History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 20 | Page 7

plainly unattackable post; finds, by Daun's rate of palisading, that
there will be no attack from Daun either. No attack from Daun;--and,
therefore, that Hulsen's people may be sent home to Schlettau again;
and that he, Friedrich, will take post close by, and wearisomely be
content to wait for some new opportunity.
Which he does for a week to come; Daun sitting impregnable,
intrenched and palisaded to the teeth,--rather wishing to be attacked,
you would say; or hopeful sometimes of doing something of the
Hochkirch sort again (for the country is woody, and the enemy
audacious);--at all events, very clear not to attack. A man erring,
sometimes to a notable degree, by over-caution. "Could hardly have
failed to overwhelm Friedrich's small force, had he at once, on
Friedrich's crossing the Elbe, joined Lacy, and gone out against him,"
thinks Tempelhof, pointing out the form of operation too. [Tempelhof,
iv. 42, 48.] Caution is excellent; but not quite by itself. Would caution
alone do it, an Army all of Druidic whinstones, or innocent clay-sacks,
incapable of taking hurt, would be the proper one!--Daun stood there;
Friedrich looking daily into him,--visibly in ill humor, says Mitchell;

and no wonder; gloomy and surly words coming out of him, to the
distress of his Generals: "Which I took the liberty of hinting, one
evening, to his Majesty;" hint graciously received, and of effect
perceptible, at least to my imagining.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, After nearly a week of this, there rose,
towards sunset, all over the Reichenberg, and far and wide, an
exuberant joy-firing: "For what in the world?" thinks Friedrich. Alas,
your Majesty,--since your own messenger has not arrived, nor indeed
ever will, being picked up by Pandours,--here, gathered from the
Austrian outposts or deserters, are news for you, fatal enough!
Landshut is done; Fouquet and his valiant 13,000 are trodden out there.
Indignant Fouquet has obeyed you, not wisely but too well. He has kept
Landshut six nights and five days. On the morning of the sixth day,
here is what befell:--
"LANDSHUT, MONDAY, 23d JUNE, About a quarter to two in the
morning, Loudon, who had gathered 31,000 horse and foot for the
business, and taken his measures, fired aloft, by way of signal, four
howitzers into the gray of the summer morning; and burst loose upon
Fouquet, in various columns, on his southward front, on both flanks,
ultimately in his rear too: columns all in the height of fighting humor,
confident as three to one,--and having brandy in them, it is likewise
said. Fouquet and his people stood to arms, in the temper Fouquet had
vowed they would: defended their Hills with an energy, with a steady
skill, which Loudon himself admired; but their Hill-works would have
needed thrice the number;--Fouquet, by detaching and otherwise, has in
arms only 10,680 men. Toughly as they strove, after partial successes,
they began to lose one Hill, and then another; and in the course of
hours, nearly all their Hills. Landshut Town Loudon had taken from
them, Landshut and its roads: in the end, the Prussian position is
becoming permeable, plainly untenable;--Austrian force is moving to
their rearward to block the retreat.
"Seeing which latter fact, Fouquet throws out all his Cavalry, a poor
1,500, to secure the Passes of the Bober; himself formed square with
the wrecks of his Infantry; and, at a steady step, cuts way for himself

with bayonet and bullet. With singular success for some time, in spite
of the odds. And is clear across the Bober; when lo, among the knolls
ahead, masses of Austrian Cavalry are seen waiting him, besetting
every passage! Even these do not break him; but these, with infantry
and cannon coming up to help them, do. Here, for some time, was the
fiercest tug of all,--till a bullet having killed Fouquet's horse, and
carried the General himself to the ground, the spasm ended. The
Lichnowski Dragoons, a famed Austrian regiment, who had charged
and again charged with nothing but repulse on repulse, now broke in,
all in a foam of rage; cut furiously upon Fouquet himself; wounded
Fouquet thrice; would have killed him, had it not been for the heroism
of poor Trautschke, his Groom [let us name the gallant fellow, even if
unpronounceable], who flung himself on the body of his Master, and
took the bloody strokes instead of him; shrieking his loudest, 'Will you
murder the Commanding General, then!' Which brought up the Colonel
of Lichnowski; a Gentleman and Ritter, abhorrent of such practices. To
him Fouquet gave his sword;--kept his vow never to draw it again.
"The wrecks of Fouquet's Infantry were, many of them, massacred, no
quarter given; such the unchivalrous fury that had risen. His Cavalry,
with the loss of about 500, cut their way through. They and some
stragglers of