[History of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookHistory of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) CHAPTER II 41/55
Only Three practicable Passes in it; difficult each, and each conducting you towards more new difficulties, on the farther side;--not surmountable except by the determined mind.
A gloomy business: a gloomy difficult region, solitary, hungry; nothing in it but shaggy chasms (and perhaps Tolpatchery lurking), wastes, mountain woodlands, dumb trees, damp brown leaves.
Maillebois and Saxe, after survey, shoot leftwards to Eger; draw food and reinforcement from the Garrison there.
They do get through the Forest, at one Pass, the Pass nearest Eger;--but find Prince Karl and the Grand-Duke ranked to receive them on the other side.
'Plunge home upon Prince Karl and the Grand-Duke; beat them, with your Broglio to help in the rear ?' That possibly was Friedrich's thought as he watched [now home at Berlin again] the contemporaneous Theatre of War. "But that was not the Maillebois-Broglio method;--nay, it is said Maillebois was privately forbidden 'to run risks.' Broglio, with his stretched-out hand (12,000 some count him, and indeed it is no matter), sits quiet at Toplitz, far too oblique: 'Come then, come, O Maillebois!' Maillebois,--manoeuvring Prince Karl aside, or Hunger doing it for him,--did once push forward Prag-ward, by the Pass of Caaden; which is very oblique to Toplitz.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|