“Shall we order that to cease, your majesty?”
“By no means,” the king replied. “With men like these I shall be sure of victory to-day!”[114]
BATTLE OF LEUTHEN, DECEMBER 5, 1757.
a a. Austrian Army. b b. Position of Saxon Forepost, under Nostitz. c c. Advance of Prussian Army. d. Lucchesi’s Cavalry, re-enforced by Daun. e. Left Wing, under Nadasti. f. Frederick’s Hill of Observation. g g. Prussian Army about to attack. h. Ziethen’s Cavalry. i i i. Retreat of Austrians.
The field of Leuthen—for so this battle-field was called—was a vast undulating plain or rolling prairie, extending for miles in all directions. One or two brooks flowed sluggishly through it. Here and there were expanses of marsh which neither horse nor foot could traverse. A few scraggy firs dotted the dreary landscape, and there were also a few hamlets of peasants’ huts scattered around. Frederick concealed his movements as much as possible behind the undulations, and succeeded in deceiving the Austrians into the belief that he was to make an attack upon their right wing. The Austrian officers, on windmills and in church belfries, were eagerly scrutinizing his manœuvres. Deceived into the conviction that their right wing was menaced, they impetuously pushed forward large re-enforcements of horse to the support of the presumed point of attack. Thus the left wing was weakened.
Frederick, who had taken his position upon a windmill, saw, with much satisfaction, the successful operation of his plan. Suddenly, with almost miraculous swiftness of movement, his perfectly drilled troops, horse, foot, and artillery, every man reckless of life, poured forth with a rush and a roar as of a lava-flood upon the extreme left of the Austrians. It was one o’clock of the day. There was neither brook, bush, fence, nor marsh to impede the headlong impetuosity of the assault. At the point of attack the Prussians were, of course, most numerous. There were a few moments of terrible slaughter, and the left wing of the Austrian army was annihilated. The ground was covered with the wounded and the dead, and the fugitives, in dismay, were fleeing across the fields.
The Austrian centre was pushed rapidly forward to the aid of the discomfited left. It was too late. The soldiers arrived upon the ground breathless and in disorder. Before they had time to form, Frederick plowed their ranks with balls, swept them with bullets, and fell upon them mercilessly with sabre and bayonet. The carnage was awful. Division after division melted away in the fire deluge which consumed them. Prince Charles made the most desperate efforts to rally his dismayed troops in and around the church-yard at Leuthen. Here for an hour they fought desperately. But it was all in vain. The left wing was destroyed. The centre was destroyed. The right wing was pushed forward only to be cut to pieces by the sabres, and to be mown down by the terrific fire of the triumphant Prussians.
Scarcely had the conflict upon the extreme left commenced ere it was evident that by the military sagacity of Frederick the doom of the Austrian army was sealed. With thirty thousand men he had attacked ninety thousand on the open field, and was utterly overwhelming them. An Austrian officer, Prince De Ligne, describing the battle, writes:
“Cry had risen for the reserve, and that it must come on as fast as possible. We ran at our utmost speed. Our lieutenant colonel fell, killed, at the first. Then we lost our major, and, indeed, all the officers but three. We had crossed two successive ditches which lay in an orchard to the left of the first houses in Leuthen, and were beginning to form in front of the village. But there was no standing it. Besides a general cannonade, such as can scarcely be imagined, there was a rain of case-shot upon this battalion, of which I had to take command. A Prussian battalion at the distance of eighty paces gave the liveliest fire upon us. It stood as if on the parade-ground, and waited for us without stirring. My soldiers, who were tired with running, and had no cannon, soon became scattered. At last, when I had but two hundred left, I drew back to the height where the windmill is.”