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Thus freed, they marched on, not very certain of their way, in hopes to rejoin some corps of the Prussian troops, their countrymen. The same fortune which freed them led them directly to the army commanded by the king himself, which was hastening to their relief, as well as to that of the prince of Bevern.
Arriving at Romischbrod, within a few miles of Prague, the day after the late defeat, he halted to collect the fugitive corps and broken remains of the Austrian army, and soon drew together a force so considerable as to attract the notice of his Prussian majesty, who detached the prince of Bevern, with twenty battalions, and thirty squadrons, to attack him before numbers should render him formidable.
Which done, on fixed days, about the end of April, the whole Army, he himself from Lockwitz, April 20th, to the surprise of Austria and the world, Friedrich in three grand Columns, Bevern out of the Lausitz, King himself over the Metal Mountains, Schwerin out of Schlesien, is marching with extraordinary rapidity direct for Prag; in the notion that a right plunge into the heart of Bohemia will be the best defence for Saxony and the other places under menace.
Having settled Soubise and recovered repute, Frederick must make haste to Silesia, where Prince Karl, along with Fabius Daun, is already proclaiming Imperial Majesty again, not much hindered by Bevern. Schweidnitz falls; Bevern, beaten at Breslau, gets taken prisoner; Prussian army marches away; Breslau follows Schweidnitz. This is what Frederick finds, three weeks after Rossbach.
In their retreat they were pursued by the Prussians, who fell upon their rear, killed some, and took many prisoners: this affair cost the Austrians at least five hundred men. About a fortnight after, the prince of Bevern marched out of Zittau, with a body of near nine thousand men, in order to destroy the remaining strongholds possessed by the Austrians on the frontiers.
The town was to pay a fine of two hundred thousand florins, recall the banished papists, and expel the Protestant inhabitants, who, however, were to be allowed two years for the settlement of their affairs. This treaty was concluded in September of the same year, at the headquarters at Bevern, and immediately three thousand Spaniards marched into the town as a garrison.
Owing to whatsoever, the place is gone. Such towers, such curtains, star-ramparts; such an opulence of cannons, stores, munitions, a 30,000 pounds of hard cash, one item. All is gone, after a fortnight's siege. What a piece of news, as heard by Friedrich, coming at his utmost towards the scene itself! As seen by Bevern, too, in his questioning mood, it was an event of very oracular nature.
To which Bevern replies, "Excellent, truly; but how?" Bevern has his provender at Dresden, sadly far off; has to hold Bautzen garrisoned, and gets much trouble with his convoys. Better in Silesia, with our magazines at hand, thinks Bevern, less mindful of other considerations.
The enemy, deceived by this feint, and imagining he wras going to execute some design, distinct from the object of the other armies, detached a body of twenty thousand men to observe his motions; then he made a sudden and masterly movement to the left, by which he cut off all communication between that detachment and the main army of the Austrians, which, having been reinforced by the army of Moravia, by the remains of the corps lately defeated by the prince of Bevern, and by several regiments of the garrison of Prague, amounted to near a hundred thousand men.
Prince Karl, they say, was also unwise; took no thought beforehand, or he might have gained marches, disputed rivers, Bober, Queiss, with Bevern, and as good as hindered him from ever getting to Silesia. So say critics, Retzow and others; perhaps looking too fixedly on one side of the question.
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