stages (Tempelhof guesses three, or perhaps four), as one redoubt after another is torn from the loose grasp of it, and the stand made becomes ever weaker, and the confusion worse,—to roll pell-mell into Prag, and hastily close the door behind it. The Prussians, Sterbohol people, Mannstein-Henri people, left wing and right, are quite across the Zisca Back, on by Nussel (Prince Earl's head-quarter that was), and at the Moldau Brink again, when the thing ends. Ziethen's Hussars have been at Nussel, very busy plundering there, ever since that final charge and chase from Sterbohol. Plundering; and, I am ashamed to say, mostly drunk: "Your Majesty, I cannot rank a hundred sober," answered Ziethen (doubtless with a kind of blush), when the King applied for them. The King himself has got to Branik, farther up stream. Part of the Austrian foot fled, leftwards, southwards, as their right wing of horse had all done, up the Moldau. About 16,000 Austrians are distractedly on flight that way. Towards, the Sazawa Country; to unite with Daun, as the now advisable thing. Near 40,000 of them are getting crammed into Prag; in spite of Prince Karl, now recovered of his cramp, and risen to the frantic pitch; who vainly struggles at the Gate against such inrush, and had even got through the Gate, conjuring and commanding, but was himself swum in again by those panic torrents of ebb-tide.
Rallying within, he again attempted, twice over, at two different points, to get out, and up the Moldau, with his broken people; but the Prussians, Nussel-Branik way, were awake to him: "No retreat up the Moldau for you, Austrian gentlemen!" They tried by another Gate, on the other side of the River; but Keith was awake too: "In again, ye Austrian gentlemen! Closed gates here too. What else?" Browne, from his bed of pain (death-bed, as it proved), was for a much more determined outrush: "In the dead of night, rank, deliberately adjust yourselves; storm out, one and all, and cut your way, night favoring!" That was Browne's last counsel; but that also was not taken. A really noble Browne, say all judges; died here in about six weeks,—and got away from Kriegs-Hofraths and Prince Karls, and the stupidity of neighbors, and the other ills that flesh is heir to, altogether.
At Branik the victorious King had one great disappointment: Prince Moritz of Dessau, who should have been here long hours ago, with Keith's right wing, a fresh 15,000, to fall upon the enemy's rear;—no Moritz visible; not even now, when the business is to chase! "How is this?" "Ill luck, your Majesty!" Moritz's Pontoon Bridge would not reach across, when he tried it. That is certain: "just three poor pontoons wanting," Rumor says:—three or more; spoiled, I am told, in some narrow road, some short-cut which Moritz had commanded for them: and now they are not; and it is as if three hundred had been spoiled. Moritz, would he die for it, cannot get his Bridge to reach: his fresh 15,000 stand futile there; not even Seidlitz with his light horse could really swim across, though he tried hard, and is fabled to have done so. Beware of short-cuts, my Prince: your Father that is gone, what would he say of you here! It was the worst mistake Prince Moritz ever made. The Austrian Army might have been annihilated, say judges (of a sanguine temper), had Moritz been ready, at his hour, to fall on from rearward;—and where had their retreat been? As it is, the Austrian Army is not annihilated; only bottled into Prag, and will need sieging. The brightest triumph has a bar of black in it, and might always have been brighter. Here is a flying Note, which I will subjoin:—
Friedrich's dispositions for the Battle, this day, are allowed to have been masterly; but there was one signal fault, thinks Retzow: That he did not, as Schwerin counselled, wait till the morrow. Fault which brought many in the train of it; that of his "tired soldiers," says Retzow, being only a first item, and small in comparison. "Had he waited till the morrow, those fish-ponds of Sterbohol, examined in the interim, need not have been mistaken for green meadows; Prince Moritz, with his 15,000, would have been a fact, instead of a false hope; the King might have done his marching down upon Sterbohol in the night-time, and been ready for the Austrians, flank, or even rear, at daybreak: the King might"—In reality, this fault seems to have been considerable; to have made the victory far more costly to him, and far less complete. No doubt he had his reasons for making haste: Daun, advancing Prag-ward with 30,000, was within three marches of him; General Beck, Daun's vanguard, with a 10,000 of irregulars, did a kind of feat at Brandeis, on the Prussian post there (our Saxons deserting to him, in the heat of action), this very day, May 6th; and might, if lucky, have taken part at Ziscaberg next day. And besides these solid reasons, there was perhaps another. Retzow, who is secretly of the Opposition-party, and well worth hearing, knows personally a curious thing. He says:—
"Being then [in March or April, weeks before we left Saxony] employed to translate the PLAN OF OPERATIONS into French, for Marshal Keith's use, who did not understand German, I well know that it contained the following three main objects: 1. 'All Regiments cantoning in Silesia as well as Saxony march for Bohemia on one and the same day. 2. Whole Army arrives at Prag May 4th [Schwerin was a day later, and got scolded in consequence]; if the Enemy stand, he is attacked May 6th, and beaten. 3. So soon as Prag is got, Schwerin, with the gross of the Army, pushes into Mahren,' and the heart of Austria itself; 'King hastens with 40,000 to help of the Allied Army,'"—Royal Highness of Cumberland's; who will much need it by that time! [Retzow, i. 84 n.]
Here is a very curious fact and consideration. That the King had so prophesied and preordained: "May 4th, Four Columns arrive at Prag; May 6th, attack the Austrians, beat them,"—and now wished to keep his word! This is an aerial reason, which I can suspect to have had its weight among others. There were twirls of that kind in Friedrich; intricate weak places; knots in the sound straight-fibred mind he had (as in whose mind are they not?),—which now and then cost him dear! The Anecdote-Books say he was very ill of body, that day, May 6th; and called for something of drug nature, and swallowed it (drug not named), after getting on horseback. The Evening Anecdote is prettier: How, in the rushing about, Austrians now flying, he got eye on Brother Henri (clayey to a degree); and sat down with him, in the blessed sunset, for a minute or two, and bewailed his sad losses of Schwerin and others.
Certain it is, the victory was bought by hard fighting; and but for the quality of his troops, had not been there. But the bravery of the Prussians was exemplary, and covered all mistakes that were made. Nobler fire, when did it burn in any Army? More perfect soldiers I have not read of. Platt-Teutsch fire—which I liken to anthracite, in contradistinction to Gaelic blaze of kindled straw—is thrice noble, when, by strict stern discipline, you are above it withal; and wield your fire-element, as Jove his thunder, by rule! Otherwise it is but half-admirable: Turk-Janissaries have it otherwise; and it comes to comparatively little.
This is the famed Battle of Prag; fought May 6th, 1757; which sounded through all the world,—and used to deafen us in drawing-rooms within man's memory. Results of it were: On the Prussian side, killed, wounded and missing, 12,500 men; on the Austrian, 13,000 (prisoners included), with many flags, cannon, tents, much war-gear gone the wrong road;—and a very great humiliation and dispiritment; though they had fought well: "No longer the old Austrians, by any means," as Friedrich sees; but have iron ramrods, all manner of Prussian improvements, and are "learning to march," as he once says, with surprise not quite pleasant.
Friedrich gives the cipher of loss, on both sides, much higher: "This Battle," says he, "which began towards nine in the morning, and lasted, chase included, till eight at night, was one of the bloodiest of the age. The Enemy lost 24,000 men, of whom were 5,000 prisoners; the Prussian loss amounted to 18,000 fighting men,—without counting Marshal Schwerin, who alone was worth above 10,000." "This day saw the pillars of the Prussian Infantry cut down," says he mournfully, seeming almost to think the "laurels of victory" were purchased too dear. His account of the Battle, as if it had been a painful object, rather avoided in his after-thoughts, is unusually indistinct;—and helps us little in the extreme confusion that reigns otherwise, both in the thing itself and in the reporters of the thing. Here is a word from Winterfeld, some private Letter, two days after; which is well worth reading for those who would understand this Battle.
"The enemy had his Left Wing leaning on the City, close by the Moldau," at Nussel; "and stretched with his Right Wing across the high Hill [of Zisca] to the village of Lieben [so he HAD stood, looking into Prag; but faced about, on hearing that Friedrich was across the River]; having before him those terrible Defiles [DIE TERRIBLEN DEFILEES, "Horse-shoe of the Moldau," as we call it], and the village of Prossik, which was crammed with Pandours. It was about half-past six in the morning, when our Schwerin Army [myself part of it, at this time] joined with the twenty