At long last, on Sunday, 12th December, about two P.M., the Old Dessauer does appear; or General Gessler, his vanguard, does appear,--Gessler of the sixty-seven standards,--"always about an hour ahead." Gessler has summoned Meissen; has not got it, is haggling with it about terms, when, towards sunset of the short day, Old Dessauer himself arrives. Whereupon the Saxon Commandant quits the Bridge (not much breaking it); and glides off in the dark, clear out of Meissen, towards Dresden,--chased, but successfully defending himself. [See Plan, p. 10.] "Had he but stood out for two days!" say the Saxons,--"Prince Karl had then been up, and much might have been different." Well, Friedrich too would have been up, and it had most likely been the same on a larger scale. But the Saxon Commandant did not stand out; he glided off, safe; joined Rutowski and Grune, who are lying about Wilsdruf, six or seven miles on the hither side of Dresden, and eagerly waiting for Prince Karl. "Bridge and Town of Meissen are your Majesty's," reports the Old Dessauer that night: upon which Friedrich instantly rises, hastening thitherward. Lehwald comes across Meissen Bridge, effects the desired junction; and all Monday the Old Dessauer defiles through Meissen town and territory;continually advances towards Dresden, the Saxons harassing the flanks of him a little,--nay in one defile, being sharp strenuous fellows, they threw his rear into some confusion; cut off certain carts and prisoners, and the life of one brave General, Lieutenant-General Roel, who had charge there. "Spurring one's trot into a gallop! This comes of your fast marching, of your spurring beyond the rules of war!" thinks Old Leopold; and Friedrich, who knows otherwise, is very angry for a moment.
But indeed the crisis is pressing. Prince Karl is across the Metal Mountains, nearing Dresden from the east; Friedrich strikes into march for the same point by Meissen, so soon as the Bridge is his.
Old Leopold is advancing thither from the westward,--steadily hour by hour; Dresden City the fateful goal. There,--in these middle days of December, 1745 (Highland Rebellion just whirling back from Derby again, "the London shops shut for one day"),--it is clear there will be a big and bloody game played before we are much older. Very sad indeed: but Count Bruhl is not persuadable otherwise. By slumbering and sluggarding, over their money-tills and flesh-pots; trying to take evil for good, and to say, "It will do," when it will not do, respectable Nations come at last to be governed by Bruhls; cannot help themselves;--and get their backs broken in consequence. Why not? Would you have a Nation live forever that is content to be governed by Bruhls? The gods are wiser!--It is now the 13th; Old Dessauer tramping forward, hour by hour, towards Dresden and some field of Fate.
On Tuesday, 14th, by break of day, Old Dessauer gets on march again; in four columns, in battle order; steady all day,--hard winter weather, ground crisp, and flecked with snow. The Pass at Neustadt, "his cavalry went into it at full gallop;" but found nobody there. That night he encamps at a place called Rohrsdorf;which may be eight miles west-by-north from Dresden, as the crow flies; and ten or more, if you follow the highway round by Wilsdruf on your right. The real direct Highway from Meissen to Dresden is on the other side of the Elbe, and keeps by the River-bank, a fine level road; but on this western side, where Leopold now is, the road is inland, and goes with a bend. Leopold, of course, keeps command of this road; his columns are on both sides of it, River on their left at some miles distance; and incessantly expect to find Rutowski, drawn out on favorable ground somewhere. The country is of fertile, but very broken character; intersected by many brooks, ****** obliquely towards the Elbe (obliquely, with a leaning Meissen-wards); country always mounting, till here about Rohrsdorf we seem to have almost reached the watershed, and the brooks make for the Elbe, leaning Dresden way. Good posts abound in such broken country, with its villages and brooks, with its thickets, hedges and patches of swamp. But Rutowski has not appeared anywhere, during this Tuesday.
Our four columns, therefore, lie all night, under arms, about Rohrsdorf: and again by morrow's dawn are astir in the old order, crunching far and wide the frozen ground; and advance, charged to the muzzle with potential battle. Slightly upwards always, to the actual watershed of the country; leaving Wilsdruf a little to their right. Wilsdruf is hardly past, when see, from this broad table-land, top of the country: "Yonder is Rutowski, at last;--and this new Wednesday will be a day!" Yonder, sure enough: drawn out three or four miles long; with his right to the Elbe, his left to that intricate Village of Kesselsdorf; bristling with cannon;deep gullet and swampy brook in front of him: the strongest post a man could have chosen in those parts.
The Village of Kesselsdorf itself lies rather in a hollow; in the slight beginning, or uppermost extremity, of a little Valley or Dell, called the Tschonengrund,--which, with its, quaggy brook of a Tschone, wends northeastward into the Elbe, a course of four or five miles: a little Valley very deep for its length, and getting altogether chasmy and precipitous towards the Elbe-ward or lower end. Kesselsdorf itself, as we said, is mainly in a kind of hollow: