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I was on the outer side of the Elbe when this dreadful piece of butchery was done. The city of Magdeburg had a sconce or fort over against it called the toll-house, which joined to the city by a very fine bridge of boats.
"But," he concluded, "where I am not my lieutenants must wait for me without trusting anything to chance. The allies cannot long act together on lines so extended, and can I not reasonably hope sooner or later to catch them in some false move? If they venture between my fortified lines of the Elbe and the Rhine, I will enter Bohemia and thus take them in the rear." The plan promised much.
It was, however, something that it gave the French a self-confidence bordering on enthusiasm, and it was more that after Napoleon had commenced to rebuild the Dresden bridges, Frederick Augustus, the King of Saxony, declared himself favorable to the French. Abandoning Austria, he summoned his forces from Torgau, and the allies retreated eastward behind the Spree. The lower Elbe was also recovered.
On May 17 he received a letter from Fox, dated May 16, notifying him that, in consequence of certain new and extraordinary means resorted to by the enemy for distressing British commerce, a retaliatory commercial blockade was ordered of the coast of the continent, from the river Elbe to Brest. This blockade, however, was to be absolute, against all commerce, only between the Seine and Ostend.
Through Konigsgratz, down the right bank of the Upper Elbe, on the morrow morning, Thursday, 31st July, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm rushes on towards Kladrup; finds that little village, with the Horse-edifices, looking snug enough in the valley of Elbe; alights, welcomed by Prince Eugenio von Savoye, with word that the Kaiser is not come, but steadily expected soon.
It is clear that the Swiss were regarded by the Saxons as radical stormers, unprincipled innovators, who, amid their mountains and their republican affairs had forgotten all respect for law and order. "I am sick;" wrote Melanchton to one friend, "an indescribable anguish of soul torments me; I can scarcely breathe. Thou knowest wherefore. The Elbe has fearfully overflowed its banks.
This was three months that very day when the battle of Leipsic was fought, and winter time too, that the progress of his arms had spread from the Elbe, where it parts Saxony and Brandenburg, to the Lower Palatine and the Rhine. I went over in the boat with the king. I never saw him in so much concern in my life, for he was in pain for his men; but before we got on shore the Spaniards retired.
The vigorous resistance of the garrison, and the approach of the Electoral and Imperial armies, saved the town, and Banner, to prevent his communication with the Elbe being cut off, was compelled to retreat into Torgau.
The Prussians, under their veteran general, Blucher, entered Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 1813; an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe having been uselessly blown up by the French.
Tilly himself crossing the Elbe penetrated with his victorious army into Brandenburg, while Wallenstein entered Holstein to remove the seat of war to the king's own dominions. This general had just returned from Hungary whither he had pursued Mansfeld, without being able to obstruct his march, or prevent his junction with Bethlen Gabor.
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