Chapter XI: Part 11

O'Donnel was posted on the right of Marshal Murillo at the great and decisive battle of Pampeluna, so absurdly and obstinately styled by the British _the battle of the Pyrenees_, from which it is nearly thirty miles distant. Soult was completely overthrown, and in August O'Donnel reinforced the seventh division in occupying the important passes of Exhallar and Zugaramurdi. After this, being again troubled by old wounds, he fell ill and resigned his command for a time to Giron. In November he resumed it again, and occupied the beautiful valley of the Bastan, prior to the invasion of France under Wellington.

In February, 1814, he led six thousand men at the passage of the Gaves, and was engaged in all the operations on the Lower Pyrenees with the Spaniards under the Prince of Anglona. He served in that victorious campaign which terminated at the blood-stained hill of Toulouse, where, as General Napier so pithily remarks, "the war terminated, _and with it all remembrance of the veterans' services_."

In the Constitutional war which ensued in Spain nine years after, and during the invasion of that country by monarchical France in 1823, the O'Donnels bore a prominent part, and adhered to Ferdinand VII. The Conde de Abispal was appointed a field-marshal, with the office of governor and political chief at Madrid, and on the 25th March he issued a proclamation announcing that the amnesty granted by the Cortes to those in arms against the king was about to expire, and concluded by a brief warning to the factious and the Constitutionalists to lay down their arms. On the 17th April he published his able orders and propositions to the militia of the capital, together with the following declaration of his political principles:--

"_Don Henry O'Donnel, Knight Grand Cross, &c., General of the 3rd Corps, &c._

"Having learned that some ill-disposed persons have confounded my _private opinion_ with those sacred obligations _which my oath and duty impose upon me_, and have given out that I am unwilling to support the Constitution of 1812 even to the last extremity, and until the national representation, lawfully constituted, should have made certain changes therein; I do declare that _I am resolved to defend it_, according to my oath, until it shall be altered by those means which the Constitution itself prescribes, and that I deem as traitors all Spaniards who, deviating from the path of duty traced out by law, shall cease to obey the same. Such were my sentiments when, in answer to an address from M. Montijo, I wrote a letter which they charge me with having published, and such will ever be my sentiments. But my _opinion_ as an individual shall never prevent me from fulfilling my _duty_ as a general and a citizen of Spain.

"Madrid, 17th May, 1823."

But ere long he found the difficulty of reconciling his private sentiments and conviction with his duty to a king who had become the tool of France. Abispal proved the Talleyrand of Spain, and lost all favour by his indecision and vacillation; for, after receiving the Grand Cordon of the Order of Carlos III. from the hands of Ferdinand VII., he passed over to the Constitutionalists. From that day his power declined, and he was glad to seek shelter from the fury and clamour of the people at Montpelier in France, where he lived in retirement and much reduced in circumstances.

His son, LEOPOLD COUNT O'DONNEL, remained in Spain, and had attained the rank of colonel when the civil war broke out between the Carlists and Christinos, a step in which the children of the four elder O'Donnels were strangely divided, brother against brother, and cousin against cousin.

Thus, on the 2nd May, 1835, when Quesada was attacked by Don Tomas Zumalacarregui (the Claverhouse of Spanish loyalty), his division would have been annihilated but for the timely succour he received from Colonel Leopold O'Donnel de Abispal, who unfortunately was taken prisoner by the Navarrese while vainly struggling to rally the Loyal Guards. All who were captured were barbarously shot by the Carlists, and of all who perished none was more regretted than the young, handsome, and chivalric O'Donnel. Though a colonel in the service, he was merely accompanying Quesada to profit by his escort so far as Pampeluna, where he was about to celebrate his nuptials with a beautiful Spanish girl of high rank, and the heiress of an old and wealthy family. A noble ransom was offered, but Don Tomas was inexorable.

His father, Henry O'Donnel, then in his old age, died of a broken heart at Montpelier, on hearing of his son's disastrous fate.

COLONEL JOHN O'DONNEL (a cousin of Leopold's) commanded the 2nd regiment of Castilian infantry, while his brother Charles led the insurgent cavalry of Don Tomas, and at the head of his own corps, the heavily-armed and ferocious lancers of Navarre, performed in his twenty-fifth year the most brilliant feats of the Constitutional war. For his romantic victory over Lopez, in fair battle on one of the immense plains of Old Castile, he was made Knight of San Ferdinando. Soon after, he was mortally wounded in action near Pampeluna, and as he expired in agony, he exclaimed: "I wish some one would send a bullet through me and end this misery!--I have but a short time to live. Already four O'Donnels have perished in this war; and their blood has been shed on the right side as well as on the wrong!"

He referred to Leopold, who was shot in cold blood at Alsassua; to his second brother, who lost a leg at Arguijas, and died under the amputation; to Charles, who lay on a bed of sickness from which he never rose; and to John, who was wounded in battle at Mendigorra; and being dragged from bed by a mob at Barcelona, was cruelly murdered in the streets and literally cut _into ounce pieces_. He and Charles left wives and children in France.

LEOPOLD, the Conde de Lucena, and his brother Colonel HENRY O'DONNEL, who in the Spanish affairs of the present time have borne so prominent a part, are of the same warlike stock; but their adventures are too recent to require a record here.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: The reader will remember the mistake of Donna Julia,--

"Was it for this that General Count O'Reilly, Who _took Algiers_, declares I used him vilely?"

_Don Juan_, Canto i.]

MARSHAL BARON LOUDON.

On the summit of a rising ground, by the side of a brook in the parish of Loudon in Ayrshire, stand the ruins of the ancient Castle of Loudon, which was destroyed about three hundred and fifty years ago by the clan Kennedy, headed by their chief, the Earl of Cassilis. This old Scottish stronghold was the seat of a family from which sprung Gideon Ernest Baron Loudon, or _de Laudohn_, a distinguished general of the Continental wars.

Loudon of that ilk was one of the oldest families in the kingdom of Scotland.

Lambin was proprietor of the lands and barony of Loudon during the reign of David I., who succeeded to the throne in 1124. James of Loudon, _dominus de eodem_, or of that ilk, obtained a charter of the same barony from Richard de Morville, Constable of the Kingdom; _Jacobo filio Lambin_, &c., also obtained a charter from William de Morville, as _Jacobo de Loudon, terrarum baroniæ de Loudon_. Both these documents were granted during the reign of William the Lion, who succeeded to the throne in 1165, and are, says Sir Robert Douglas, a proof that he took his sirname from these lands, according to the custom of those early times; and his armorial bearings were, argent, three escutcheons sable. His daughter, Margaret of Loudon, was married to Sir Reginald Crawford, High Sheriff of Ayr, and became the grandmother of Sir William Wallace, the heroic defender of the liberties of his country.

In later times, a branch of this old family had left

"Loudon's bonnie woods and braes,"

so famed in Scottish song, and settled in Livonia, where their bravery and services had won them several fiefs and baronies, of which, however, they were dispossessed by Charles XI. of Sweden, after the peace of Oliva, when the Polish Republic gave up its right to the old Teutonic province.

During the reign of his successor, the famous Charles XII., the Livonian nobles made a vigorous effort to regain their patrimonies and privileges; but the Swedish king having put to death their representative, the celebrated general, John Raynold Patkul, an officer in the service of Augustus, King of Poland, by cruelly breaking him alive upon the wheel, where he received sixteen blows, enduring the longest and greatest tortures that can be conceived, all hope of restoring Livonian liberty died; and with many other noble families, the Loudons dedicated themselves to the profession of arms: one became a captain in the Royal Swedish Guards, and was uncle of the subject of this memoir.

GIDEON ERNEST LOUDON was born at Tootzen, in Livonia, in the year 1716.

In consequence of the war and troubles in which his native province was involved, his education was much neglected; and though his great military genius in after years enabled him in some degree to supply the deficiency, he never ceased to regret the loss he had sustained, by those circumstances over which he had no control, but which, fortunately for himself, forced him to earn his bread by his sword as a soldier of fortune. He had learned little more than to read and to write, with a smattering of geography and geometry, when in 1731 he entered the Russian service as a cadet.

He was then in his fifteenth year, and Anne, daughter of Ivan II., niece of Peter the Great, and consort of the Duke of Courland, was Czarina of Russia. The corps to which young Loudon was attached was a battalion of infantry; and after being two years in garrison with it, an opportunity was afforded him of making an essay in arms, when the war of the Double Election created disturbances in northern Europe.

In 1733 Stanislaus Leczinski, whom Charles XII. had invested with the Sovereignty of Poland in 1704, and whom Peter the Great had dethroned, was chosen king a second time on his daughter being married to Louis XV., from whom he received a paltry succour, consisting of only four battalions of infantry; but the Austrian Emperor, on being assisted by the Russians, compelled the Poles to make _another_ selection, and the Elector of Saxony was raised to their throne by the name of Augustus III., while poor King Stanislaus was driven into Dantzig, where the Russians followed and besieged him.

Loudon's regiment served with the blockading force, at the investment of this populous city, which is the capital of Western Prussia, and at that time had a population of two hundred thousand. Loudon was present during the siege and capture of Dantzig, from which, however, the ex-King of Poland made an escape, and renounced for ever the poor distinction of being monarch of a republic plunged in anarchy.

In the year 1734, his regiment formed part of the army which was sent by the Empress Anne towards the Low Countries, and spread a terror along the frontier of Germany. In this campaign he marched from the banks of the Wolga to those of the Rhine. A peace being signed at Vienna, the forces marched to the Dnieper, the scene of so many sanguinary encounters between the Russ and Turk. This movement was to repel the Osmanlies and punish the Tartars of the Crimea, who had made an irruption into the southern province of Russia, and committed unparalleled outrages.

In the army under Marshal the Count de Munich, young Loudon served in the long campaign from 1736 to 1739, and was present in that barbarous warfare in the Crimea, which is already detailed in the memoirs of the Counts Lacy and Brown, including the capture of Azoph; the storming of the lines at Perecop; the assault and capture of Oczackow, Staveoctochane and Choczim, with the general ravage and subjugation of the Tartar peninsula down to the extreme verge of the Tauric range, and to the Symbolorum Portus of Strabo--the harbour of Balaclava.

In his position, which was then so subordinate, the share borne by Loudon in those brilliant operations was necessarily obscure; but, for his ability and attention to duty, he was soon raised from the rank of cadet to the commissions of a second, and then first lieutenant; a proof that the germ of an able officer had been discerned by his colonel in the foreign volunteer. The treaty which ceded Azoph to Russia in 1739 secured a brief peace to Europe, and the Empress Anne Ivanowna began to disband her unwieldly forces.

On this occurring, Lieutenant Loudon repaired to St. Petersburg in 1740, for the double purpose of complaining to the Empress that he had been unjustly treated during the war, having served nine years and being still a subaltern; and also to solicit from her further employment and promotion. Disappointed in both these objects, he resigned his commission in her service with disgust, and quitted the Russian capital, resolving to make an offer of his sword to the Empress Queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa, who had succeeded her father Charles VI. on the Austrian throne, and found it assailed on all sides by hostile armies.

As he passed through Berlin he fell in with several officers, principally Scots and Irishmen, with whom he had served under Marshal Munich in the late campaigns; and some of these recommended him to join the Prussian service, in which they had all accepted commissions; and one was kind enough to offer him an introduction to the warlike Frederick II., with whom, after some weeks' delay, he had the honour of an interview. Loudon modestly stated his nine years' service, his junior rank and wishes, adding that, as he had held a lieutenantcy under the Empress Anne, he ventured to hope that his Majesty would bestow upon him the command of a company. Frederick keenly scrutinized his face, which "was serious, cold, severe, reserved, pensive, and reflecting" (for he was a man schooled in danger and adversity), and it did not prepossess the royal martinet of Prussia in his favour, for he had the rudeness to turn his back upon the military stranger, and say to some officers near him,--

"_The physiognomy of this man does not please me._"

In anger and mortification young Loudon, then in his twenty-fourth year, quitted his presence with a swelling heart; but he could not then foresee the time when he would become the most formidable enemy that ever met the Prussian monarch in the field.

In very poor circumstances he reached Vienna in 1742, and being furnished with a strong recommendatory letter from the Austrian ambassador, repaired to the Imperial palace in search of military employment. While he was lingering unknown and unnoticed in the ante-chamber, a gentleman accosted him, inquiring his name and business. Loudon having mentioned both, and expressed great desire to see the Empress, this person said, "I will do all in my power to assist you, sir," and passed directly _into_ the cabinet. In a few minutes "Lieutenant Loudon" was summoned by name, and on entering, was astonished to discover in his unknown protector the husband of the beautiful Maria Theresa, Francis Stephen, Grand Duke of Tuscany and First Emperor of the House of Lorraine-Austria! Under auspices so favourable, his request was at once granted, and he obtained a company in the Free Corps of Pandours raised by Baron Trenck, who had known Loudon in Russia, and was well pleased to have under him so gallant an officer.

These Pandours were Sclavonians from the banks of the Drave, a river of Germany which rises in the Tyrol and empties itself into the Danube near Effeck in Hungary. This regiment, which was raised chiefly in the village of Pandour or Szent Istevan, wore long coats girt by a waist-belt, in which each man carried a sabre, four or five pistols, and a poniard. On service they always acted as irregular cavalry. This corps had originally been infantry, and were styled the Regiment of Ruitza. Their chief occupation had been to clear the roads of brigands and freebooters; and though the biographer of Baron Trenck endeavours to conceal the fact, history proves that in their new organization the Pandours were a mere military banditti, whose pay was plunder, and whose duty was devastation.

Little as he must have liked the service, Captain Loudon commenced a campaign in their ranks, in the war which ensued on Louis XV. and the King of Prussia leaguing together for the partition of the Austrian Empire. A French army under the Marshal Dukes de Belleisle and de Broglie, entered Germany, where the Bavarian Elector formed a junction with them; reduced Lintz, the capital of Upper Austria, and threatened Vienna. Kevenhüller recovered Lintz; the battle of Czaslau, in which the Pandours and Croats charged with such effect and fury was fought; Prague was besieged, and all northern Europe found itself engaged in a general strife.

At the head of his Pandours Baron Trenck acted the part of a bold partisan. He stormed the Isle of Rheinmarck, put its garrison to the sword, and with his own sabre slew the commandant, the Comte de Creveceur. Mentzel with four thousand Croats and Pandours broke into Lorraine and Luxembourg, where they committed terrible devastations.

In 1744, when Prince Charles of Lorraine forced his famous passage over the Rhine, Gideon Loudon led his company in the _foremost_ boat, and was the _first_ who landed on French ground; but in a skirmish with the advanced picquets of the French near Zabern, a city built on the summit of a rock, and defended by a strong castle of the Bishops of Strasburg, he was struck by a musket-ball when fighting bravely at the head of his men. It entered his right breast and came out behind near the shoulder-blade, and thus incapacitated him for farther service for some time. He fell--was taken prisoner, and conveyed to a neighbouring cottage. A few days afterwards the Austrian army advanced; the Pandours drove the enemy; Loudon was restored to liberty, and had the satisfaction of saving from pillage the dwelling of the peasant with whom he had found shelter and by whom he had been benevolently treated.

Meantime the King of Prussia, sick of his bloody victories, signed the treaty of Breslau, which filled France with consternation, and forced her marshals, Belleisle and Broglie, to retire towards Prague; but the close of 1745 saw tranquillity restored to Germany for a time.

Disgusted with the reckless regiment of Trenck, Loudon quitted it and returned to Vienna, where he resigned his commission and was preparing to leave the Austrian dominions in search of fortune elsewhere, when some of his military friends advised him to remain, and procured for him a majority in the regiment of Liccaner, which at that time was garrisoning a town on the Croatian frontier. His old corps the Pandours were disbanded, but were afterwards re-organized in 1750 as regular troops, and became of great service in the war of 1756, and in those of the first French Revolution.

This new appointment and its emoluments enabled him to espouse Clara de Hagen, the daughter of a brave Hungarian officer who resided at Pæsing. He was sincerely attached to this lady, and they had one child, a daughter, who died in infancy.

During ten years that he remained in the garrison towns of Croatia he spent all his leisure hours in perfecting his military education, and completing the study of fortification, geography, and geometry. He procured a vast number of maps and plans of fortified places, such as castles and barrier towns; and, as if he had some intuitive presentiment of the part he was yet to perform in the great game of war, he pored over them incessantly. Having once obtained a German map of unusual size, he spread it over the floor of his barrack-room, and _sat down_ upon it, to pursue his study of it with greater ease, and was thus occupied when Madame Loudon entered.

"My dear major," said she, "still as ever, occupied by these horrid plans and perpetual studies!"

"Never mind my present labours," said he, cheerfully; "they will be of great service to me, my dear Clara, when I obtain the bâton of a field-marshal."

Madame Loudon laughed, for her husband was then eight-and-thirty, and the bâton of a marshal seemed yet to be a long way off.

In 1756 the Seven Years' War was threatened. A league was formed by the Court of Vienna for stripping the King of Prussia of his dominions. The French threatened the electorate of Hanover, and formed an alliance with Sweden and Austria against Britain and Prussia, the king of which, on receiving evasive answers from Vienna as to the object of the Austrian armaments, prepared for immediate strife.

Anxious for employment, and remembering, perhaps, the manner in which Frederick II. had insulted him at his levée in Berlin, the enterprising spirit of Loudon induced him to visit Vienna and solicit a command against Prussia; but having left his regiment without obtaining leave of absence, he was on the point of being reprimanded and ordered back to Croatia, when by good fortune he obtained the friendship and patronage of Prince Kaunitz, the head of a noble family, whose possessions lie on the Iglau in Moravia. By the prince's interest he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of eight hundred Croats. These wild and hardy troops were destined to be ordered on every desperate service, and as their mode of fighting resembled in every respect that of the Pandours, Loudon was well fitted to command them; more especially as he had acquired their dialect while quartered in their native province. They were all clad in short waistcoats with sleeves, long white breeches, light boots, and rough huzzar caps. They had each a long firelock with a rifle barrel and short bayonet, a crooked sabre, and brace of pistols. This corps formed part of five thousand Croats levied by the Empress-Queen for the new war against Prussia. Like the Pandours of Baron Trenck, they had no pay or provisions, but such as their swords and the terror of their presence won them; and as irregular troops they were a scourge wherever they marched.

On the 29th of August, 1756, the King of Prussia entered Saxony at the head of seventy battalions of foot and eighty squadrons of horse, in three columns, which marched by three different routes, but formed a junction at Dresden and captured it. The Elector, who was King of Poland by the title of Augustus III., took refuge in a camp at Pirna, while Frederick marched into Bohemia and found the Austrians encamped at Lowositz under Marshal Count Brown, who was defeated there in October; and after a long and bloody contest forced to retire in rear of Egra.

It was at this time that Loudon with his Croats joined the Austrian army; and in the disastrous retreat which ensued after Lowositz, he narrowly escaped when a hundred of his grenadiers were slain by the Prussian hussars. During Marshal Brown's retreat out of Saxony, Loudon took by surprise the town of Estchen at the head of five hundred men, and destroyed two squadrons of Prussian hussars. This was his first exploit, and it was deemed the most brilliant of the Austrian campaign.

He distinguished himself again at Hirschfeld, on the Bohemian frontier; and for his bravery on that occasion was appointed colonel in February, 1757.

On the 20th of that month his corps had formed part of the six thousand Austrians who attacked the Prussian position at four in the morning. Loudon fought with incredible bravery, and slew many of the enemy with his own hand. In August he attacked the Schriekstein and captured three hundred newly raised soldiers. He now obtained an increased command--a small division, six thousand strong, consisting of Croats and Pandours. With these he attacked and defeated a body of the enemy at Erfurth, a garrison town of Saxony. He then joined the now allied French and Imperialists, who marched to Weissenfels, a city in the centre of Thuringia. By this time the Swedes were pushing on the war in Pomerania and had besieged Stettin. Marshal Richelieu with eighty battalions and one hundred squadrons of French had entered Halberstadt, and was everywhere levying contributions with fire and sword, while the Austrians had made themselves masters of Lignitz and most of Silesia; and after laying siege to Schwiednitz, were preparing to pass the Oder. Everywhere the tide of war had turned upon the King of Prussia.

Loudon was now with what was named the _Combined Army_. The Prince de Soubise commanded the French; the Prince of Hildburghausen led the Austrians, and their united and immediate object was to clear Saxony of the Prussians. Frederick left a division to cover Silesia, and approached this Combined Army, which passed the Sala and established its head-quarters at Weissenfels; from whence the Comte de Mailly was sent to summon Leipzig. On the 5th November, the King of Prussia gave battle to this Combined Army, then fifty thousand strong, at Rosbach, a village of Prussian Saxony, at eleven o'clock in the morning. The allies were formed in line with their cavalry in front. The impetuosity of the Prussian infantry, whose charge was admirably sustained by a fire of artillery and advance of horse, broke the allied line, and, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Prince de Soubise, Frederick obtained a complete victory with the loss of three hundred men only; while the Combined Army lost no less than eleven generals, three hundred other officers, nine thousand killed, wounded, and prisoners, sixty-three guns, twenty-nine colours, and one pair of kettle-drums. With the battle of Rosbach terminated the campaign in Saxony.

Loudon was with the Combined Army during all these operations; and the Prince of Hildburghausen, desirous of signalizing his own authority by some grand stroke, proposed to the Prince de Soubise the project of dislodging the Prussians from the petty principality of Gotha, where Seidlitz commanded. They began their march accordingly with their grenadiers and Austrian heavy cavalry, while Loudon led the Pandours and French light dragoons. They dispatched one column of cavalry over the heights which led to Thuringia; another on the left, preceded by hussars, approached Gotha from the side of Langensaltza; while Loudon with the Pandours, dragoons, and a body of grenadiers, formed the column of the centre.

Seidlitz was ready to receive them. He was in order of battle, and had all the defiles secured by horse and cannon. A desultory conflict ensued among the woods and mountains; and though the Prince de Soubise cut a passage to the castle wall of Gotha, he was obliged to retreat and leave three officers and one hundred and sixty soldiers in the hands of Seidlitz. The Prussian column under the Prince of Bavern attempted to cover Breslau, which surrendered on the 22nd November to the Austrian generals, by whom he was made prisoner; while the remnant of his army joined Frederick, and on the 5th December the battle of Lissa, where he gained a signal victory, was fought in Silesia. Such was the severity of the season that many hundreds of soldiers were found dead on their posts; and the German generals were reproached with heartlessly exposing their men to the extremity of cold; for a campaign in winter is alike opposed to the dictates of humanity and the common rules of war, as the operations of our own troops in the Crimea have given terrible proof.

In these arduous duties, though always at the head of his Croats and Pandours, Loudon never received another wound, though exposed almost daily to balls, bayonets, and sabres; and it is worthy of remark that the musket-shot received at Zabern was the only scar of his long military career.

In the campaign of 1758 he received the Imperial military Order of Maria Theresa, which was instituted by the Empress Queen in the June of the preceding year. In this Order it is an inviolable principle that no officer whatsoever, "on account of his high birth, long service, wounds, or former merits, much less from mere favour, or the recommendation of others, be received; but that those only who have signalized themselves by some particular act of valour, or have aided the Imperial service by able and beneficial councils, and contributed to their execution by distinguished bravery, shall be admitted."

In the operations of the new year the King of Prussia recovered Schwiednitz from the Imperialists on the 16th April; entered Moravia on the 27th May; invested Olmutz, which was stoutly defended by the governor, General Marshall, a Scotsman; while Marshal Daun, under whom Loudon held a command, took post on the adjacent mountains, to intercept and cut off the Prussian convoys. The siege had now been open for four weeks, and the trenches were rushed with great vigour by the Scottish exile--the gallant Marshal Keith--notwithstanding the great difficulties attending it; for Loudon, bravely, and at incalculable hazard, in the defiles of Damstadt, in the principality of Lichenstien, intercepted a convoy of four hundred waggons, and obliged General Zeithen, who escorted them with twenty squadrons and three battalions, after a five hours' encounter, to retire on Trappau. This loss was irreparable, for General Putkammer, eight hundred men, and the _military chest_ were taken.

The King of Prussia was compelled to raise the siege, and effected one of the most able retreats ever seen in Germany; he then marched to oppose the Russians, who had broken into Brandenburg under Generals Brown and Farmer, two Scotsmen, whom he met in battle at Zorndorf, defeated on the 25th August, and drove them into Poland.

Had Loudon (who was ably seconded by Daun) _not_ intercepted General Zeithen, "the town of Olmutz must have been taken in a fortnight," says Frederick, who styles it the Battle of the Convoy; "for the third parallel was finished, and the besiegers had begun to open the saps." For this service Loudon received the rank of lieutenant-field-marshal.

He had now won the reputation of being the first cavalry officer in the service of the Empress-Queen; and he was of great use to Daun in galling and incommoding the King of Prussia during the retreat from Olmutz.

With four thousand men he took post in the wood of Opotshno, a Bohemian town, fifteen miles north-east of Koningengratz, where he intended to attack the Baron de la Mothe Fouque, who with thirty-two battalions and squadrons was conveying the heavy siege train. But there Loudon was unexpectedly assailed by Frederick, who had heard of his projected ambush, and marched to attack him in it, and he was forced to retire through the forest with the loss of a hundred Croatian troopers. He retreated towards Holitz, and thus the siege train passed unmolested to Glatz.

Loudon and General St. Ignan followed Frederick closely; at Koningengratz their Pandours slew General Saldern, Colonel Blankenzee, and seventy men, but were checked by the sabres of Putkammer's hussars; and to prevent this harassing of the rear-guard, Frederick prepared an ambuscade on a narrow path which lies through a wood at Metau. In this defile he concealed ten battalions and twenty squadrons, under whose fire the Austrians were drawn by a few flying skirmishers. "Loudon, who was very easily heated," to quote Frederick, "resolved on an assault;" but the Prussian cavalry poured upon him like a torrent, a fire opened upon his men from every point of the rocks and pass, three hundred were shot dead, and he was forced to retire. Soon after this he was lured again, by the Volunteers of Le Noble, into a ravine near Skalitz, where he was suddenly assailed by six battalions in the night, and had to give way, with the loss of six officers and seventy men.

He took possession of Peitz, a town in the Duchy of Brandenburg, on the right bank of the Matx, and left no means untried to fulfil with signal success his duty of covering Daun's left flank during the whole of the Austrian advance and Prussian retreat. Daun posted himself at Stolpen, to the eastward of the Elbe, on one hand to preserve a communication with a column which he had detached to Koningstien, and on the other to favour the active operations of Marshal Loudon, who had advanced through Lower Lusatia to the frontier of Brandenburg.

At the battle of Hochkirchen, which was fought on the 13th October, the defeat of the Prussians was solely attributed to Loudon's skill and bravery. On the 12th he had attacked a great convoy, but was repulsed by Marshal the Honourable James Keith, with the loss of eighty men, among whom was the Prince de Lichenstien, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Löwenstien. After this Loudon assembled his dispersed troops and took ground in a woody mountain, which was a long quarter of a league, German measure, beyond the Prussian right, facing the village of Hochkirchen. A marsh separated the flank of Frederick from this height. Daun secretly prepared a road for four columns to form a junction with Loudon, who on the night of the 13th glided down with his swift Pandours to the rear of the Prussian position, and set on fire the village of Hochkirchen, driving out by the edge of the sabre the battalions quartered there, and seizing on a battery which defended an angle of the place; while the gallant Major Lang, with the regiment of the Margrave Charles, threw himself into the churchyard, and in the dark opened a blaze of musketry on the Pandours, whose light uniforms were soon too fatally visible by the flames of the burning village. Around this conflagration the whole tide of battle rolled at midnight. The aged Marshal Keith and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were killed, and the Prussians were defeated with the loss of seven thousand men and most of their camp equipage.

Marshal Daun filled his despatch (which detailed this victory) with the highest encomiums on Loudon, whom he sent immediately towards Silesia in pursuit of Frederick, whose forces he was to exclude from Lusatia; and so he followed and galled them with untiring zeal and vigour, though he was then suffering from a severe and chronic disease in the stomach; but on his march towards the Saxon capital, the Prussian monarch made one vigorous stand and repulsed him; after which he retired to Zittau.

Reinforced by 12,000 men, the marshal concealed himself in the forest of Schonberg, where he again attacked the Prussians, whose whole line of march became "one battle;" but Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, commanded the rear-guard; and so excellent were his dispositions, that only Lieutenant-General Bulow and 215 soldiers fell.

On the 1st November, Frederick began his march for Silesia. Loudon, still pressing on, fell with such fury on the rear-guard, that he was nearly taken prisoner by the Prussian hussars. He then brought up his cannon; but these were dismounted by the heavier pieces of Frederick, which at the same time threw the Austrian foot into disorder. Thrice Loudon rallied them; and thrice, sword in hand, he led them to the charge: but the approach of the noble Putkammer hussars compelled him to fall back; and thus, amid skirmishes, night marches, toil, starvation, plunder, and devastation, the campaign of the year was closed by the Austrians raising the sieges of Neiss and Dresden, and the King of Prussia retiring to winter quarters at Breslau.

The generals of the Imperial army usually spent the winter in the Austrian capital; and now the Empress expressed a strong desire to see Marshal Loudon, of whom Count Daun had written so favourably in all his despatches and letters. Thus he prepared to return to Vienna, but was compelled to remain for some time at Doeplitz in Bohemia, in consequence of a return of his illness: and there Madame Loudon, who had remained at Vienna during the whole war, arrived to attend him. As soon as he was sufficiently restored, they travelled together to the capital, where they arrived on the 24th of February, 1759. The streets were crowded by dense masses of persons, all anxious to behold and to welcome the hero of whom they had heard so much, and his reception was most enthusiastic. Only two years had elapsed since he left that city as a field-officer of Croats, and now he returned to it a Lieutenant-Field-Marshal and Knight of Maria Theresa.

From the fair Empress he received the most flattering distinction; and she commanded her own physician, the Baron Von Swieten, to attend him until his health was completely re-established. She bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of her Order, and created him a Baron of the Holy Roman Empire.

The moment his physician permitted him, he resumed his command; and no general of the Seven Years' War bore a more distinguished part in the campaign of 1759 than Baron Loudon, though Frederick II., who had imbibed an animosity to him, always mentions his name slightingly in his works.

The Prussian monarch, in the beginning of the year, had great success; but his chief embarrassment was the approach of the Russians, who defeated him in Silesia on the 23rd July, and spread their outposts along the banks of the Oder. On the frontiers of Bohemia nothing of importance occurred, though Loudon, who occupied Trautenau, was continually in motion, alarming the Prussian posts and cutting off their supplies.

He made an attack on General Seidlitz near Frederick's strong camp at Schmuckseiffen, and lost 150 men. Immediately after this, the Court of Vienna gave him command of 20,000 men, 1200 of whom were dragoons, to give vigour to their Russian allies, who were destitute of cavalry. By the way of Greiffenberg he marched through Silesia, foiling, deceiving, and skirmishing with the horse of Prince Henry, till he took up a position on the heights of Laubau, where he had fought the Prussians in the preceding year. He chose this ground with the intention of being in advance of them now, when he should receive orders to join the Russians under Count Soltikow.

With this general he achieved a junction, and together they took up a position at Cunnersdorff, opposite Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and gave battle to Frederick at eleven o'clock, A.M., on the 12th of August. The Russians had their intrenchments stormed amid great slaughter; a starfort erected by them on two sand hills, to cover their right flank, was carried at the point of the bayonet, and a dreadful massacre of them ensued in the churchyard of Cunnersdorff. Under the glare of a burning sun, and sore with many a wound, the brave King of Prussia led on his troops; and for two hours the infantry fought hand to hand. The Jews' Cemetery, seven redoubts, and 180 pieces of cannon, were already taken, when Loudon, perceiving that the Russians were unable to maintain their ground, brought up his well-chosen reserves, and fired his field-pieces loaded with case-shot, to sweep the Prussian line. He then charged on both flanks with his fine Austrian cavalry, who bore down all before them. The Prussians fell into confusion, and their rout became total. Frederick had two horses shot under him, and his blue uniform literally torn to rags by bullets and sword-cuts. The struggle was awful, and night came down on a field where 30,000 men lay dead or dying, and of these more than the half were Prussians. The brave Putkammer was slain, and ten other generals lay killed or wounded near him.

The movements of Frederick after this most signal defeat were of a masterly description. He soon compelled Loudon and Soltikow to act on the defensive, and recovered every place in the Saxon Electorate except Dresden. Forcing the Russians to retire into Poland, he joined his brother Prince Henry in Saxony, compelled Marshal Daun to retreat as far as Plawen, and forced him to take shelter in the camp at Pirna; after which he retired into winter quarters in November.

For his victory at Cunnersdorff Loudon was raised to the rank of _General-velt-zeug-Meister_; but he drew off from Soltikow with all his cavalry immediately after the battle.

In the campaign of 1760 he received command of the army destined for service in Silesia. It consisted of 40,000 men, and in all operations he was to be seconded by the Russians, who, according to an agreement made by the two Empresses, were to fight their way along the banks of the Oder, while Daun carried on the war in Saxony. This army was light, and as unencumbered by baggage as a Pandour leader could desire. At its head Loudon left the camp in which he had passed the winter, and after attacking and repulsing General Goltze at the head of his horse, he left Draskowitz with 6000 men at Neustadt, and took the road to Bohemia, after menacing in succession Silesia, into which he penetrated with two corps, the new Marche of Brandenburg, Breslau, even Berlin and Schwiednitz. At last he fixed upon the latter, and General the Baron de la Mothe Fouque (who had weakened his forces by detaching the brigades of the Scottish General Grant and General Zeithen), deceived by an artful feint, marched towards it with all his troops leaving the garrison in Glatz quite unprotected.

The able Loudon at once perceived the success of his feint, or stratagem, and immediately had recourse to another. He took possession of Landshut, and left there a small body of troops, who were immediately assailed and driven out by the Baron de la Mothe. While the latter was thus occupied in recovering this trivial post, Loudon made himself master of several important positions, and passed in triumph through Johannesberg and Wisstengersdorff, and at Schwarzwalde routed the hussars of Malachowski, and thus surrounded the baron's little army of Prussians. The latter did everything requisite to secure their position against the superior force of Loudon, who early in June attacked them with irresistible fury.

On the night of the 23rd he seized two heights on the right, and formed there two batteries, which swept the Prussian front and rear. He then stormed their intrenchments at the head of 28,000 men, and drove out the enemy, who formed solid squares to repel his cavalry, which pushed them in disordered masses on the Balkenhayn-road. Their squares were broken, and 4000 men were slain. Among them fell the gallant baron, pierced by two mortal wounds. Seven thousand men surrendered, and Glatz, the most important place between Silesia and Bohemia, as it stands in a narrow vale between two lofty hills, was the immediate consequence of the victory. The Gersdorff hussars and dragoons of Platen cut a passage to Breslau with 1500 of the infantry.

Pushing on, the victorious Loudon prepared to besiege that place, where he expected to be joined by the Russians, and thus enabled to complete the conquest of Silesia, the great object of the war. Encouraged by his success at Glatz, he assailed the Silesian capital, and bombarded it with great success on the 30th July. He set forth in his summons to surrender, "that his forces consisted of fifty battalions and eighty squadrons, most of which were within three days' march; that it was in vain for the governor to expect succour from the King of Prussia, now on the other side of the Elbe, and still more vain to look for relief from Prince Henry, who must sink beneath the Russian sword if he attempted to obstruct its progress; and that the inhabitants must resign all hope of terms or quarter if they ventured to defend the town."

The reply of the governor was firm and noble. Loudon showered bombs and red-hot balls on one side, while attempting an assault on the other.

Prince Henry, one of the most accomplished of the Prussian generals, advanced to its relief by a forced march of one hundred and twenty English miles in five days, resolving to give the Baron battle before the Russians joined him; and on his approach Loudon prudently raised the siege and retired, though he still kept Neiss and Schwiednitz under blockade. The King of Prussia by this time was on his memorable march to prevent the junction of the Russian and Imperial armies in Silesia; and with this intention had encamped at Lignitz, where, while encompassed by three hostile columns, he gave battle to Loudon. Attacking him at three o'clock, A.M., on the 15th August, near Lignitz, he repulsed him with loss before Daun could come to his assistance; and further secured his own rear effectually by a strong _corps de reserve_ and park of artillery posted on the heights of Paffendorf.

Frederick obtained some information as to Loudon's disposition of force from an Austrian officer, an Irishman, who had deserted. "He was so intoxicated," says Frederick, in his own _History_, "that he could only stammer out he had a secret to reveal. After making him swallow some basins of warm water to relieve his stomach, he affirmed what had been divined, that Daun meant to attack the king that very day." Loudon made incredible efforts, on foot and on horseback, to maintain his ground. After receiving five consecutive charges of five lines of five battalions each, the confusion of the Austrians became general, and they fled towards Binowitz. The battle of Paffendorf cost Loudon ten thousand men; the field, which sloped like a glacis, was occupied by the Prussians, who took two generals, eighty other officers, six thousand soldiers, twenty-three pairs of colours, and eighty-two pieces of cannon!

We next find the indefatigable Loudon in position at Hohenfriedberg, a small Silesian town, which he had to abandon on the night of the 11th September, finding his flank turned by the Prussian vanguard on their gaining the pass of Kauder. On the 18th he occupied the defiles of Giersdorf, and that night, by a cannonade prevented the enemy from advancing to Wahlenburg. He next laid siege to the strong and important fortress of Kosel, seventy-three miles distant from Breslau, and threatened the whole province with subjection.

The Russians and Austrians now effected their junction again, and together made themselves masters of Berlin on the 4th October; after which the affairs of the great Frederick seemed desperate; but he resolved to retrieve them by some decided effort. Crossing the Elbe, he hurried into Saxony, followed by Daun with eighty thousand men, whom he routed at Toorgau on the 23rd November. By this he recovered all that he had previously lost; the Russians retired into Poland, the Austrians evacuated the desolated province of Silesia, and the Swedes took refuge on the shores of the Baltic. By the defeat of Daun, Loudon was compelled abruptly to raise the siege of Kosel and retire out of the province.

In 1760, Bohemia, Silesia, and other parts of Germany presented a lamentable aspect. Cities were empty, villages desolate, and castles in ruins. The fields were ravaged and destroyed, till a famine was at hand; wives and children had perished; husbands and fathers had been driven into the ranks of adverse armies, to fight for bare subsistence rather than their blackened hearths and rifled homes; trade was neglected; the seats of learning abandoned; the land untilled: and all this curse had fallen upon the people by the mad ambition of their kings and princes.

During the winter Loudon's activity prevented Frederick from obtaining recruits, provisions, or forage from the principalities or circles of Neiss, Groskau, Frankestien, Strehlen, Neustadt, and Oppelen.

In January he repaired to Vienna, to assist at the councils of war and arrange the plan of the new campaign.

In this year (1761) he was destined by the Court of Vienna to undertake a war of sieges in Silesia, where he was to be supported by the Russians; and on the 10th of March he resumed the command of his division. In April he wrote to the Empress stating that since the 18th instant he had revoked the truce made with General Goltze, and intended to fix his head-quarters at Caretau, a league from Glatz. In May he patrolled the country about Lignitz and Jauer to levy contributions, and eighty-seven of his men were cut off by General Tatter at Rostock. About the 12th May, on Frederick's approach, he retired into Bohemia, by the way of Gattesberg, before eighty thousand men, and on the 6th of June established his head-quarters at Hauptmonsdorf.

Frederick was resolved to act solely on the defensive, being tired of the war.

On the 21st July he was encamped at Pulzen, when Loudon, who occupied the opposite mountains, descended by the defile of Steinkunzerdorf, feigning to attack the fortress of Neiss. This drew Frederick out; and they engaged on the heights of Munsterberg, where a warm cannonade ensued. On the 23rd Loudon encamped at Ober Pomsdorf; "and either from native restlessness, or a habit of commanding detachments, in eight days he changed his position six times; for which no satisfactory reason could be given." On the 17th July the whole of the Prussian army received the communion, and sixty rounds of ball per man.

Loudon's force, after he was joined by General Brettano from Saxony, amounted to eighty thousand men. He was also joined by a column of Russians under General Czernicheff. He received a letter from Maria Theresa, wherein she somewhat needlessly "gave him full power to give or decline battle as he chose; and this power was to extend to all his military operations in general." In the first days of August he transmitted to her a letter which he had received from Frederick of Prussia, and written by his own hand, in which he offered him great sums "if he would agree to act _faintly_ in this campaign." Loudon at the same time sent the Empress a copy of his answer, importing, "that being accountable to God and to his sovereign for his conduct, all the treasures of the earth should not tempt him from his duty to either; and that he begged his Prussian Majesty would make him no more proposals so repugnant to his duty, and so injurious to his honour."

On the 15th August he detached forty-three squadrons of horse to join a Russian column which had passed the Oder; but Frederick met them on their march near Parchwitz, and defeated them, taking all their colours and cannon. These troops were horse grenadiers--the flower of the Austrian cavalry. The march of Loudon to form a junction "with the Russians," say the London papers for 10th September, 1761, "is alone sufficient to raise his reputation as a general as high as even a victory could have done. He had marched seven hours before the enemy had the least suspicion of his design, and had a conference with Marshal Butterlin near this place (Lignitz); on his return from which he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by the fleetness of his horse, his escort being attacked smartly by a strong detachment of Prussians." The allies afterwards separated; and the Hamburg journals asserted that it "was owing to a pique and jealously between Laudohn and Butterlin about the command, and the open antipathy of their respective troops to each other."

After a long series of marches, manoeuvres, and feigned attacks, in which he had completely the better of the great Frederick, Loudon suddenly appeared before Schwiednitz, the ancient and fortified capital of a principality situated among the hills of Lower Silesia. Its walls were manned by a brave Prussian garrison; but, to cut off all succour, Loudon posted twenty battalions on the heights of Kunzendorf, which are so steep that they cannot be taken from any troops who possess them.

Frederick's army, consisting of sixty-six battalions, one hundred and forty-three squadrons, and four hundred and six pieces of cannon, encamped at Bunzelwitz, in a place surrounded by chevaux-de-frize, abattis, mines, and palisades. Loudon made a partial attack upon this formidable post; but, pushing on, he resolved to take Schwiednitz by surprise. Previous to the advance, says an officer of his army, in one of his letters, "his Excellency our general having assembled upon the Limelberg, the troops destined to scale the walls of Schwiednitz harangued them there, and promised them a reward of one hundred thousand florins if the place was taken without pillage.

"'No, no!' exclaimed the Walloon grenadiers; 'lead us on, and we will follow to glory; but we will take no money from you, our father Loudon!'

"Then the Count de Wallace, colonel of the regiment of Loudon Fusiliers, after being twice repulsed by two battalions of the brave regiment of Treskow, said to his soldiers,--

"'I must carry this fort or die! I have promised it to Loudon; _remember that our regiment bears his name--it must conquer or perish!_'

"This short speech produced a surprising effect. An entire battalion sprung furiously into the ditch. The officers themselves fixed the scaling-ladders, and were the first that mounted. M. de Wallace had the glory of forcing the most difficult point of attack, and taking prisoners two battalions, who made the most courageous defence."[18]