There was, however, little of dignity or greatness in the King’s treatment of his unlucky brother and heir, whom he met on the road to Bautzen two days later. It was in the early hours of the morning, according to the narrative of an eye-witness, the son of one of the chief delinquents, that Augustus William saw the King and beside him Winterfeldt and Goltz, two of his own generals, for whom he had waited a full hour in vain. Each of the royal brothers rode at the head of his staff, and in Frederick’s train were Prince Henry and Ferdinand of Brunswick. At a distance of about three hundred paces the King stopped. Augustus William did the like, and he and his party doffed hats. The King’s party bowed to them, but Frederick turned his horse round, dismounted, and lay down upon the ground as though awaiting his vanguard. He made Winterfeldt and Goltz sit by him. All his officers dismounted, as did the Prince and his party. Soon Goltz crossed over to the Prince and said a few words to him, whereupon the Prince called his officers together and requested him to repeat the King’s message in their presence. This he did in the following words:
“His Majesty bids me tell Your Royal Highness that he has cause to be very dissatisfied with you. You deserve that a court-martial should be held over you, and then you and all the generals with you would lose your heads. But His Majesty is not willing to carry the matter so far, because in the General he would not forget the Brother.”
Augustus William made answer like a brave man, exculpating his generals, and requesting a strict enquiry into his own conduct. But the King replied only by putting himself at the head of his vanguard, which had now come up, and riding on with his staff past the Prince, always keeping from three to four hundred paces away from him. At Bautzen he encamped, but still kept at a distance from the fugitives, lest, suggests Eichel, their fear should contaminate his own officers. Augustus William, treated like a leper, applied for permission to go to Dresden. “The Prince may go where he will,” said Frederick to the lieutenant who bore the letter. He went to Berlin and died of a broken heart.
If anything could palliate brutality to the merely unfortunate it would have been the situation in which Frederick was placed by his brother’s blunder. Despite all his efforts, the Austrians remained masters of the pass into Lusatia. With French, Swedes, Russians, and Imperialists all pressing on, it became imperative to dispose of the Austrians by a second Hohenfriedberg. But Prince Charles was not to be tempted from the strong position which Daun had chosen with his wonted skill. After three impatient weeks Frederick decided that the peril from the French was too acute to permit of further delay in trying to force the Austrians to give battle. Early in August he received the news of Cumberland’s downfall at Hastenbeck. Hanover lay at the mercy of the French under Richelieu, and when on August 25, 1757, the King turned his face towards the west, Soubise with a second French force and the army of the Empire was already at Erfurt. Frederick was determined to maintain his hold on Saxony. Bevern, he decided, must watch the Austrians, distance and fortune must account for the Russians and Swedes, while he himself undertook a march of two hundred miles to muster 20,000 men and lead them against Soubise.
It seemed at first as though the King did wrong to trust in fortune. On August 30, 1757, the army of Ost-Preussen was vanquished by the Russians at Gross-Jägersdorf. Frederick, however, kept on his way. In the middle of September he reached the scene of action, only to suffer from the caution of Soubise a month of the same torture that Prince Charles had inflicted in Lusatia. Then he was suddenly called upon to hurry a hundred miles towards the north-east to drive the Austrians from his capital. In his absence Prince Charles had moved eastwards into Silesia and his rearguard of light cavalry, 15,000 strong, seized a favourable moment for a foray on Berlin. They exacted a ransom of 200,000 thalers from the town, and then made off by forced marches. Frederick, who feared an invasion in force, was greatly relieved at the news, which reached him on October 18th. Next day, despairing of bringing the French to book, he informed Prince Maurice that it was time to think of chasing the Austrians from Silesia, but on the 23rd he sent him word that Soubise was after all leaving the hills and marching straight for Leipzig.
“Here very much is altered in a day,” he added with his own hand. It was in fact the turning-point of the most marvellous and chequered year of Frederick’s life. Full of hope, he ordered a concentration between his own command and those of Ferdinand, Keith, and Maurice. The sum-total was not great, but the quality and temper of the troops were incomparable. They were face to face with Frenchmen, of old the scorners of the German race, which they were wont to conquer by their arms and to corrupt by their example. Now these invaders were laden with the spoils of Thuringia. Insolent and infatuated, they were too proud to see among themselves defects which were patent to Prussian eyes. It was little wonder that Frederick’s veterans shared the ardour of their King. “The spirit of the soldiers was remarkable,” noted Mitchell when they came to Leipzig. “They did not complain of fatigue, notwithstanding of the long marches, but desired to be led out immediately, and murmured on being ordered to quarters.”
Three days later their desire was gratified. On the last day of October, 1757, Frederick was at Weissenfels on the Saale, checked for the moment because the enemy burned the bridge in his face and held the line of the river against him. His road from Leipzig had led him across the dismal plain where Charles XII. held for a moment the fate of Europe in his hand, past the granite slab which marks the spot where a greater King of Sweden fell at the head of his men. The region is memorable in history, but the deed which would have been most notable of all was averted. At Weissenfels, tradition says, Frederick owed his life to the chivalry of a French officer who forbade an artilleryman to pick him off.
FREDERICK VIEWING THE BURNING BRIDGE AT WEISSENFELS.
FROM A RELIEF ON HIS STATUE AT WEISSENFELS.