Colonel himself, with the colors, with the honors (none of his people, it seems, though they were scattered loose), was picked up by an Austrian party, and made prisoner. A miserable business, this of Zittau!
Next, evening, Sunday, after dark, Prince of Prussia strikes his tents again; rolls off in a very unsuccinct condition;happily unchased, for he admits that chase would have been ruinous.
Off towards Lobau (what nights for Zinzendorf and Herrnhuth, as such things tumble past them!); thence towards Bautzen; and arrives in the most lugubrious torn condition any Prussian General ever stood in. Reaches Bautzen on those terms;--and is warned that his Brother will be there in a day or two.
One may fancy Friedrich's indignation, astonishment and grief, when he heard of that march towards Zittau through the Hills by a parabolic course; the issue of which is too gnessable by Friedrich.
He himself instantly rises from Leitmeritz; starts, in fit divisions, by the Pascopol, by the Elbe passes, for Pirna;and, leaving Moritz of Dessau with a 10,000 to secure the Passes about Pirna, and Keith to come on with the Magazines, hastens across for Bautzen, to look into these advancing triumphant Austrians, these strange Prussian proceedings. On first hearing of that side-march, his auguries had been bad enough; [Letter to Wilhelmina "Linay, 22d July" (second day of the march from Leitmeritz); <italic> OEuvres, <end italic> xxvii. i. 298.] but the event has far surpassed them. Zittau gone; the Army hurrying home, as if in flight, in that wrecked condition; the door of Saxony, door of Silesia left wide open,--Daun has only to choose! Day by day, as Friedrich advanced to repair that mischief, the news of it have grown worse on him. Days rife otherwise in mere bad news.
The Russians in Memel, Preussen at their feet; Soubise's French and the Reich's Army pushing on for Erfurt, to "deliver Saxony,"on that western side: and from the French-English scene of operations-- In those same bad days Royal Highness of Cumberland has been doing a feat worth notice in the above connection! Read this, from an authentic source:--"HASTENBECK, 22d-26th JULY, 1757. Royal Highness, hitching back and back, had got to Hameln, a strong place of his on the safe side of the Weser; and did at last, Hanover itself being now nigh, call halt; and resolve to make a stand. July 22d [very day while the Prince of Prussia came in sight of Zittau, with the Austrians hanging over it], Royal Highness took post in that favorable vicinity of Hameln; at perfect leisure to select his ground:
and there sat waiting D'Estrees,--swamps for our right wing, and the Weser not far off; small Hamlet of Hastenbeck in front, and a woody knoll for our left;--totally inactive for four days long;attempting nothing upon D'Estrees and his intricate shufflings, but looking idly noonward to the courses of the sun, till D'Estrees should come up. Royal Highness is much swollen into obesity, into flabby torpor; a changed man since Fontenoy times; shockingly inactive, they say, in this post at Hastenbeck. D'Estrees, too, is ridiculously cautious, 'has manoeuvred fifteen days in advancing about as many British miles.' D'Estrees did at last come up (July 25th), nearly two to one of Royal Highness,--72,000 some count him, but considerably anarchic in parts, overwhelmed with Court Generals and Princes of the Blood, for one item;--and decides on attacking, next morning. D'Estrees duly went to reconnoitre, but unluckily 'had mist suddenly falling.' 'Well; we must attack, all the same!'
"And so, 26th JULY, Tuesday, there ensued a BATTLE OF HASTENBECK:
the absurdest Battle in the world; and which ought, in fairness, to have been lost by BOTH, though Royal Highness alone had the ill luck. Both Captains behaved very poorly; and each of them had a subaltern who behaved well. D'Estrees, with his 70,000 VERSUS40,000 posted there, knows nothing of Royal Highness's position;sees only Royal Highness's left wing on that woody Height;and after hours of preliminary cannonading, sends out General Chevert upon that. Chevert, his subaltern [a bit of right soldier-stuff, the Chevert whom we knew at Prag, in old Belleisle times], goes upon it like fury; whom the Brunswick Grenadiers resist in like humor, hotter and hotter. Some hard fighting there, on Royal Highness's left; Chevert very fiery, Grenadiers very obstinate;till, on the centre, westward, in Royal Highness's chief battery there, some spark went the wrong way, and a powder-wagon shot itself aloft with hideous blaze and roar; and in the confusion, the French rushed in, and the battery was lost. Which discouraged the Grenadiers; so that Chevert made some progress upon them, on their woody Height, and began to have confident hope.
"Had Chevert known, or had D'Estrees known, there was, close behind said Height, a Hollow, through which these Grenadiers might have been taken in rear. Dangerous Hollow, much neglected by Royal Highness, who has only General Breitenbach with a weak party there.
This Breitenbach, happening to have a head of his own, and finding nothing to do in that Hollow or to rightward, bursts out, of his own accord, on Chevert's left flank; cannonading, volleying, horse-charging;--the sound of which ('Hah, French there too!') struck a damp through Royal Highness, who instantly ordered retreat, and took the road. What singular ill-luck that sound of Breitenbach to Royal Highness! For observe, the EFFECT of Breitenbach,--which was, to recover the lost battery (gallant young Prince of Brunswick, 'Hereditary Prince,' or Duke that is to be, striking in upon it with bayonet-charge at the right moment), made D'Estrees to order retreat! 'Battle lost,' thinks D'Estrees;--and with good cause, had Breitenbach been supported at all. But no subaltern durst;and Royal Highness himself was not overtakable, so far on the road.