“The more you have proved that you were acquainted with the intentions of Saxony, the more odious have you rendered its invasion. In order to procure this knowledge, your minister has degraded his character. By means proscribed in society, you have discovered only that the King Elector of Saxony did not love the power of Prussia, that he feared it, and that he even dared to form projects to defend himself against it. Documents which are stolen make against the accuser who produces them, if they do not prove the crime which they impute.”[116]
In conclusion, in most pathetic terms he entreated the king to listen to terms of peace, and thus to prevent the ruin of himself, of his people, and of his royal house.
At the same time that the tidings of the death of Augustus William were communicated to the king, he received also the tidings, which to him were truly heart-rending, that Wilhelmina, worn down with care and sorrow, was fast sinking into the grave.
Early in June, the cautious but ever-vigilant General Daun succeeded in throwing into Olmütz a re-enforcement of eleven hundred Austrian troops. They were guided by peasants through by-paths in the forests. Crossing the river some miles below Olmütz, they entered the city from the east.
Still, on the whole, the siege progressed favorably. Large supplies of food and ammunition were indispensable to Frederick. Thirty thousand hungry men were to be fed. A constant bombardment rapidly exhausts even abundant stores of powder, shot, and shell.
In the latter part of June a large train of over three thousand four-horse wagons, laden with all necessary supplies, left Troppau for Olmütz. It is difficult for a reader unfamiliar with such scenes to form any conception of the magnitude of such an enterprise. There are twelve thousand horses to be shod, harnessed, and fed, and watered three or four times a day. There are three thousand wagons to be kept in repair, rattling over the stones and plowing through the mire. Six thousand teamsters are required. There is invariably connected with such a movement one or two thousand camp-followers, sutlers, women, vagabonds. A large armed force is also needed to act as convoy.
This train filled the road for a distance of twenty miles. To traverse the route of ninety miles required six days. The road led through forests and mountain defiles. A bold and vigorous foe, well equipped and well mounted, watched the movement. To protect such a train from assault is one of the most difficult achievements of war. The enemy, suddenly emerging from mountain fastnesses or gloomy forests, can select his point of attack, and then sweep in either direction along the line, burning and destroying.
On the 26th of June this vast train commenced its movement from Troppau. A convoy of about seven thousand infantry and eleven hundred cavalry guarded the wagons. They were in three bodies, on the front, in the centre, and on the rear. The king also sent forward about six thousand horse and foot from Olmütz to meet the train.
The wagons had accomplished about half the distance, when, on Friday, the 30th of June, as they were emerging from wild ravines among the mountains, they were simultaneously attacked in front, centre, and rear by three divisions of the Austrians, each about five thousand strong. Then ensued as terrible a scene of panic and confusion as war has ever witnessed. The attack of horsemen with their gleaming sabres, the storm of bullets, thick as hailstones, the thunders of the cannon, as the ponderous balls tore their way through wagons, and horses, and men, soon presented such a spectacle of devastation, ruin, and woe as mortal eyes have seldom gazed upon.
“Among the tragic wrecks of this convoy there is one that still goes to our heart. A longish, almost straight row of Prussian recruits stretched among the slain, what are these? These were seven hundred recruits coming up from their cantons to the wars. See how they have fought to the death, poor lads! and have honorably, on the sudden, got manumitted from the toils of life. Seven hundred of them stood to arms this morning; some sixty-five will get back to Troppau; that is the invoice account. There they lie with their blonde young cheeks, beautiful in death.”[117]