Proposing to invade the Duchy again, he crossed the Elbe, on the 15th June, and was joined by the Prince of Holstein. On this, Lacy, who had been watching them, drew in his outposts, and retired to Zehaila. On his march Frederick passed very close to Lacy's camp, with his infantry covered by only four regiments of Saxon horse. These drove in Lacy's pickets; on which he shifted his ground to a position at the foot of the hills of Bockerdorf and Reichenberg. Frederick made preparations to assail them on the morrow, and only waited for reinforcements under General Hulsen; but Daun, who had crossed the Elbe at Dresden, and was hastening to the assistance of his friend, dispatched an officer to him, with orders "to shift his ground;" and together they took up a new position at Lausa, while Frederick occupied the place which Lacy had left by three regiments of hussars, two of dragoons, and two free corps, which were attacked, but unsuccessfully, by Lacy in the night.
Both armies, Prussian and Imperialist, began their march for Silesia on the same day, each eager to anticipate and shut the other out. The former marched by the way of Crackau; the latter marched through Bischofswerder; and en route Daun detached Lacy to Keulenburg, to cover his left flank; but Frederick attacked the young brigadier unexpectedly, and captured 200 of his rear-guard. The heat was so excessive at this time that eighty men dropped dead on the march. Lacy continued to harass the Prussian rear, till at Salzforstien Frederick turned and attacked his Uhlans with four regiments of horse, who in the first charge shot and sabred 400 men. At that time Lacy's whole cavalry were encamped at Rothen Nauslitz; but he brought them up by successive troops—for here again he was taken by surprise—and a desultory and destructive skirmish ensued, after which both parties separated. Frederick now decided it was necessary either to follow Daun, who had already reached Silesia, or to rid himself at once of the resolute Lacy, who hung like a wolf upon his skirts, and encumbered every movement. Thus, on the evening of the 8th of July, after making a feigned movement towards Gorlitz, he suddenly broke into Lacy's camp, and drove him beyond the defiles of Horta, where his Prussians passed the night, while the Austrians occupied the mountain of the White Stag. From this Lacy's small force was driven next day, and had to recross the Elbe at Dresden, from whence he marched to a position at Gros Seidlitz, while lines of circumvallation were drawn round the city. A letter written by Daun to Lacy, containing all his plans of the campaign, was intercepted here, and brought to Frederick, to whom it proved of great service.
On the 10th of August, Lacy lost his tents and baggage when escaping an attack meditated by Frederick, who was baffled by the timely arrival of Daun at Hennersdorf. Marshal Loudon invested Breslau, but raised the siege on Prince Henry of Prussia marching to its relief. Frederick then made his memorable march to prevent the Russians from forming a junction with Daun and Lacy; he passed five rivers, the Elbe, the Spree, the Neiss, the Quiess, and the Bober, though trammelled by 2000 caissons and a ponderous train of artillery; but he was unable to bring Loudon to action before that general was joined by Lacy and Daun. The three leaders then encompassed his camp at Lignitz, and his affairs seemed desperate; for Daun, after a reconnoisance, announced to Lacy and Loudon his resolution of storming the Prussian position by a night attack; but the subtle Frederick eluded them all, by suddenly and secretly passing the Elbe, and hastening into Saxony, whither Daun and Lacy followed him, at the head of 80,000 men. Then Cunnersdorf, the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, was fought and lost by Frederick. In that field he had 20,000 of his soldiers slain, and all his generals killed or wounded. He made incredible exertions to retrieve the day, and his uniform was riddled by musket-balls.
The Russians passed the Oder, and pushed a strong column into Brandenburg, under Count Czernichew, who was joined by a large body of Austrians under Lacy, and together they made themselves masters of Berlin, the capital, about the end of October. They levied a severe contribution upon the citizens, destroyed all the magazines, arsenals, and foundries, pillaged the royal palaces, and ravaged all the adjacent country, burning a vast amount of property and military stores; but they retired by different routes on hearing that the mortified Frederick was advancing to the relief of his plundered capital. And soon after he had his revenge at the battle fought near Toorgau, on the 23rd of November. There Lacy commanded the reserve of 20,000 men, who covered the causeway and several ponds which lay at the extremity of Daun's position, and on which his left flank rested; Lacy endured a severe cannonade at the beginning of the action. General Count O'Donnel commanded the cavalry. When Daun gave way, Lacy brought up his reserve, and twice with the bayonet he strove desperately and heroically to regain the day, but was twice driven back by the Prussians; nor did he abandon that disastrous field until half-past nine in the dark November evening. By that time Daun, after receiving a shot in the thigh, had been borne away wounded, and O'Donnel had assumed the command of the broken and discomfited army.
"Although I have been in twenty-eight battles," says a Swiss officer, whose letter appears in a Scottish newspaper of the time,[12] "I never saw anything more dreadful than the field presented. It was near six o'clock, a most obscure night—to use the words of Harlequin, a night of ink—the only light we had was the infernal fire of the artillery and musketry, the horrid noise of the combatants rendered more dreadful by the night; the melancholy cries of the wounded, mixed with the sound of drums and trumpets, filled the soul with horror. Kill! Kill! was cried out everywhere. In a word, I never saw anything that better corresponded with the melancholy idea given us of hell itself!"
The Austrians, despite their 200 pieces of cannon, were routed and driven over the Elbe; 10,000 of them lay slain on the field, and four generals, 200 other officers, and 8000 men were taken, with twenty-seven stand of colours, and fifty guns, for of all Frederick's victories this was the most successful and glorious. He recovered all Saxony except Dresden, in the neighbourhood of which an Austrian division, under General MacGuire, another Irish soldier of fortune, was hovering. The troops of the Empress-Queen evacuated Silesia, while the Russians abandoned Colberg and retired into Poland; and thus closed the year 1760.
Leaving Lacy to watch the Prussian general Zeithen, Leopold Daun, accompanied by his countess, repaired to Vienna, and so soon recovered, that in the spring of the following year he was able to assist at the councils of war. Fifty thousand men were now prisoners on both sides. In February, 1761, Lacy, now a field-marshal, meant to have visited Finland (where his father had received extensive estates), to settle certain family disputes which had arisen; but the preparations for another campaign, and the knowledge that his old friend Daun was about to resume the command, made him defer this journey for a time.
On the 21st of March, Marshal Daun departed from Vienna to join the army, and all the generals repaired to the head of their different brigades and divisions, for it was intended that the greatest efforts should now be made to crush the warlike King of Prussia. Daun took the command in Saxony; Marshal Count Loudon in Silesia, where he was to be supported by the Russians under Marshal Butterlin, whose train of artillery was tremendous. It consisted of no less than eight ninety-six-pounders, twenty-two forty-eight-pounders, seventy twenty-four-pounders, eighty-three twelve-pounders, eighty-six eight-pounders, and 106 lighter field pieces, drawn by 13,834 horses.
O'Donnel marched with 16,000 men to Zittau, from whence he was to assist the armies of Saxony or Silesia, as occasion might require, and he pushed one division as far as Dresden.
In June, Lacy's corps took post on the right bank of the Elbe, to preserve a communication with the division of his countryman. Several other Irishmen had high rank in the Austrian service about this time, and we may particularly note Nicholas Count Taaffe, who died a colonel-commandant in 1770, aged ninety-two, and was succeeded in his title and regiment by his son, Count Francis; and Count O'Rourke,[13] Knight of St. Louis, descended from an ancient family in the county of Leitrim, whose ancestors Cromwell is said to have stripped of an estate worth 70,000l. per annum.