_ ii. 609, 610. Tempelhof, iii.
219-222.]
Wunsch, absolute Fate forbidding, could not save Dresden: but he is
here lord of the Northern regions again,--nothing but Leipzig now in
the enemy's hand;--and can await Finck, who is on march with a stronger
party to begin business here. It is reckoned, there are few more
brilliant little bits of Soldiering than this of Wunsch's. All the more,
as his men, for most part, were not Prussian, but miscellaneous Foreign
spirits of uncertain fealty: roving fellows, of a fighting turn,
attracted by Friedrich's fame, and under a Captain who had the art of
keeping them in tune. Wunsch has been soldiering, in a diligent though
dim miscellaneous way, these five-and-twenty years; fought in the old
Turk Wars, under disastrous Seckendorf,--Wunsch a poor young Wurtemberg
ensign, visibly busy there (1737-1739)) as was this same Schmettau, in
the character of staff-officer, far enough apart from Wunsch at that
time!--fought afterwards, in the Bavarian service, in the Dutch, at
Roucoux, at Lauffeld, again under disastrous people. Could never, under
such, find anything but subaltern work all this while; was glad to
serve, under the eye of Friedrich, as Colonel of a Free Corps; which he
has done with much diligence and growing distinction: till now, at the
long last, his chance does come; and he shows himself as a real General.
Possibly a high career lying ahead;--a man that may be very valuable
to Friedrich, who has now so few such left? Fate had again decided
otherwise for Wunsch; in what way will be seen before this Campaign
ends: "an infernal Campaign," according to Friedrich, "CETTE CAMPAGNE
INFERNALE."
Finck, whom Friedrich had just detached from Waldau (September 6th) with
a new 8 or 6,000, to command in chief in those parts, and, along with
Wunsch, put Dresden out of risk, as it were,--Finck does at least
join Wunsch, as we shall mention in a little. And these Two, with such
Wolfersdorfs and people under them, did prove capable of making front
against Reichsfolk in great overplus of number. Nor are farther SIEGES
of those Northern Garrisons, but recaptures of them, the news one
hears from Saxony henceforth;--only that Dresden is fatally gone.
Irrecoverably, as turned out, and in that unbearable manner. Here is the
concluding scene:--
DRESDEN, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th; EXIT SCHMETTAU. "A thousand times
over, Schmettau must have asked himself, 'Why was I in such a hurry?
Without cause f
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