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They were successively driven out of all their posts in Bohemia, and anxious only to secure their plunder, they precipitately crossed the heights of Meissen. But being followed into Saxony by the pursuing enemy, and defeated at Plauen, they were obliged to take refuge in Thuringia.
The opinion was justified. That evening Lacy joined the Confederate army, in their strong position behind the gap of Plauen. He had been hotly chased, indeed.
This motion obliged Daun to retire to Plauen; and the king advanced to Wilsdurf, imagining that he had effectually succeeded in his design. Letters were sent to Berlin and Magdebourg, importing, that count Daun would be forced to hazard a battle, as he had now no resource but in victory.
Fifteen minutes afterward, the emperor, with his numerous suite, left the palace of Baireuth and set out for Plauen, where he intended to join the Empress Maria Louisa, who had stopped there over night, and continue with her the journey to Dresden.
It was now decided that as everything was ready, the retreat to the Erzgebirge, which had originally been intended for the previous day, should be fixed for the early morrow. Young Zichlinsky had already received orders to cover the road to Plauen so as to make it strategically safe.
Ney coming from the shores of Lake Constance, Lannes from Upper Swabia, Soult and Davoust from Bavaria and the Palatinate, Bernadotte and Augereau from Franconia, and the Imperial Guard from Paris, were all thus arranged in line on three parallel roads, to debouch simultaneously between Saalfeld, Gera, and Plauen, few persons in the army or in Germany having any conception of the object of these movements which seemed so very complicated.
Amply safe this position is; none better in the world: a Village, Plauen, and a Brook, Weistritz, in the bottom of this exquisite Chasm; sheer rock-walls on each side, high especially on the Daun, or south side; head-quarters can be in Dresden itself; room for your cavalry on the plain ground between Dresden and the Chasm.
Daun showed not the least disposition to quit his Plauen Chasm, or fall into discouragement: and after some weeks of diligent trial, on Friedrich's part, and much running about in those central and Hill-ward parts, Friedrich found he would have to be content with his former allotment of Saxon territory, and to leave the Austrians quiet in theirs.
"Modern time has few men to show whose spirit had any such world-embracing might, and who, out of so unlikely a beginning, knew how to raise up so gigantic a work as compels us to be filled, if not with love to him, at least with the greatest respect for his honourable intentions." Vogtland Gazette Plauen
Filled Europe with astonishment, expectancy, admiration, horror: must be very briefly recited here. The main chronological epochs, salient points of crisis and successive phases of occurrence, will sufficiently indicate it to the reader's fancy. "It was Thursday Evening, 10th July, when Lacy got to his Reichsfolk, and took breath behind Plauen Chasm. Maguire is Governor of Dresden.
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