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There are many Histories about him, too, but they are not comfortable to read. He also has wanted a sacred Poet, and found only a bewildering Dryasdust. His two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both relate to what was the central problem of his life the recovery of Pommern from the Swedes.
"His principal force, on this occasion, is one Infantry Regiment; REGIMENT MANTEUFFEL: readers perhaps recollect that stout Pommern Regiment, Manteuffel of Foot, and the little Dialogue it had with the King himself, on the eve of Leuthen: 'Good-night, then, Fritz!
But it was in these times that the Order got into its wider troubles outward and inward; quarrels, jealousies, with Christian neighbors, Poland, Pommern, who did not love it and for cause; wider troubles, and by no means so evidently useful to mankind. The Order's wages, in this world, flowed higher than ever, only perhaps its work was beginning to run low! But we will not anticipate.
The Marlborough was struck and badly damaged, but she made her way safely to port. The Frauenlob, Rostock, and Pommern were sunk. And that is the whole story so far as known at present. Yet several hundred torpedoes must have been discharged, most of them at ranges within 5,000 yards.
"Loudon's trumpet withdrew. Pommern formed square round its baggage; Loudon's 5,000 came thundering in, fit to break adamant; but met such a storm of bullets from Pommern, they stopped about ten paces short, in considerable amazement, and wheeled back. Tried it again, still more amazement; the like a third time; every time in vain.
Roving Cossack-Parties, under one Tottleben, whom we shall hear of otherwise, infest Pommern, bickering with the Prussian posts there; not ravaging as formerly, Tottleben being a civilized kind of man. Him these Cossacks carried off with them, a march or two; then, taking his bond for a certain ransom, let him go.
To no purpose then: he never could recover Swedish Pommern; only his late descendants, and that by slowish degrees, could recover it all. Readers remember that Burgermeister of Stettin, with the helmet and sword flung into the grave and picked out again: and can judge whether Brandenburg got its good luck quite by lying in bed!
Charles XII. of Sweden, namely; he has broken out of Turkish Bender or Demotica, and ended his obstinate torpor, at last; has ridden fourteen or sixteen days, he and a groom or two, through desolate steppes and mountain wildernesses, through crowded dangerous cities; "came by Vienna and by Cassel, then through Pommern;" leaving his "royal train of two thousand persons" to follow at its leisure.
About the same time another party of the Battalion captured Pommern Redoubt, while the 7th King's on the right got into Pommern Castle. In all about eighty prisoners were taken, which considerably exceeded the numbers of the men that first dashed up to the objective.
At home here, the Russians are in Pommern and the Neumark; Austrians have Saxony, all but a poor strip beyond the Mulda; Silesia, all but a fraction on the Oder: Friedrich has with himself 30,000; with Prince Henri, 25,000; under Eugen of Wurtemberg, against the Swedes, 5,000; in all his Dominions, 60,000 fighting men.
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