Thus Friedrich lay, when Valori escaped being stolen; when Tauenzien was assailed by the 10,000 Pandours with siege artillery, and stood inexpugnable in the breach till Friedrich relieved him. Those Pandours "had cut away his water, for the last two days;" so that, except for speedy relief, all valor had been in vain. Water being gone, not recoverable without difficulties, Neustadt was abandoned (September 16th, as I guess);—one of our main Silesian roads for meal has ceased. We have now only Schatzlar to depend on; where Franquini—lying westward among the glens of the Upper Elbe, and possessed of abundant talent in the Tolpatch way (witness Valori's narrow miss lately)—gives us trouble enough. Friedrich determines to move towards Schatzlar. Homewards, in fact; eating the Country well as he goes.
Saturday, 18th September, Friedrich crosses the Elbe at Jaromirz. Entirely unopposed; the Austrians were all busy firing FEU-DE-JOIE for the Election of their Grand-Duke: Election done five days ago at Frankfurt, and the news just come. So they crackle about, and deliver rolling fire, at a great rate; proud to be "IMPERIAL Army" henceforth, as if that could do much for them. There was also vast dining, for three days, among the high heads, and a great deal of wine spent. That probably would have been the chance to undertake something upon them, better than crossing the Elbe, says Friedrich looking back. But he did not think of it in time; took second-best in place of best.
He is now, therefore, over into that Triangular piece of Country between Elbe and Aupa (if readers will consult their Map); in that triangle, his subsequent notable operations all lie. He here proposes to move northward, by degrees,—through Trautenau, Schatzlar, and home; well eating this bit of Country too, the last uneaten bit, as he goes. This well eaten, there will be no harbor anywhere for Invasion, through the Winter coming. One of my old Notes says of it, in the topographic point of view:—
"It is a triangular patch of Country, which has lain asleep since the Creation of the World; traversed only by Boii (BOI-HEIM-ERS, Bohemians), Czechs and other such populations, in Human History; but which Friedrich has been fated to make rather notable to the Moderns henceforth. Let me recommend it to the picturesque tourist, especially to the military one. Lovers of rocky precipices, quagmires, brawling torrents and the unadulterated ruggedness of Nature, will find scope there; and it was the scene of a distinguished passage of arms, with notable display of human dexterity and swift presence of mind. For the rest, one of the wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant regions in the world. Wild stony upland; topmost Upland, we may say, of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland; for the rainstorms hereabouts run several roads,—into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder, into the Black Sea by the Donau;—and it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeks-journeys, from many sides.
"Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest' (KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in area, the longer side of which lies along the Elbe. A Country of rocky defiles; lowish hills chaotically shoved together, not wanting their brooks and quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood. Some poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are scattered about; there may be patches ploughable for rye [modern Tourist says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained; reminded me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine afternoon!]—ploughable for rye, buckwheat; boggy grass to be gathered in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable, among these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor ploughing, moiling creatures, they little thought of becoming notable so soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the least notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no more notice than if they also had been stocks and moss-grown stones. Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years past, in a dim manner;—and are much terrified to have become the seat of war, all on a sudden. Their poor Hamlets, Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz, Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them, languidly, the live-coal of mysterious human existence, in those woods,—to judge by the last maps that have come out. A thing worth considering by the passing tourist, military or other."
It is in this Kingdom Forest (which he calls ROYAUME DE SILVA, instead of SYLVA DE ROYAUME) that Friedrich now marches; keeping the body of the Forest well on his left, and skirting the southern and eastern sides of it. Rough marching for his Majesty; painfully infested by Nadastian Tolpatches; who run out on him from ambushes, and need to be scourged; one ambush in particular, at a place called Liebenthal (second day's march, and near the end of it),—where our Prussian Hussars, winding like fiery dragons on the dangerous precipices, gave them better than they brought, and completely quenched their appetite for that day. After Liebenthal, the march soon ends; three miles farther on, at the dim wold-hamlet of Staudentz: here a camp is pitched; here, till the Country is well eaten out, or till something else occur, we propose to tarry for a time.
Horse-forage abounds here; but there is no getting of it without disturbance from those dogs; you must fight for every truss of grass: if a meal-train is coming, as there does every five days, you have to detach 8,000 foot and 3,000 horse to help it safe in. A fretting fatiguing time for regular troops. Our bakery is at Trautenau,—where Valori is now lodging. The Tolpatchery, unable to take Trautenau, set fire to it, though it is their own town, their own Queen's town; thatchy Trautenau, wooden too in the upper stories of it, takes greedily to the fire; goes all aloft in flame, and then lies black. A scandalous transaction, thinks Friedrich. The Prussian corn lay nearly all in cellars; little got, even of the Prussians, by such an atrocity: and your own poor fellow-subjects, where are they? Valori was burnt out here; again exploded from his quarters, poor man;—seems to have thought it a mere fire in his own lodging, and that he was an unfortunate diplomatist. Happily he got notice (PRIVATISSIME, for no officer dare whisper in such cases) that there is an armed party setting out for Silesia, to guard meal that is coming: Valori yokes himself to this armed party, and gets safe over the Hills with it,—then swift, by extra post, to Breslau and to civilized (partially civilized) accommodation, for a little rest after these hustlings and tossings.
Friedrich had lain at Staudentz, in this manner, bickering continually for his forage, and eating the Country, for about ten days: and now, as the latter process is well on, and the season drawing to a close: he determines on a shift northward. Thursday, 30th September next, let there be one other grand forage, the final one in this eaten tract, then northward to fresh grounds. That, it appears, was the design. But, on Wednesday, there came in an Austrian deserter; who informs us that Prince Karl is not now in Konigsgratz, but in motion up the Elbe; already some fifty miles up; past Jaromirz: his rear at Konigshof, his van at Arnau,—on a level with burnt Trautenau, and farther north than we ourselves are. This is important news. "Intending to block us out from Schatzlar? Hmh!" Single scouts, or small parties, cannot live in this Kingdom Wood, swarming with Pandours: Friedrich sends out a Colonel Katzler, with 500 light horse, to investigate a little. Katzler pushes forward, on such lane or forest road-track as there is, towards Konigshof; beats back small hussar parties;—comes, in about an hour's space, not upon hussars merely, but upon dense masses of heavy horse winding through the forest lanes; and, with that imperfect intelligence, is obliged to return. The deserter spake truth, apparently; and that is all we can know. Forage scheme is given up; the order is, "Baggage packed, and MARCH to-morrow morning at ten." Long before ten, there had great things befallen on the morrow!—Try to understand this Note a little:—
"The Camp of Staudentz-which two persons (the King, and General Stille, a more careful reporter, who also was an eye-witness) have done their best to describe—will, after all efforts, and an Ordnance Map to help, remain considerably unintelligible to the reader; as is too usual in such cases. A block of high-lying ground; Friedrich's Camp on it, perhaps two miles long, looks to the south; small Village of Staudentz in front; hollow beyond that, and second small Village, Deutsch Prausnitz, hanging on the opposite slope, with shaggy heights beyond, and the Kingdom Forest there beginning: on the left, defiles, brooks and strait country, leading towards the small town of Eypel: that is our left and front aspect, a hollow well isolating us on those sides. Hollow continues all along the front; hollow definite on our side of it, and forming a tolerable defence:—though again, I perceive, to rightward at no great distance, there rise High Grounds which considerably overhang us." A thing to be marked! "These we could not occupy, for want of men; but only maintain vedettes upon them. Over these Heights, a mile or two westward of this hollow of ours, runs the big winding hollow called Georgengrund (GEORGE'S BOTTOM), which winds up and down in that Kingdom Forest, and offers a road from Konigshof to Trautenau, among other courses it takes.
"From the crown of those Heights on our right flank here, looking to the west, you might discern (perhaps three miles off, from one of the sheltering nooks in the hither side of that Georgengrund), rising faintly visible over knolls and dingles, the smoke of a little Forest Village. That Village is Sohr; notable ever since, beyond others, in the Kingdom Wood. Sohr, like the other Villages, has its lane-roads; its road to Trautenau, to Konigshof, no doubt; but much nearer you, on our eastern slope of the Heights, and far hitherward of Sohr, which is on the western, goes the great road [what is now the great road], from Konigshof to Trautenau, well visible from Friedrich's Camp, though still at some distance from it. Could these Heights between us and Sohr, which lie beyond the great road, be occupied, we were well secured; isolated on the right too, as on the other sides, from Kingdom Forest and its ambushes. 'Should have been done,' admits Friedrich; 'but then, as it is, there are not troops enough:' with 18,000 men you cannot do everything!"