Here, however, is the important point. In Sohr, this night, 29th September, in a most private manner, the Austrians, 30,000 of them and more, have come gliding through the woods, without even their pipe lit, and with thick veil of hussars ahead! Outposts of theirs lie squatted in the bushes behind Deutsch Prausnitz, hardly 500 yards from Friedrich's Camp. And eastward, leftward of him, in the defiles about Eypel, lie Nadasti and Ruffian Trenck, with ten or twelve thousand, who are to take him in rear. His "Camp of Staudentz" will be at a fine pass to-morrow morning. The Austrian Gentlemen had found, last week, a certain bare Height in the Forest (Height still known), from which they could use their astronomer tubes day after day; [Orlich, ii. 225.] and now they are about attempting something!
Thursday morning, very early, 30th September, 1745, Friedrich was in his tent, busy with generals and march-routes,—when a rapid orderly comes in, from that Vedette, or strong Piquet, on the Heights to our right: "Austrians visibly moving, in quantity, near by!" and before he has done answering, the officer himself arrives: "Regular Cavalry in great force; long dust-cloud in Kingdom Forest, in the gray dawn; and, so far as we can judge, it is their Army coming on." Here is news for a poor man, in the raw of a September morning, by way of breakfast to him! "To arms!" is, of course, Friedrich's instant order; and he himself gallops to the Piquet on the Heights, glass in hand. "Austrian Army sure enough, thirty to thirty-five thousand of them, we only eighteen. [OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 139.] Coming to take us on the right flank here; to attack our Camp by surprise: will crush us northward through the defiles, and trample us down in detail? Hmh! To run for it, will never do. We must fight for it, and even attack THEM, as our way is, though on such terms. Quick, a plan!" The head of Friedrich is a bank you cannot easily break by coming on it for plans: such a creature for impromptu plans, and unexpected dashes swift as the panther's, I have hardly known,—especially when you squeeze him into a corner, and fancy he is over with it! Friedrich gallops down, with his plan clear enough; and already the Austrians, horse and foot, are deploying upon those Heights he has quitted; Fifty Squadrons of Horse for left wing to them, and a battery of Twenty-eight big Guns is establishing itself where Friedrich's Piquet lately stood.
Friedrich's right flank has to become his front, and face those formidable Austrian Heights and Batteries; and this with more than Prussian velocity, and under the play of those twenty-eight big guns, throwing case-shot (GRENADES ROYALES) and so forth, all the while. To Valori, when he heard of the thing, it is inconceivable how mortal troops could accomplish such a movement; Friedrich himself praises it, as a thing honorably well done. Took about half an hour; case-shot raining all the while; soldier honorably never-minding: no flurry, though a speed like that of spinning-tops. And here we at length are, Staudentz now to rear of us, behind our centre a good space; Burgersdorf in front of us to right, our left reaching to Prausnitz: Austrian lines, three deep of them, on the opposite Height; we one line only, which matches them in length.
They, that left wing of horse, should have thundered down on us, attacking us, not waiting our attack, thinks Friedrich; but they have not done it. They stand on their height there, will perhaps fire carbines, as their wont is. "You, Buddenbrock, go into them with your Cuirassiers!" Buddenbrock and the Cuirassiers, though it is uphill, go into them at a furious rate; meet no countercharge, mere sputter of carbines;—tumble them to mad wreck, back upon their second line, back upon their third: absurdly crowded there on their narrow height, no room to manoeuvre; so that they plunge, fifty squadrons of them, wholly into the Georgengrund rearward, into the Kingdom Wood, and never come on again at all. Buddenbrock has done his job right well.
Seeing which, our Infantry of the right wing, which stood next to Buddenbrock, made impetuous charge uphill, emulous to capture that Battery of Twenty-eight; but found it, for some time, a terrible attempt. These Heights are not to be called "hills," still less "mountains" (as in some careless Books); but it is a stiff climb at double-quick, with twenty-eight big guns playing in the face of you. Storms of case-shot shear away this Infantry, are quenching its noble fury in despair; Infantry visibly recoiling, when our sole Three Regiments of Reserve hurry up to support. Round these all rallies; rushes desperately on, and takes the Battery,—of course, sending the Austrian left wing rapidly adrift, on loss of the same.
This, I consider, is the crisis of the Fight; the back of the Austrian enterprise is already broken, by this sad winging of it on the left. But it resists still; comes down again,—the reserve of their left wing seen rapidly making for Burgersdorf, intending an attack there; which we oppose with vigor, setting Burgersdorf on fire for temporary screen; and drive the Austrian reserve rapidly to rearward again. But there is rally after rally of them. They rank again on every new height, and dispute there; loath to be driven into Kingdom Wood, after such a flourish of arms. One height, "bushy steep height," the light-limbed valiant Prince, little Ferdinand of Brunswick, had the charge of attacking; and he did it with his usual impetus and irresistibility:—and, strangely enough, the defender of it chanced to be that Brother of his, Prince Ludwig, with whom he had the little Interview lately. Prince Ludwig got a wound, as well as lost his height. The third Brother, poor Prince Albrecht, who is also here, as volunteer apprentice, on the Prussian side, gets killed. There will never be another Interview, for all three, between the Camps! Strange times for those poor Princes, who have to seek soldiering for their existence.
Meanwhile the Cavalry of Buddenbrock, that is to say of the right wing, having now no work in that quarter, is despatched to reinforce the left wing, which has stood hitherto apart on its own ground; not attacked or attacking,—a left wing REFUSED, as the soldiers style it. Reinforced by Buddenbrock, this left wing of horse does now also storm forward;—"near the Village of Prausnitz" (Prausnitz a little way to rear of it), thereabouts, is the scene of its feat. Feat done in such fashion that the Austrians opposite will not stand the charge at all; but gurgle about in a chaotic manner; then gallop fairly into Kingdom Wood, without stroke struck; and disappear, as their fellows had done. Whereupon the Prussian horse breaks in upon the adjoining Infantry of that flank (Austrian right flank, left bare in this manner); champs it also into chaotic whirlpools; cuts away an outskirt of near 2,000 prisoners, and sets the rest running. This seems to have been pretty much the COUP-DE-GRACE of the Fight; and to have brought the Austrian dispute to finis. From the first, they had rallied on the heights; had struggled and disputed. Two general rallies they made, and various partial, but none had any success. They were driven on, bayonet in back, as the phrase is: with this sad slap on their right, added to that old one on their left, what can they now do but ebb rapidly; pour in cataracts into Kingdom Wood, and disappear there? [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 135-143; Stille, pp. 144-163; Orlich, ii. 227-243; Feldzuge, i. 357, 363, 374.]
Prince Karl's scheme was good, says Friedrich; but it was ill executed. He never should have let us form; his first grand fault was that he waited to be attacked, instead of attacking. Parts of his scheme were never executed at all. Duke d'Ahremberg, for instance, it is said, had so dim a notion of the ground, that he drew up some miles off, with his back to the Prussians. Such is the rumor,—perhaps only a rumor, in mockery of the hebetated old gentleman fallen unlucky? On the other hand, that Nadasti made a failure which proved important, is indubitable. Nadasti, with some thousands of Tolpatchery, was at Liebenthal, four miles to southeast of the action; Ruffian Trenck lay behind Eypel, perhaps as far to east, of it: Trenck and Nadasti were to rendezvous, to unite, and attack the Prussian Camp on its rear,—"Camp," so ran the order, for it was understood the Prussians would all be there, we others attacking it in front and both flanks;—which turned out otherwise, not for Nadasti alone!
Nadasti came to his rendezvous in time; Ruffian Trenck did not: Nadasti grew tired of waiting for Trenck, and attacked the Camp by himself:—Camp, but not any men; Camp being now empty, and the men all fighting, ranked at right angles to it, furlongs and miles away. Nadasti made a rare hand of the Camp; plundered everything, took all the King's Camp-furniture, ready money, favorite dog Biche,—likewise poor Eichel his Secretary, who, however, tore the papers first. Tolpatchery exultingly gutted the Camp; and at last set fire to it,—burnt even some eight or ten poor Prussian sick, and also "some women whom they caught. We found the limbs of these poor men and women lying about," reports old General Lehwald; who knew about it. A doggery well worthy of the gallows, think Lehwald and I. "Could n't help it; ferocity of wild men," says Nadasti. "Well; but why not attack, then, with your ferocity?" Confused Court-martial put these questions, at Vienna subsequently; and Ruffian Trenck, some say, got injustice, Nadasti shuffling things upon him; for which one cares almost nothing. Lehwald, lying at Trautenau, had heard the firing at sunrise; and instantly marched to help: he only arrived to give Nadasti a slash or two, and was too late for the Fight. One Schlichtling, on guard with a weak party, saved what was in the right wing of the Camp,—small thanks to him, the Main Fight being so near: Friedrich's opinion is, an Officer, in Schlichtling's place, ought to have done more, and not have been so helpless.
This was the Battle of Sohr; so called because the Austrians had begun there, and the Prussians ended there. The Prussian pursuit drew bridle at that Village; unsafe to prosecute Austrians farther, now in the deeps of Kingdom Forest. The Battle has lasted five hours. It must be now getting towards noon; and time for breakfast, if indeed any were to be had; but that is next to impossible, Nadasti having been so busy. Not without extreme difficulty is a manchet of bread, with or without a drop of wine, procured for the King's Majesty this day. Many a tired hero will have nothing but tobacco, with spring-water, to fall back upon. Never mind! says the King, says everybody. After all, it is a cheap price to pay for missing an attack from Pandours in the rear, while such crisis went on ahead.