_ BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741-July, 1742
CHAPTER XIII. BATTLE OF CHOTUSITZ
Kuttenberg, Czaslau, Chotusitz and all these other places lie in what is called the Valley of the Elbe, but what to the eye has not the least appearance of a hollow, but of an extensive plain rather, dimpled here and there; and, if anything, rather sloping FROM the Elbe,--were it not that dull bushless brooks, one or two, sauntering to NORTHward, not southward, warn you of the contrary. Conceive a flat tract of this kind, some three or four miles square, with Czaslau on its southern border, Chotusitz on its northern; flanked, on the west, by a straggle of Lakelets, ponds and quagmires (which in our time are drained away, all but a tenth part or so of remainder); flanked, on the east, by a considerable puddle of a Stream called the Dobrowa; and cut in the middle by a nameless poor Brook ("BRTLINKA" some write it, if anybody could pronounce), running parallel and independent,--which latter, of more concernment to us here, springs beyond Czaslau, and is got to be of some size, and more intricate than usual, with "islands" and the like, as it passes Chotusitz (a little to east of Chotusitz);--this is our Field of Battle. Sixty or more miles to eastward of Prag, eight miles or more to southward of Elbe River and the Ford of Elbe-Teinitz (which we shall hear of, in years coming). A scene worth visiting by the curious, though it is by no means of picturesque character.
Uncomfortably bare, like most German plains; mean little hamlets, which are full of litter when you enter them, lie sprinkled about; little church-spires (like suffragans to Chotusitz spire, which is near you); a ragged untrimmed country: beyond the Brook, towards the Dobrowa, two or more miles from Chotusitz, is still noticeable: something like a Deer-park, with umbrageous features, bushy clumps, and shadowy vestiges of a Mansion, the one regular edifice within your horizon. Schuschitz is the name of this Mansion and Deer-park; farther on lies Sbislau, where Leopold happily found his Bridge unbroken yesterday.
The general landscape is scrubby, littery; ill-tilled, scratched rather than ploughed; physiognomic of Czech Populations, who are seldom trim at elbows: any beauty it has is on the farther side of the Dobrowa, which does not concern Prince Leopold, Prince Karl, or us at present. Prince Leopold's camp lies east and west, short way to north of Chotusitz. Schuschitz Hamlet (a good mile northward of Sbislau) covers his left, the chain of Lakelets covers his right: and Chotusitz, one of his outposts, lies centrally in front. Prince Karl is coming on, in four columns, from the Hills and intricacies south of Czaslau,--has been on march all night, intending a night-attack or camisado if he could; but could not in the least, owing to the intricate roadways, and the discrepancies of pace between his four columns. The sun was up before anything of him appeared:--drawing out, visibly yonder, by the east side of Czaslau; 30,000 strong, they say. Friedrich's united force, were Friedrich himself on the ground, will be about 28,000.
Friedrich's Orders, which Leopold is studying, were: "Hold by Chotusitz for Centre; your left wing, see you lean it on something, towards Dobrowa side,--on that intricate Brook (Brtlinka) or Park-wall of Schuschitz, [SBISLAU, Friedrich hastily calls it (
OEuvres, ii. 121-126); Stille (p. 63) is more exact.] which I think is there; then your right wing westwards, till you lean again on something: two lines, leave room for me and my force, on the corner nearest here. I will start at four; be with you between seven and eight,--and even bring a proportion of Austrian bread (hot from these ovens of Kuttenberg) to refresh part of you." Leopold of Anhalt, a much-comforted man, waits only for the earliest gray of the morning, to be up and doing. From Chotusitz he spreads out leftwards towards the Brtlinka Brook,--difficult ground that, unfit for cavalry, with its bog-holes, islands, gullies and broken surface; better have gone across the Brtlinka with mere infantry, and leant on the wall of that Deer-park of Schuschitz with perhaps only 1,000 horse to support, well rearward of the infantry and this difficult ground? So men think,--after the action is over. [Stille, pp. 63, 67.] And indeed there was certainly some misarrangement there (done by Leopold's subordinates), which had its effects shortly.
Leopold was not there in person, arranging that left wing; Leopold is looking after centre and right. He perceives, the right wing will be his best chance; knows that, in general, cavalry must be on both wings. On a little eminence in front of his right, he sees how the Enemy comes on; Czaslau, lately on their left, is now getting to rear of them:--"And you, stout old General Buddenbrock, spread yourself out to right a little, hidden behind this rising ground; I think we may outflank their left wing by a few squadrons, which will be an advantage."
Buddenbrock spreads himself out, as bidden: had Buddenbrock been reinforced by most of the horse that could do no good on our LEFT wing, it is thought the Battle had gone better. Buddenbrock in this way, secretly, outflanks the Austrians; to HIS right all forward, he has that string of marshy pools (Lakes of Czirkwitz so called, outflowings from the Brook of Neuhof), and cannot be taken in flank by any means. Brook of Neuhof, which his Majesty crossed yesterday, farther north;--and ought to have recrossed by this time?--said Brook, hereabouts a mere fringe of quagmires and marshy pools, is our extreme boundary on the west or right; Brook of Brtlinka (unluckily NOT wall of the Deer-park) bounds us eastward, or on our left, Prince Karl, drawn up by this time, is in two lines, cavalry on right and left, but rather in bent order; bent towards us at both ends (being dainty of his ground, I suppose); and comes on in hollow-crescent form;--which is not reckoned orthodox by military men. What all these Villages, human individuals and terrified deer, are thinking, I never can conjecture! Thick-soled peasants, terrified nursing-mothers: Better to run and hide, I should say; mount your garron plough-horses, hide your butter-pots, meal-barrels; run at least ten miles or so!--
It is now past seven, a hot May morning, the Austrians very near;--and yonder, of a surety, is his Majesty coming. Majesty has marched since four; and is here at his time, loaves and all. His men rank at once in the corner left for them; one of his horse-generals, Lehwald, is sent to the left, to put straight what my be awry there (cannot quite do it, he either);--and the attack by Buddenhrock, who secretly outflanks here on the right, this shall at once take effect. No sooner has his Majesty got upon the little eminence or rising ground, and scanned the Austrian lines for an instant or two, than his cannon-batteries awaken here; give the Austrian horse a good blast, by way of morning salutation and overture to the concert of the day. And Buddenbrock, deploying under cover of that, charges, "first at a trot, then at a gallop," to see what can be done upon them with the white weapon. Old Uuddenbrock, surely, did not himself RIDE in the charge? He is an old man of seventy; has fought at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, nay at Steenkirk, and been run through the body, under Dutch William; is an old acquaintance of Charles XII.s even; and sat solemnly by Friedrich Wilhelm's coffin, after so much attendance during life. The special leader of the charge was Bredow; also a veteran gentleman, but still only in the fifties; he, I conclude, made the charge; first at a trot, then at a gallop,--with swords flashing hideous, and eyebrows knit.
"The dust was prodigious," says Friedrich, weather being dry and ground sandy; for a space of time you could see nothing but one huge whirlpool of dust, with the gleam of steel flickering madly in it: however, Buddenbrock, outflanking the Austrian first line of horse, did hurl them from their place; by and by you see the dust-tempest running south, faster and faster south,--that is to say, the Austrian horse in flight; for Buddenbrock, outflanking them by three squadrons, has tumbled their first line topsy-turvy, and they rush to rearward, he following away and away. [
OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 123.] Now were the time for a fresh force of Prussian cavalry,--for example, those you have standing useless behind the gullies and quagmires on your left wing (says Stille, after the event);--due support to Buddenbrock, and all that Austrian cavalry were gone, and their infantry left bare.
But now again, see, do not the dust-clouds pause? They pause, mounting higher and higher; they dance wildly, then roll back towards us; too evidently back. Buddenbrock has come upon the secoud line of Austrian horse; in too loose order Buddenbrock, by this time, and they have broken him:--and it is a mutual defeat of horse on this wing, the Prussian rather the worse of the two. And might have been serious,--had not Rothenburg plunged furiously in, at this crisis, quite through to the Austrian infantry, and restored matters, or more. Making a confused result of it in this quarter. Austrian horse-regiments there now were that fled quite away; as did even one or two foot-regiments, while the Prussian infantry dashed forward on them, escorted by Rothenburg in this manner,--who got badly wounded in the business; and was long an object of solicitude to Friedrich. And contrariwise certain Prussian horse also, it was too visible, did not compose themselves till fairly arear of our foot. This is Shock First in the Battle; there are Three Shocks in all.
Partial charging, fencing and flourishing went on; but nothing very effectual was done by the horse in this quarter farther. Nor did the fire or effort of the Prussian Infantry in this their right wing continue; Austrian fury and chief effort having, by this time, broken out in an opposite quarter. So that the strain of the Fight lies now in the other wing over about Chotusitz and the Brtlinka Brook; and thither I perceive his Majesty has galloped, being "always in the thickest of the danger" this day. Shock Second is now on. The Austrians have attacked at Chotusitz; and are threatening to do wonders there.
Prince Leopold's Left Wing, as we said, was entirely defective in the eye of tacticians (after the event). Far from leaning on the wall of the Deer-park, he did not even reach the Brook,--or had to weaken his force in Chotusitz Village for that object. So that when the Austrian foot comes storming upon Chotusitz, there is but "half a regiment" to defend it. And as for cavalry, what is to become of cavalry, slowly threading, under cannon-shot and musketry, these intricate quagmires and gullies, and dangerously breaking into files and strings, before ever it can find ground to charge? Accordingly, the Austrian foot took Chotusitz, after obstinate resistance; and old Konigseck, very ill of gout, got seated in one of the huts there; and the Prussian cavalry, embarrassed to get through the gullies, could not charge except piecemeal, and then though in some cases with desperate valor, yet in all without effectual result. Konigseck sits in Chotusitz;--and yet withal the Russians are not out of it, will not be driven out of it, but cling obstinately; whereupon the Austrians set fire to the place; its dry thatch goes up in flame, and poor old Konigseck, quite lame of gout, narrowly escaped burning, they say.
And, see, the Austrian horse have got across the Brtlinka, are spread almost to the Deer-park, and strive hard to take us in flank,--did not the Brook, the bad ground and the platoon-firing (fearfully swift, from discipline and the iron ramrods) hold them back in some measure. They make a violent attempt or two; but the problem is very rugged. Nor can the Austrian infantry, behind or to the west of burning Chotusitz, make an impression, though they try it, with levelled bayonets and deadly energy, again and again: the Prussian ranks are as if built of rock, and their fire is so sure and swift. Here is one Austrian regiment, came rushing on like lions; would not let go, death or no-death:--and here it lies, shot down in ranks; whole swaths of dead men, and their muskets by them,--as if they had got the word to take that posture, and had done it hurriedly! A small transitory gleam of proud rage is visible, deep down, in the soul of Friedrich as he records this fact. Shock Second was very violent.
The Austrian horse, after such experimenting in the Brtlinka quarter, gallop off to try to charge the Prussians in the rear;--"pleasanter by far," judge many of them, "to plunder the Prussian Camp," which they descry in those regions; whither accordingly they rush. Too many of them; and the Hussars as one man. To the sorrowful indignation of Prince Karl, whose right arm (or wing) is fallen paralytic in this manner. After the Fight, they repented in dust and ashes; and went to say so, as if with the rope about their neck; upon which he pardoned them.
Nor is Prince Karl's left wing gaining garlands just at this moment. Shock Third is awakening;--and will be decisive on Prince Karl. Chotusitz, set on fire an hour since (about 9 A.M.), still burns; cutting him in two, as it were, or disjoining his left wing from his right: and it is on his right wing that Prince Karl is depending for victory, at present; his left wing, ruffled by those first Prussian charges of horse, with occasional Prussian swift musketry ever since, being left to its own inferior luck, which is beginning to produce impression on it. And, lo, on the sudden (what brought finis to the business), Friedrich, seizing the moment, commands a united charge on this left wing: Friedrich's right wing dashes forward on it, double-quick, takes it furiously, on front and flank; fifteen field-pieces preceding, and intolerable musketry behind them. So that the Austrian left wing cannot stand it at all.
The Austrian left wing, stormed in upon in this manner, swags and sways, threatening to tumble pell-mell upon the right wing; which latter has its own hands full. No Chotusitz or point of defence to hold by, Prince Karl is eminently ill off, and will be hurled wholly into the Brtlinka, and the islands and gullies, unless he mind! Prince Karl,--what a moment for him!--noticing this undeniable phenomenon, rapidly gives the word for retreat, to avoid worse. It is near upon Noon; four hours of battle; very fierce on both the wings, together or alternately; in the centre (westward of Chotusitz) mostly insignificant: "more than half the Prussians" standing with arms shouldered. Prince Karl rolls rapidly away, through Czaslau towards southwest again; loses guns in Czaslau; goes, not quite broken, but at double-quick time for five miles; cavalry, Prussian and Austrian, bickering in the rear of him; and vanishes over the horizon towards Willimow and Haber that night, the way he had come.
This is the battle of Chotusitz, called also of Czaslau: Thursday, 17th May, 1742. Vehemently fought on both sides;--calculated, one may hope, to end this Silesian matter? The results, in killed and wounded, were not very far from equal. Nay, in killed the Prussians suffered considerably the worse; the exact Austrian cipher of killed being 1,052, while that of the Prussians was 1,905,--owing chiefly to those fierce ineffectual horse-charges and bickerings, on the right wing and left; "above 1,200 Prussian cavalry were destroyed in these." But, in fine, the general loss, including wounded and missing, amounted on the Austrian side (prisoners being many, and deserters very many) to near seven thousand, and on the Prussian to between four and five. [Orlich, i. 255;
Feldzuge der Preussen, p. 113; Stille, pp. 62-71; Friedrich himself,
OEuvres, ii. 121-126; and (ib. pp. 145-150) the Newspaper "RELATION," written also by him.] Two Generals Friedrich had lost, who are not specially of our acquaintance; and several younger friends whom he loved. Rothenburg, who was in that first charge of horse with Buddenbrock, or in rescue of Buddenbrock, and did exploits, got badly hurt, as we saw,--badly, not fatally, as Friedrich's first terror was,--and wore his arm in a sling for a long while afterwards.
Buddenbrock's charge, I since hear, was ruined by the DUST; [
OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 121.] the King's vanguard, under Rothenburg, a "new-raised regiment of Hussars in green," coming to the rescue, were mistaken for Austrians, and the cry rose, "Enemy to rear!" which brought Rothenburg his disaster. Friedrich much loved and valued the man; employed him afterwards as Ambassador to France and in places of trust. Friedrich's Ambassadors are oftenest soldiers as well: bred soldiers, he finds, if they chance to have natural intelligence, are fittest for all kinds of work.--Some eighteen Austrian cannon were got; no standards, because, said the Prussians, they took the precaution of bringing none to the field, but had beforehand rolled them all up, out of harm's way.--Let us close with this Fraction of topography old aud new:--
"King Friedrich purchased Nine Acres of Ground, near Chotusitz, to bury the slain; rented it from the proprietor for twenty-five years. [
Helden-Geschichte, ii. 634.] I asked, Where are those nine acres; what crop is now upon them? but could learn nothing. A dim people, those poor Czech natives; stupid, dirty-skinned, ill-given; not one in twenty of them speaking any German;--and our dragoman a fortuitous Jew Pedler; with the mournfulest of human faces, though a head worth twenty of those Czech ones, poor oppressed soul! The Battle-plain bears rye, barley, miscellaneous pulse, potatoes, mostly insignificant crops;--the nine hero-acres in question, perhaps still of slightly richer quality, lie indiscriminate among the others; their very fence, if they ever had one, now torn away.
"The Country, as you descend by dusty intricate lanes from Kuttenberg, with your left hand to the Elbe, and at length with your back to it, would be rather pretty, were it well cultivated, the scraggy litter swept off, and replaced by verdure and reasonable umbrage here and there. The Field of Chotusitz, where you emerge on it, is a wide wavy plain; the steeple of Chotusitz, and, three or four miles farther, that of Czaslau (pronounce 'KOTusitz,' 'CHASlau'), are the conspicuous objects in it. The Lakes Friedrich speaks of, which covered his right, and should cover ours, are not now there,--'all, or mostly all, drained away, eighty years ago,' answered the Czechs; answered one wiser Czech, when pressed upon, and guessed upon; thereby solving the enigma which was distressful to us. Between those Lakes and the Brtlinka Brook may be some two miles; Chotusitz is on the crown of the space, if it have a crown. But there is no 'height' on it, worth calling a height except by the military man; no tree or bush; no fence among the scrubby ryes and pulses: no obstacle but that Brook, which, or the hollow of which, you see sauntering steadily northward or Elbe-ward, a good distance on your left, as you drive for Chotusitz and steeple. Schuschitz, a peaked brown edifice, is visible everywhere, well ahead and leftwards, well beyond said hollow; something of wood and 'deer-park' still noticeable or imaginable yonder.
"Chotusitz itself is a poor littery place; standing white-washed, but much unswept: in two straggling rows, now wide enough apart (no Konigseck need now get burnt there): utterly silent under the hot sun; not a child looked out on us, and I think the very dogs lay wisely asleep. Church and steeple are at the farther or south end of the Village, and have an older date than 1742. High up on the steeple, mending the clock-hands or I know not what, hung in mid-air one Czech; the only living thing we saw. Population may be three or four hundred,--all busy with their teams or otherwise, we will hope. Czaslau, which you approach by something of avenues, of human roads (dust and litter still abounding), is a much grander place; say of 2,000 or more: shiny, white, but also somnolent; vast market-place, or central square, sloping against you: two shiny Hotels on it, with Austrian uniforms loitering about;--and otherwise great emptiness and silence. The shiny Hotels (shine due to paint mainly) offer little of humanly edible; and, in the interior, smells strike you as--as the OLDEST you have ever met before. A people not given to washing, to ventilating! Many gospels have been preached in those parts, aud abstruse Orthodoxies, sometimes with fire and sword, and no end of emphasis; but that of Soap-and-Water (which surely is as Catholic as any, and the plainest of all) has not yet got introduced there!" [Tourist's Note (13th September, 1858).]
Czaslau hangs upon the English mind (were not the ignorance so total) by another tie: it is the resting-place of Zisca, whose drum, or the fable of whose drum, we saw in the citadel of Glatz. Zisca was buried IN his skin, at Czaslau finally: in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul there; with due epitaph; and his big mace or battle-club, mostly iron, hung honorable on the wall close by. Kaiser Ferdinand, Karl V.'s brother, on a Progress to Prag, came to lodge at Czaslau, one afternoon: "What is that?" said the Kaiser, strolling over this Peter-and-Paul's Church, and noticing the mace. "Ugh! Faugh!" growled he angrily, on hearing what; and would not lodge in the Town, but harnessed again, and drove farther that same night. The club is now gone; but Zisca's dust lies there irremovable till Doomsday, in the land where his limbs were made. A great behemoth of a war-captain; one of the fiercest, inflexiblest, ruggedest creatures ever made in the form of man. Devoured Priests, with appetite, wherever discoverable: Dishonorers of his Sister; murderers of the God's-witness John Huss; them may all the Devils help! Beat Kaiser Sigismund SUPRA-GRAMMATICAM again and ever again, scattering the Kitter hosts in an extraordinary manner;--a Zisca conquerable only by Death, and the Pest-Fever passing that way.
His birthplace, Troznow, is a village in the Budweis neighborhood, 100 miles to south. There, for three centuries after him, stood "Zisca's Oak" (under shade of which, his mother, taken suddenly on the harvest-field, had borne Zisca): a weird object, gate of Heaven and of Orcus to the superstitious populations about. At midnight on the Hallow-Eve, dark smiths would repair thither, to cut a twig of the Zisca Oak: twig of it put, at the right moment, under your stithy, insures good luck, lends pith to arm and heart, which is already good luck. So that a Bishop of those parts, being of some culture, had to cut it down, above a hundred years ago,--and build some Chapel in its stead; no Oak there now, but an orthodox Inscription, not dated that I could see. [Hormayr,
OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iii. (3tes), 110-145.]
Friedrich did not much pursue the Austrians after this Victory; having cleared the Czaslau region of them, he continued there (at Kuttenberg mainly); and directed all his industry to getting Peace made. His experiences of Broglio, and of what help was likely to be had from Broglio,--whom his Court, as Friedrich chanced to know, had ordered "to keep well clear of the King of Prussia,"--had not been flattering. Beaten in this Battle, Broglio's charity would have been a weak reed to lean upon: he is happy to inform Broglio, that though kept well clear of, he is not beaten.
[MAP GOES HERE---Book xiii, page 164----missing]
Blustering Broglio might have guessed that HE now would have to look to himself. But he did not; his eyes naturally dim and bad, being dazzled at this time, by "an ever-glorious victory" (so Broglio thinks it) of his own achieving. Broglio, some couple of days after Czaslau, had marched hastily out of Prag for Budweis quarter, where Lobkowitz and the Austrians were unexpectedly bestirring themselves, and threatening to capture that "Castle of Frauenberg" (mythic old Hill-castle among woods), Broglio's chief post in those regions. Broglio, May 24th, has fought a handsome skirmish (thanks partly to Belleisle, who chanced to arrive from Frankfurt just in the nick of time, and joined Broglio): Skirmish of Sahay; magnified in all the French gazettes into a Victory of Sahay, victory little short of Pharsalia, says Friedrich;--the complete account of which, forgotten now by all creatures, is to be read in him they call Mauvillon; [
Guerre de Boheme, ii. 204.] and makes a pretty enough piece of fence, on the small scale. Lobkowitz had to give up the Frauenberg enterprise; and cross to Budweis again, till new force should come.
"Why not drive him out of Budweis," think the Two French Marshals, "him and whatever force can come? If those lucky Prussians would co-operate, and those unlucky Saxons, how easy were it!"--Belleisle sets off to persuade Friedrich, to persuade Saxony (and we shall see him on the route); Broglio waiting sublime, on the hither side of the Moldau, well within wind of Budweis, till Belleisle prevail, and return with said co-operation, What became of Broglio, waiting in this sublime manner, we shall also have to see; but perhaps not for a great while yet (cannot pause on such absurd phenomena yet),--though Broglio's catastrophe is itself a thing imminent; and, within some ten days of that astonishing Victory of Sahay, astonishes poor Broglio the reverse way. A man born for surprises! _