Friedrich, fastening eagerly on Home business, is astonished and provoked to learn that the Austrians, not content with pushing him out of Bohmen, are themselves pushing into Schlesien,--so Old Leopold reports, with increasing emphasis day by day; to whom Friedrich sends impatient order: Hurl them out again; gather what force you need, ten thousand, or were it twenty or thirty thousand, and be immediate about it; "I will as soon be pitched (HERAUSGESCHMISSEN) out of the Mark of Brandenburg as out of Schlesien:" no delay, I tell you! And as the Old Dessauer still explains that the ten or fifteen thousand he needs are actually assembling, and cannot be got on march quite in a moment, Friedrich dashes away his incipient Berlin Operations; will go himself and do it. Haggle no more, you tedious Old Dessauer:--BERLIN, "19th DECEMBER," 1744. "On the 21st [Monday, one week after my arriving], I leave Berlin, and mean to be at Neisse on the 24th at latest. Your Serenity will in the interim make out the Order-of-Battle [which is also Order-of-March] for what regiments are come in. For I will, on the 25th, without delay, cross the Neisse, and attack those people, cost what it may,--to chase them out of Schlesien and Glatz, and follow them so far as possible.
Your Serenity will therefore take your measures, and provide everything, so far as in this short time you can, that the project may be executable the moment I arrive." [Friedrich to the Old Dessauer (<italic> Orlich, <end italic> ii. 356).]
And rushed off accordingly, in a somewhat flamy humor; but at Schweidnitz, where the Old Dessauer met him again, became convinced that the matter was weightier than he thought; not one of Tolpatchery alone, but had Traun himself in it. Upon which Friedrich candidly drew bridle; hastened back, and, with a loss of four days, was at his Potsdam Affairs again. To which he stuck henceforth, ardently, and I think rather with increase of gloom, though without spurt of impatience farther, for three months to come. Before his return,--nay, had he known, it was the night before he went away,--a strange little thing had happened in the opposite or Western parts: surprising accident to Marechal de Belleisle; which now lies waiting his immediate consideration.
But let us finish Silesia first.
OLD DESSAUER REPELS THE SILESIAN INVASION (Winter, 1744-45).
"This Silesian Affair includes due inroad of Pandours; or indeed two inroads, southwest and southeast; and in the southwest, or Traun quarter, regulars are the main element of it. Traun, 20,000strong, PLUS stormy-enough Pandour ACCOMPANIMENT, is by this time through into Glatz; in three columns;--is master of all Glatz, except the Rock-Fortress itself; and has spread himself, right and left, along the Neisse River, and from the southwest northwards, in a skilful and dangerous manner. In concert with whom, far to the east, are Pandour whirlwinds on their own footing (brand-new 'Insurrection' of them, got thus far) starting from Olmutz and Brunn; scouring that eastern country, as far as Namslau northward [a place we were at the taking of, in old Brieg times]; much more, infesting the Mountains of the South. A rather serious thing;with Traun for general manager of it."With Traun, we say: poor Prince Karl is off, weeks ago; on the saddest of errands. His beautiful young Wife,--Hungarian Majesty's one Sister, Vice-Regents of the Netherlands he and she, conspicuous among the bright couples of the world,--she had a bad lying-in (child still-born), while those grand Moldau Operations went on;has been ill, poor lady, ever since; and, at Brussels, on December 16th, she herself lies dead, Prince Karl weeping over her and the days that will not return. Prince Karl's felicities, private and public, had been at their zenith lately, which was very high indeed; but go on declining from this day. Never more the Happiest of Husbands (did not wed again at all); still less the Greatest of Captains, equal or superior to Caesar in the Gazetteer judgment, with distracted EULOGIES, BIOGRAPHIES and such like filling the air: before long, a War-Captain of quite moderate renown; which we shall see sink gradually into no renown at all, and even (unjustly)into MINUS quantities, before all end. A mad world, my masters!
"Between Traun on the southwest hand, and his Pandours on the southeast, the small Prussian posts have all been driven in upon Troppau-Jagerndorf region; more and more narrowed there;--and, in fine (two days before this new Interview of Leopold and the impatient King at Schweidnitz), have had to quit the Troppau-Jagerndorf position; to quit the Hills altogether, and are now in full march towards Brieg. Of which march I should say nothing, were it not that Marwitz, Father of Wilhelmina's giggling Marmitzes, commanded;--and came by his death in the course of it; though our Wilhelmina is not now there, pen in hand, to tell us what the effects at Baireuth were. Marwitz had been left for dead on the Field of Mollwitz; lay so all night, but was nursed to some kind of strength again by those giggling young women; and came back to Schlesien, to posts of chief trust, for the last year or two,--was guarding the Mountains, and even invading Mahren, during the late Campaign;--but saw himself reduced latterly to Jagerndorf and Troppau; and had even to retreat out of these. And in the whirlpool of hurries thereupon,--how is not very clear; by apoplexy, say some; by accidental pistol from a servant of his own; in actual skirmish with Pandours,--too certainly, one way or the other, on December 23d (just during that second Interview at Schweidnitz), brave old Marwitz did suddenly sink dead, and is ended.
[<italic> Helden-Geschichte, ii. 1201.] Even so, ye poor giggling creatures, and your loud weeping will not mend it at all!