Chapter III.—FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS.
Before Wedell's catastrophe, the Affair of those Haddick-Loudon Detachments had become a little plainer to Friedrich. The intention, he begins to suspect, is not for Berlin at all; but for junction with Soltikof,—at Crossen, or wherever it may be. This is in fact their real purpose; and this, beyond almost Berlin itself, it is in the highest degree important to prevent! Important; and now as if become impossible!
Prince Henri had come to Bautzen with his Army, specially to look after Loudon and Haddick; and he has, all this while, had Finck with some 10,000 diligently patrolling to westward of them, guarding Berlin; he himself watching from the southern side,—where, as on the western, there was no danger from them. Some time before Wedell's affair, Friedrich had pushed out Eugen of Wurtemberg to watch these people on the eastern side;—suspicious that thitherward lay their real errand. Eugen had but 6,000; and, except in conjunction with Finck and Henri, could do nothing,—nor can, now when Friedrich's suspicion turns out to be fatally true. Friedrich had always the angry feeling that Finck and Prince Henri were the blameworthy parties in what now ensued; that they, who were near, ought to have divined these people's secret, and spoiled it in time; not have left it to him who was far off, and so busy otherwise. To the last, that was his fixed private opinion; by no means useful to utter,—especially at present, while attempting the now very doubtful enterprise himself, and needing all about him to be swift and zealous. This is one of Friedrich's famous labors, this of the Haddick-Loudon junction with Soltikof; strenuous short spasm of effort, of about a week's continuance; full of fiery insight, velocity, energy; still admired by judges, though it was unsuccessful, or only had half success. Difficult to bring home, in any measure, to the mind of modern readers, so remote from it.
Friedrich got the news of Zullichau next day, July 24th;—and instantly made ready. The case is critical; especially this Haddick-Loudon part of it: add 30 or 36,000 Austrians to Soltikof, how is he then to be dealt with? A case stringently pressing:—and the resources for it few and scattered. For several days past, Haddick, and Loudon under him, whose motions were long enigmatic, have been marching steadily eastward through the Lausitz,—with the evident purpose of joining Soltikof; unless Wedell could forbid. Wedell ahead was the grand opposition;—Finck, Henri, Wurtemberg, as good as useless;—and Wedell being now struck down, these Austrians will go, especially Loudon will, at a winged rate. They are understood to be approaching Sagan Country; happily, as yet, well to westward of it, and from Sagan Town well NORTH-westward;—but all accounts of them are vague, dim: they are an obscure entity to Friedrich, but a vitally important one. Sagan Town may be about 70 miles northward of where Friedrich now is: from Sagan, were they once in the meridian of Sagan, their road is free eastward and northward;—to Crossen is about 60 miles north-by-east from Sagan, to Frankfurt near 100 north. Sagan is on the Bober; Bober, in every event, is between the Austrians and their aim.
Friedrich feels that, however dangerous to quit Daun's neighborhood, he must, he in person, go at once. And who, in the interim, will watch Daun and his enterprises? Friedrich's reflections are: "Well, in the crisis of the moment, Saxony—though there already are marauding Bodies of Reichsfolk in it—must still be left to itself for a time; or cannot Finck and his 10,000 look to it? Henri, with his Army, now useless at Bautzen, shall instantly rendezvous at Sagan; his Army to go with me, against the Russians and their Haddick-Loudons; Henri to Schmottseifen, instead of me, and attend to Daun; Henri, I have no other left! Finck and his 10,000 must take charge of Saxony, such charge as he can:—how lucky those Spring Forays, which destroyed the Reichs Magazines! Whereby there is no Reichs Army yet got into Saxony (nothing but preliminary pulses and splashings of it); none yet, nor like to be quite at once." That is Friedrich's swift plan.
Henri rose on the instant, as did everybody concerned: July 29th, Henri and Army were at Sagan; Army waiting for the King; Henri so far on his road to Schmottseifen. He had come to Sagan "by almost the rapidest marches ever heard of,"—or ever till some others of Henri's own, which he made in that neighborhood soon. Punctual, he, to his day; as are Eugen of Wurtemberg's people, and all Detachments and Divisions: Friedrich himself arrives at Sagan that same 29th, "about midnight,"—and finds plenty of work waiting: no sleep these two nights past; and none coming just yet! A most swift rendezvous. The speed of everybody has been, and needs still to be, intense.
This rendezvous at Sagan—intersection of Henri and Friedrich, bound different roads (the Brothers, I think, did not personally meet, Henri having driven off for Schmottseifen by a shorter road)—was SUNDAY, JULY 29th. Following which, are six days of such a hunt for those Austrian reynards as seldom or never was! Most vehement, breathless, baffling hunt; half of it spent in painfully beating cover, in mere finding and losing. Not rightly successful, after all. So that, on the eighth day hence, AUGUST 6th, at Mullrose, near Frankfurt, 80 miles from Sagan, there is a second rendezvous,—rendezvous of Wedell and Friedrich, who do not now "intersect," but meet after the hunt is done;—and in the interim, there has been a wonderful performance, though an unsuccessful. Friedrich never could rightly get hold of his Austrians. Once only, at Sommerfeld, a long march northwest of Sagan, he came upon some outskirts of them. And in general, in those latter eight days, especially in the first six of them, there is, in that Kotbus-Sagan Country, such an intersecting, checking, pushing and multifarious simmering of marches, on the part of half a dozen Strategic Entities, Friedrich the centre of them, as—as, I think, nobody but an express soldier-student, well furnished with admiration for this particular Soldier, would consent to have explained to him. One of the maziest, most unintelligible whirls of marching; inextricable Sword Dance, or Dance of the Furies,—five of them (that is the correct number: Haddick, Loudon, Friedrich, Wurtemberg, Wedell);—and it is flung down for us, all in a huddle, in these inhuman Books (which have several errors of the press, too): let no man rashly insist with himself on understanding it, unless he have need! Humanly pulled straight, not inhumanly flung down at random, here the essentials of it are,—in very brief state:—
"SAGAN, MONDAY, 30th JULY. Friedrich is at Sagan, since midnight last, busier and busier;" beating cover, as we termed it, and getting his hounds (his new Henri-Army) in leash; "endeavoring, especially, to get tidings of those Austrian people; who are very enigmatic,—Loudon a dexterous man,—and have hung up such a curtain of Pandours between Friedrich and them as is nearly impenetrable. In the course of this Monday Friedrich ascertains that they are verily on the road; coming eastward, for Sommerfeld,—'thence for Crossen!' he needs no ghost to tell him. Wherefore,
"TUESDAY, SAGAN TO NAUMBURG. Tuesday before daybreak Friedrich too is on the road: northwestward; in full march towards Naumburg on Bober, meaning to catch the Bridge from them there. March of the swiftest; he himself is ahead, as usual, with the Vanguard of Horse. He reaches Naumburg (northward, a march of 20 miles); finds, not Haddick or Loudon, but a Detachment of theirs: which he at once oversets with his cavalry, and chases,—marking withal that 'westward is the way they run.' Westward; and that we are still ahead, thank Heaven!
"Before his Infantry are all up, or are well rested in Naumburg, Friedrich ascertains, on more precise tidings, that the Austrians are in Sommerfeld, to westward (again a 20 miles); and judges That, no doubt, they will bear off more to leftward, by Guben probably, and try to avoid him,—unless he can still catch them in Sommerfeld. About nightfall he marches for Sommerfeld, at his swiftest; arrives Wednesday early; finds—alas!—