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Safe behind the pools of Lieberose, Friedrich between them and Berlin, lie those dear Russians; extending, Daun and they, like an impassable military dike, with spurs of Outposts and cunningly devised Detachments, far and wide, from beyond Bober or utmost Crossen on the east, to Hoyerswerda in Elbe Country on the west; dike of eighty miles long, and in some eastern parts of almost eighty broad; so elaborate is Daun's detaching quality, in cases of moment.
Berlin was also merely covered by a comparatively weak army under General Bulow, who, notwithstanding the check given by him to Marshal Oudinot in the battles of Hoyerswerda and Luckau, was not in sufficient force to offer assistance to the main body of the French in case Napoleon chose to pass through Berlin on his way to Poland.
"Wehla and Brentano, readers perhaps remember them busy, from the Pirna side, at the late Siege of Dresden. Siege gloriously done, Wehla was ordered to Hoyerswerda, on the northwest frontier; Brentano to a different point in that neighborhood; where Brentano escaped ruin, and shall not be mentioned; but Wehla suddenly found it, and will require a word.
There are 20 miles farther, still straight west, to Hoyerswerda, where the outmost Austrian Division is: 'Forward towards that; let us astonish General Wehla and his 3,000, and our March is over! All this too Prince Henri manages; never anything more consummate, more astonishing to Wehla and his Master.
Already, from Zobelwitz Country, 25th September, day of Henri at Hoyerswerda, Friedrich had written to Fouquet: "With 21,000 your beaten and maltreated Servant has hindered an Army of 50,000 from attacking him, and compelled them to retire on Neusatz!" Evidently much risen in hope; and Henri's fine news not yet come to hand.
Everything is prosperous in Saxony since that March on Hoyerswerda; Henri, with his Fincks and Wunsches, beautifully posted in the Meissen-Torgau region; no dislodging of him, let Daun, with his big mass of forces, try as he may.
Friedrich and he are wedged asunder by that dike of Russians and Austrians, which goes from Bober river eastward, post after post, to Hoyerswerda westward, eighty miles along the Lausitz-Brandenburg Frontier, rooting itself through the Lausitz into Bohemia, and the sources of its meal.
This advantage was succeeded by another exploit of prince Henry, who, on the twenty-third day of the month, quitted his camp at Hornsdorf, near Gorlitz; and, after an incredible march of eleven German miles, by the way of Rothenberg, arrived about five in the afternoon at Hoyerswerda, where he surprised a body of four thousand men, commanded by general Vehla, killed six hundred, and made twice that number prisoners; including the commander himself.
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