Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/279

Rh before. This was that the defence of the ancient lines of Utrecht had suddenly collapsed; the commissions of defence established throughout Holland been abandoned by their commander-in-chief; and the Stadtholder himself that morning, escorted by the loyal States from Amersfoort, received with shouts of greeting in the city which had previously been so hot against him, but which had now given itself suddenly over to the Orange party. How this actually came about may be very brief3y told. Indeed, the details scarcely belong to that military narrative with which we are here concerned. Plainly Count Salm had for some time previous made up his mind that the cause his commission represented was a foregone failure, there being a strong Orange minority throughout Holland itself ready to declare for the Stadtholder as soon as he showed himself anywhere; and the hoped-for support of the French, which alone in the commander's view could have saved the patriotic party from succumbing to superior forces, being evidently for the present withheld. Under pretence, therefore, of moving forward to meet and delay the enemy on his march, he obtained the "march-routes," without which no troops paid by the jealous States of Holland could lawfully be moved by their commander. These once issued to him in blank, he lost no time in drawing his forces at first out of Utrecht eastward, and soon breaking them right and left along the lines, marched them back round the city. This once done he left them, to save his own person by concealment and flight. His main object in all this manœuvring had in fact been to get safely out of the way of the heated patriots of the city, who would have probably sacrificed his life at the first appearance of treason to their cause. Once free from this danger, he quietly abandoned his trust, and disappeared from the scene, leaving some of his battalions taking up chance quarters under their own officers; whilst others dispersed over the country pillaging their own countrymen, and spread such terror before them that the committee of defence of Amsterdam at first shut the gates in the face of those who marched that way. In fact the end of what came here to be called a rebellion rather than a civil war could now not be long delayed.

As Breeswyk, on which General Gaudy's column had been originally directed, is not far from Utrecht, it is needless to detail the march of the centre division, which was of course unopposed. Such fighting as the Prussians had to do on the Vecht line fell entirely on their right, where the Dutch troops about Naarden, divided from Utrecht by the marshy district before mentioned, were for some time unconscious how completely they were abandoned and turned. Hence the resistance here for a few days was a real one. An attempt made on Naarden itself with shellfire had no effect, and Count Kalkreuth, who commanded under Lottum on this side, withdrew his troops from before the place, and threw detachments along the dykes to seek for a passage higher up. Three of these failed, but the fourth, sent to reconnoitre the works of Weesp, a small fortress on the Lower Vecht, was guided by a peasant friendly to the Orange cause to another passage at Uiterdam, said to be less strongly covered. The Prussians were headed by Lieutenant Wirsbytzki, an officer of whom the Berlin records, travelling out of cold official praise, state that "he would dare anything man's bodily power might attempt." This young soldier, discovering on his reconnoissance that a guard posted opposite had all taken shelter from the pouring rain inside their watch-house, leaving a peasant outside in charge of their bridge, rode up to the latter and threatened to shoot him if he did not instantly let it down. The astonished Dutchman complied, and in a few moments men enough of the Prussian party had crossed to surprise the guard before it got under arms. The lieutenant followed up this first success with such speed that he got into the main works with his party of about sixty men before the garrison of nearly an equal number was alarmed; and so captured the whole of it without difficulty. This affair happened on September 17th, and his lodgment at Uiterdam enabled Lieutenant Wirsbytzki on the following day, by means of a couple of canoes, to lodge secretly a party of his men in rear of the next post, which was to be attacked by signal in front. The surprise was decisive, and eighty more Dutch soldiers being here taken with their works, the line of the Lower Vecht was effectually pierced. Niedersluys, the chief point on it between Naarden and Utrecht, finding itself enveloped, surrendered on the 21st. Despite increasing inundations, Lottum, after this success, managed to secure post after post with little loss. Reports of an armistice no doubt aided him in his later operations, though some of his affairs were bloody enough, especially the repulse of a spirited sortie made from Weesp;