
[ Helden-Geschichte, iv. 692.]
... "For a hundred miles round," writes St. Germain, "the Country is plundered and harried as if fire from Heaven had fallen on it;scarcely have our plunderers and marauders left the houses standing. ... I lead a band of robbers, of assassins, fit for breaking on the wheel; they would turn tail at the first gunshot, and are always ready to mutiny. If the Government (LA COUR," with its Pompadour presiding, very unlikely for such an enterprise!)"cannot lay the knife to the root of all this, we may give up the notion of War." [St. Germain, after Rossbach and before (in Preuss, UBI SUPRA).] ...
Such a pitch have French Armies sunk to. When was there seen such a Bellona as Dauphiness before? Nay, in fact, she is the same devil-serving Army that Marechal de Saxe commanded with such triumph,--Marechal de Saxe in better luck for opponents; Army then in a younger stage of its development. Foaming then as sweet must, as new wine, in the hands of a skilful vintner, poisonous but brisk;not run, as now, to the vinegar state, intolerable to all mortals.
She can now announce from her camp-theatres the reverse of the Roucoux program, "To-morrow, Messieurs, you are going to fight;our Manager foresees"--you will be beaten; and we cannot say what or where the next Piece will be! Impious, licentious, high-flaring efflorescence of all the Vices is not to be redeemed by the one Quasi-Virtue of readiness to be shot;--sweet of that kind, and sour of this, are the same substance, if you only wait. How kind was the Devil to his Saxe; and flew away with him in rose-pink, while it was still time!
Chapter IX.
FRIEDRICH MARCHES FOR SILESIA.
The fame of Friedrich is high enough again in the Gazetteer world;all people, and the French themselves, laughing at their grandiloquent Dauphiness-Bellona, and writing epigrams on Soubise.
But Friedrich's difficulties are still enormous. One enemy coming with open mouth, you plunge in upon, and ruin, on this hand; and it only gives you room to attempt upon another bigger one on that.
Soubise he has finished handsomely, for this season; but now he must try conclusions with Prince Karl. Quick, towards Silesia, after this glorious Victory which the Gazetteers are celebrating.
The news out of Silesia are ominously doubtful, bad at the best.
Duke Bevern, once Winterfeld was gone, had, as we observed, felt himself free to act; unchecked, but also unsupported, by counsel of the due heroism; and had acted unwisely. Made direct for Silesia, namely, where are meal-magazines and strong places. Prince Karl, they say, was also unwise; took no thought beforehand, or he might have gained marches, disputed rivers, Bober, Queiss, with Bevern, and as good as hindered him from ever getting to Silesia. So say critics, Retzow and others; perhaps looking too fixedly on one side of the question. Certain it is, Bevern marched in peace to Silesia;found it by no means the better place it had promised to be.
Prince Karl--Daun there as second, but Karl now the dominant hand--was on the heels of Bevern, march after march. Prince Karl cut athwart him by one cunning march, in Liegnitz Country; barring him from Schweidnitz, the chief stronghold of Silesia, and to appearance from Breslau, the chief city, too. Bevern, who did not want for soldiership, when reduced to his shifts, now made a beautiful manoeuvre, say the critics; struck out leftwards, namely, and crossed the Oder, as if making for Glogau, quite beyond Prince Karl's sphere of possibility,--but turned to right, not to left, when across, and got in upon Breslau from the other or east side of the River. Cunning manoeuvre, if you will, and followed by cunning manoeuvres: but the result is, Prince Karl has got Schweidnitz to rear, stands between Breslau and it; can besiege Schweidnitz when he likes, and no relief to it possible that will not cost a battle.