Between the spring of 1760, when the weary Frederick braced himself to grapple anew with a task which four campaigns seemed only to have increased, and the moment when a sudden stroke of fortune was to give him rest, there intervenes a gap of time as great as that which separates his first plunge into the war from his overthrow at Kunersdorf. If we are compelled to be content with a swift review of these final phases of the struggle, we must by no means lose from sight the tenacity and adroitness of the hero upon whom every campaign laid a heavier burden than the last, and to whom every year seemed endless. After Kunersdorf and Maxen, we, who know that Frederick and Prussia did not perish, may be impatient to have done with their long agony. But Frederick himself enjoyed no such comfortable prescience. Hopes he had indeed in plenty. Denmark might join him, the Tartars might rise, the Turks, he was constantly assured, were on the very verge of attacking Austria. Now the French, now the Russians, he believed, were about to desert the coalition against282 him. The event testified to his courage rather than to his insight. Time brought only fresh disappointments and prospects ever more black, but the King neither flinched nor paused. Under the bludgeonings of chance his head was bloody but unbowed. “It was not the army,” said Napoleon, “that defended Prussia, seven years through, against the three greatest Powers of Europe, it was Frederick the Great.”
Till near its close the campaign of 1760 seemed to be merely the natural sequel to that of 1759. In spite of all the chances of high politics, the same combatants took the field on either side. France, beaten by land and sea, had tempted England with the offer of a separate peace. But Pitt displayed anew the loyalty to his ally which was the consolation of Frederick’s darkest hours. The English minister recognised that his country’s triumphs over France off Lagos, in the bay of Quiberon, and before the walls of Quebec in the glorious campaign of 1759, had been due to the Prussian alliance almost as directly as the victory of Minden. He braved the taunt that he was more Prussian than the King of Prussia and inflexibly refused to desert him in his hour of misfortune. The Russians, on the other hand, consented to serve Maria Theresa anew, but at a high price. Ost-Preussen, which they had conquered, was to be theirs for ever. Thus the Hapsburg, though guardian and head of Germany, was compelled to promise that if Prussia were crushed the Muscovite should advance to the Vistula.
The labours of the diplomatists, from which Frederick283 looked for great gains, had done nothing to change the military situation in his favour. The campaign of 1760 saw once more Ferdinand confronting the French in the West, the Swedes paralysed by their own incompetence in Pomerania, Daun striving to reconquer Saxony, Laudon striving to reconquer Silesia, and the Russians, as usual, advancing towards the Oder. But, whereas in 1759 Frederick’s own presence had more than once caused disaster to his armies, in 1760 he became again the hero of the strife. He was always most formidable when the odds against him were heavy, and in 1760 none could doubt that the Prussians were at an overwhelming disadvantage. Even the King regarded the campaign as a gambler’s last throw. Failing extraordinary good fortune, he predicted the collapse of Prussia before the autumn.
For the first time in the war the enemy began a campaign on Prussian soil. Laudon invaded Silesia, and the King’s friend, Fouqué, believing himself too weak to hold Landshut, fell back on Breslau. The Silesians protested that they were being abandoned to the mercy of the enemy and Frederick complained that his generals did more mischief to him than to the enemy. Under-estimating Laudon’s talent for war, he ordered Fouqué to recover Landshut at once, and promised to come to the rescue in person as soon as he had beaten the enemy in Saxony. Fouqué obeyed, but in Laudon he had an opponent far more active than Daun. His force of less than 11,000 men was soon in as hopeless a plight as that of Finck at Maxen. He, too, avenged the insults of284 the King by following his orders to the letter, for the more considerate counter-orders which Frederick despatched never reached him. On June 23, 1760, near Landshut, the Prussians maintained a hopeless struggle for seven hours. It is believed that the killed and wounded numbered more than 5000 men. It is certain that only some 1500 cavalry, perhaps one-seventh of Fouqué’s whole force, succeeded in cutting their way through the enemy.
At Landshut the Prussian regiments regained by their valour the repute which they had lost at Maxen, where they laid down their arms without a blow. But the fruits of Laudon’s victory were great. Silesia now lay defenceless before the Austrians, and only Prince Henry’s weak force screened it from the advancing Russians. Frederick, though balked of a battle, was compelled to leave his work in Saxony undone and to transfer the bulk of the Prussian army to the eastern theatre of war. His going was a proof of weakness, but the manner of it paid a signal tribute to his fame. None dared to stand in his way. The Austrians under Lacy were so determined to be on the safe side that they left Dresden bare, and Frederick was tempted by the opportunity of a brilliant triumph to turn aside.
He hoped to take the Saxon capital in two or three days, but the defenders were stout-hearted beyond his calculation. After he had wasted more than a fortnight before the walls, the news that Glatz had fallen and that Breslau was in danger compelled him to resume the dreary tramp towards Silesia. His prestige and his position had suffered alike, and his285 mood was more dejected than ever. Philosophy, he professed, was his only consolation. Since nothing worse could happen to him than what he looked for, he could have no occasion for disappointment. He was determined to hold fast to duty during the brief space that might still separate him from the abyss. It was no great matter, he told Finckenstein, whether they were crushed a month sooner or a month later. The death of his old servant, Podewils, affected him little, for it seemed but a small item in the general ruin of the State.
Thus began the month of August, 1760, in which Frederick and his army dispelled by their own valiant deeds some of the darkest clouds that hung over Prussia. They were escorted into Silesia, where Soltykoff’s Russians and Laudon’s Austrians awaited them, by the armies of Daun and Lacy, which marched, said the King, like the vanguard and rear-guard of their own force. Thanks to the stout-heartedness of the Prussian general Tauentzien, Laudon had summoned Breslau in vain. Now, however, he effected a junction with Daun, and the united Austrian forces outnumbered Frederick by three to one.
At no moment of his long career, not even when he galloped from the field of Mollwitz nor when he gathered round him the wreckage after Kunersdorf, had the King’s plight seemed so desperate as now. He himself upon whom all depended was in the depths of dejection. He had with him only some 30,000 men, and Kay, Kunersdorf, Maxen, Landshut, Dresden formed an unbroken series of286 disasters. Against him were some 90,000 Austrians, commanded by Daun, to whom his royal mistress had sent the most unequivocal instructions to fight, and by Laudon, to whom military instinct no less clearly dictated battle. They barred Frederick’s path both to Breslau and to Schweidnitz, and brought his force to the verge of starvation. Across the Oder the Russians were masters of the land, waiting only for the tidings of victory to pour a new host over bridges which they had already built. To retreat was to abandon Silesia, to stand still was to be starved or crushed, to attack was beyond the imagination even of a Frederick. Prussian officers talked of a new and greater Maxen, and the British ambassador, Mitchell, burned his papers.
PLAN OF LIEGNITZ, AUGUST 15, 1760.
At last Frederick moved. Having learned from a drunken deserter that Daun was planning a surprise, he resolved to march towards the Oder, preferring the neighbourhood of the Russians on the right bank to a situation which had plainly become untenable. On the evening of August 14, 1760, the Prussians stole away from their camp and occupied a strong position to the north-east of Liegnitz. On the western side, where Daun’s attack might be looked for, the ground was admirable for defence. Behind the stream of the Schwarzwasser rises a steep and sudden bank, shaped like a natural bastion. This was manned by the right wing, encamped on a champaign so level that it forms the Liegnitz drill-ground to this day. Further north-east a gentle slope descended from the lines of the Prussian left to the little village of Panten and so to the river287 Katzbach. There through the moonlit night the men lay under arms, forbidden to cheer themselves with song, but filled with an expectancy that banished sleep. The King, who shared all their privations, wrapped himself in his cloak and snatched a brief rest by a watch-fire after satisfying himself that all was ordered aright.
Till dawn the stillness was unbroken. Then in a moment blazed up one of the shortest and most brilliant fights of the whole war. A breathless messenger cried that the enemy—Laudon—was attacking in force on the extreme left. Frederick hurried off to oppose him. Had the attack been made fifteen minutes earlier, he declared, the issue would have been far different. But the Prussians profited much by their stealthy change of camp. Laudon’s march was a part of Daun’s concerted attack upon the position that they had quitted seven hours before. The result of their movement was that Daun hardly reached them, while Laudon, who expected to surprise their baggage, was himself surprised. Marching without a vanguard, he found himself committed to an uphill fight without support from Daun. None the less he attacked with such swing and dash that the Prussian left was well-nigh cut in two, It was saved by the infantry, who first valiantly held Panten and then set it on fire. This checked the Austrian advance and enabled the Prussians to make good use of their position. About an hour and a half after the first onset Laudon retired across the Katzbach unpursued. The Prussians claimed to have killed or wounded 6000 men288 and captured 4000—a total loss thrice as great as their own. They had thus annihilated nearly one-third of Laudon’s force, and—what was even more important—they had rent the net that was closing round them. Daun had appeared in sight of the Prussians only to learn of Laudon’s disaster and to retire. Henceforward it was beyond the power of the Empress to induce her favoured field-marshal to attack.
The moral gain was perhaps the greatest of all the advantages that Frederick derived from Liegnitz. “A second edition of Rossbach,” as he called the battle, was the best proof that Prussian valour and leadership and luck had none of them vanished from the earth. The King, who had his coat torn by one ball and his horse wounded by another, ascribed the victory to the favour of fortune and the bravery of his men. No other judge, whether Prussian, Austrian, or Russian, could fail to ascribe a great share in it to the King. The value of this renewal of prestige was apparent almost every day that the war had yet to run. However huge the masses of Austrians and Russians might be, they were usually content to watch Frederick at a respectful distance. The initiative was thus often abandoned to the weaker side and the value of Frederick’s army enhanced threefold.
Yet nothing could demonstrate more clearly than their movements after Liegnitz how weak the Prussians were. Frederick’s departure from the field of victory was in truth a flight, but a flight which covered the fugitives with glory. Young Lieutenant289 Archenholtz, who was among the victors, tells the astounding tale of how
“this army, spent with bloody toil and girt by mighty hosts, must press on without rest and without delay, and yet must bear with it every gun and man that had been taken and all the wounded as well. These last were packed into meal-wagons and bread-wagons, into carriages and carts, no matter whose they might be. Even the King gave up his. King and generals gave up their led horses to carry the wounded who could ride. The empty meal-wagons were broken up and their horses harnessed to the captured guns. Every horseman and driver must take with him one of the enemy’s muskets. Nothing was left behind, not a single wounded man, Prussian or Austrian, and at nine o’clock, four hours after the end of the battle, the army with its enormous load was in full march.”
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 man?uvring more and fighting less. The victor of Leuthen, on the other hand, was ready to290 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 momen............