_ BOOK XVIII. SEVEN-YEARS WAR RISES TO A HEIGHT.--1757-1759
Chapter XIII. BATTLE OF ZORNDORF
Sunday, 20th August, Friedrich, with his small Army, hardly above 15,000 I should guess, arrived at Frankfurt-on-Oder: "his Majesty," it seems, "lodged in the Lebus Suburb, in the house of a Clergyman's Widow; and was observed to go often out of doors, and listen to the cannonading, which was going on at Custrin." [Rodenbeck, i. 347.] From Landshut hither, he has come in nine days; the swiftest marching; a fiery spur of indignation being upon all his men and him, for the last two days fierier than ever,--longing all to have a blow at those incendiary Russian gentlemen. Five days ago, the Russians, attempting blindly on the Garrison of Custrin, had burnt,--nothing of the Garrison at all,--but the poor little Town altogether. Which has filled everybody with lamentation and horror. And, listen yonder, they are still busy on the solitary Garrison of Custrin;--audible enough to Friedrich from his northern or Lebus Suburb, which lies nearest the place, at a distance of some twenty miles.
Of Fermor's red-hot savagery on Custrin, it is lamentably necessary we should say something: to say much would he a waste of record; as the thing itself was a waste of powder. A thing hideous to think of; without the least profit to Fermor, but with total ruin to all the inhabitants, and to the many strangers who had sought refuge there. One interior circumstance is memorable and lucky to us. Artillery-Captain Tielcke happened to be with these people; had come in the train of "two Saxon Princes, serving as volunteers;" and, with a singular lucidity, and faithful good sense, not scientific alone, he illuminates these black Russian matters for such as have to do with them.
Tielcke's Book of
Contributions to the Art of War [
Beytrage zur Kriege-Kunst und (ZUR) Geschichte des Krieges von 1756 bis 1763 (six thin vols. 4to, with many Plates); cited above.] is still in repute with Soldiers, especially in the Artillery line; and indeed shows a sound geometrical head, and contains bits of excellent Historical reading interspersed among the scientific parts. This Tielcke, it appears, was a common foot-soldier, one of those Pirna 14,000 made Prussian against their will; but Tielcke had a milkmaid for sweetheart in those regions, who, good soul, gave him her generous farewell, a suit of her clothes, perhaps a pair of her pails; and in that guise he walked out of bondage. Clear away; to Warsaw, to favor with the King and others (being of real merit, an excellent, studious, modest little man); and here he now reappears, in a higher capacity; as articulate Eye-witness of the Custrin Business and the Zorndorf, among much other Russian darkness, which shall remain comfortably blank to us.
Up to Custrin, the Journal of the Operations of the Russian Army, which I could give from day to day, ["TAGEBUCH BEYDER &c. (Diary of both Armies from the beginning of the Campaign till Zorndorf"), in Tielcke, ii. 1-75; Tempelhof, ii. 136, 216-224;
Helden-Geschichte, v.; &c. &c.] is of no interest except to the Nether Powers of this Universe; the Russian Operations hitherto having consisted in slow marches, sluttish cookeries, cantonings, bivouackings, with destruction of a poor innocent Country, and arson, theft and murder done on the great scale by inhuman vagabonds, Cossacks so called, not tempered on this occasion by the mercy of Calmucks. The regular Russian Army, it appears, participates in the common horror of mankind against such a method of making war; but neither Feldmarschall Fermor, nor General Demikof (properly THEMICOUD, a Swiss, deserving little thanks from us, who has taken in hand to command these Missionaries of the Pit), can help the results above described. Which are justly characterized as abominable, to gods and men; and not fit to be recorded in human Annals; execration, and, if it were possible, oblivion, being the human resource with them., The Russian Officers, it seems, despise this Cossack rabble incredibly; for their fighting qualities withal are close on zero, though their talent for arson and murder is so considerable. And contrariwise, the Cossacks, for their part, have no objection to plunder, or even, if obstreperous, to kill, any regular Officer they may meet unescorted in a good place. Their talent for arson is great. They do uncountable damage to the Army itself; provoking all the Country people to destroy by fire what could be eaten or used, the foraging, food and equipments of horse and man; so that horse and man have to be fed by victual carted hundreds of miles out of Poland; and the Russian Army sticks, as it were, tethered with a welter of broken porridge-pots and rent meal-bags hung to every foot it has.
East Preussen is quiet from the storms of War; holds its tongue well, and hopes better days: but the Russians themselves are little the better for it, a country so lately burned bare; they are merely flung so many scores of miles forward, farther from home and their real resources, before they can begin work, They have no port on the Baltic: poor blockheads, they are aware how desirable, for instance, Dantzig would be; to help feeding them out of ships; but the Dantzigers won't. Colberg, a poor little place, with only 700 militia people in it, would be of immense service to them as a sea-haven: but even this they have not yet tried to get; and after trying, they will find it a job. "Why not unite with the Swedes and take Stettin (the finest harbor in the Baltic), which would bring Russia, by ships, to your very hand?" This is what Montalembert is urgent upon, year after year, to the point of wearying everybody; but he can get no official soul to pay heed to him,--the difficulties are so considerable. "Swedes, what are they?" say the Russians: "Russians what?" say the Swedes. "Sweden would be so handy for the Artilleries," urges Montalembert; "Russians for the Soldiery, or covering and fighting part."--"Can't be done!" Officiality shakes its head: and Montalembert is obliged to be silent.
The Russians have got into the Neumark of Brandenburg, on those bad terms; and are clearly aware that, without some Fortress as a Place of Arms, they are an overgrown Incompetency and Monstrosity in the field of War; doing much destruction, most of which proves self-destructive before long. But how help it? If the carrying of meal so far be difficult what will the carrying of siege-furniture be? A flat impossibility. Fermor, aware of these facts, remembers what happened at Oczakow,--long ago, in our presence, and Keith's and Munnich's, if the reader have not quite forgot. Munnich, on that occasion, took Oczakow without any siege-furniture whatever, by boldly marching up to it; nothing but audacity and good luck on his side. Fermor determines to try Custrin in the like way,--if peradventure Prussian soldiery be like Turk?--
Fermor rose from Posen August 2d, almost three weeks ago; making daily for the Neumark and those unfortunate Oder Countries; nobody but Dohna to oppose him,--Dohna in the ratio of perhaps one against four. Dohna naturally laid hold of Frankfurt and the Oder Bridge, so that Fermor could not cross there; whereupon Fermor, as the next best thing, struck northward for the Warta (black Polish stream, last big branch of Oder); crossed this, at his ease, by Landsberg Bridge, August 10th [Tempelhof, ii. 216.] and after a day or two of readjustment in Landsberg, made for Custrin Country (his next head-quarter is at Gross Kamin); hoping in some accidental or miraculous way to cross Oder thereabouts, or even get hold of Custrin as a Place of Arms. If peradventure he can take Custrin without proper siege-artillery, in the Oczakow or Anti-Turk way? Fermor has been busy upon Custrin since August 15th;--in what fashion we partly heard, and will now, from authentic sources, see a little for ourselves.
The Castle of Custrin, built by good Johann of Custrin, and "roofed with copper," in the Reformation times,--we know it from of old, and Friedrich has since had some knowledge of it. Custrin itself is a rugged little Town, with some moorland traffic, and is still a place of great military strength, the garrison of those parts. Its rough pavements, its heavy stone battlements and barriers, give it a guarled obstinate aspect,--stern enough place of exile for a Crown-Prince fallen into such disfavor with Papa! A rugged, compact, by no means handsome little Town, at the meeting of the Warta and the Oder; stands naturally among sedges, willows and drained mire, except that human industry is pleasantly busy upon it, and has long been. So that the neighborhood is populous beyond expectation; studded with rough cottages in white-wash; hamlets in a paved condition; and comfortable signs of labor victoriously wrestling with the wilderness. Custrin, an arsenal and garrison, begirt with two rivers, and with awful bulwarks, and bastions cased in stone,--"perhaps too high," say the learned,--is likely to be impregnable to Russian engineering on those terms. Here, with brevity, is the catastrophe of Custrin.
TUESDAY, 15th AUGUST, 1758. At two in the morning, several thousand Russians, grenadiers, under Quartermaster General Stoffeln, whom the readers of Mannstein know from old Oczakow times, are astir; pushing along from Gross Kamin, through the scraggy firwoods, and flat peat countries; intending a stroke on Custrin, if perhaps they can get it: [Tempelhof, ii. 217; but Tielcke, ii. 69 et seq., the real source.]--not the slightest chance to get Custrin; Prussian soldiership and Turkish being two quite different things! The pickeering and manoeuvring of Stoffeln shall not detain us. Stoffeln came along by the Landsberg road (course of the now Konigsberg-Custrin Railway); and drove in the Prussian out-parties, who at first took him for Cossacks. Stoffeln set himself down on the north side of the place; planted cannon in certain clay-pits thereabouts, and about nine o'clock began firing shells and incendiary grenadoes at a great rate. Tielcke saw everything,--and had the honor to take luncheon, that evening, with certain chief Officers, sitting on the ground, after all was over, and only a few shots from the Garrison still dropping. [Tielcke, ii. 75 n.]
At the third grenade, which, it seems, fell into a straw magazine, Custrin took fire; could not be quenched again, so much dry wood in it, so much disorder too, the very soldiers some of them disorderly (a bad deserter set); so that it soon flamed aloft,--from side to side one sea of flame: and man, woman and child, every soul (except the Garrison, which sat enclosed in strong stone), had to fly across the River, under penalty of death by fire. Of Custrin, by five in the evening, there was nothing left but the black ashes; the Garrison standing unharmed, and the Church, School-house and some stone edifices in a charred skeleton condition. "No life was lost, except that of one child in arms." All Neumark had lodged its valuables in this place of strength; all are fled now in horror and terror across the Oder, by the Bridge, before it also unquenchably takes fire, at the western or non-Russian end of the place. Such a day as was seldom seen in human experience;--Fermor responsible for it, happily not we.
Fermor, in the evening, said to his Artillery People: "Why have you ceased to fire grenadoes?" "Excellency, the Town is out; nothing now but ashes and stone." "Never mind; give them the rest, one every quarter of an hour. We shall not need the grenadoes again. The cannon-balls we shall; them, therefore, do not waste." On the morrow morning, after this performance on the Town, Fermor sends a Trumpeter: "Surrender or else--!" rather in the tremendous style. "Or else?" answers the Commandant, pointing to the ashes, to the black inconsumable stones; and is deaf to this EX-POST-FACTO Trumpeter. The Russians say they sent one yesterday morning, not EX-POST-FACTO, but he was killed in the pickeerings, and never heard of again. A mile or so to rear of Custrin, on the westward or Berlin side of the River, lies Dohna for the last four days; expecting that the Laws of Nature will hold good, and Custrin prove tenable against such sieging. So stands it on Friedrich's arrival.
We left Friedrich in the Lebus Suburb of Frankfurt, Sunday, August 20th, listening to the distant cannonade. Next morning, he is here himself; at Dohna's Camp of Gorgast, taking survey of affairs; came early, under rapid small escort, leaving his Army to follow; scorn and contemptuous indignation the humor of him, they say; resolution to be swiftly home upon that surprising Russian armament, and teach it new manners. The black skeleton of Custrin stares hideously across the River; "Custrin Siege" so called still going on;--had better make despatch now, and take itself away! He greatly despises Russian soldiership: "Pooh, pooh," he would answer, if Keith from experience said, "Your Majesty does not do it justice;"--and Keith has been known to hint, "If the trial ever come, your Majesty will alter that opinion." A day or two hence, amid these hideous Russian fire-traceries, the Hussars bring him a dozen of Cossacks they have made prisoners: Friedrich looks at the dirty green vagabonds; says to one of his Staff: "And this is the kind of Doggery I have to bother with!"--The sight of the poor country-people, and their tears of joy and of sorrow on his reappearance among them, much affected him. Taking inspection of Dohna, he finds Dohna wonderfully clean, pipe-clayed, complete: "You are very fine indeed, you;--I bring you a set of fellows, rough as GRASTEUFELN ["grass-devils," I never know whether insects or birds]; but they can bite,"--hope you can!
Tuesday, August 32d, at five in the morning our Army has all arrived, the Frankfurt people just come in; 30,000 of us now in Camp at Gorgast. Friedrich orders straightway that a certain Russian Redoubt on the other side of the River, at Schaumburg, a mile or two down stream, be well cannonaded into ruin,--as if he took it for some incipiency of a Russian Bridge, or were himself minded to cross here, under cover of Custrin. Friedrich's intention very certainly is to cross,--here or not just here;--and that same night, after some hours of rest to the Frankfurt people,--night of Tuesday-Wednesday, Friedrich, having persuaded the Russians that his crossing-place will be their Redoubt at Schaumburg, marches ten or twelve miles down the River, silently his 30,000 and he, till opposite the Village of Gustebiese; rapidly makes his Bridges there, unmolested: Fermor, with his eye on the cannonaded Redoubt only, has expected no such matter; and is much astonished when he hears of it, twenty hours after. Friedrich, across with the vanguard, at an early hour of Wednesday, gets upon the knoll at Gustebiese for a view; and all Gustebiese, hearing of him, hurries out, with low-voiced tremulous blessings, irrepressible tears: "God reward your Majesty, that have come to us!"--and there is a hustling and a struggling, among the women especially, to kiss the skirts of his coat. Poor souls: one could have stood tremendous cheers; but this is a thing I forgive Friedrich for being visibly affected with.
Friedrich leaves his baggage on the other side of the Oder, and the Bridge guarded; our friend Hordt, with his Free-Corps, doing it, Friedrich marches forward some ten miles that night; eastward, straight for Gross Kamin, as if to take the Russians in rear; encamps at a place called Klossow, spreading himself obliquely towards the Mutzel (black sluggish tributary of the Oder in those parts), meaning to reach Neu Damm on the Mutzel to-morrow, there almost within wind of the Russians, and be ready for crossing on them. It was at Klossow (23d August, evening), that the Hussars brought in their dozen or two of Cossacks, and he had his first sight of Russian soldiery; by no means a favorable one, "Ugh, only look!"--As we are now approaching Zorndorf, and the monstrous tug of Battle which fell out there, readers will be glad of the following:--
"From Damm on the Mutzel, where Friedrich intends crossing it to-morrow night, south to Gross Kamin, not far from the Warta, where Fermor's head-quarter lately was, may be about five miles. From Custrin, Kamin lies northeast about eight or ten miles: Zorndorf, the most considerable Village in this tract, lies--little dreaming of the sad glory coming to it--pretty much in the centre between big Warta and smaller Mutzel. The Country is by nature a peat wilderness, far and wide; but it has been tamed extensively; grows crops, green pastures; is elsewhere covered with wood (Scotch fir, scraggy in size, but evidently under forest management); perhaps half the country is in Fir tracts, what they call HEIDEN (Heaths); the cultivated spaces lying like light-green islands with black-green channels and expanses of circumambient Fir. The Drewitz Heath, the Massin or Zither Heath, and others about Zorndorf, will become notable to us. The Country is now much drier than in Friedrich's time; the human spade doing its duty everywhere: so that much of the Battle-ground has become irrecognizable, when compared with the old marshy descriptions given of it. Zorndorf, a rough substantial Hamlet, has nothing of boggy now visible near by; lies east to west, a firm broad highway leading through: a sea of forest before it, to south; to north, good dry barley-grounds or rye-grounds, sensibly rising for half a mile, then waving about in various slow slight changes of level towards Quartschen, Zicher, &c.: forming an irregular cleared 'island,' altogether of perhaps four miles by three, with unlimited circumambiencies of wood. It was here, on this island as we call it, that the Battle, which has made Zorndorf famous, was fought.
"Zorndorf (or even the open ground half a mile to north of it, which will be more important to us) is probably not 50 feet above the level of the Mutzel, nor 100 above Warta and Oder, six miles off; but it is the crown of the Country;--the ground dropping therefrom every way, in lazy dull waves or swells; towards Tamsel and Gross Kamin on southeast; towards Birken-Busch, Quartschen, Darmutzel [DAR of the Mutzel, whatever "DAR" may be.] on northwest; as well as towards Damm and its Bridge northeast, where Friedrich will soon be, and towards Custrin southwest, where he lately was, each a five or six miles from Zorndorf.
"Such is the poor moorland tract of Country; Zorndorf the centre of it,--where the battle is likely to be:--Zorndorf and environs a bare quasi-island among these woods; extensive bald crown of the landscape, girt with a frizzle of firwoods all round. Boggy pools there are, especially on the western side (all drained in our time). Mutzel, or north side, is of course the lowest in level: and accordingly," what is much to be marked by readers here, "from the south, or Zorndorf side, at wide intervals, there saunter along, in a slow obscure manner, Three miserable continuous Leakages, or oozy Threads of Water, all making for Quartschen, to north or northwest, there to disembogue into the Mutzel. Each of these has its little Hollow; of which the westernmost, called Zabern Hollow (ZABERNGRUND), is the most considerable, and the most important to us here: GALGENGRUND (Gallows-Hollow) is also worth naming in this Battle; the third Leakage, though without importance, invites us to name it, HOSEBRUCH, quasi STOCKING-quagmire,--because you can use no stockings there, except with manifest disadvantage."--Take this other concluding trait:--
... "Inexpressible fringe of marsh, two or three miles broad, mostly bottomless, woven with sluggish creeks and stagnant pools, borders the Warta for many miles towards Landsberg; Custrin-Landsberg Causeway the alone sure footing in it; after which, the country rises insensibly, but most beneficially, and is mainly drier till you get to the Mutzel again, and find the same fringe of mud lace-work again, Zorndorf we called the crown of it. Tamsel, Wilkersdorf, Klein Kamin, Gross Kamin, and other places known to us, lie on the dry turf-fuel country, but looking over close upon the hem of that marsh-fringe, and no doubt getting peats, wild ducks, pike-fishes, eels, and snatches of summer pasture and cow-hay out of it."
Thursday, August 24th, Friedrich is again speeding on; occupying Darmutzel and other crossing-places of the Mutzel; [Mitchell to Holderness, "DErmItzel, 24th August, 1758" (MEMOIRS AND PAPERS, i. 425; Ib. ii. 40-47, Mitchell's Private Journal).]--by no means himself crossing there; on the contrary, carefully breaking all the Bridges before he go ("No retreat for those Russian vagabonds, only death or surrender for them!")--himself not intending to cross till he be up at Damm, Neu Damm, well eastward of his Russians, and have got them all pinfolded between Mutzel and Oder in that way. In the evening, he reaches Damm and the Mill of Damm, some three or four miles higher up the Mutzel;--and there pushes partly across at once. That is to say, his vanguard at once, and takes a defensive position; his Artillery and other Divisions by degrees, in the silent night hours; and, before daybreak to-morrow, every soul will be across, and the Bridge broken again;--and Fermor had better have his accounts settled.
Fermor's roving Cossack clouds seldom bring him in intelligence; but only return stained with charcoal grime and red murder: up to late last night, he had not known where Friedrich was at all; had idly thought him busy with the Schaumburg Redoubt, on the other side of Oder, fencing and precautioning: but now (night of the 23d), these Cossacks do come in with news, "Indisputable to our poor minds, the Prussians are at Klossow yonder,--captured a dozen green vagabonds of us, and have sent us galloping!"--which news, with the night closing in on him, was astonishing, thrice and four times important to Fermor.
Instantly he raises the siege of Custrin, any siege there was; gets his immense baggage-train shoved off that night to Klein Kamin, Landsberg way; summons the force from Landsberg to join him without loss of a moment;--and in the meanwhile pitches himself in long bivouac in the Drewitz Wood or Fir-Heath, with the quaggy Zaberngrund in front. Quaggy Zaberngrund,--do readers remember it; one of those "Three continuous Leakages," very important, to Fermor and us at present? This is the safest place Fermor can find for himself; scraggy firs around, good quagmires and Zabern Hollow in front; looking to the east, waiting what a new day will bring. That was Fermor's posture, while Friedrich quitted Klossow in the dawn of the 24th. Be busy, ye Cossack doggeries; return with news, not with mere grime and marks of blood on your mouths!
Evening of the 24th, Cossacks report that Friedrich has got to Damm Mill; has hold of the Bridge there; and may be looked for, sure as the daylight, to-morrow. Fermor is 50,000 odd, his Landsberg forces all coming in; one Detachment out Stettin way, which cannot come in; Fermor finds that his baggage-train is fairly on the road to Klein Kamin;--and that he will have to quit this bosky bivouac, and fight for himself in the open ground, or do worse. _