FREDERICK ASLEEP IN THE HUT AT OETSCHER.
The consternation at Berlin, as contradictory reports of victory and defeat reached the city, was indescribable. M. Sulzer, an eye-witness of the scene, writes under date of Berlin, August 13th, 1759:
“Above fifty thousand human beings were on the palace esplanade and the streets around, swaying hither and thither in an agony of expectation, in alternate paroxysms of joy, of terror, and of woe. Often enough the opposite paroxysms were simultaneous in the different groups. Men crushed down by despair were met by men leaping into the air for very gladness.”
As we have mentioned, the Russian general had such a dread of Frederick that he did not dare to pursue him. In his report of the victory to the Czarina Charlotte, speaking of his own heavy loss of over eighteen thousand men, he writes, “Your majesty is aware that the King of Prussia sells his victories at a dear rate.” To some who urged him to pursue Frederick, he replied, “Let me gain but another such victory, and I may go to Petersburg with the news of it myself alone, with my staff in my hand.”
Frederick remained at Reitwein four days. He was very unjust to his army, and angrily reproached his soldiers for their defeat. It is true that, had every soldier possessed his own spirit, his army would have conquered, or not a man would have left the field alive. The Russians, with almost inconceivable inactivity, retired to Lossow, ten miles south of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. The king, having by great exertions collected thirty-two thousand men, marched up the valley of the Spree, and placed himself on the road between the Russians and Berlin.
While on this march he wrote from Madlitz, under date of August 16th, to Marquis D’Argens, at Berlin:
“We have been unfortunate, my dear marquis, but not by my fault. The victory was ours, and would even have been a complete one, when our infantry lost patience, and at the wrong moment abandoned the field of battle. The Russian infantry is almost totally destroyed. Of my own wrecks, all that I have been able to assemble amounts to thirty-two thousand men. With these I am pushing on to throw myself across the enemy’s road, and either perish or save the capital. This is not what you will call a deficiency of resolution.
“For the event I can not answer. If I had more lives than one, I would sacrifice them all to my country. But, if this stroke fail, I think I am clear scores with her, and that it will be permissible to look a little to myself. There are limits to every thing. I support my misfortune. My courage is not abated by it. But I am well resolved, after this stroke, if it fail, to open an outgate to myself, and no longer be the sport of any chance.”[140]
Four days after, in anticipation of an immediate attack from the Russians, he again wrote to the same address, “Remain at Berlin, or retire to Potsdam. In a little while there will come some catastrophe. It is not fit that you suffer by it. If things take a good turn, you can be back to Berlin. If ill luck still pursue us, go to Hanover, or to Zelle, where you can provide for your safety.”