The Austrians, on their side, were equally stagnant; and, except the continual skirmishing with the Prussian foragers, undertook nothing. "Shamefully ill-clone our foraging, too," exclaims Schmettau again and again: "Had we done it with neatness, with regularity, the Country would have lasted us twice as long. Doing it headlong, wastefully and by the rule-of-thumb, the Country was a desert, all its inhabitants fled, all its edibles consumed, before six weeks were over. Friedrich is not now himself at all; in great things or in little; what a changed Friedrich!" exclaims Schmettau, with wearisome iteration.
From about August 6th, or especially August 10th, when the Maria-Theresa Correspondence, or "Congress of Braunau," ended likewise in zero, Friedrich became impatient for actual junction with Prince Henri, actual push of business; and began to hint of an excellent plan he had: "Burst through on their left flank; blow up their post of Hohenelbe yonder: thence is but one march to Iser river; junction with Prince Henri there; and a Lacy and a Loudon tumbled to the winds." "A plan perfectly feasible," says Schmettau; "which solaced the King's humor, but which he never really intended to execute." Possibly not; otherwise, according to old wont, he would have forborne to speak of it beforehand. At all events, August 15th, in the feeling that one ought really to do something, the rather as forage hereabouts was almost or altogether running out, he actually set about this grand scheme.
Got on march to rightward, namely, up the Aupa river, through the gloomy chasms of Kingdom-Wood, memorable in old days: had his bakery shifted to Trautenau; his heavy cannon getting tugged through the mire and the rains, which by this time were abundant, towards Hohenelbe, for the great enterprise: and sat encamped on and about the Battle-ground of Sohr for a week or so, waiting till all were forward; eating Sohr Country, which was painfully easy to do. The Austrians did next to nothing on him; but the rains, the mud and scarcity were doing much. Getting on to Hohenelbe region, after a week's wet waiting, he, on ocular survey of the ground about, was heard to say, "This cannot be done, then!" "Had never meant to do it," sneers Schmettau, "and only wanted some excuse." Which is very likely. Schmettau gives an Anecdote of him here: In regard to a certain Hill, the Key of the Austrian position, which the King was continually reconnoitring, and lamenting the enormous height of, "Impossible, so high!" One of the Adjutants took his theodolite, ascertained the height, and, by way of comforting his Majesty, reported the exact number of feet above their present level. "How do YOU know, Herr?" said the King angrily. "Measured it by Trigonometry, your Majesty."—"Trigonometry! SCHER' ER SICH ZUM TEUFEL (Off with you, Sir, to the Devil, your Trigonometry and you!)"—no believer in mathematics, this King.
He was loath to go; and laid the blame on many things. "Were Prince Henri now but across the Iser. Had that stupid Anhalt, when he was upon it [galloping about, to the ruin of his head], only seized Arnau, Arnau and its Elbe-Bridge; and had it in hand for junction with Prince Henri!" In fine, just as the last batch of heavy cannon—twenty or thirty hungered horses to a gun, at the rate of five miles a day in roads unspeakable—were getting in, he ordered them all to be dragged back, back to the Trautenau road; whither we must now all go. And, SEPTEMBER 8th, in perfect order, for the Austrians little molested him, and got a bad bargain when they did, the great Friedrich with his whole Army got on march homeward, after such a Campaign as we see. Climbed the Trautenau-Landshut Pass, with nothing of effective loss except from the rainy elements, the steep miry ways and the starved horses; draught-horses especially starved,—whom, poor creatures, "you would see spring at the ropes [draught-harness], thirty of them to a gun, when started and gee-ho'd to; tug violently with no effect, and fall down in whole rows."
Prince Henri, forage done, started punctually September 10th, two days after his Brother; and with little or no pursuit, from the Austrians, and with horses unstarved, got home in comparatively tolerable circumstances. Cantoned himself in Dresden neighborhood, and sat waiting: he had never approved this War; and now, I suppose, would not want for reflections. Friedrich's cantonments were round Landshut, and spread out to right and to left, from Glatz Country and the Upper-Silesian Hills, to Silberberg and Schweidnitz;—his own quarter is the same region, where he lay so long in Summer, 1759, talking on learned subjects with the late Quintus Icilius, if readers remember, and wearily waiting till Cunctator Daun (likewise now deceased) took his stand, or his seat, at Mark Lissa, and the King could follow him to Schmottseifen. Friedrich himself on this present occasion stayed at Schatzlar as rear-guard, to see whether the Austrians would not perhaps try to make some Winter Campaign of it, and if so, whether they would attempt on Prince Henri or on him. The Austrians did not attempt on either; showed no such intention,—though mischievous enough in other small ways. Friedrich wrote the ELOGE of Voltaire [OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 50 et seq. ("finished Nov. 26th, 1778").] while he waited here at Schatzlar, among the rainy Mountains. Later on, as prospects altered, he was much at Breslau, or running about on civic errands with Breslau as centre: at Breslau he had many Dialogues with Professor Garve,—in whose good, but oppressively solemn, little Book, more a dull-droning Preachment than a Narrative, no reader need look for them or for him.
As to the EULOGY OF VOLTAIRE, we may say that it is generous, ingenious, succinct; and of dialect now obsolete to us. There was (and is, though suppressed) another EULOGY, brand-new, by a Contemporary of our own,—from which I know not if readers will permit me a sentence or two, in this pause among the rainy Mountains?
... "A wonderful talent lay in this man—[in Voltaire, to wit; "such an intellect, the sharpest, swiftest of the world," thinks our Contemporary; "fathoming you the deepest subject, to a depth far beyond most men's soundings, and coming up with victory and something wise and logically speakable to say on it, sooner than any other man,—never doubting but he has been at the bottom, which is from three to ten miles lower!">[ wonderful talent; but observe always, if you look closely, it was in essence a mere talent for Speech; which talent Bavius and Maevius and the Jew Apella may admire without looking behind it, but this Eulogist by no means will. Speech, my friend? If your sublime talent of speech consists only in making ignorance appear to be knowledge, and little wisdom appear to be much, I will thank you to walk on with it, and apply at some other shop. The QUANTITY of shops where you can apply with thrice-golden advantage, from the Morning Newspapers to the National Senate, is tremendous at this epoch of the poor world's history;—go, I request you! And while his foot is on the stairs, descending from my garret, I think: O unfortunate fellow-creature in an unfortunate world, why is not there a Friedrich Wilhelm to 'elect' you, as he did Gundling, to his TOBACCO Parliament, and there set Fassmann upon you with the pans of burning peat? It were better even for yourself; wholesomely didactic to your poor self, I cannot doubt; and for the poor multitudes to whom you are now to be sacred VATES, speaking and singing YOUR dismal GUNDLINGIANA as if inspired by Heaven, how infinitely better!—Courage, courage! I discern, across these hideous jargons, the reign of greater silence approaching upon repentant men; reign of greater silence, I say; or else that of annihilation, which will be the most silent of all....
"Voltaire, if not a great man, is a remarkably peculiar one; and did such a work in these Ages as will render him long memorable, more or less. He kindled the infinite dry dung-heap of things; set it blazing heaven-high;—and we all thought, in the French Revolution time, it would burn out rapidly into ashes, and then there would a clear Upper Firmament, if over a blackened Earth, be once more vouchsafed us. The flame is now done, as I once said; and only the dull dung-heap, smokily burning, but not now blazing, remains,—for it was very damp, EXCEPT on the surface, and is by nature slow of combustion:—who knows but it may have to burn for centuries yet, poisoning by its villanous mal-odors the life-atmosphere of all men? Eternal Author of this Universe, whose throne is Truth, to whom all the True are Sons, wilt thou not look down upon us, then!—Till this sad process is complete? Voltaire is like to be very memorable."...
To Friedrich the Winter was in general tranquil; a Friedrich busy preparing all things for his grand Mahren Enterprise, and for "real work next year." By and by there came to be real Peace-prospects instead. Meanwhile, the Austrians do try a little, in the small Pandour way, to dislodge him from the Upper-Silesian or Teschen regions, where the Erbprinz of Brunswick is in command; a man not to be pricked into gratis by Pandours. Erbprinz, accordingly, provoked by their Pandourings, broke out at last; and about Zuckmantel instantly scourged them home, and had peace after. Foiled here, they next tried upon Glatz; "Get into his Glatz Country, then;—a snatch of that will balance the account" (which was one of Newspaper glory only): and a certain Wurmser of theirs, expert in such things, did burn the Town of Habelschwert one morning; ["18th January, 1779" (Rodenbeck, iii. 195; Schmettau, &c.).] and tried farther, not wisely this time, a surprisal of Glatz Fortress itself; but got smitten home by our old friend General Wunsch, without profit there. This was the same Wurmser who came to bad issues in the Napoleon time afterwards; a rising man then; not a dim Old-Newspaper ghost as now.
Most shameful this burning of Habelschwert by way of mere bravura, thinks Friedrich, in a time of actual Treaty for Peace, when our Congress of Teschen was just struggling to get together! It was the chief stroke done by the Austrians in this War; glorious or shameful, we will not think of inquiring. Nor in fact of adding one word more on such a War,—except, what everybody longs for, That, NOVEMBER 27th, 1778, Czarina Catharine, by her Prince Galitzin at Vienna, intervened in the matter, in a lofty way; and ended it. Czarina Catharine,—small thanks to her, it seems, for it was Friedrich that by his industries and world-diplomacies, French and other, had got her Turks, who had been giving trouble again, compesced into peace for her; and indeed, to Friedrich or his interests, though bound by Treaty, she had small regard in taking this step, but wished merely to appear in German Politics as a She-Jove,—Czarina Catharine signified, in high and peremptory though polite Diplomatic terms, at Vienna, "Imperial Madam, how long is such a War to last? Be at Peace, both of you; or—! I shall, however, mediate, if you like, being the hearty friend of both." [Copy of Galitzin's "Declaration," in FISCHER, ii. 406-411.]