Part 27 (1/2)

Not until after all was over was Fergus aware of the escapes he had had. A bullet had cut away an ornament from his headdress, one of his reins had been severed at a distance of an inch or two from his hand, a bullet had pierced the tail of his coatee and buried itself in the cantle of his saddle, and the iron guard of his claymore had been pierced. However, on his return to the king after carrying a despatch, he was able to curb his own excitement and that of his horse, and to make the formal military salute as he reported, in a calm and quiet voice, that he had carried out the orders with which he had been charged.

It was with great gratification that he heard the king say that evening, as he and his staff supped together at the inn at Lissa:

”You have done exceedingly well today, Captain Drummond. I am very pleased with you. You were always at my elbow when I wanted you, and I observed that you were never flurried or excited; though indeed, there would have been good excuse for a young soldier being so, in such a hurly burly. You are over young for further promotion, for a year or two; but I must find some other way of testifying my satisfaction at your conduct.”

And, indeed, when the list of promotions for bravery in the field was published, a few days later, Fergus's name appeared among those who received the decoration of the Prussian military order, an honour fully as much valued as promotion.

For a time he lost the service of Karl, who had been seriously although not dangerously wounded, just before the Austrians were driven out of Leuthen.

The news of the battle filled the Confederates with stupefaction and dismay. Prince Karl was at once recalled, and was relieved from military employment, Daun being appointed to the supreme command.

The Prince withdrew to his government of the Netherlands, and there pa.s.sed the remainder of his days in peace and quiet. His army was hunted by Ziethen's cavalry to Koeniggraetz, losing two thousand prisoners and a large amount of baggage; and thirty-seven thousand men only, of the eighty thousand that stood in battle array at Leuthen, reached the sheltering walls of the fortress, and those in so dilapidated and worn out a condition that, by the end of a week after arriving there, no less than twenty-two thousand were in hospital.

Thus, after eight months of constant and weary anxiety, Frederick, by the two heavy blows he had dealt successfully at the Confederates, stood in a far better position than he had occupied at the opening of the first campaign; when, as his enemies fondly believed, Prussia would be captured and divided without the smallest difficulty.

Frederick wintered at Breslau, whither came many visitors from Prussia, and there was a constant round of gaieties and festivity.

Frederick himself desired nothing so much as peace. Once or twice there had been some faint hope that this might be brought about by his favourite sister, Wilhelmina, who had been ceaseless in her efforts to effect it; but the two empresses and the Pompadour were alike bent on avenging themselves on the king, and the reverses that they had suffered but increased their determination to overwhelm him.

Great as Frederick's success had been, it did not blind him to the fact that his position was almost hopeless. When the war began, he had an army of a hundred and fifty thousand of the finest soldiers in the world. The two campaigns had made frightful gaps in their ranks. At Prague he had fought with eighty thousand men, at Leuthen he had but thirty thousand. His little kingdom could scarcely supply men to fill the places of those who had fallen, while his enemies had teeming populations from which to gather ample materials for fresh armies. It seemed, even to his hopeful spirit, that all this could have but one ending; and that each success, however great, weakened him more than his adversaries.

The winter's rest was, however, most welcome. For the moment there was nothing to plan, nothing to do, save to order that the drilling of the fresh levies should go on incessantly; in order that some, at least, of the terrible gaps in the army might be filled up before the campaign commenced in the spring.

1758 began badly, for early in January the Russians were on the move. The empress had dismissed, and ordered to be tried by court martial, the general who had done so little the previous year; had appointed Field Marshal Fermor to command in his place, and ordered him to advance instantly and to annex East Prussia in her name.

On the 16th of January he crossed the frontier, and six days later entered Koenigsberg and issued a proclamation to the effect that his august sovereign had now become mistress of East Prussia, and that all men of official or social position must at once take the oath of allegiance to her.

East Prussia had been devastated the year before by marauders, and its hatred of Russia was intense; but the people were powerless to resist. Some fled, leaving all behind them; but the majority were forced to take the required oath, and for a time East Prussia became a Russian province. Nevertheless its young men constantly slipped away, when opportunity offered, to join the Prussian army; and moneys were frequently collected by the impoverished people to despatch to Frederick, to aid him in his necessities.

A far greater a.s.sistance was the English subsidy of 670,000 pounds, which was paid punctually for four years, and was of supreme service to him. It was spent thriftily, and of all the enormous sums expended by this country in subsidizing foreign powers, none was ever laid out to a tenth of the advantage of the 2,680,000 pounds given to Frederick.

In the north the campaign also opened early. Ferdinand of Brunswick bestirred himself, defeated the French signally at Krefeld, and drove them headlong across the Rhine. Frederick, too, took the field early, and on the 15th of March moved from Breslau upon Schweidnitz. The siege began on the 1st of April, and on the 16th the place surrendered. Four thousand nine hundred prisoners of war were taken, with fifty-one guns and 7000 pounds in money.

Three days later Frederick, with forty thousand men, was off; deceived Daun as to his intentions, entered Moravia, and besieged Olmuetz. Keith was with him again, and Fergus had returned to his staff. The march was conducted with the marvellous precision and accuracy that characterized all Frederick's movements, but Olmuetz was a strong place and stoutly defended.

The Prussian engineers, who did not s.h.i.+ne at siege work, opened their trenches eight hundred yards too far away. The magazines were too far off, and Daun, who as usual carefully abstained from giving battle, so cut up the convoys that, after five weeks of vain endeavours, the king was obliged to raise the siege; partly owing to the loss of the convoy that would have enabled him to take the town, which was now at its last extremity; and partly that he knew that the Russians were marching against Brandenburg.

He made a masterly retreat, struck a heavy blow at Daun by capturing and destroying his princ.i.p.al magazine, and then took up a very strong position near Koeniggraetz. Here he could have maintained himself against all Daun's a.s.saults, for his position was one that Daun had himself held and strongly fortified; but the news from the north was of so terrible a nature that he was forced to hurry thither.

The Cossacks, as the Russian army advanced, were committing most horrible atrocities; burning towns and villages, tossing men and women into the fire, plundering and murdering everywhere; and the very small Prussian force that was watching them was powerless to check the swarming marauders.

Frederick therefore, evading Daun's attempts to arrest his march, crossed the mountains into Silesia again. At Landshut he gave his army two days' rest; wrote and sent a paper to his brother Prince Henry, who was commander of the army defending Saxony from invasion, telling him that he was on the point of marching against the Russians and might well be killed; and giving him orders as to the course to be pursued, in such an event.

He left Keith, in command of forty thousand men, to hold Daun in check should the latter advance against Silesia; and he again took Fergus with him, finding the young officer's talk a pleasant means of taking his mind off the troubles that beset him.

In nine days the army, which was but fifteen thousand strong, marched from Landshut to Frankfort-on-Oder. Here the king learned that though Kuestrin, which the Russians were besieging, still held out, the town had been barbarously destroyed by the enemy.

In fierce anger the army pressed forward. The Russian army itself, officers and men, were indignant in the extreme at the brutalities committed by the Cossacks, but were powerless to restrain them; for indeed these ruffians did not hesitate to attack and kill any officer who ventured to interfere between them and their victims.

The next morning, early, Frederick reached the camp of his general Dohna; who had been watching, although unable to interfere with the Russians' proceedings. The king had a profound contempt for the Russians, in spite of the warning of Keith, who had served with them, that they were far better soldiers than they appeared to be; and he antic.i.p.ated a very easy victory over them.