History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 18 [139]
this bold stroke for Mahren might have turned out far otherwise than it did.
The march thither (started from Neisse April 27th) was beautiful: Friedrich with vanguard and first division; Keith with rear-guard and second, always at a day's distance; split into proper columns, for convenience of road and quarter in the hungry countries; threading those silent mountain villages, and upper streamlets of Oder and Morawa: Ziethen waving intrusive Croateries far off; Fouquet, in thousands of wagons, shoving on from Neisse, "in four sections," with the due intervals, under the due escorts, the immensity of stores and siege-furniture, through Jagerndorf, through Troppau, and onwards; [Table of his routes and stages in TEMPELHOF, ii. 46.]--punctual everybody; besiegers and siege materials ready on their ground by the set day. Daun too had made speed to save his Magazine. Daun was at Leutomischl, May 5th,--a forty miles to west of the Morawa,--few days after Friedrich had arrived in those countries by the eastern or left bank, by Troppau, Gibau, Littau, Aschmeritz, Prossnitz; and a week before Friedrich had finished his reconnoitrings, campings, and taken position to his mind. Camps, four or more (shrank in the end to three), on both banks of the River; a matter of abstruse study; so that it was May 12th before Friedrich first took view of Olmutz itself, and could fairly begin his Problem,--Daun, with his best Tolpatcheries, still unable to guess what it was.
Of the Siege I propose to say little, though the accounts of it are ample, useful to the Artillerist and Engineer. If the reader can be made to conceive it as a blazing loud-sounding fact, on which, and on Friedrich in it, the eyes of all Europe were fixed for some weeks, it may rest now in impressive indistinctness to us. Keith is Captain of the Siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress; Balbi as before, is Engineer, against whom goes the criticism, Keith's first of all, that he "opened his first parallel 800 yards too far off,"--which much increased the labor, and the expenditure of useless gunpowder, shot having no effect at such a distance. There were various criticisms: some real, as this; some imaginary, as that Friedrich grudged gunpowder, the fact being that he had it not, except after carriage from Neisse, say a hundred and twenty miles off,--Troppau, his last Silesian Town, or safe place (his for the moment), is eighty miles;--and was obliged to waste none of it.
Friedrich is not thought to shine in the sieging line as he does in the fighting; which has some truth in it, though not very much. When Friedrich laid himself to engineering, I observe, he did it well: see Neisse, Graudenz, Magdeburg. His Balbi went wrong with the parallels, on this occasion; many things went wrong: but the truly grievous thing was his distance from Silesia and the supplies. A hundred and twenty miles of hill-carriage, eighty of them disputable, for every shot of ammunition and for every loaf of bread; this was hard to stand:--and perhaps no War-apparatus but a Prussian, with a Friedrich for sole chief-manager, could have stood it so long. Friedrich did stand it, in a wonderfully tolerable manner; and was continuing to stand it, and make fair progress; and it is not doubted he would have got Olmutz, had not there another fact come on him, which proved to be of unmanageable nature. The actual loss, namely, of one Convoy, after so many had come safe, and when, as appears, there was now only one wanted and no more!--Let us attend to this a little.
Had Daun, at Olmutz, been as a Duke of Cumberland relieving Tournay, rushing into fight at Fontenoy, like a Hanover White- Horse, neck clothed with thunder, and head destitute of knowledge, --how lucky had it been for Friedrich! But Daun knows his trade better. Daun, though superior in strength, sits on his Magazine, clear not to fight. By no art of manoeuvring, had Friedrich much tried it, or hoped it, this time, could Daun have been brought to give battle. As Fabins Cunctator he is here in his right place; taking impregnable
The march thither (started from Neisse April 27th) was beautiful: Friedrich with vanguard and first division; Keith with rear-guard and second, always at a day's distance; split into proper columns, for convenience of road and quarter in the hungry countries; threading those silent mountain villages, and upper streamlets of Oder and Morawa: Ziethen waving intrusive Croateries far off; Fouquet, in thousands of wagons, shoving on from Neisse, "in four sections," with the due intervals, under the due escorts, the immensity of stores and siege-furniture, through Jagerndorf, through Troppau, and onwards; [Table of his routes and stages in TEMPELHOF, ii. 46.]--punctual everybody; besiegers and siege materials ready on their ground by the set day. Daun too had made speed to save his Magazine. Daun was at Leutomischl, May 5th,--a forty miles to west of the Morawa,--few days after Friedrich had arrived in those countries by the eastern or left bank, by Troppau, Gibau, Littau, Aschmeritz, Prossnitz; and a week before Friedrich had finished his reconnoitrings, campings, and taken position to his mind. Camps, four or more (shrank in the end to three), on both banks of the River; a matter of abstruse study; so that it was May 12th before Friedrich first took view of Olmutz itself, and could fairly begin his Problem,--Daun, with his best Tolpatcheries, still unable to guess what it was.
Of the Siege I propose to say little, though the accounts of it are ample, useful to the Artillerist and Engineer. If the reader can be made to conceive it as a blazing loud-sounding fact, on which, and on Friedrich in it, the eyes of all Europe were fixed for some weeks, it may rest now in impressive indistinctness to us. Keith is Captain of the Siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress; Balbi as before, is Engineer, against whom goes the criticism, Keith's first of all, that he "opened his first parallel 800 yards too far off,"--which much increased the labor, and the expenditure of useless gunpowder, shot having no effect at such a distance. There were various criticisms: some real, as this; some imaginary, as that Friedrich grudged gunpowder, the fact being that he had it not, except after carriage from Neisse, say a hundred and twenty miles off,--Troppau, his last Silesian Town, or safe place (his for the moment), is eighty miles;--and was obliged to waste none of it.
Friedrich is not thought to shine in the sieging line as he does in the fighting; which has some truth in it, though not very much. When Friedrich laid himself to engineering, I observe, he did it well: see Neisse, Graudenz, Magdeburg. His Balbi went wrong with the parallels, on this occasion; many things went wrong: but the truly grievous thing was his distance from Silesia and the supplies. A hundred and twenty miles of hill-carriage, eighty of them disputable, for every shot of ammunition and for every loaf of bread; this was hard to stand:--and perhaps no War-apparatus but a Prussian, with a Friedrich for sole chief-manager, could have stood it so long. Friedrich did stand it, in a wonderfully tolerable manner; and was continuing to stand it, and make fair progress; and it is not doubted he would have got Olmutz, had not there another fact come on him, which proved to be of unmanageable nature. The actual loss, namely, of one Convoy, after so many had come safe, and when, as appears, there was now only one wanted and no more!--Let us attend to this a little.
Had Daun, at Olmutz, been as a Duke of Cumberland relieving Tournay, rushing into fight at Fontenoy, like a Hanover White- Horse, neck clothed with thunder, and head destitute of knowledge, --how lucky had it been for Friedrich! But Daun knows his trade better. Daun, though superior in strength, sits on his Magazine, clear not to fight. By no art of manoeuvring, had Friedrich much tried it, or hoped it, this time, could Daun have been brought to give battle. As Fabins Cunctator he is here in his right place; taking impregnable