Of the Siege I propose to say little, though the accounts of it are ample, useful to the Artillerist and Engineer. If the reader can be made to conceive it as a blazing loud-sounding fact, on which, and on Friedrich in it, the eyes of all Europe were fixed for some weeks, it may rest now in impressive indistinctness to us. Keith is Captain of the Siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress; Balbi as before, is Engineer, against whom goes the criticism, Keith's first of all, that he "opened his first parallel 800 yards too far off,"--which much increased the labor, and the expenditure of useless gunpowder, shot having no effect at such a distance. There were various criticisms: some real, as this; some imaginary, as that Friedrich grudged gunpowder, the fact being that he had it not, except after carriage from Neisse, say a hundred and twenty miles off,--Troppau, his last Silesian Town, or safe place (his for the moment), is eighty miles;--and was obliged to waste none of it.
Friedrich is not thought to shine in the sieging line as he does in the fighting; which has some truth in it, though not very much.
When Friedrich laid himself to engineering, I observe, he did it well: see Neisse, Graudenz, Magdeburg. His Balbi went wrong with the parallels, on this occasion; many things went wrong: but the truly grievous thing was his distance from Silesia and the supplies. A hundred and twenty miles of hill-carriage, eighty of them disputable, for every shot of ammunition and for every loaf of bread; this was hard to stand:--and perhaps no War-apparatus but a Prussian, with a Friedrich for sole chief-manager, could have stood it so long. Friedrich did stand it, in a wonderfully tolerable manner; and was continuing to stand it, and make fair progress;and it is not doubted he would have got Olmutz, had not there another fact come on him, which proved to be of unmanageable nature. The actual loss, namely, of one Convoy, after so many had come safe, and when, as appears, there was now only one wanted and no more!--Let us attend to this a little.
Had Daun, at Olmutz, been as a Duke of Cumberland relieving Tournay, rushing into fight at Fontenoy, like a Hanover White-Horse, neck clothed with thunder, and head destitute of knowledge, --how lucky had it been for Friedrich! But Daun knows his trade better. Daun, though superior in strength, sits on his Magazine, clear not to fight. By no art of manoeuvring, had Friedrich much tried it, or hoped it, this time, could Daun have been brought to give battle. As Fabins Cunctator he is here in his right place;taking impregnable positions, no man with better skill in that branch of business; pushing out parties on the Troppau road;and patiently waiting till this dangerous Enemy, with such endless shifts in him, come in sight perhaps of his last cartridge, or perhaps make some stumble on the way towards that consummation.
Daun is aware of Friedrich's surprising qualities. Bos against Leo, Daun feels these procedures to be altogether feline (FELIS-LEONINE); such stealthy glidings about, deceptive motions, appearances; then such a rapidity of spring upon you, and with such a set of claws,--destructive to bovine or rhinoceros nature:
in regard to all which, Bos, if he will prosper, surely cannot be too cautious. It was remarked of Daun, that he was scrupulously careful; never, in the most impregnable situations, neglecting the least precaution, but punctiliously fortifying himself to the last item, even to a ridiculous extent, say Retzow and the critics.
It was the one resource of Daun: truly a solid stubborn patience is in the man; stubborn courage too, of bovine-rhinoceros type;--stupid, if you will, but doing at all times honestly his best and his wisest without flurry; which character is often of surprising value in War; capable of much mischief, now and then, to quicker people. Rhinoceros Daun did play his Leo a bad prank more than once; and this of barring him out from Olmutz was one of them, perhaps the worst after Kolin.
Daun's management of this Olmutz business is by no means reckoned brilliant, even in the Fabius line; but, on the contrary, inert, dim-minded, inconclusive; and in reality, till almost the very last, he had been of little help to the besieged. For near three weeks (till May 23d) Daun sat at Leutomischl, immovable on his bread-basket there, forty or more miles from Olmutz; and did not see that a Siege was meant. May 27th-28th, Balbi opened his first parallel, in that mistaken way; four days before which, Daun does move inwards a march or so, to Zwittau, to Gewitsch (still thirty miles to west of Olmutz); still thinking of Bohemia, not of any siege; still hanging by the mountains and the bread-basket.
And there,--about Gewitsch, siege or no siege, Daun sits down again; pretty much immovable, through the five weeks of bombardment; and,--except that Loudon and the Light Horse are very diligent to do a mischief, "attempting our convoys, more than once, to no purpose, and alarming some of our outposts almost every night, but every night beaten off,"--does, in a manner, nothing;sits quiet, behind his impenetrable veil of Pandours, and lets the bombardment take its course. Had not express Order come from Vienna on him, it is thought Daun would have sat till Olmutz was taken;and would then have gone back to Leutomischl and impregnable posts in the Hills. On express order, he-- But gather, first, these poor sparks in elucidation:--"The 'destructive sallies' and the like, at Olmutz, were principally an affair of the gazetteers and the imagination: but it is certain, Olmutz this time was excellently well defended;the Commandant, a vigorous skilful man, prompt to seize advantages;and Garrison and Townsfolk zealously helping: so that Friedrich's progress was unusually slow. Friedrich's feelings, all this while, and Balbi's (who 'spent his first 1,220 shots entirely in vain,'