History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
Of Prince Karl let us add a word. On the morrow after Leuthen, Captain
Prince de Ligne and old Papa D'Ahremberg could find little or no Army;
they stept across to Grabschen, a village on the safe side of the
Lohe, and there found Karl and Daun: "rather silent, both; one of
them looking, 'Who would have thought it!' the other, 'Did n't I tell
you?'"--and knowing nothing, they either, where the Army was. Army was,
in fact, as yet nowhere. "Croat fellows, in this Farmstead of ours,"
says De Ligne, "had fallen to shooting pigeons." The night had been
unusually dark; the Austrian Army had squatted into woods, into
office-houses, farm-villages, over a wide space of country; and only as
the day rose, began to dribble in. By count, they are still 50,000; but
heart-broken, beaten as men seldom were. "What sound is that?" men asked
yesterday at Brieg, forty miles off; and nobody could say, except that
it was some huge Battle, fateful of Silesia and the world. Breslau had
it louder; Breslau was still more anxious. "What IS all that?" asked
somebody (might be Deblin the Shoemaker, for anything I know) of an
Austrian sentry there: "That? That is the Prussians giving us such a
beating as we never had." What news for Deblin the Shoemaker, if he is
still above ground!--
"Prince Karl, gathering his distracted fragments, put 17,000 into
Breslau by way of ample garrison there; and with the rest made off
circuitously for Schweidnitz; thence for Landshut, and down the
Mountains, home to Konigsgratz,--self and Army in the most wrecked
condition. Chased by Ziethen; Ziethen (sticking always to the hocks of
them,' as Friedrich eagerly enjoins on him; or sometimes it is, 'sitting
on the breeches of them:' for about a fortnight to come. [Eleven Royal
Autographs: in Blumenthal, _Life of De Ziethen_ (ii. 94-111), a feeble
incorrect Translation of them.] Ziethen took 2,000 prisoners; no end of
baggages, of wagons left in the difficult places: wild weather even for
Ziethen, still more for Karl, among the Silesian-Bohemian Hill-roads:
heavy rains, deep muds, then sudden glass, with cutting snow-blasts: 'An
Army not a little dilapidated,' writes Prince Karl, almost with tears in
his eyes; (Army without linens, without clothes; in condition truly sad
and pitiable; and has always, so close are the enemy, to encamp, though
without tents.' [Kutzen, p. 134 ("Prince Karl to the Kaiser, December
14th").]. Did not get to Konigsgratz, and safe shelter, for ten days
more. Counted, at Konigsgratz in the Christmas time, 37,000 rank and
file,--'22,000 of whom are gone to hospital,' by the Doctor's report.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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