History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15

"The Camp of Observation was to have begun May 1st; did begin somewhat later, 'near Magdeburg,' not too close on the Frontier, nor in too alarming strength; was reinforced to about 30,000; in which state [middle of August] it stept forward to Wieskau, then to Dieskau, close on the Saxon Border; and became,—with a Saxon Camp lying close opposite, and War formally threatened, or almost declared, on Saxony by Friedrich,—an alarmingly serious matter. Friedrich, however, again checked his hand; and did not consummate till November-December. But did then consummate; greatly against his will; and in a way flamingly visible to all men!" [Orlich, ii. 130, 209, 210: Helden-Geschichte, ii. 1224-1226; i. 1117.]

Friedrich's own incidental utterances (what more we have of Fractions from the Podewils Letters), in such portentous aspect of affairs, may now be worth giving. It is not now to Jordan that he writes, gayly unbosoming himself, as in the First War,—poor Jordan lies languishing, these many months; consumptive, too evidently dying:—Not to Jordan, this time; nor is the theme "GLOIRE" now, but a far different!

FRIEDRICH TO PODEWILS (as before, April-May, 1745)

April 20th or so, Orders are come to Berlin (orders, to Podewils's horror at such a thought), Whitherward, should Berlin be assaulted, the Official Boards, the Preciosities and household gods are to betake themselves:—to Magdeburg, all these, which is an impregnable place; to Stettin, the Two Queens and Royal Family, if they like it better. Podewils in horror, "hair standing on end," writes thereupon to Eichel, That he hopes the management, "in a certain contingency," will be given to Minister Boden; he Podewils, with his hair in that posture, being quite unequal to it. Friedrich answers:—

"APRIL 26th.... 'I can understand how you are getting uneasy, you Berliners. I have the most to lose of you all; but I am quiet, and prepared for events. If the Saxons take part,' as they surely will, 'in the Invasion of Silesia, and we beat them, I am determined to plunge into Saxony. For great maladies, there need great remedies. Either I will maintain my all, or else lose my all. [Hear it, friend; and understand it,—with hair lying flat!] It is true, the disaffection of the Russian Court, on such trifling grounds, was not to be expected; and great misfortune can befall us. Well; a year or two sooner, a year or two later,—it is not worth one's while to bother about the very worst. If things take the better turn, our condition will be surer and firmer than it was before. If we have nothing to reproach ourselves with, neither need we fret and plague ourselves about bad events, which can happen to any man.'—'I am causing despatch a secret Order for Boden [on YOU know what], which you will not deliver him till I give sign.'"—On hearing of the Peace of Fussen, perhaps a day or so later, Friedrich again writes:—

"APRIL [no distinct date; Neisse still? QUITS Neisse, April 28th]. ... Peace of Fussen, Bavaria turned against me? 'I can say nothing to it,—except, There has come what had to come. To me remains only to possess myself in patience. If all alliances, resources, and negotiations fail, and all conjunctures go against me, I prefer to perish with honor, rather than lead an inglorious life deprived of all dignity. My ambition whispers me that I have done more than another to the building up of my House, and have played a distinguished part among the crowned heads of Europe. To maintain myself there, has become as it were a personal duty; which I will fulfil at the expense of my happiness and my life. I have no choice left: I will maintain my power, or it may go to ruin, and the Prussian name be buried under it. If the enemy attempt anything upon us, we will either beat him, or we will all be hewed to pieces, for the sake of our Country, and the renown of Brandenburg. No other counsel can I listen to.'"

SAME LETTER, OR ANOTHER? (Herr Ranke having his caprices!)... "You are a good man, my Podewils, and do what can be expected of you" (Podewils has been apologizing for his terrors; and referring hopefully "to Providence"): "Perform faithfully the given work on your side, as I on mine; for the rest, let what you call 'Providence' decide as it likes [UNE PROVIDENCE AVEUGLE? Ranke, who alone knows, gives "BLINDE VORSEHUNG." What an utterance, on the part of this little Titan! Consider it as exceptional with him, unusual, accidental to the hard moment, and perhaps not so impious as it looks!]—Neither our prudence nor our courage shall be liable to blame; but only circumstances that would not favor us....

"I prepare myself for every event. Fortune may be kind or be unkind, it shall neither dishearten me nor uplift me. If I am to perish, let it be with honor, and sword in hand. What the issue is to be—Well, what pleases Heaven, or the Other Party (J'AI JETE LE BONNET PAR DESSUS LES MOULINS)! Adieu, my dear Podewils; become as good a philosopher as you are a politician; and learn from a man who does not go to Elsner's Preaching [fashionable at the time], that one must oppose to ill fortune a brow of iron; and, during this life, renounce all happiness, all acquisitions, possessions and lying shows, none of which will follow us beyond the grave." [Ranke, iii. pp. 238-241.]

"By what points the Austrian-Saxon Armament will come through upon us? Together will it be, or separately? Saxons from the Lausitz, Austrians from Bohmen, enclosing us between two fires?"—were enigmatic questions with Friedrich; and the Saxons especially are an enigma. But that come they will, that these Pandours are their preliminary veiling-apparatus as usual, is evident to him; and that he must not spend himself upon Pandours; but coalesce, and lie ready for the main wrestle. So that from April 28th, as above noticed, Friedrich has gone into cantonments, some way up the Neisse Valley, westward of Neisse Town; and is calling in his outposts, his detachments; emptying his Frontier Magazines;—abandoning his Upper-Silesian Frontier more and more, and in the end altogether, to the Pandour hordes; a small matter they, compared to the grand Invasion which is coming on. Here, with shiftings up the Neisse Valley, he lies till the end of May; watching Argus-like, and scanning with every faculty the Austrian-Saxon motions and intentions, until at length they become clear to him, and we shall see how he deals with them.

His own lodging, or head-quarter, most of this time (4th May-27th May), is in the pleasant Abbey of Camenz (mythic scene of that BAUMGARTEN-SKIRMISH business, in the First Silesian War). He has excellent Tobias Stusche for company in leisure hours; and the outlook of bright Spring all round him, flowering into gorgeous Summer, as he hurries about on his many occasions, not of an idyllic nature. [Orlich, ii. 139; Ranke, iii. 242-249.] But his Army is getting into excellent completeness of number, health, equipment, and altogether such a spirit as he could wish. May 22d, here is another snatch from some Note to Podewils, from this balmy Locality, potential with such explosions of another kind. CAMENZ, MAY 22d.... "The Enemies are making movements; but nothing like enough as yet for our guessing their designs. Till we see, therefore, the thunder lies quiet in us (LA FOUDRE REPOSE EN MES MAINS). Ah, could we but have a Day like that May Eleventh!" [Ranke, iii. 248 n.]

What "that May Eleventh" is or was? Readers are curious to know; especially English readers, who guess FONTENOY. And Historic Art, if she were strict, would decline to inform them at any length; for really the thing is no better than a "Victory on the Scamander, and a Siege of Pekin" (as a certain observer did afterwards define it), in reference to the matter now on hand! Well, Pharsalia, Arbela, the Scamander, Armageddon, and so many Battles and Victories being luminous, by study, to cultivated Englishmen, and one's own Fontenoy such a mystery and riddle,—Art, after consideration, reluctantly consents to be indulgent; will produce from her Paper Imbroglios a slight Piece on the subject, and print instead of burning.

Chapter VIII.—THE MARTIAL BOY AND HIS ENGLISH versus THE LAWS OF NATURE

"Glorious Campaign in the Netherlands, Siege of Tournay, final ruin of the Dutch Barrier!" this is the French program for Season 1745,—no Belleisle to contradict it; Belleisle secure at Windsor, who might have leant more towards German enterprises. And to this his Britannic Majesty (small gain to him from that adroitness in the Harz, last winter!) has to make front. And is strenuously doing so, by all methods; especially by heroic expenditure of money, and ditto exposure of his Martial Boy. Poor old Wade, last year,—perhaps Wade did suffer, as he alleged, from "want of sufficient authority in that mixed Army"? Well, here is a Prince of the Blood, Royal Highness of Cumberland, to command in chief. With a Konigseck to dry-nurse him, may not Royal Highness, luck favoring, do very well? Luck did not favor; Britannic Majesty, neither in the Netherlands over seas, nor at home (strange new domestic wool, of a tarry HIGHLAND nature, being thrown him to card, on the sudden!), made a good Campaign, but a bad. And again a bad (1746) and again (1747), ever again, till he pleased to cease altogether. Of which distressing objects we propose that the following one glimpse be our last.

BATTLE OF FONTENOY (11th May, 1745)

"In the end of April, Marechal de Saxe, now become very famous for his sieges in the Netherlands, opened trenches before Tournay; King Louis, with his Dauphin, not to speak of mistresses, play-actors and cookery apparatus (in wagons innumerable), hastens to be there. A fighting Army, say of 70,000, besides the garrisons; and great things, it is expected, will be done; Tournay, in spite of strong works and Dutch garrison of 9,000, to be taken in the first place.

"Of the Siege, which was difficult and ardent, we will remember nothing, except the mischance that befell a certain 'Marquis de Talleyrand' and his men, in the trenches, one night. Night of the 8th-9th May, by carelessness of somebody, a spark got into the Marquis's powder, two powder-barrels that there were; and, with horrible crash, sent eighty men, Marquis Talleyrand and Engineer Du Mazis among them, aloft into the other world; raining down their limbs into the covered way, where the Dutch were very inhuman to them, and provoked us to retaliate. [Espagnac, ii. 27.] Du Mazis I do not know; but Marquis de Talleyrand turns out, on study of the French Peerages, to be Uncle of a lame little Boy, who became Right Reverend Tallyrand under singular conditions, and has made the name very current in after-times!—

"Hearing of this Siege, the Duke of Cumberland hastened over from England, with intent to raise the same. Mustered his 'Allied Army' (once called 'Pragmatic'),—self at the head of it; old Count Konigseck, who was NOT burnt at Chotusitz, commanding the small Austrian quota [Austrians mainly are gone laggarding with D'Ahremberg up the Rhine]; and a Prince of Waldeck the Dutch,—on the plain of Anderlecht near Brussels, May 4th; [Anonymous, Life of Cumberland, p. 180; Espagnac, ii. 26.] and found all things tolerably complete. Upon which, straightway, his Royal Highness, 60,000 strong let us say, set forth; by slowish marches, and a route somewhat leftward of the great Tournay Road [no place on it, except perhaps STEENKERKE, ever heard of by an English reader]; and on Sunday, 9th May, [Espagnac, ii. 27.] precisely on the morrow after poor Talleyrand had gone aloft, reached certain final Villages: Vezon, Maubray, where he encamps, Briffoeil to rear; Camp looking towards Tournay and the setting sun,—with Fontenoy short way ahead, and Antoine to left of it, and Barry with its Woods to right:—small peaceable Villages, which become famous in the Newspapers shortly after. [Patch of Map at p. 440.] Royal Highness, resting here at Vezon, is but some six or seven miles from Tournay; in low undulating Country, woody here and there, not without threads of running water, and with frequent Villages and their adjuncts: the part of it now interesting to us lies all between the Brussels-Tournay Road and the Scheld River,—all in immediate front of his Royal Highness,—to southeastward from beleaguered Tournay, where said Road and River intersect. How shall he make some impression on the Siege of Tournay? That is now the question; and his Royal Highness struggles to manoeuvre accordingly.

"Marechal de Saxe, whose habit is much that of vigilance, forethought, sagacious precaution, singular in so dissolute a man, has neglected nothing on this occasion. He knows every foot of the ground, having sieged here, in his boyhood, once before. Leaving the siege-trenches at Tournay, under charge of a ten or fifteen thousand, he has taken camp here; still with superior force (56,000 as they count, Royal Highness being only 50,000 ranked), barring Royal Highness's way. Tournay, or at least the Marechal's trenches there, are on the right bank of the Scheld; which flows from southeast, securing all on that hand. The broad Brussels Highway comes in to him from the east;—north of that he has nothing to fear, the ground being cut with bogs; no getting through upon him, that way, to Tournay and what he calls the 'Under Scheld.' The 'Upper Scheld' too, avail them nothing. There is only that triangle to the southeast, between Road and River, where the Enemy is now manoeuvring in front of him, from which damage can well come; and he has done his best to be secure there. Four villages or hamlets, close to the Scheld and onwards to the Great Road,—Antoine, Fontenoy, Barry, Ramecroix, with their lanes and boscages,—make a kind of circular base to his triangle; base of some six or eight miles; with hollows in it, brooks, and northward a considerable Wood [BOIS DE BARRY, enveloping Barry and Ramecroix, which do not prove of much interest to us, though the BOIS does of a good deal]. In and before each of those villages are posts and defences; in Antoine and Fontenoy elaborate redoubts, batteries, redans connecting: in the Wood (BOIS DE BARRY), an abattis, or wall of felled trees, as well as cannon; and at the point of the Wood, well within double range of Fontenoy, is a Redoubt, called of Eu (REDOUTE D'EU, from the regiment occupying it), which will much concern his Royal Highness and us. Saxe has a hundred pieces of cannon [say the English, which is correct], consummately disposed along this space; no ingress possible anywhere, except through the cannon's throat; torrents of fire and cross-fire playing on you. He is armed to the teeth, as they say; and has his 56,000 arranged according to the best rules of tactics, behind this murderous line of works. If his Royal Highness think of breaking in, he may count on a very warm reception indeed.

"Saxe is only afraid his Royal Highness will not. Outside of these lines, with a 50,000 dashing fiercely round us, under any kind of leading; pouncing on our convoys; harassing and sieging US,—our siege of Toumay were a sad outlook. And this is old Austrian Konigseck's opinion, too; though, they say, Waldeck and the Dutch (impetuous in theory at least) opined otherwise, and strengthened Royal Highness's view. Two young men against one old: 'Be it so, then!' His Royal Highness, resolute for getting in, manoeuvres and investigates, all Monday 10th; his cannon is not to arrive completely till night; otherwise he would be for breaking in at once: a fearless young man, fearless as ever his poor Father was; certainly a man SANS PEUY, this one too; whether of much AVIS, we shall see anon.

"Tuesday morning early, 11th May, 1745, cannon being up, and dispositions made, his Royal Highness sallies out; sees his men taking their ground: Dutch and Austrians to the left, chiefly opposite Antoine; English, with some Hanoverians, in the centre and to the right; infantry in front, facing Fontenoy, cavalry to rear flanking the Wood of Barry,—Konigseck, Ligonier and others able, assisting to plant them advantageously; cannon going, on both sides, the while; radiant enthusiasm, SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS, looking from his Royal Highness's face. He has been on horseback since two in the morning; cannon started thundering between five and six,—has killed chivalrous Grammont over yonder (the Grammont of Dettingen), almost at the first volley. And now about the time when ploughers breakfast (eight A.M., no ploughing hereabouts to-day!), begins the attack, simultaneously or in swift succession, on the various batteries which it will be necessary to attack and storm.

"The attacks took place; but none of them succeeded. Dutch and Austrians, on the extreme left, were to have stormed Antoine by the edge of the River; that was their main task; right skirt of them to help US meanwhile with Fontenoy. And they advanced, accordingly; but found the shot from Antoine too fierce: especially when a subsidiary battery opened from across the River, and took them in flank, the Dutch and Austrians felt astonished; and hastily drew aside, under some sheltering mound or earthwork they had found for themselves, or prudently thrown up the night before. There, under their earthwork, stood the Dutch and Austrians; patiently expecting a fitter time,—which indeed never occurred; for always, the instant they drew out, the batteries from Antoine, and from across the River, instantly opened upon them, and they had to draw in again. So that they stood there, in a manner, all day; and so to speak did nothing but patiently expect when it should be time to run. For which they were loudly censured, and deservedly. Antoine is and remains a total failure on the part of the Dutch and Austrians.

"Royal Highness in person, with his English, was to attack Fontenoy;—and is doing so, by battery and storm, at various points; with emphasis, though without result. As preliminary, at an early stage he had sent forward on the right, by the Wood of Barry, a Brigadier Ingoldsby 'with Semple's Highlanders' and other force, to silence 'that redoubt yonder at the point of the Wood,'—redoubt, fort, or whatever it be (famous REDOUTE D'EU, as it turned out!),—which guards Fontenoy to north, and will take us in flank, nay in rear, as we storm the cannon of the Village. Ingoldsby, speed imperative on him, pushed into the Wood; found French light-troops ('God knows how many of them!') prowling about there; found the Redoubt a terribly strong thing, with ditch, drawbridge, what not; spent thirty or forty of his Highlanders, in some frantic attempt on it by rule of thumb;—and found 'He would need artillery' and other things. In short, Ingoldsby, hasten what he might, could not perfect the preparations to his mind, had to wait for this and for that; and did not storm the Redoubt d'Eu at all; but hung fire, in an unaccountable manner. For which he had to answer (to Court-Martial, still more to the Newspapers) afterwards; and prove that it was misfortune merely, or misfortune and stupidity combined. Too evident, the REDOUTE D'EU was not taken, then or thenceforth; which might have proved the saving of the whole affair, could Ingoldsby have managed it. Royal Highness attacked Fontenoy, and re-attacked, furiously, thrice over; and had to desist, and find Fontenoy impossible on those terms.

"Here is a piece of work. Repulsed at all those points; and on the left and on the right, no spirit visible but what deserves repulse! His Royal Highness blazes into resplendent PLATT-DEUTSCH rage, what we may call spiritual white-heat, a man SANS PEUR at any rate, and pretty much SANS AVIS; decides that he must and will be through those lines, if it please God; that he will not be repulsed at his part of the attack, not he for one; but will plunge through, by what gap there is [900 yards Voltaire measures it (OEuvres, xxviii. 150 (SIECLE DE LOUIS QUINZE, c. xv. "BATAILLE DE FONTENOI,"—elaborately exact on all such points).)] between Fontenoy and that Redoubt with its laggard Ingoldsby; and see what the French interior is like! He rallies rapidly, rearranges; forms himself in thin column or columns [three of them, I think,—which gradually got crushed into one, as they advanced, under cannon-shot on both hands),—wheeling his left round, to be rear, his right to be head of said column or columns. In column, the cannon-shot from Fontenoy on the left, and Redoubt d'Eu on our right, will tell less on us; and between these two death-dealing localities, by the hollowest, least shelterless way discoverable, we mean to penetrate: (Forward, my men, steady and swift, till we are through the shot-range, and find men to grapple with, instead of case-shot and projectile iron!' Marechal de Saxe owned afterwards, 'He should have put an additional redoubt in that place, but he did not think any Army would try such a thing' (cannon batteries playing on each hand at 400 yards distance);—nor has any Army since or before!

"These columns advance, however; through bushy hollows, water-courses, through what defiles or hollowest grounds there are; endure the cannon-shot, while they must; trailing their own heavy guns by hand, and occasionally blasting out of them where the ground favors;—and do, with indignant patience, wind themselves through, pretty much beyond direct shot-range of either d'Eu or Fontenoy. And have actually got into the interior mystery of the French Line of Battle,—which is not a little astonished to see them there! It is over a kind of blunt ridge, or rising ground, that they are coming: on the crown of this rising ground, the French regiment fronting it (GARDES FRANCAISES as it chanced to be) notices, with surprise, field-cannon pointed the wrong way; actual British artillery unaccountably showing itself there. Regiment of GARDES rushes up to seize said field-pieces: but, on the summit, perceives with amazement that it cannot; that a heavy volley of musketry blazes into it (killing sixty men); that it will have to rush back again, and report progress: Huge British force, of unknown extent, is readjusting itself into column there, and will be upon us on the instant. Here is news!

"News true enough. The head of the English column comes to sight, over the rising ground, close by: their officers doff their hats, politely saluting ours, who return the civility: was ever such politeness seen before? It is a fact; and among the memorablest of this Battle. Nay a certain English Officer of mark—Lord Charles Hay the name of him, valued surely in the annals of the Hay and Tweeddale House—steps forward from the ranks, as if wishing something. Towards whom [says the accurate Espagnac] Marquis d'Auteroche, grenadier-lieutenant, with air of polite interrogation, not knowing what he meant, made a step or two: 'Monsieur,' said Lord Charles (LORD CHARLES-HAY), 'bid your people fire (FAITES TIRER VOS GENS)!' 'NON, MONSIEUR, NOUS NE TIRONS JAMAIS LES PREMIERS (We never fire first).' [Espagnac, ii. 60 (of the ORIGINAL, Toulouse, 1789); ii. 48 of the German Translation (Leipzig, 1774), our usual reference. Voltaire, endlessly informed upon details this time, is equally express: "MILORD CHARLES HAY, CAPITAINE AUX GARDES ANGLAISES, CRIA: 'MESSIEURS DES GARDES FRANCAISES, TIREZ!' To which Count d'Auteroche with a loud voice answered" &c. (OEuvres, vol. xxviii. p. 155.) See also Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons (edited by a Grand-Nephew, Paris, 1860), p. 151;—a poor, considerably noisy and unclean little Book; which proves unexpectedly worth looking at, in regard to some of those poor Battles and personages and occurrences: the Bohemian Belleisle-Broglio part, to my regret, if to no other person's, has been omitted, as extinct, or undecipherable by the Grand-Nephew.] After YOU, Sirs! Is not this a bit of modern chivalry? A supreme politeness in that sniffing pococurante kind; probably the highest point (or lowest) it ever went to. Which I have often thought of."

It is almost pity to disturb an elegant Historical Passage of this kind, circulating round the world, in some glory, for a century past: but there has a small irrefragable Document come to me, which modifies it a good deal, and reduces matters to the business form. Lord Charles Hay, "Lieutenant-Colonel," practical Head, "of the First Regiment of Foot-guards," wrote, about three weeks after (or dictated in sad spelling, not himself able to write for wounds), a Letter to his Brother, of which here is an Excerpt at first hand, with only the spelling altered:... "It was our Regiment that attacked the French Guards: and when we came within twenty or thirty paces of them, I advanced before our Regiment; drank to them [to the French, from the pocket-pistol one carries on such occasions], and told them that we were the English Guards, and hoped that they would stand till we came quite up to them, and not swim the Scheld as they did the Mayn at Dettingen [shameful THIRD-BRIDGE, not of wood, though carpeted with blue cloth there]! Upon which I immediately turned about to our own Regiment; speeched them, and made them huzza,"—I hope with a will. "An Officer [d'Auteroche] came out of the ranks, and tried to make his men huzza; however, there were not above three or four in their Brigade that did." ["Ath, May ye 20th, o.s." (to John, Fourth Marquis of Tweeddale, last "Secretary of State for Scotland," and a man of figure in his day): Letter is at Yester House, East Lothian; Excerpt PENES ME.]...

Very poor counter-huzza. And not the least whisper of that sublime "After you, Sirs!" but rather, in confused form, of quite the reverse; Hay having been himself fired into ("fire had begun on my left;" Hay totally ignorant on which side first),—fired into, rather feebly, and wounded by those D'Auteroche people, while he was still advancing with shouldered arms;—upon which, and not till which, he did give it them: in liberal dose; and quite blew them off the ground, for that day. From all which, one has to infer, That the mutual salutation by hat was probably a fact; that, for certain, there was some slight preliminary talk and gesticulation, but in the Homeric style, by no means in the Espagnac-French,—not chivalrous epigram at all, mere rough banter, and what is called "chaffing;"—and in short, that the French Mess-rooms (with their eloquent talent that way) had rounded off the thing into the current epigrammatic redaction; the authentic business-form of it being ruggedly what is now given. Let our Manuscript proceed.

"D'Auteroche declining the first fire,"—or accepting it, if ever offered, nobody can say,—"the three Guards Regiments, Lord Charles's on the right, give it him hot and heavy, 'tremendous rolling fire;' so that D'Auteroche, responding more or less, cannot stand it; but has at once to rustle into discontinuity, he and his, and roll rapidly out of the way. And the British Column advances, steadily, terribly, hurling back all opposition from it; deeper and deeper into the interior mysteries of the French Host; blasting its way with gunpowder;—in a magnificent manner. A compact Column, slowly advancing,—apparently of some 16,000 foot. Pauses, readjusts itself a little, when not meddled with; when meddled with, has cannon, has rolling fire,—delivers from it, in fact, on both hands such a torrent of deadly continuous fire as was rarely seen before or since. 'FEU INFERNAL,' the French call it. The French make vehement resistance. Battalions, squadrons, regiment after regiment, charge madly on this terrible Column; but rush only on destruction thereby. Regiment This storms in from the right, regiment That from the left; have their colonels shot, 'lose the half of their people;' and hastily draw back again, in a wrecked condition. The cavalry-horses cannot stand such smoke and blazing; nor indeed, I think, can the cavaliers. REGIMENT DU ROI rushing on, full gallop, to charge this Column, got one volley from it [says Espagnac] which brought to the ground 460 men. Natural enough that horses take the bit between their teeth; likewise that men take it, and career very madly in such circumstances!

MAP Chap. VIII, Book 15, PAGE 440 GOES ABOUT HERE——

"The terrible Column with slow inflexibility advances; cannon (now in reversed position) from that Redoubt d'Eu ('Shame on you, Ingoldsby!'), and irregular musketry from Fontenoy side, playing upon it; defeated regiments making barriers of their dead men and firing there; Column always closing its gapped ranks, and girdled with insupportable fire. It ought to have taken Fontenoy and Redoubt d'Eu, say military men; it ought to have done several things! It has now cut the French fairly in two;—and Saxe, who is earnestly surveying it a hundred paces ahead, sends word, conjuring the King to retire instantly,—across the Scheld, by Calonne Bridge and the strong rear-guard there,—who, however, will not. King and Dauphin, on horseback both, have stood 'at the Justice (GALLOWS, in fact) of our Lady of the Woods,' not stirring much, occasionally shifting to a windmill which is still higher,—ye Heavens, with what intrepidity, all day!—'a good many country-folk in trees close behind them.' Country-folk, I suppose, have by this time seen enough, and are copiously making off: but the King will not, though things do look dubious.

"In fact, the Battle hangs now upon a hair; the Battle is as good as lost, thinks Marechal de Saxe. His battle-lines torn in two in that manner, hovering in ragged clouds over the field, what hope is there in the Battle? Fontenoy is firing blank, this some time; its cannon-balls done. Officers, in Antoine, are about withdrawing the artillery,—then again (on new order) replacing it awhile. All are looking towards the Scheld Bridge; earnestly entreating his Majesty to withdraw. Had the Dutch, at this point of time, broken heartily in, as Waldeck was urging them to do, upon the redoubts of Antoine; or had his Royal Highness the Duke, for his own behoof, possessed due cavalry or artillery to act upon these ragged clouds, which hang broken there, very fit for being swept, were there an artillery-and-horse besom to do it,—in either of these cases the Battle was the Duke's. And a right fiery victory it would have been; to make his name famous; and confirm the English in their mad method of fighting, like Baresarks or Janizaries rather than strategic human creatures. [See, in Busching's Magazin, xvi. 169 ("Your illustrious 'Column,' at Fontenoy? It was fortuitous, I say; done like janizaries;" and so forth), a Criticism worth reading by soldiers.]