Twelve good miles were covered that day under the August sun. Frederick was still between two armies, each larger than his own. Neither Russians nor Austrians, however, dared attack him and he joined Prince Henry at Breslau without another stroke of sword.
Of his brother Henry, Frederick said at a later date, “There is but one of us that never made a mistake in war.” But the King continually rejected his counsel, though the event proved it to have been wise, and his relations with the Prince often became strained. A brilliant strategist, Henry wished to husband Prussian powder and Prussian blood by manœuvring more and fighting less. The victor of Leuthen, on the other hand, was ready to take great risks if he believed that his success would be fatal to the chief army either of the Russians or of the Austrians. “If you engage in small affairs only,” he maintained, “you will always remain mediocre, but if you engage in ten great undertakings and are lucky in no more than two you make your name immortal.”
Frederick’s habitual inclination to throw for high stakes was increased by the events of September and October, 1760. His task was to guard the Silesian fortresses against Daun, but while he—like the court of Vienna—yearned for a decisive action Berlin fell into the hands of 40,000 Russians and Austrians. The raiders occupied the city for four days and exacted a contribution of two million thalers, but the rumour of the King’s approach sufficed to drive them off. Winter was drawing nigh and the Russians vanished as was their wont. There was thus less need to fear for Silesia, but the enemy still held Saxony, and Saxony was to Frederick a recruiting-ground, a treasure-house, and a home. With added reasons for a battle, but with little assurance of success, he therefore transferred thither the seat of war.
“The close of my days is poisoned,” he wrote, “and the evening of my life as hideous as its morning. Never will I endure the moment that must force me to make a dishonourable peace. No persuasion, no eloquence can bring me to sign my shame. Either I will bury myself under the ruins of my fatherland, or if this consolation seem too sweet to the Misfortune that pursues me, I will myself put an end to my woes.... After having sacrificed my youth to my Father, and my ripe years to my fatherland, I think I have acquired the right to dispose of my old age as I please.... And so I will finish this campaign, resolved to hazard all and to try the most desperate measures, to conquer or to find a glorious end.”
We who have seen Frederick resign his crown after Kunersdorf are free to believe that he would have taken his life after a new Kolin. His words are in any event highly significant of the view which he took of the limits of his duty to the State, whose course he had steered according to his own will for twenty years. Five days after they were written, on November 3, 1760, he did in truth hazard all, and try the most desperate measures. Daun, who had followed him into Saxony, was encamped near Torgau in a position reputed impregnable. He had 50,000 men with an enormous park of artillery, and whatever his shortcomings in attack, none could impugn his talent for defence. Yet Frederick, with 44,000 men, determined to attack, and to attack by one of the most difficult operations in war, a simultaneous onslaught on opposite sides of the enemy’s position. The King himself proposed to lead half the army through the forest, right round the Austrian camp, so as to assail it from the north. The other half was to attack from the south under Zieten, the bravest of hussars but the youngest of generals, who had commanded a wing at Liegnitz, but had never handled an army, and who did not know the ground.
It is hardly surprising, with such a plan as this, that Torgau, like many battles, was fought not as was designed but as best it might be. The history of the day proved beyond dispute that Frederick had ventured much. The weather, their own errors, and the enemy’s guns ruined the Prussian simultaneous attack. The King’s contingent fought a desperate battle. Few of his attendants escaped without a wound. His own life was saved as if by miracle. Three horses were killed under him. A spent ball struck him senseless, but his pelisse saved him from serious hurt. He rallied both himself and his men, but when evening came the Austrians had the advantage. Daun felt that he might safely leave the field to dress a wound and send news of victory to Vienna.
Then, in the last hour of the fight, something like a simultaneous attack was carried out and it succeeded. After long indecision, Zieten stormed the southern heights with desperate courage and the confused struggle was taken up a third time by the King’s forces on the north. By eight o’clock, thirteen hours after the Prussians had left camp, the Austrian resistance was at an end. Ere midnight Daun was fleeing across the Elbe, while Frederick, seated on the altar-step of a village church, scribbled a note to Finckenstein, promising to send details of the victory next day.
PLAN OF TORGAU, NOVEMBER 3, 1760.
Before dawn, he was once more among his troops riding through the lines and embracing Zieten. At Torgau he had frustrated the Austrian reconquest of Saxony and reduced their forces by some 16,000 men. But when his own loss came to be counted he strictly forbade his adjutants to reveal the sum. Torgau was the bloodiest battle of the war and the Prussians had suffered most. Their casualties exceeded by nearly one thousand those of the beaten side.