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Daun has to keep one eye upon his magazines in Bohemia, for Prince Henry in Silesia still constantly menaces them, and not only the Austrian but the Russian army is fed from Prague. "Were it not that I am specially bound to defend Hanover from the Confederate army, I would march with the greater portion of my force to join the king; but my orders are imperative.
"Be swift enough, may not we cut through to Jauer, and get ahead of Daun?" counts Friedrich: "To Jauer, southeast of us, from Bunzlau here, is 40 miles; and to Jauer it is above 30 east for Daun: possible to be there before Daun!
And seldom lay ahead of men such obstacles AFTER forming! Think only of one fact: Daun, on sight of their intention, has opened 400 pieces of Artillery on them, and these go raging and thundering into the hem of the Wood, and to whatever issues from it, now and for hours to come, at a rate of deafening uproar and of sheer deadliness, which no observer can find words for.
The barbarous man is stiff as brass; but Daun comes into all his conditions: 'Saxony, Silesia, Excellenz, we have them both within clutch; such our exquisite angling and manoeuvring, in concert with your immortal victory, which truly gives the life-breath to everything. Oh, suffer us to clutch them: keep that King away from us; and see if they are not ours, Saxony first, Silesia next!
When the army of the King had obtained Kemberg, Zieten, who with the left had stopped the enemy at Wittenberg, passed the Elbe and joined the main army. Marshal Daun had, however, come up with Lacy at Torgau. As certain information was received that his vanguard had taken the road to Eulenburg, he could be supposed to have no other intention than that of joining the army of the circles.
Clavering, the groom of the bed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King's order. I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle. The King of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun. This, which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is nothing to-day; it only takes its turn among the questions, "Who is to be the groom of the bedchamber?
While Hulsen was away, the Confederate army had captured all the strongholds in Saxony. Daun had, as usual, advanced with his sixty thousand men, and intended to winter in Saxony; but before he could get there, Frederick had dashed south and recaptured Wittenberg and Leipzig, crossed the Elbe, and driven the scattered corps of the Confederate army before him.
They too had been hindered and confused by the mist, and the force that had been engaged in and round Hochkirch had suffered terribly; and they pushed forward but feebly, now that the Prussian guns on the heights were able to open fire upon them. Retzow was long in coming, for he too had been attacked by twenty thousand men, who had been told off by Daun for the purpose.
"I cannot think of the bombardment of Dresden without horror," says he; "nor of many other things I have seen. If Daun could be swift, and end the miseries of Dresden, surely Dresden would be much obliged to him. It was ten days yet, after that of the Kreuz-Kirche, before Dresden quite got rid of its Siege: Daun never was a sudden man.
Daun himself is encamped at Reichenberg, within two miles of him, inexpugnably intrenched as usual; and the danger surely is not great: nevertheless both these Generals, wise by experience, keep their eyes open.
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