With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War by G. A. Henty (best classic romance novels txt) 📗

morning at Rothenburg, just at the hour when Daun's army moved down to the attack of the camp where he had been the evening before. Austrian scouting parties were sent out in all directions, but no certain news could be obtained as to the direction of the Prussian march. The baggage waggons had been seen, moving here and there, but it was four days before Daun was able to learn for certain what had become of him, having until then believed that he must have made for Glogau, to join Frederick.

Henry had, however, gone in an entirely different direction. After ordering three hours' rest at Rothenburg he marched west, and arrived at early morning at Klitten, eighteen miles from his last halting place. Starting again after another three hours' halt he marched twenty miles farther, still straight to the west, and fell upon General Weyler who, with thirty-three thousand men, occupied the last Austrian position to be passed.

That officer had not the slightest idea of any possibility of attack from the east. The whole Austrian army stood between him and Frederick on the northeast, and Prince Henry on the southeast. He was therefore taken altogether by surprise. Six hundred of his men were killed; and he himself, with twenty-eight field officers and seventeen hundred and eighty-five other officers and men, taken prisoners.

This march of fifty hours, in which an army with the whole of its baggage traversed fifty-eight miles, through a country occupied by enemies, is one of the most remarkable on record, and completely changed the whole situation of the campaign. There was nothing for Daun to do, if he would not lose Dresden and the whole of Saxony again, but to follow Prince Henry. This movement completed the dissatisfaction of his Russian ally, Soltikoff, who had been already sorely worried and harassed by Frederick, ever since Daun had moved away to defend his magazines and crush Prince Henry; and now, seeing that his own food supply was likely to fail him, he marched away with his army into Poland.

The king was at this time, to his disgust and indignation, laid up for six weeks with the gout; but as soon as he was better, he set off to join Prince Henry. Daun was slowly falling back and, had he been let alone, Dresden might have been recaptured and the campaign come to a triumphant ending.

Unfortunately Frederick was not content to leave well alone, and sent Fink with seventeen thousand men to Maxim, to cut off Daun's retreat into Bohemia; intending himself to attack him in front. Daun for once acted with decision, attacked Fink with twenty-seven thousand men and, although the Prussians fought with most obstinate bravery, they were surrounded; battered by the Austrian artillery; while they themselves, having no guns with which to make reply, were forced to surrender. Some had already made their way off, but in killed, wounded, and prisoners, the loss was fully twelve thousand men.

Frederick threw the blame upon Fink, but most unjustly. That officer had followed out the orders given him, and had done all that man could do to hold the position that he was commanded to take up, and the disaster was wholly due to Frederick's own rashness in placing so small a force, and that without artillery, where they could be attacked by the whole Austrian army. Fink, after his release at the conclusion of the peace three years later, was tried by court martial and sentenced to a year's imprisonment.

This disaster entirely altered the situation. Daun, instead of continuing his retreat to Bavaria, advanced to occupy Saxony; and drove General Dierocke across the Elbe, taking fifteen hundred of his men prisoners. Frederick, however, barred the way farther, and six weeks later both armies went into winter quarters; Daun still holding Dresden and the strip of country between it and Bohemia, but the rest of Saxony being as far out of his reach as ever.

The last six weeks of the campaign was a terrible time for all. Frederick himself had lived in a little cottage in the small town of Freyburg, and even after the armies had settled down in their cheerless quarters, he still made several attempts to drive the Austrians out, having received a reinforcement of ten thousand men from Duke Ferdinand. These efforts were in vain.

The ten thousand, however, on their way to join the king, had struck a heavy blow at one of his bitterest enemies, the Duke of Wuertemberg, who had twelve thousand of his own men, with one thousand cavalry, at Fulda. The duke had ordered a grand ball to be held, and great celebrations of joy at the news of the Austrian victory at Maxim; but on the very day on which these things were to take place, Ferdinand's men fell upon him suddenly, scattered his army in all directions, took twelve hundred prisoners, and sent the duke with such of his troops as had escaped back to Wuertemberg again; his subjects, who were largely Protestants, rejoicing hugely over his discomfiture.

On the day on which Maxim was fought Admiral Hawke, with a small squadron, utterly defeated the French fleet that was to convey an invading army to England. France herself was getting as short of cash as Prussia, and in November it became necessary to declare a temporary bankruptcy and, the king setting the example, all nobles and others possessing silver plate sent them to the mint to be coined into money.

So eager was the king to take advantage of any openings the Austrians might give for attack that, although so near Dresden, Fergus was unable to carry out his promise to the Count Eulenfurst to pay him a visit; for he was kept constantly employed, and could not ask for leave. Early in April the king sent for him. The English ambassador was present, but Earl Marischal Keith had gone away on a mission.

"I have two pieces of news for you, major," the king said pleasantly. "In the first place, it is now getting on for two years since you did me that little service at Zorndorf, and since then you have ever been zealously at work. Others have gone up in rank, and it is time that you had another step. Therefore, from today you are colonel. No man in the army has better deserved promotion, and indeed you ought to have had it after you returned from Brunswick's army where, as the duke's despatches told me, you had rendered excellent service. So many officers of rank have fallen since then that promotion has been rapid, and it is high time that you obtained the step that you so well deserve.

"The other piece of news is for Sir John Mitchell to tell you, for it is to his good offices that it is due."

"Very partially so, your majesty," said the ambassador. "It is like enough that Pitt would not have troubled to take action on my recommendation only, had it not been that you so strongly backed my request that, in fact, it became one from yourself. Therefore it is for you to give him the news."

"As you please," the king said.

"Well then, Drummond, his excellency and your cousin the Marischal put their heads together, and his excellency sent a warm letter to the English minister, saying that you had rendered such services to his sovereign's ally that he prayed that the sequestration of your father's estates should be annulled. I myself added a memorandum saying that, as you had saved my life at Zorndorf, and rendered me other valuable services, I should view it as a personal favour if his request was granted. The thing would have been managed in a couple of days, in this country; but in England it seems that matters move more slowly, and his excellency has only today received an official intimation that the affair has been completed, and that your father's estates have been restored to you."

Fergus was, for the moment, completely overwhelmed. He had never thought for a moment that the estate would ever be restored, and the sudden news, following that of his promotion, completely overwhelmed him.

It was of his mother rather than of himself that he thought. He himself had been too young to feel keenly the change in their life that followed Culloden; but although his mother had borne her reverses bravely, and he had never heard a complaint or even a regret cross her lips, he knew that the thought that he would never be chief of their brave clansmen, and that these had no longer a natural leader and protector, was very bitter to her.

"Your majesty is too good.

"Your excellency--" and he stopped.

"I know what you would say," the king said kindly, "and there is no occasion to say it. I have only paid some of the debt I owe you, and his excellency's thought gave me well-nigh as much pleasure as it does you. Now, be off to your camp.

"You see, Sir John, between us we have done what the Austrians and Russians have never managed between them--I mean, we have shaken Colonel Drummond's presence of mind.

"There, go along with you, we have matters to talk over together."

Fergus saluted almost mechanically, bowed gratefully to Mitchell, and then left the room in a whirl of emotion. To be the head of his clan again was, to him, a vastly greater matter than to be a colonel in even the most renowned and valiant army in Europe. Of the estates he thought for the moment but little, except that his mother would now be able to give up her petty economies and her straitened life, and to take up the station that had been hers until his father's death.

There was another thought, too--that of Countess Thirza Eulenfurst. Hitherto he had resolutely put that from him. It was not for him, a soldier of fortune, without a penny beyond his pay, to aspire to the hand of a rich heiress. It was true that many Scottish adventurers in foreign services had so married, but this had seemed a thing altogether beyond him. He had rendered a service to her father, and they had, in consequence, been most kind to him; but he had thought that it would be only a poor return for their kindness for him to aspire to their daughter's hand.

He had put the matter even more resolutely aside because, once or twice, the count had said things that might be construed as hints that he should not regard such an act as presumptuous. He had spoken not unapprovingly of the marriages of ladies of high rank to men who had rendered great services to the countries for which they had fought, and said that, with such ample means as Thirza would possess, there would be no need for him to seek for a wealthy match for her. Thirza herself had evinced lively pleasure, whenever he went to see them, and deep regret when he left them; while her colour rose, sometimes, when he came upon her suddenly. But these indications that he was not altogether indifferent to her had but determined him, more resolutely, to abstain from taking advantage of the gratitude she felt for the service he had rendered.

Now, it seemed to him that the news he had heard had somewhat changed the position. He was no longer a penniless soldier. It was true that the Drummond estates were as nothing by the side of the broad lands owned by her father; but at least, now, he was in the position of a Scottish gentleman of fair means and good standing, who could dispense with wealth on the part of a bride, and had a fair home and every comfort to offer to one in his native land. That he had, too, obtained the rank of colonel in the Prussian army, by service in many a desperate battle, distinctly added to his position. Thus, in every respect, the news that he had received was in the highest degree gratifying to him.

Chapter 18: Engaged.

On the following day, Sir John Mitchell handed to Fergus the official documents respecting the restoration of the estates and, after taking copies of the same, Fergus wrote a long letter to his mother, inclosing the official papers, Mitchell having offered to send the packet home with his despatches. Fergus was glad to get the documents sent off in this way--by which, indeed, he had sent the greater part of his letters to his mother--the post being so uncertain and insecure that there was no trusting it; and although his mother's replies were always sent to the care of the ambassador, a large number of them were lost in the transit.

Early in April Fergus suddenly broke down. His work had been almost incessant. The cold in the tent had, at night, been extreme; and, having been wetted to the skin one day, when a sudden thaw came on, his clothes had been frozen stiff when, at nightfall, the frost returned with even greater severity than before.