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Updated: June 22, 2025
"Did you mend them, my son?" said the king. "No, your majesty, Charles Buschman mended them, but I came along to say something to your majesty. You remember, no doubt, what you said when we returned from the enemy's camp near Kunersdorf, after the battle, when Charles Henry related so beautifully all that we had seen and heard.
We whipped the French at Minden, the Russians at Kunersdorf, and now we have defeated the Austrians and won back the trophies of their victory at Hochkirch!" The people surrounded the castle shouting and triumphing. The courier had entered to give to the queen the joyful news.
The Russians defeated the King's generals on the Oder, threatened Silesia, effected a junction with Laudohn, and intrenched themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. Frederic hastened to attack them. A great battle was fought. During the earlier part of the day everything yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and to the skill of their chief. The lines were forced. Half the Russian guns were taken.
This too, after long deadly efforts on the Prussian part, ended again clearly in their favor; their enemies broken a second time, and driven not only out of Kunersdorf and the Kuhgrund, but some say almost to the foot of the Judenberg, what can only be very partially true.
Prince Henri had lain quiet at Schmottseifen, waiting his Brother's adventure; did not hear the least tidings of him till six days after Kunersdorf, and then only by rumor; hideous, and, though still dubious, too much of it probable! For the present, let readers take their Map, and endeavor to fix the following dates and localities in their mind.
Making of it one of the unloveliest scenes of chaotic desolation anywhere to be met with; fallen unlovelier than ever in our own more recent times. "What we call the Heights of Kunersdorf is a broad Chain of Knolls; coming out, at right-angles, or as a kind of spur, from the eastern high grounds; direct towards Oder and Frankfurt. A Block of Knolls memorable ever since.
But in that, too, there is an offence. Butturlin and the Russians grumble to themselves: "And you to take all the credit, as you did at Kunersdorf? A mere adjunct, or auxiliary, we: and we are a Feldmarschall; and you, what is your rank and seniority?" In short, they will not do it; and in the end coldly answer: "A Corps, if you like; but the whole Army, positively no."
That of burning Kunersdorf was the barbaric winding up of all this: barbaric, and, in the military sense, absurd; poor Kunersdorf could have been burnt at any moment, if needful; and to the Russians the keeping of it standing was the profitable thing, as an impediment to Friedrich in his advance there.
Neither Silesia nor Saxony are to fall to the Austrians. Liegnitz and Torgau are a better outcome of operations than Kunersdorf and Maxen; the king is, in a sense, stronger, but his resources are more exhausted, and George III. is now become king in England; Pitt's power very much in danger there.
"However, Major Drummond, you are likely to see little fighting here; while with the king there will be incessant work for you. Therefore, by all means go to him. He must have lost many of his staff at Kunersdorf, and will, I doubt not, be glad to have you with him." The ride was a shorter one than it had been when going west, for the king lay little more than fifty miles to the east of Berlin.
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