CHAPTER VII

THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR TO THE BATTLE OF LEUTHEN

All the world knows that in 1756 the King of Prussia embarked upon a

struggle in comparison with which his previous wars might almost be

called sham-fights. This was the Third Silesian War, commonly known

as the Seven Years’ War, which Macaulay’s lurid prose depicts as

setting almost the whole globe on fire. The true cause of Austria’s new

struggle, not merely to regain Silesia, but also to curb the dangerous

power of Prussia, will be patent to all who have followed the story

of Frederick’s life. It was the memory of past wrong quickened by

apprehensions of worse to come. Maria Theresa could not believe that

Heaven would suffer her despoiler to go unchastised, and she watched

the political horizon for signs that the day of vengeance upon him was

at hand. At the same time all the neighbours of Prussia perceived with

that instinct which is the surest guide of states that the system to

which they belonged was jeopardised by an intruding Power whose conduct

had been such as to justify a crusade against her.

In that age of unstable alliances and easy wars it was certain that

a conviction shared by so many states would sooner or later lead

to action. It was equally certain that, while Frederick was king,

Prussia would strike back. Hence we may regard with some indifference

nice balancings of moral judgment upon the great fact of 1756, when

Frederick suddenly made war upon Austria and treated Saxony with almost

greater violence. It seems idle to maintain that because Austria had

yielded up Silesia by treaty she was debarred for ever from retaliating

upon Frederick in the fashion which he had set. Who would apply such a

rule to the problems of the present? If it be lawful, in our own day,

for France to hope to recover Alsace and Lorraine, or for Spain to hope

to recover Gibraltar, it is not easy to understand why, in 1756, Maria

Theresa might not lawfully hope to reverse the verdict of 1742 and

1745. And if she and her neighbours contemplated something more than a

recovery of lands actually lost, if they sought to reduce the King of

Prussia to the harmless level of a Margrave of Brandenburg, who can be

indignant or even surprised? A new coalition against Frederick would be

merely the Austrian answer to his own riddle, “If I have an advantage,

am I to use it or not?”

[Illustration: THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF MARIA THERESA IN THE VIENNA

HOFFBURG.

REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF A. F. CZIHAKS NACHFLG, VIENNA.]

But if, as seems undeniable, Austria and her neighbours had good

grounds for hoping to attack Prussia, and if, as Frederick had reason

to believe, the danger was becoming imminent in 1756, what could be

more futile than the statement that none the less he was not justified

in striking the first blow? It is true that for reasons of current

politics the Austrian Chancellor, Kaunitz, schemed with success to

shape events so as to make Prussia seem the aggressor, and that he

thus established the conditions under which Austria could claim the

fulfilment of a treaty of defensive alliance. At a distance of a

century and a half, however, such subtleties can be appraised at

their true value. Though in 1756 war emerges from as dense a cloud of

diplomacy as ever befogged the path of European history, our generation

may regard the Third Silesian War as the natural result of the original

aggression of Frederick and of the abiding interests of other Powers.

Those interests, however, demand a brief explanation, for they

determined the time and the form of a war which at some time and in

some form was inevitable from the very moment at which Austria and

Prussia laid down their arms at Dresden. In an age when the true course

of states was steered by kings and statesmen of whom some were lazy,

some self-seeking, some timid, some honestly mistaken in their designs,

it was not to be expected that many should, like Prussia, make straight

for a definite goal. Since the Peace of Utrecht, Europe had lived in an

atmosphere of general uncertainty. Nations formed countless short-lived

comradeships for the pursuit of objects often transient. It was almost

impossible to forecast who, if war broke out, would be ranged on one

side or the other, and hardly less difficult to forecast the side upon

which those who had entered the war as allies of one of the combatants

would be found at the end of it. What might, however, be anticipated

with confidence was that few Powers would neglect the chance of profit

which war afforded. Walpole’s famous boast, “There are fifty thousand

men slain in Europe this year and not one Englishman,” was called forth

by his triumph in keeping clear of the War of the Polish Succession,

which was not too remote to embroil every other Great Power.

While there was then a tendency for every Power to share in every

war as an auxiliary if not as a principal, two alliances had become

traditional. Ever since the undue predominance of France first

imperilled the liberties of Europe, England had steadily supported

Austria against her. And so soon as the Great Elector showed that

Prussia might be a serviceable ally, France strove to employ her with a

view to the humiliation of Austria. Though only occasionally successful

in engaging Prussia, she continued to regard her as a natural ally.

Thus each of the maritime and commercial rivals of the West had its

_liaison_ with one of the German Land Powers of the East.

More to be reckoned on than these connexions were, however, three

great antipathies which the course of history had revealed. The clash

of interest between Austria and Prussia seemed destined to distract

Germany until one or other proved supreme, and, so long as Maria

Theresa confronted Frederick, it would be made harsher by a duel

between the sovereigns. Russia, while Elizabeth ruled, would go with

Austria. The giant State whose westward path had been marked out by

Peter the Great already discerned in Prussia the athlete braced to

dispute the way. Ost-Preussen was always a tempting bait, and long ere

this an ambassador at Frederick’s Court reported that the King feared

Russia more than his God. None the less Frederick had permitted his

sharp tongue to goad the luxurious Czarina into a fury which surpassed

that of the Queen whom he had robbed of Silesia. In April, 1756, the

Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg was informed that Russia was

ready to co-operate in an immediate attack upon Prussia by sending

80,000 men, and that she would not lay down her arms until Maria

Theresa had recovered Silesia and Glatz.

The jealousy of the rival states in Germany and the wrath of the

despot who swayed the policy of Russia would count for much in the

coming war. Weightier still was the struggle between France and

England for the primacy in three continents and on the seas. This

great national duel had been begun by William III. and brilliantly

continued by Marlborough. During the pacific rule of Walpole, when

the two countries were nominally in alliance, England was gaining

strength and taking up a position in America and India which her

rival could not witness unmoved. The close league formed by France

with Spain, the monopolist of the New World, rendered lasting peace

with England impossible and even Walpole was forced into war. This

war, known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear, began with an attack on the

Spaniards in 1739, and developed into a world-wide struggle with the

French in which Dettingen and Fontenoy were incidents. The settlement

at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which put an end to it, was obviously a

mere breathing-space. In the early fifties hostilities broke out anew

between the English and French in India and North America, and it could

hardly be doubted that Europe would soon catch fire.

In 1756, therefore, war between France and England had already begun,

and war between Frederick and his two Imperial neighbours was imminent.

The custom of Europe and the precedent of the former struggle made it

in the highest degree unlikely that these wars would be kept apart.

What would be the connexion between them? The answer was determined by

three accidents. The King of England happened to be Elector of Hanover,

the ruling spirit at Vienna happened to be Kaunitz, and the mistress of

Louis XV. happened to be Madame de Pompadour.

Hanover, argued George II., will certainly be attacked by the French.

It must be defended at all costs. The only possible defenders are

Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Austria, the old patron of Hanover, would

be preferable. But the Queen has grievances against England and is

bent on attacking Prussia. Alliance with her would therefore expose

Hanover to the Prussians as well as to the French, and must therefore

be regarded as out of the question. Russia and Prussia remained to be

considered. Russia actually made a convention to hire out troops for

the defence of Hanover. But Russia, the King found, also desired to

attack Prussia, and was therefore as ineligible an ally as Austria.

Only the Prussian alliance remained possible. In January, 1756, by the

Convention of Westminster, it was secured.

The Convention of Westminster, by which Frederick bound himself to

defend Hanover against attack, helped on the far more difficult task of

Kaunitz. This was no less than to reverse the secular policy of France

and Austria and to bring Bourbon and Hapsburg into alliance. Kaunitz

based his calculations on the assumption that France might help Austria

to recover Silesia, but that England never would. This view of the

political situation was urged for seven years with great ability by

a statesman in whom the Queen reposed a confidence greater than that

with which our own Elizabeth honoured Burleigh, and who treated her in

return with a haughtiness such as Essex would never have dared to show.

Kaunitz, whose life was spent in the endeavour to exalt the power of

his mistress, forced her to shut her windows to humour his prejudice

against fresh air, and stalked out of her Council when she interrupted

him with a question. At another meeting, it is said, she remonstrated

with him on his riotous living. He replied that he had come there to

discuss her affairs, not his own.

But the great, it is said, are known to the great, and Maria Theresa’s

confidence in Kaunitz seemed to be justified when his visionary

scheme proved feasible. It was easy to form a league to despoil

Prussia. Kaunitz tempted Russia with parts of Poland, Poland with an

indemnity in Ost-Preussen, Saxony with Magdeburg, Sweden with Prussian

Pomerania, the princes of the Empire with the favours which the Emperor

alone could bestow. But it required great powers of imagination to

conceive that France might quit the beaten track of history, which was

at the same time plainly the path of self-interest, in order to assist

her hereditary foe in a great land-war at a time when she needed all

her strength to meet England upon the seas.

Kaunitz had not only the strength to see this vision, but also the

fortune to realise it in fact. The circumstance that favoured him the

most was that the Pompadour was now at the height of her influence in

France. The mistress of Louis XV. furthered the plan of Kaunitz for

selfish reasons, but in the expectation that its result would be the

exact reverse of what it was. She desired to keep the peace in Europe

in order that she might continue to live quietly at Versailles. The

Minister of Marine, moreover, was her friend; the minister who might

profit by a land-war was her enemy. She therefore favoured a covenant

of neutrality with Austria in the hope that the two wars would thus be

kept apart.

The Convention of Westminster, however, made it impossible that the

affair should rest here. The fact that Prussia had bound herself to

resist a French invasion of Hanover frustrated all Frederick’s efforts

to propitiate the Pompadour and to throw dust in the eyes of the French.

“If the ministry of France will consider it well,” wrote

Frederick on January 24th, “... it should find nothing to say

in reason if I undertake such a convention, by which, moreover,

I flatter myself that I render an essential service to France,

seeing that I shall certainly arrest 50,000 Russians by it, and

shall hold in check another 50,000 Austrians at least, who but

for that would all have acted against France.”

He further endeavoured to discount his alliance with George II. by

turning a sympathetic ear to the French plans for assisting the Young

Pretender, and by advising her to strike in Ireland and on the south

coast of England at the same time. It was beyond his art, however, to

disguise what he had done, and Kaunitz knew how to profit by it.

The labours of the diplomatists were immense, but at last they were

successful. On May 1, 1756, by the Treaty of Versailles, both France

and Austria undertook for the future to defend the European possessions

of the other with 24,000 men. In the war with England, Austria was

to remain neutral, but if in the course of it any province of France

in Europe were to be attacked by any ally or auxiliary of England,

Austria promised by a secret article to provide the stipulated

assistance and France offered a similar guarantee. This might be

interpreted as binding Austria to join in the war if the French were

masters of Hanover and the Prussians marched against them. It thus

deprived the Convention of Westminster of half its value, and at the

same time threatened to connect the war against England, which France

had begun brilliantly at Minorca, with the war against Prussia, for

which Elizabeth was clamouring. Negotiations for a still closer union

between Austria and France were pressed on, and Kaunitz hoped that in

1757 all would be ready.

Too much was, however, in the wind for Frederick’s keen scent to be

entirely baffled. Austria, indeed, sincerely desired peace for the

present. The published articles of the Treaty of Versailles were

innocent. The English ministry disingenuously tried to lull the

protector of Hanover into false security by assurances that they

could answer for Russia. But the King of Prussia had his own sources

of information as well as the most perfect faith in the malevolence

of his fellow-men. For three years and a half one Menzel, a clerk in

the Saxon Foreign Office, had been furnishing him with copies of the

secret state-papers of Augustus. The whole truth about the negotiations

against Prussia was not known at Dresden, but enough reached Frederick

from this source to impress upon him the desirability of anticipating

his foes. So early as June 23, 1756, he sent to General Lehwaldt,

in Königsberg, three sets of instructions, military, economic, and

secret, for dealing with the anticipated Russian invasion, and even for

negotiations with a view to peace.

“You know already,” wrote the King, “how I have allied myself

with England, and that thereupon the Austrian court, from

hatred of my successful convention with England, took the

course of allying itself with France. It is true that Russia

has concluded a subsidy-treaty with England, but I have every

reason to believe that it will be broken by Russia and that

she has joined the Austrian party and concerted with her a

threatening plan. But all this would not have caused me to

move if it had not been brought to my notice through many

channels and also by the march of Russian and Austrian troops

that this concert is directed against myself.”

Frederick probably told the truth to his commander-in-chief in

Ost-Preussen. On the same day Sir Andrew Mitchell, the shrewd and

honest Scotchman who then represented England at the court of Prussia,

had an audience with the King. He reported that, notwithstanding the

great number of enemies, the King seemed in no wise disconcerted, and

had already given orders everywhere. “In a fortnight’s time he will

be ready to act. His troops, as I am informed, are complete, and the

artillery in excellent order.”

On the eve of war, then, Frederick’s sword was as sharp as of old

and his courage as high. He soon showed that his pen had not lost

its cunning. At the end of June he indicted his enemy before the

judgment-seat of England. Austria regarded her new connexions, so

stated his clever memoir, as the triumvirate of Augustus, Antony, and

Lepidus. The three courts, like the three Romans of old, had sacrificed

their friends to each other.

“The Empress abandoned England and Holland to the resentment

of France, and the court of Versailles sacrificed Prussia to

the ambition of the Empress. The latter proposes to imitate

the conduct of Augustus, who used the power of his colleagues

to aggrandise himself and then overthrew them one by one. The

court of Vienna has three designs towards which her present

steps are tending—to establish her despotism in the Empire,

to ruin the Protestant cause, and to reconquer Silesia. She

regards the King of Prussia as the great obstacle to her vast

designs.”

Thus Frederick claimed to be the champion of the balance of power and

of Protestantism, and proposed to solicit not only Denmark and Holland,

but even the Turk and the Empire for aid. His appeal to England

concluded with the assurance that Prussia was not cast down. “Three

things can restore the equilibrium of Europe—a close and intimate

connexion between our two courts, earnest efforts to form new alliances

and to foil the schemes of the enemy, and boldness to face the greatest

dangers.”

A paper of this kind, brilliant, concise, astute, and even eloquent, is

worth many thousand lines of the rhymed platitudes by which the author

set greater store. We might expect to hear that it was followed at

once by a spring at the throat of the enemy. It is true that Kaunitz,

who was not yet ready for war, and who wished that if war must come

Frederick should be the aggressor, held the Russians back. But he was

pressing forward warlike preparations in Bohemia and Moravia, and

Frederick was not likely to ignore the advantage of striking swiftly

and of waging war outside his own borders. The military men, when they

saw the evidence in the King’s hands, were all for action. “Schwerin,”

says Carlyle, “much a Cincinnatus since we last saw him, has laid down

his plough again, a fervid ‘little Marlborough’ of seventy-two.” He

urged the immediate seizure of Saxony, as a base of operations against

Bohemia.

Cooler heads, indeed, counselled Frederick to have patience. On behalf

of England, a Power always singularly dispassionate when the interests

of a German ally were at stake, Mitchell urged that many chances of

war and politics might swiftly change the face of affairs, and that

to attack Austria would give unnecessary provocation to France. The

faithful Podewils ventured to spend a summer afternoon at Potsdam in

labouring to turn the King from his purpose. In his letter of July 22,

1756, to Eichel, he speaks of the “respectful freedom” with which he

begged the King not to drive France and Russia to do what they had no

desire to do that year if Austria were not attacked. Let him rather

use the ten months’ grace before the next campaign in securing allies

within and without the Empire, in trying to reconcile France and

England, and in preparing an imposing defence.

“But all this,” says the poor man, “was completely rejected as arising

from far too great timidity, and at last I was dismissed coldly enough

with the words, ‘_Adieu, Monsieur de la timide politique_.’” His

concluding phrases, however, have in them so much of prophecy that they

may be cited here.

“That it was not doubtful that progress and success might at

first be brilliant, but that the complication of enemies, at

a time when the King was isolated and deprived of all foreign

help, which had never happened to him yet, at least in regard

to the diversions which had been made in his favour in the two

preceding wars, would, perhaps, make him remember one day what

I took the respectful liberty of representing to him for _the

last time_.”

Such is the literal rendering of the French into which Podewils, who

writes the bulk of his letter in a jargon of German, French, and Latin,

forces his tortuous German thoughts.

Frederick, indeed, seems already to have passed the stage at which he

could be influenced by argument. An agile rather than a deep thinker,

he reached at times a point at which calculation became agony and the

only remedy was action. Now, as in his earlier adventure, “pressed with

many doubts, he wakes the drumming guns that have no doubts.” That a

mere Prussian minister should combat his plans seemed to him little

short of _lèse-majesté_. Nor could he be moved by those who were not so

tightly bound to the car of Prussia. Mitchell followed Podewils with

arguments, and Valori, the French ambassador, followed Mitchell with

threats. Frederick’s answer was a series of blunt questions pressed

home twice over at Vienna—Have you a treaty with Russia against me? Why

are you arming? Will you solemnly declare that you do not intend to

attack me this year or next? The final answer was received on August

25, 1756. Next day the Prussians invaded Saxony.

The Seven Years’ War had begun. Needless to say, every movement of the

Prussians had been planned out long before. The army was under orders

which enforced the most perfect mobility. A hundred supernumeraries

had been added to every regiment. On the 13th to 15th August Frederick

issued directions that the secret of their destination was to be

strictly kept from the troops. They were to take with them provisions

for nine days, every cavalryman carrying three days’ supply of hay, and

every infantryman three days’ supply of bread, while bread for six days

was placed in the single baggage-cart allowed to each company. None of

this reserve of food was, however, to be broken into save in the utmost

need, and no officer of any rank whatever might have table utensils of

nobler metal than tin.

A word would set all in swift motion, but the machine had to be

arrested until it should be known that the Prussian ultimatum was

rejected. Klinggräffen, Frederick’s ambassador at Vienna, caused some

delay by asking for instructions. On the 24th the King wrote to General

Winterfeldt, the most impatient advocate of war: “The cursed courier is

not yet here, so I have been compelled to stop the regiments till the

28th. Klinggräffen deserves to be made a porter by way of punishment.

Such stupid tricks are unpardonable and the prolonged uncertainty is

unbearable.” On the 26th, however, after hearing from Vienna, the King

was able to set all in motion anew.

“The answer,” he wrote to his brother, the Prince of Prussia,

“is impertinent, high, and contemptuous, and as for the

assurances that I asked of them, not a word, so that the sword

alone can cut this Gordian knot.... At present, we must think

only of making war in such a fashion as to deprive our enemies

of the desire to break the peace too soon.”

While one royal messenger was bearing this message from Potsdam to

Berlin, others were on their way to Vienna, to Dresden, and to

every division of the Prussian army. Klinggräffen was instructed to

return a third time to the charge, with the final offer that if the

Empress-Queen would declare definitely that she would not attack

Frederick that year or the next, the troops now moving should be

recalled. More profit was, however, expected from the message to the

Saxon Court. King Augustus, or Count Brühl, was to be informed, “with

every expression of my affection and of your respect that good breeding

can supply,” that Frederick was compelled by the Court of Vienna to

enter Saxony with his army in order to pass into Bohemia.

“The estates of the King of Saxony,” continued the royal

missive, “will be spared as far as present circumstances allow.

My troops will behave there with perfect order and discipline,

but I am obliged to take precautions so as not to fall again

into the position in which the Saxon Court placed me during the

years 1744 and 1745.... I desire nothing more ardently than to

behold the happy moment of peace, so that I may prove to this

Prince the full extent of my friendship, and place him once

more in the tranquil possession of all his estates, against

which I have never had any hostile design.”

This declaration was addressed to a ruler who had made no engagements

hostile to Frederick, and who now offered to observe perfect neutrality

and to allow his troops to pass. A commentary upon it is supplied

by a document which was probably drawn up several days earlier, and

which was soon to be put in force. By this “instruction” for the

administration of Saxony during the war, “in order that His Majesty

may not leave a highly dangerous enemy in his rear,” the Prussian

minister von Borcke is directed to suspend the native administration

of the land and to substitute a Prussian Directory of War. The Saxon

royal revenue, it is said, amounts to about six million thalers, but

Frederick “will be contented with five million, so that the inhabitants

may be solaced thereby.” In other respects the order and temperance

which distinguished the Prussian Government were to be applied to the

subjects of Augustus. Such was Frederick’s plan for the future of

Saxony, a would-be neutral, during the war.

The problem which the King set himself was to cripple Austria before

Russia or France could come to her assistance. Austria had assembled

forces in Moravia and in Bohemia. If Frederick attacked the former

the Bohemian army might cut off his retreat. He therefore directed

Schwerin to guard Silesia while he himself converted Saxony into a base

for the invasion of Bohemia. From the Saxons he expected little or no

opposition. He therefore proposed to march in three columns upon Pirna,

a fortress situated at the point at which the Elbe bursts through the

mountain-wall of Bohemia to enter the fertile plains of Saxony. Then,

with a granary and a highway behind him, he would follow the river into

Bohemia as far as Melnik, less than twenty miles north of Prague, where

it ceases to be navigable. He would thus at the very least have gained

a commanding position on the further side of the mountains.

“As he does not think that the Austrians will soon be ready to

attack him,” wrote Mitchell on August 27th, “he imagines they

will throw in a strong garrison into Prague, that [_sic_] as

the winter approaches, he can have good quarters in Bohemia,

which will disorder the finances at Vienna and perhaps render

that court more reasonable.”

To the ambassador of England Frederick made light of his enterprise and

insisted that it would permit him, if necessary, to defend Hanover. But

it is difficult not to surmise that he looked for a great campaign. The

capture of Prague, the rout of the army of Bohemia, and the seizure of

its magazines—all this would be a fitting sequel to the coercion of

Saxony. It was not too grave a task for the main host of Prussia.

Even the lesser scheme failed, however, because Augustus, though a

weakling, was a man of honour. His army was less than twenty thousand

strong, but it sufficed to hold Pirna and to block the highway of the

Elbe. On September 9, 1756, Frederick entered Dresden, but Augustus

had fled to the army and lay safe in the impregnable rock-fortress of

Königstein. While the invader was rifling his archives for proofs of

a great conspiracy against Prussia, he offered to observe the most

benevolent neutrality and begged for an exact statement of what more

could be expected from him. He received the answer on September 14th

from the lips of Frederick’s favourite, Winterfeldt. It was nothing

less than that he should join Prussia in attacking Maria Theresa.

“How can I turn my arms against a Princess who has given me no cause

for complaint, and to whom, in virtue of an old defensive alliance of

which Your Majesty is aware, I ought to furnish 6000 auxiliaries, only

that it is doubtful whether the present war is a case of aggression?”

Such was the old King’s reply to the Prussian tempter, and he coupled

with it renewed assurances of neutrality. Frederick reiterated his

demands and expressed regret that he could not extend complaisance

further. By no effort of diplomacy could he shake the honourable

firmness of Augustus, and it was therefore necessary to gain the

highroad into Bohemia by force.

Frederick had surrounded Pirna, but he did not venture to assault it,

though Napoleon declared at first sight that there were nine points of

attack. It was clear, however, that hunger must soon force the Saxons

to move and that their only hope lay in succour from the Austrians.

Browne, the Irishman who had proved himself to be one of the Queen’s

best generals, therefore led an army northward to the foot of the

mountains and was confronted by Frederick in person at Lobositz. On

October 1, 1756, a fierce fight of seven hours proved indecisive.

Early in the day the King sent twenty squadrons of horse to meet

disaster at the hands of the Austrian gunners, and later the Prussian

infantry showed that they were still the men of Mollwitz and of Soor.

The Prussians kept the field of battle, but of nearly 6400 killed and

wounded more than half were theirs.

The relief of Pirna was checked but not frustrated. Lobositz is,

however, chiefly memorable as the day on which the Austrians first

encountered the Prussians at their best and were not beaten. It is no

more than Frederick’s due to remark that the troops whom he had now

to face were men who had learned what his father’s army had to teach.

They had adopted the Old Dessauer’s iron ramrod, and the swiftness of

their fire was no longer less than the half of their opponents’. Their

artillery, thanks to the labours of Prince Lichtenstein, was always

good and not seldom superior to the Prussian.

In little more than a fortnight after Lobositz the campaign of 1756 was

at an end. On October 11th, Browne reached Schandau, on the right bank

of the Elbe, where he expected the starving Saxons to join him. They

were not ready, and after waiting two days he was compelled to retreat.

The failure of the relieving expedition sealed the fate of Augustus’s

army. On October 17th, the rank and file laid down their arms—only to

be compelled, in defiance of the terms of surrender, to take them up

again as soldiers of the King of Prussia.

Augustus, however, did not suffer martyrdom in vain. He lost his army

and his Electorate, but his “ovine obstinacy” ruined the attack upon

the Queen. In the hour of triumph Frederick wrote to Schwerin: “As for

our stay in Bohemia, it is impossible for either of us to establish

a sure footing there this year, for we have entered the province too

late. We must confine ourselves to covering Silesia and Saxony.” Both

Prussians and Austrians tacitly agreed to postpone the decisive blow

till the new campaign.

To balance the gain and loss which Frederick owed to his preference

of his own plan to the “timid policy” of Podewils we must take into

account wider considerations of war and politics. By treating Saxony

in Hohenzollern fashion, without scruple and without riot, the King

undoubtedly gained some advantages. He found in the archives at Dresden

the material for yet another manifesto to Europe. He tested and

inspired his army, which only knew that under his leadership it had won

a battle, captured an army, and conquered a state. He even increased

its numbers by forcing the vanquished Saxons into the ranks. Above all,

he won security for the western flank of Silesia and a safe base from

which to attack Bohemia.

But all this was purchased at a great price in material and moral

strength. Prussia was still a Power which had to ask herself whether

she could bear a second or a third campaign. To raise new taxes was

difficult if not impossible. Frederick, it might almost be said, paid

for the war out of his own pocket with the help of his allies and of

the enemy. Already he showed some signs of being pressed for money.

In the middle of September he made secret arrangements for borrowing

300,000 thalers from a house of business in Berlin. Soon the Saxon

officials were told that their pay must fall into arrear and Frederick

observes with some brutality that Augustus, who had retired to his

second capital at Warsaw, could support his queen and her household

in Saxony from the French and Austrian subsidies. He thus denied to

the victim that courtesy for his family which he had ostentatiously

promised from the first.

It may be doubted whether 14,000 pressed men, even though some of

them might otherwise have found their way to the enemy, compensated

Prussia for the loyal veterans who fell at Lobositz. Throughout the war

Frederick found no servants less reliable than the Saxons whom he had

impressed and no foes more bitter than their countrymen who escaped.

As for Saxony itself, it is true that if war must come, which Podewils

regarded as dubious, Prussia derived much strength from her possession

of it. But Frederick’s treatment of Saxony removed all possibility

of escaping not only from a war, but from war upon the scale that he

professed to expect. The spectacle of the suffering King inflamed

all his enemies. As an exile in Warsaw Augustus was a more valuable

ally to Austria than he could have been in Dresden. He made it absurd

for Frederick to pose as the defender of German princes against the

Hapsburg. In January, 1757, a majority of those princes, assembled in

Diet at Ratisbon, solemnly commissioned the Hapsburg to marshal their

corporate might against the Prussian aggressor.

Frederick had treated the defensive alliance between the two Empresses

as a conspiracy against himself. Early in February it became such;

save that what he might once have termed a conspiracy now wore the

aspect of a crusade. All the North was summoned to unite with Austria

in curbing Prussia for ever, and Russia bound herself to keep 80,000

men in the field until the lost provinces had been regained. Frederick

had even performed what Kaunitz and the Pompadour could not completely

accomplish. France now gave in her whole-hearted adhesion to the league

for the recovery of Silesia and Glatz. She pledged herself to pay

Austria a heavy annual subsidy, to place 105,000 French troops in the

field, and to enlist 10,000 Germans. The history of the negotiations,

which were prolonged till May 1, 1757, shows how real were the

difficulties to be overcome before Bourbon and Hapsburg could unite.

In May, 1757, when the new campaign began, Frederick thus stood face

to face with what it is hardly an exaggeration to term a world in

arms. He, and no other, had brought Prussia to this pass. A coalition

unprecedented in history was the result of the aggressions of 1740 and

1756. All the world believed that the hour of reckoning had struck

and that the Third Silesian War would bring the punishment from which

chance had delivered the King who made the First.

To the biographer of Frederick, 1757 is welcome, for Frederick now

begins to be a hero. Had a chance bullet at Lobositz struck him down,

the world would have known only a king who promised to bring in a new

era of government, but who owed to his father’s work and methods the

chief part of whatever success he achieved. For creative power he

would have taken rank below the Great Elector and Frederick William,

for military renown below the Old Dessauer and Schwerin; for the

aggrandisement of his House, who knows? for who can calculate what

havoc the Coalition of 1757 would have wrought with his dominions?

The Frederick who had bequeathed to Prussia several volumes of prose

and verse in French and the memory of sixteen years’ tenure of Silesia

would hardly be known to fame as Frederick the Great.

In 1757, however, he takes his stand for the existence of Prussia.

At the moment that the military balance turns against him the moral

balance turns in his favour. Courage, energy, resource, determination,

all displayed through a score of lifetimes, if sensations rather than

moments make up life,—Frederick is the embodiment of these things

during the next six years. At first it is his daring that seems to

eclipse all else. If Frederick feared not God, neither did he regard

man. Far from being dazzled by the array of sceptres marshalled against

him, he determined to strike before his foes could form.

With the first breath of spring he despatched three royal princes and

the Duke of Bevern against four several points in Bohemia. “If those

false attacks have so far succeeded as to cover the King of Prussia’s

real intention,” writes Mitchell on April 18th, “I may venture to say

that His Prussian Majesty is upon the point of executing one of the

boldest and one of the greatest designs that ever was attempted by

man.” Just at this juncture a plot against his life was discovered. “I

think upon the whole His Prussian Majesty has had a very narrow escape,

which however seems to have made no impression at all upon him, nor to

have created in him the least diffidence whatever of anybody.” Such is

his Scotch friend’s account of the King at the outset of the chequered

campaign to which he owes the immensity of his fame.

Frederick’s courage was not foolhardiness, for the very reason that he

was one, and his enemies were many. Every coalition must encounter the

difficulty of concerting a plan of campaign acceptable to all and the

still greater difficulty of securing honest and punctual co-operation.

The coalition against Frederick had the advantage that several of its

members could serve the common cause by following the course most

profitable to themselves. The Russians might be expected to overrun

Ost-Preussen and the Swedes to attack Prussian Pomerania with the

best will in the world, while the Austrians had every incentive to be

vigorous in the conquest of Silesia. But France consented to help to

make Silesia and Glatz Austrian chiefly in order that she might secure

Austrian help nearer to her own borders. The motley forces of the

Empire had little interest in the quarrel, and the activity of Russia

depended upon a czarina whose health was bad. Speed and secrecy were

alike unattainable by a machine which could be set in motion only after

debate between the Board of War at Vienna, the corrupt and factious

Court at St. Petersburg, and the inharmonious ministers of France.

Once set in motion, however, the gigantic machine seemed irresistible.

Kaunitz could launch battalions against Prussia from every point of the

compass. Although a new English minister, William Pitt, seemed disposed

to stand by Frederick, it might well be thought incredible that

Prussia could escape destruction at the hands of such a multitude.

Frederick’s plain course was to make use of the speed and secrecy for

which the Prussian movements were famous. The Queen was massing troops

in Bohemia. She had determined to raise 150,000 men, but with sisterly

partiality she halved their effectiveness by appointing Prince Charles

to the command. This appointment favoured the plan which Mitchell

admired so highly. Frederick was devising a new form of the manœuvre by

which he decoyed the Austrians to Hohenfriedberg. He was so successful

that everyone on the Austrian side believed that his one object was to

maintain himself in Saxony. To them the four sham-invasions of Bohemia

seemed to be designed to conceal the King’s defensive operations and

to paralyse their own attack. The illusion was strengthened because at

the same time they learned that Torgau and Dresden were being fortified

in all haste and that barricades were rising on the roads from Bohemia

into Saxony. The last thing that they could suspect was that Frederick

was on the eve of attacking.

[Illustration: LEOPOLD, COUNT VON DAUN.

FROM A COPPER PRINT.]

The result was that the movement planned for the previous autumn was

now carried out in the face of 133,000 Austrians. Frederick’s three

columns issued from Saxony, Schwerin came from Silesia, and before the

end of April 117,000 Prussians were encamped in Bohemia. In the face

of such a force the astonished Austrians abandoned the magazines which

they had stored for the conquest of Saxony and fell back on Prague.

Having occupied a strong position to the east of the city, Prince

Charles awaited the arrival of Field-Marshal Daun, who was advancing

from the south.

Now the Prussians were to learn that a royal command has drawbacks.

Frederick was burning to attack the enemy. He had staked the success

of the campaign on the chance of a pitched battle, and the timid

tactics of Prince Charles filled him with impatience. At his back

was the finest army in the world. He was opposed by cavalry who had

never beaten their Prussian opponents since Mollwitz, by infantry

who had never beaten them at all, and by a general whom he despised.

Preferring, as usual, the boldest course, he crossed to the eastern

side of the river Moldau, which runs through Prague, and signalled to

Schwerin to join him.

Prince Charles did not venture to oppose a movement by which the

enemy’s force was made almost equal in number to his own. Such

inertness could be justified only if he believed either that he was

very weak or that his situation was impregnable and that Daun’s

arrival would make him sure of victory. His position indeed was strong

enough to have given pause to a general less impatient than the King

of Prussia. All Frederick’s royal authority had to be exerted before

Schwerin would consent that 64,000 men, of whom the half had been

marching since midnight, should attack a strongly fortified position

held by 60,000 of the enemy. But the vanguard of Daun’s 30,000 was

within ten miles of the capital and Frederick had his way.

[Illustration: PLAN OF PRAGUE, MAY 6, 1757.]

His forlorn hope at Prague on May 6, 1757, was to cost more blood than

had been spilled on any field in Europe for nearly fifty years. The

Prussians began by marching with great skill round the Austrian right.

Browne, however, suggested an effective counter-manœuvre, so that when

Schwerin assailed the flank at ten o’clock he did so under unsuspected

disadvantages of ground. “The cavalry began the encounter, and after

several fruitless attacks Zieten with the reserve overthrew the

Austrian cavalry. In the pursuit, however, his troops came upon one of

the enemy’s camps and drank so deep that they were of no more use that

day.” Such is the statement of Schäfer, the Prussian historian of the

war. At the same time the infantry of the first line pressed forward,

but found that the way to the enemy lay through the treacherous slime

of fishponds coated with green, which Frederick in his haste had taken

to be meadow-land. They struggled across unharmed, but the well-served

Austrian batteries began to destroy them at a range of 400 paces. Then

their onslaught was shattered by the Austrian grenadiers, and Schwerin,

as he seized the colours to rally his men, was slain by a blast of

grape-shot. The Austrian grenadiers began a triumphant counter-charge,

but they were unsupported, for their army had now no leader. Browne had

fallen early in the charge, and Prince Charles collapsed in wrestling

with problems too great for his powers. The Prussian second line was

therefore able to repair the disaster of the first, and, after a

terrible struggle at close quarters, they stormed the heights and

won the battle. Many of the Austrians fled southwards across the river

Sazawa, but the greater number took refuge behind the walls of Prague.

In the battle itself Frederick played the part of a brave and skilful

leader. His first impression was that he had gained a decisive victory.

In the evening he wrote to his mother:

“My brothers and I are well. The Austrians are in danger of

losing the whole campaign and I find myself free with 150,000

men, and that we are masters of a kingdom which must provide

us with troops and money. The Austrians are scattered like

chaff before the wind. I am going to send part of my troops to

compliment _Messieurs les Français_ and to pursue the Austrians

with the rest.”

He informed Wilhelmina that about 5000 men had been killed and wounded.

To his ally, George II., he sent word that the battle had been “as

decisive as possible,” and to his Scotch friend, Field-Marshal Keith,

that he believed that the capture of Prague would finish the war.

Fuller knowledge showed that these ideas were ill-conceived. The King’s

impatience had caused an attack across treacherous ground with weary

men. The pursuit therefore failed, and the Austrian casualties did

not greatly exceed the Prussian. Frederick himself later computed his

loss at 18,000 men, “without counting Marshal Schwerin, who alone was

worth above 10,000.” The most moderate estimate states it at 12,500.

The Austrians lost some 13,000, including prisoners, but nearly 11,000

more fled across the Sazawa, and the Prussians made an unwonted haul

of baggage and artillery. One of the musketeers wrote home that 186,000

Prussians had beaten 295,000 Austrians and captured 200 guns. The army

and the people were jubilant, but the price was great. “Schwerin’s

death,” said the King, long after, “withered the laurels of victory,

which was bought with too much precious blood. On this day fell the

pillars of the Prussian infantry ... and a bloody and terrible war gave

no time to rear them anew.”

The success of the campaign now hung on the fate of Prague. If the

capital and its defenders fell into his hands without delay, the King

might still execute the remainder of his daring scheme. He might sweep

away Daun, enter Moravia, and dictate peace at Vienna. Thence he might

lead his army to the western scene of war, to crush the forces of the

Empire, and drive the French across the Rhine. A strong reinforcement,

he believed, would enable Lehwaldt to grapple with the Russians, whose

soldierly qualities he had not yet learned to appreciate. The moral

effect of his victory was felt by all Europe. Frederick became the hero

of the English nation. At Vienna depression reigned, and Kaunitz grew

loud in his appeals to France and Russia. Roving bands of Prussians

spread terror through the Empire by pretending to be the vanguard of

the King, and demanding contributions from the magistrates of hostile

towns with threats of stern measures if their demands were not complied

with. Austria could not protect her German allies, and Louis XV. feared

that she might now desert him as Prussia had deserted him in 1742 and

1745. If Prague fell the coalition would be shaken if not destroyed.

But however great the profit to be gained by the fall of Prague,

Frederick realised that he could not hope to carry by storm a city

which Browne had previously undertaken to hold with 8000 men and which

now contained a garrison of 44,000. He therefore detached the Duke of

Bevern with a force of 17,500 to observe Daun in the south, while he

himself set to work to reduce Prague by starvation. In the hope of

destroying the magazines he maintained a severe bombardment, which

put the inhabitants to great suffering but brought little military

advantage. He even brought a notorious burglar out of gaol to break

into the city and procure information. Prince Charles, who had plenty

of meal though little meat, did not risk his army in a sally _en

masse_, but with the approval of his Government simply waited for Daun

to set him free. This was an afflicting policy for the impatient King.

On May 24th, Frederick hoped “at present more than ever that all this

race of Austrian princes and beggars will be obliged to lay down their

arms.” On May 29th, he informed Wilhelmina that a week ought to see the

end, but before the week was over he began to admit the possibility of

failure. On June 11th he wrote to Lehwaldt that it might be three or

four weeks before he would be free to move. Next day, after hearing

from Bevern that Daun could no longer be kept at bay, he sounded the

knell of the whole enterprise:

“Who loses time in war,” runs Frederick’s broken German,

“cannot make it good again. Had you pressed forward at once

towards Czaslau, Daun would have retreated further ... and I

wager that if one flies at his throat he will do it. To get

together 10 battalions now is impossible, but perhaps I will

come myself to make an end of the matter, so that what has been

gained by bravery be not lost by hesitation.... Daun must be

driven into Moravia be he weak or strong, else we do not win

Prague and cannot resist the other enemies who come on, and the

whole campaign, however well begun, is lost.”

The cause of this note to Bevern was that with less than 10,000 men he

had at last fallen back before the enemy. Daun, whose caution was to

earn him the nickname “_Fabius Cunctator_,” had assembled an army some

54,000 strong and was advancing under strict orders to venture a battle

for the relief of Prague. Frederick felt that the crisis called for his

own presence. For the issue he had no fear. In order to risk nothing

during his absence, he took with him only some 14,000 men, so that by

strict count of heads he would attack against odds of more than five to

three. But if Schwerin were worth 10,000 men, the King may well have

believed that his own value was far greater. On June 16th he wrote to

his representative in London that he had joined Bevern,

“in order to march straight on Field-Marshal Daun, to fight

him, and to drive him altogether out of Bohemia into Moravia. I

flatter myself that in a few days I shall be able to give you

good news of our success; and when this expedition is happily

over, I believe that the town of Prague will fall of its own

accord, and that then with hands more free, I shall be able to

send a detachment against the French.”

The King’s confidence was in great part warranted by what he had

already seen in the present war. It seemed that only a Browne would

dare to attack Prussian troops led by their King. Had not Prince

Charles been overruled by his generals, he would have abandoned Prague

to avoid a battle. Daun had retreated before Bevern till he became

overwhelmingly superior in force, and he advanced only when his Queen

promised him gratitude for a victory and her continued favour if he

were beaten. The most that could be expected from such commanders as

these was that they would stand on the defensive in a strong position.

This very fact made the tactics of the Prussians doubly formidable.

Drilled to the last degree of perfection, they could change their

formation with a speed which their enemies admired but could not rival.

Frederick could therefore veil his movement till the last moment.

Having chosen the enemy’s most vulnerable wing, he could strengthen the

wing opposed to it without fear that the enemy would either accomplish

the countermove in time or attack the section which he had weakened.

It was therefore of little consequence that the Austrians greatly

outnumbered the Prussians in the part of the field where no fighting

was likely to take place. The battle was gained because the Prussians

swiftly overcame all that nature and art could oppose to them at the

spot selected by the King for contact. The doomed wing would be broken,

the centre laid bare, and then the cautious Austrian would make off,

rejoicing that it was not dishonourable to be beaten by the King of

Prussia, and that the attack demanded so much preliminary marching that

the weary victors were not often terrible in pursuit.

Such were the tactics attempted in the battle of June 18, 1757, when

Frederick attacked Daun in his camp overlooking the highroad between

Vienna and Prague, within sight of the town of Kolin. The country

undulates sufficiently to make it impossible for the King to have

ascertained every detail of the problem with which he was confronted.

But from many points, and with especial clearness from an isolated

height across the highway, he could see that the Austrian right wing

held the crest of a gentle slope south of the road and parallel with

it, and that it was at the further extremity of this wing that the

ground seemed most favourable to the attack.

[Illustration: PLAN OF KOLIN, JUNE 18, 1757.]

The morning of the stifling summer’s day was spent in marching along

the line of the highroad towards Kolin, and it was after midday that

the Prussian left turned upon the enemy. Zieten, the terrible hussar,

put to flight the Austrian horse, but an oak-wood gave them shelter

behind which to rally, and meanwhile Daun made all haste to move up

supports to his right. But though the Austrians fought doggedly and

poured in a deadly artillery fire, the matchless Prussian infantry

pressed on. They captured point after point of Daun’s position until

the moment came at which, although their cavalry had turned tail, they

needed only reinforcements to crush his right. It was the duty of

Prince Maurice, the son of the Old Dessauer, to bring help from the

centre. The moment was critical. The Austrian musketeers, seven times

charged by the Prussians, had shot away their last cartridge. “Four

fresh battalions,” wrote the King four days after, “and the battle was

won.” Daun had already begun to withdraw his heavy guns and to issue

orders for retreat. But by a fatal misunderstanding, due, it is hinted,

to the impatience of the King in giving orders, Maurice was attacking

the enemy more than half a mile further down the line. Still nearer to

the Prussian right General Manstein defied orders and dashed at the

enemy.

The Prussians were therefore involved in a frontal attack, and their

inferiority in numbers at once began to tell against them. Yet still,

though Frederick had only the reserves of cavalry in hand and these,

even when he put himself at their head, refused to pass through

the fire to aid them, the dauntless Prussian left achieved fresh

triumphs. When the deadly wrestle reached its fourth hour they still

maintained their hold upon the heights. Daun hurled his light Saxon

cavalry upon them, but with a heroism worthy of Mollwitz field they

formed into groups and drove back the foe. But at this moment the

Count de Thiennes, colonel of a regiment of young dragoons from the

Netherlands, begged for leave to attack. He won a grudging assent,

at first refused, “but,” said Daun, “you won’t do much good with your

beardless boys.” “You will see,” answered Thiennes and galloped back

to his regiment. “Boys,” he cried, after repeating the field-marshal’s

taunt, “show that though you are beardless you can bite.” Uniting with

the Saxons, the “boys” swept the enemy’s horse from the field, then

flung themselves on the grim square of tattered heroes, broke it, and

drove it from the heights. This was the prelude to a general flight of

the exhausted remnants of the Prussian infantry. Almost beside himself

with rage and disappointment, Frederick collected some forty men and

led them against the foe. But even the King could not persuade them to

suicide. One by one they slunk away till at last his adjutant put the

question, “Will your Majesty take the battery alone?” Frederick once

more gazed at the enemy through his glass, then rode to Bevern on the

right and ordered retreat.

Of 31,000 Prussians little more than 17,000 were left. As at Prague,

it was the infantry whose loss was the greatest. Of 18,000, more than

two-thirds were killed or captured. It was true that they had inflicted

upon the enemy a loss of more than 8000 men, and that Daun, “like a

good Christian who would not suffer the sun to go down on his wrath,”

did nothing by way of pursuit. But Frederick saw at a glance that the

conquest of Bohemia was now beyond his strength. On June 20, 1757,

the very day on which Prince Charles had announced that he would be

compelled to surrender, the besiegers quitted Prague.

Frederick’s plan was to retreat slowly through north-eastern Bohemia

into Saxony, exhausting the country as he went. “My heart is torn in

pieces,” he wrote to Prince Maurice two days after the battle, “but I

am not cast down and will try on the first opportunity to wipe out this

disgrace.” Perhaps because, in his own phrase, “a certain Hungarian

rabble has taken kennel on the highways,” his letter to his sister

makes light of Kolin. “I attacked Daun on the 18th. In spite of all

our efforts, we found the country so difficult that I believed myself

bound to abandon the enterprise in order not to lose my army.” For the

information of Berlin, Eichel magnified the gentle slopes which are

all that the battle-field can show into “a steep mountain, cut by many

ravines and defiles at its base.” But to London the King sent a franker

statement.

“After winning eight battles in succession, we have for the

first time been beaten, and that because the enemy had three

posts on a tolerably high hill fortified by strong batteries

one behind another. After taking two of them, the attacking

battalions and their supports had suffered so much that they

were too few to force the third post, and so the battle ended

for lack of combatants.”

The transports of the Queen and the exaggerated caution with which Daun

and Prince Charles neglected to follow up their advantage attested

the truth of Frederick’s assurance that his situation was by no means

desperate.

From day to day however, it altered for the worse. Disaster in the

field was followed by affliction in the home. Within a fortnight

of Kolin, Frederick suddenly learned that his mother was no more.

The crushing news was blurted out by a letter from his wife, whose

thoughtless use of a red seal in place of a black one frustrated the

kindly machinery which Podewils and Eichel had devised for preparing

the mind of the King. He had just written to Wilhelmina a letter full

of confidence.

“You have nothing to fear on my account, dear sister, men are

always in the hands of what is called destiny.... Germany is

passing through a terrible crisis. I am obliged to stand alone

in defending her liberties and her faith. If I fall, there will

be an end of them. But I have good hope. However great may be

the number of my enemies, I trust in the goodness of my cause,

in the admirable courage of my troops and in the goodwill which

exists from the marshals down to the humblest soldier.”

Then the blow fell and for two days, even at such a crisis, the flow of

political correspondence is checked. His grief finds utterance in an

agonised note to his sister Amelia.

“All kinds of misfortune are overwhelming me at once.... I am

more dead than alive.... Perhaps Heaven has taken away our dear

Mother that she may not see the misfortunes of our House.”

“Yesterday and the day before,” writes Eichel on July 3d, “His

Majesty’s grief has been very great and violent, but today

it is somewhat lessened, because his Majesty has taken into

consideration his duty to his state, his army and his faithful

subjects at the present crisis, and the necessary orders have

somewhat relieved his depression, though there is no lack of

gloomy moments and intervals.”

On the same day the King began to pour out his soul to Mitchell, who

owns himself “most sensibly affected to see him indulging his grief and

giving way to the warmest filial affections.”

Calamity was, however, as impotent as success to teach Frederick good

faith towards his allies. Mitchell had reported on June 30, 1757, that

“he renewed to me on this occasion his firm resolution to hearken to no

terms of peace without His Majesty’s privity and approbation.” On July

9th he describes a further interview in which “His Prussian Majesty

said that, as he resolved to continue firmly united with His Majesty,

it would be for their mutual interests to think of terms of peace,

honourable and safe for both, and to concert together what terms they

would adopt, if a favourable opportunity occurred to propose them.”

Yet between these assurances of fidelity to England Frederick accepted

with enthusiasm an offer made by Wilhelmina to send an envoy to procure

peace with France by bribing the Pompadour.

“I will willingly charge myself with his expenses,” he writes

on July 7th. “He may offer the favourite anything up to 500,000

crowns for peace, and he may raise his offers far higher if at

the same time they would promise to procure us some advantages.

You see all the nicety of which I have need in this affair and

how little I must be seen in it. If England should have the

least wind of it all would be lost.”

Job’s tidings continued to pour in upon the King. In the sunshine of

Kolin the crop sown by Kaunitz was ripening fast. Before July was half

over Frederick learned that the French had seized East Frisia and were

striking east, that the Swedes were sending 17,000 men into Pomerania,

and that the Russians were likely to destroy Lehwaldt in Ost-Preussen.

Thus all his northern frontier was on fire and the army of the Empire

was about to join the Austrians in kindling new conflagrations in the

south. Bohemia, of course, must soon be abandoned, and how would it be

possible to hold Saxony, Silesia, or even Brandenburg against such a

host of foes? Men said that in Voltaire the King of Prussia had lost

his pen and in Schwerin his sword.

In the latter half of the month the situation altered still further

for the worse. While Frederick lay motionless at Leitmeritz on the

Elbe, intent on devouring Bohemia till the last moment, but keeping

open his retreat into Saxony, his eldest brother, Augustus William,

was out-manœuvred by the Austrians further east. Prince Charles, with

inferior numbers, seized one of his posts, outpaced him to Zittau,

burnt the magazine there, and finally compelled him to flee far into

Saxony. Nothing remained but for the indignant King to rescue the heir

to the throne, who had thus opened to the enemy the Lusatian door into

both Saxony and Silesia. On his way Frederick paused to garrison

Pirna, and there, on July 27, 1757, he received what Mitchell terms “a

draught of comfort to one who has not had a single drop since the 18th

June.”

So serious was the crisis that the King had sent orders to Berlin that

at the first news of further disaster in Lusatia the archives and

treasure should be removed to Cüstrin. That very day he had written

a plain account of the situation to convince his ally of England how

desperate was his plight. “If I except Spain, Denmark, Holland, and the

King of Sardinia, I have all Europe against me. Even so, I fear not for

the places where I can set armies against them, but for those where he

who comes will find no one to oppose him.”

Such was the King’s mood when his friend, the ambassador of England,

laid before him with delight the contents of as considerate a despatch

as was ever penned in Whitehall. Sympathy for Kolin, approval of the

new plan of campaign, “entire reliance upon the King of Prussia’s great

military abilities,” a cheerful review of the forces still at his

disposal—all this might be expected from the ministers of George II.

But what followed might well have heaped coals of fire upon Frederick’s

head. His ally, little suspecting the overtures to the Pompadour,

persisted in treating him as a man of honour.

“The hint his Prussian Majesty threw out to you, of an

inclination to peace, is agreeable to the language that Prince

has held from the very beginning of the present troubles in

Germany.... The King will at all times be glad to contribute

to a general pacification, whenever equitable conditions can

be had for himself, the King of Prussia, and their allies ...

the King being determined to take no steps in an affair of this

consequence without his Prussian Majesty’s concurrence and

approbation.”

Then follow solid offers of co-operation with ships and above all with

gold, the latter “only meant as the convenient and proper contingent of

England to her allies.”

Frederick, by Mitchell’s account, received the message

“with a flow of gratitude not to be described. After a short

pause, he said, ‘I am deeply sensible of the King’s and your

nation’s generosity, but I do not wish to be a burden to my

allies; I would have you delay answering this letter till

affairs are ended in Lusatia; if I succeed, I will then consult

with you upon the different points suggested in the letter

and give my opinion freely upon them. If I am beat, there

will be no occasion to answer it at all; it will be out of

your power to save me, and I would not willingly abuse the

generosity of my allies by drawing them into unnecessary and

expensive engagements that can answer no valuable purpose.’ I

was pleased, but not surprised,” the report continues, “with

the noble dignity of this answer, for I have seen the King of

Prussia great in prosperity but greater still in adversity.”

There was, however, little of dignity or greatness in the King’s

treatment of his unlucky brother and heir, whom he met on the road

to Bautzen two days later. It was in the early hours of the morning,

according to the narrative of an eye-witness, the son of one of the

chief delinquents, that Augustus William saw the King and beside him

Winterfeldt and Goltz, two of his own generals, for whom he had waited

a full hour in vain. Each of the royal brothers rode at the head of

his staff, and in Frederick’s train were Prince Henry and Ferdinand

of Brunswick. At a distance of about three hundred paces the King

stopped. Augustus William did the like, and he and his party doffed

hats. The King’s party bowed to them, but Frederick turned his horse

round, dismounted, and lay down upon the ground as though awaiting his

vanguard. He made Winterfeldt and Goltz sit by him. All his officers

dismounted, as did the Prince and his party. Soon Goltz crossed over

to the Prince and said a few words to him, whereupon the Prince called

his officers together and requested him to repeat the King’s message in

their presence. This he did in the following words:

“His Majesty bids me tell Your Royal Highness that he has

cause to be very dissatisfied with you. You deserve that a

court-martial should be held over you, and then you and all the

generals with you would lose your heads. But His Majesty is not

willing to carry the matter so far, because in the General he

would not forget the Brother.”

Augustus William made answer like a brave man, exculpating his

generals, and requesting a strict enquiry into his own conduct. But

the King replied only by putting himself at the head of his vanguard,

which had now come up, and riding on with his staff past the Prince,

always keeping from three to four hundred paces away from him. At

Bautzen he encamped, but still kept at a distance from the fugitives,

lest, suggests Eichel, their fear should contaminate his own officers.

Augustus William, treated like a leper, applied for permission to go

to Dresden. “The Prince may go where he will,” said Frederick to the

lieutenant who bore the letter. He went to Berlin and died of a broken

heart.

If anything could palliate brutality to the merely unfortunate it would

have been the situation in which Frederick was placed by his brother’s

blunder. Despite all his efforts, the Austrians remained masters of

the pass into Lusatia. With French, Swedes, Russians, and Imperialists

all pressing on, it became imperative to dispose of the Austrians by

a second Hohenfriedberg. But Prince Charles was not to be tempted

from the strong position which Daun had chosen with his wonted skill.

After three impatient weeks Frederick decided that the peril from the

French was too acute to permit of further delay in trying to force

the Austrians to give battle. Early in August he received the news of

Cumberland’s downfall at Hastenbeck. Hanover lay at the mercy of the

French under Richelieu, and when on August 25, 1757, the King turned

his face towards the west, Soubise with a second French force and the

army of the Empire was already at Erfurt. Frederick was determined

to maintain his hold on Saxony. Bevern, he decided, must watch the

Austrians, distance and fortune must account for the Russians and

Swedes, while he himself undertook a march of two hundred miles to

muster 20,000 men and lead them against Soubise.

It seemed at first as though the King did wrong to trust in fortune.

On August 30, 1757, the army of Ost-Preussen was vanquished by the

Russians at Gross-Jägersdorf. Frederick, however, kept on his way. In

the middle of September he reached the scene of action, only to suffer

from the caution of Soubise a month of the same torture that Prince

Charles had inflicted in Lusatia. Then he was suddenly called upon to

hurry a hundred miles towards the north-east to drive the Austrians

from his capital. In his absence Prince Charles had moved eastwards

into Silesia and his rearguard of light cavalry, 15,000 strong, seized

a favourable moment for a foray on Berlin. They exacted a ransom of

200,000 thalers from the town, and then made off by forced marches.

Frederick, who feared an invasion in force, was greatly relieved at

the news, which reached him on October 18th. Next day, despairing of

bringing the French to book, he informed Prince Maurice that it was

time to think of chasing the Austrians from Silesia, but on the 23rd he

sent him word that Soubise was after all leaving the hills and marching

straight for Leipzig.

“Here very much is altered in a day,” he added with his own hand. It

was in fact the turning-point of the most marvellous and chequered

year of Frederick’s life. Full of hope, he ordered a concentration

between his own command and those of Ferdinand, Keith, and Maurice.

The sum-total was not great, but the quality and temper of the troops

were incomparable. They were face to face with Frenchmen, of old the

scorners of the German race, which they were wont to conquer by their

arms and to corrupt by their example. Now these invaders were laden

with the spoils of Thuringia. Insolent and infatuated, they were too

proud to see among themselves defects which were patent to Prussian

eyes. It was little wonder that Frederick’s veterans shared the

ardour of their King. “The spirit of the soldiers was remarkable,”

noted Mitchell when they came to Leipzig. “They did not complain of

fatigue, notwithstanding of the long marches, but desired to be led out

immediately, and murmured on being ordered to quarters.”

Three days later their desire was gratified. On the last day of

October, 1757, Frederick was at Weissenfels on the Saale, checked for

the moment because the enemy burned the bridge in his face and held

the line of the river against him. His road from Leipzig had led him

across the dismal plain where Charles XII. held for a moment the fate

of Europe in his hand, past the granite slab which marks the spot where

a greater King of Sweden fell at the head of his men. The region is

memorable in history, but the deed which would have been most notable

of all was averted. At Weissenfels, tradition says, Frederick owed his

life to the chivalry of a French officer who forbade an artilleryman to

pick him off.

[Illustration: FREDERICK VIEWING THE BURNING BRIDGE AT WEISSENFELS.

FROM A RELIEF ON HIS STATUE AT WEISSENFELS.]

The French and Imperialists gave up the line of the Saale, joined

forces, and took up a strong position in the undulating country to the

west. On November 3rd, Frederick crossed the river and expected that

next day the intolerable tension would be at an end. When, however,

he came to reconnoitre the enemy’s position in force he found that to

attack it against odds of two to one would be to invite a second Kolin.

To the exultation of the allies, he drew back under a heavy cannonade

and encamped with his left wing resting on Rossbach. On November 5th,

Eichel, who was lodged at a safe distance, sent word of this fiasco to

the Government, which had taken refuge in Magdeburg. “The whole war,”

wrote this most submissive of Frederick’s slaves, “is of no avail. May

Your Excellency soon make a good peace.” He added a postscript: “At the

moment of closing this, about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, we hear a

very loud cannon-fire and, as it seems, musketry also.” Frederick was

being delivered from his troubles by a game of hide-and-seek.

The King’s object in encamping near Rossbach was to turn the allies’

position, or, failing this, to hang upon their rear when hunger

should compel them to retreat. By the enemy, however, the movement

was attributed to fear. Hot-headed Frenchmen, full of the martial

traditions of their race, urged Soubise to crush a foe whose stroke

they had yet to learn lest his little army should escape them. Vengeful

Saxon voices joined with theirs, while shivering Imperialists, who

for five days had subsisted on what food they could pick up among the

peasants, clamoured for the break-up of the camp. Soubise at last gave

way and planned a second Soor, to be done this time in broad daylight.

Screened by the low hills, the allies were to march round Frederick’s

left and to take him in flank and rear. Believing themselves to be four

times as strong as the King, they feared only lest he should flee to

Merseburg in time.

After a march of some three hours the allies reached a point due south

of Rossbach. With a salutary access of caution, the French proposed to

encamp there, right on Frederick’s flank. But this proposal was angrily

resisted by the Imperialists and Saxons, and at the critical moment

the news came that the Prussians were retreating. It was evident that

they could delay no longer without permitting Frederick to escape. If,

however, they hastened round the eastern end of the long, low ridge

which hid his army from view, they might still take it in flank as it

fled along the road to Merseburg. With this plan in mind, Soubise and

his colleagues cast prudence to the winds. From the first they had

omitted to name a place of retreat or a formation to be adopted in case

they should be attacked. Now their army hurried along pell-mell, with

three generals at the head of the cavalry, the infantry straggling

after as best they might, the French reserves pressing between the

marching columns and the artillery, and the whole flank exposed on the

left, where the low ridge still screened the enemy from their sight.

[Illustration: PLAN OF ROSSBACH, NOVEMBER 5, 1757.]

Behind that ridge Frederick was ranking his men for battle. He, too,

had believed his opponents to be in retreat and received with coarse

taunts and disbelief the report of a lieutenant that they were trying

to outflank him. The sight of their infantry, however, convinced

him that they meant even more than a reconnoissance. At a glance he

saw his opportunity. “In less than two minutes,” writes an onlooker,

“all the tents lay on the ground, as though someone had pulled a

string behind the scenes, and the army was in full march.” At first,

by great luck, the heads of the Prussian columns pointed north-east

towards Merseburg, and thus the allies were deluded into the belief

that they were in retreat. Then, hidden by the ridge, they moved east

and finally south-east, converging towards the enemy. In the waning

November afternoon they formed line and waited unseen, cannon massed on

the right, Prince Henry with the infantry in the centre, on the extreme

left Seydlitz, the prince of dragoons, smoking his short clay pipe till

the King should order the charge.

Little more than an hour after the Prussians struck their tents they

were dashing at the open flank of the allies, and ere another hour had

passed Frederick’s western frontier was saved. The so-called battle of

Rossbach would be better named the drove of Reichartswerben. But for

the slaughter inevitable when the best troops in the world swooped down

upon a mob, the encounter would have been a pure farce. First Seydlitz

by repeated charges drove the cavalry of the allies off the field.

Then, to the accompaniment of a heavy cannonade, Prince Henry led the

infantry down the slope and poured swift volleys into the medley out of

which Soubise was vainly struggling to form a line of battle. Some of

the French, Swiss, and West-German troops showed fight, the rest fled.

Finally Seydlitz fell upon their rear and the butchery was checked only

by darkness. At the cost of about five hundred men Frederick destroyed

an army of nearly fifty thousand and made himself the hero of the

Teutonic race. He jeered at the vanquished enemy in blasphemous French

verses and set to work to reap the fruits of victory.

Everywhere save in Silesia the aspect of affairs was changing in his

favour. A report that Elizabeth was dying caused the Russians to

withdraw from Ost-Preussen just when their victory had placed it at

their mercy. Lehwaldt was therefore set free to undertake the defence

of Pomerania against the Swedes. England, inspired by Pitt, was proving

herself a worthy ally against France. A new army was formed for the

defence of Hanover. The command was offered to Prince Ferdinand, and

British soldiers were to serve under him. For the present year at

least, the North and West might be accounted safe. But from the Eastern

theatre of war the news was bad. Prince Charles had followed Bevern

into Silesia and now stood between him and Schweidnitz. Not a moment

was to be lost if the King would save this important fortress.

Once more, however, Prussian speed was equal to all demands. Two days

after Rossbach Frederick was already on his way. “I will leave you

as strong a corps as I can on this side,” he writes to Keith, “and

march unceasingly for Silesia. A toilsome year for me!” In good heart

after Rossbach, he strongly approved of Bevern’s resolve to attack

the Austrians. “For God’s sake have no fear of a weak enemy,” he

wrote, “but trust to your own insight and experience.” But the days of

Schwerin and the Old Dessauer were over. Except Henry and Ferdinand,

Frederick had now no general from whom he could expect victories like

his own. While he strode swiftly through Saxony Silesia was lost. On

November 18, 1757, at Königsbrück, he learned that Schweidnitz had

fallen without a blow. The confused reproaches and threats which he

poured out upon Bevern and his generals were futile, for on the 22nd

Prince Charles drove the Prussians from Breslau across the Oder, and

within the week the capital was Austrian once more.

Before the news of Breslau reached him Frederick had declared to Bevern

that he was firmly resolved to attack the enemy, but that it must be

with their united forces, “else I am too weak and not much over 12,000

strong.” Next day, November 24th, at Naumburg on the Queiss the report

reached him that Bevern had gained a victory. He therefore planned to

catch Prince Charles in a net at Neumarkt by marching from Liegnitz

to meet Bevern sallying forth from Breslau. He even hinted that Keith

might surprise Prague, and wrote to Ferdinand: “With good fortune I

flatter myself that I shall finish this business in a fortnight.” “The

Almighty shows us one great mercy after another,” wrote Eichel. Next

day they learned part of the truth, though rumour multiplied fourfold

the Austrian loss of 6000. “Defend Breslau to the last man—on peril of

your head,” was the sum of Frederick’s orders to his brother-in-law,

accompanied by much military counsel and a promise of speedy aid. But

soon the news came that Bevern was a prisoner, that his army had fled

to Glogau, worst of all, that Breslau had capitulated without firing

a shot. Thousands of the garrison voluntered to serve Maria Theresa.

It is said that one battalion quitted the capital in a strength of

nine officers and four men. After sixteen years Silesia seemed to be

welcoming home its Queen.

For a fortnight Frederick’s army had struggled along bad roads at

the astonishing rate of nearly sixteen miles a day. They drew rein

at Parchwitz, within two marches of Breslau. There on November 28th

the King composed a short testament. “I will be buried at Sans Souci

without pomp or ceremony—and by night,” was his decree. “... If the

battle be won, my brother must none the less send a messenger to France

with full powers to negotiate for peace.” The words show how completely

he identified himself with Prussia amid circumstances so gloomy that

Eichel forbore, ever after, to mention the document lest he should

recall them to the mind of the King. Yet on the same day Frederick

wrote one of his most characteristic letters to Wilhelmina, who had

expressed her fear that the army vanquished at Rossbach would afflict

Germany anew. “This is now our task,” ran his reply:

“to put the Austrians to flight and to recover all that we have

lost; and it is no trifle. However, I am undertaking it at the

risk of what may follow. Neither Soubise nor the Imperialists

will come back this year: as for the future, we must hope for

peace, for indeed it seems as though our enemies had determined

to destroy the human race.... I beg you to await the issue in

these parts with patience; neither our anxiety nor our care

make any difference to it, and nothing will happen except

what pleases His Sacred Majesty Chance.... If I reach winter

quarters, I shall have the honour of sending you a prodigious

quantity of verse of every kind.”

Needless to say, Frederick’s fatalism did not abate his energy, nor

against such odds did his courage degenerate into rashness. He gave

the command of Bevern’s ruined army to Zieten, who had defeated the

enemy’s right in the battle of Breslau, and bade him bring men and guns

from Glogau. Then he and his weary 14,000 waited four full days at

Parchwitz, with Prince Charles’s victorious army to their front, the

garrison of Liegnitz on their flank, and Austrian slowness letting slip

the opportunity to attack.

On December 2nd, Zieten arrived at Parchwitz, having rallied some

18,000 men. Frederick had now an army about 32,000 strong, well

furnished with cavalry and artillery. His plan had from the first been

as clear as the task before him. He was resolved to perish rather than

abandon Silesia. The Austrians held the province by means of an army

and two strong places, Breslau and Schweidnitz. He must therefore

first beat the army and then capture the strong places. The advent of

December forbade long manœuvring in the hope of catching Prince Charles

at a disadvantage. To save Silesia this year and Prussia next, he must

lead his army straight to the enemy. The problem that he expected to

find resembled the problem of Prague and of Kolin—to destroy an army

not inferior in numbers posted in ground of its own choosing. Prince

Charles, he believed, had his back to Breslau and his front protected

by a stream of some size. “He is in an advantageous camp,” wrote Eichel

on December 1st, “well furnished with artillery; he lives on our

magazines, and the possession of Breslau gives him liberty to retire in

any case across the Oder, from which God preserve us!” The ejaculation

reminds us that if the Austrian force remained in being, Frederick

would be foiled.

The King was determined to venture all upon a battle. That he

appreciated the odds against him is not entirely clear. Writing to his

brother Henry on November 30th, he declares himself hopeful of pitting

36,000 men against the 39,000 at which he estimates the Austrian force.

Next day he alters the former number to 39,000, and Eichel states that

“According to many letters from his officers which we have

intercepted, the enemy has lost more than 24,000 men, as well

as 8000 at the siege of Schweidnitz; he has suffered much from

sickness; half of his cavalry is ruined; yet notwithstanding

all this he must be equal if not superior in numbers to

ourselves.”

On the other hand, Prussian tradition represents the King as declaring

on December 3rd that, contrary to all the rules of war, he would attack

Prince Charles’s army wherever he found it, though it was nearly

thrice as strong as his own. But whatever be the truth,—whether or

no he would have done what he had declined to do on the day before

Rossbach, whether or no he knew or guessed the truth that Prince

Charles had 80,000 men,—Frederick spared no effort to fill every

soldier with his own spirit. Rest and food and drink, the story of

Rossbach to chase away the memory of Breslau, all these were showered

upon an army which since adversity had purged it of its foreign

elements responded with eager loyalty to the touch of the Prussian King.

Stripping off his cherished French manners, he was for a brief space

the Father of his people. The news flew round the army that the King

had bandied rough pleasantries with his grenadiers, that veterans had

called him “Thou” and “Fritz,” that he had told the Pomeranians that

without them he would not dare to give battle. The effect was magical,

and the rank and file caught the glow which warmed the breasts of their

superiors. For Frederick had done what he had perhaps never yet deigned

to do, save when he quitted his capital in 1740 to grasp Silesia. He

had called his officers together and appealed in impassioned phrases

to their honour, their loyalty, and their patriotism. “Gentlemen,” he

cried, “the enemy stand in their entrenchments armed to the teeth.

We must attack them there, and conquer, or remain every one of us

on the field. If any of you is unwilling, he may have his discharge

at once and go home.” Then he paused. The devoted men were silent,

many in tears, only one major cried out: “High time for such wretched

scoundrels to be off.” Frederick smiled and declared that he was sure

of their faithful service and of victory. He then denounced stern

threats against the man or regiment who should fail in the hour of

battle. “Farewell, gentlemen,” were his concluding words; “soon we beat

the enemy or we see one another no more.” More than twenty years later

the rough soldiers wept like children as they told the tale, and those

who heard it could not keep back their tears.

On Sunday, December 4, 1757, King and army set out for Breslau. From

Parchwitz to the walls of the city the distance is some thirty-two

miles as the crow flies. The road runs through Neumarkt, about

twenty-three miles from Breslau, and Lissa, a little more than

nine. That evening Neumarkt was in Prussian hands, and besides the

little town 80,000 Austrian rations of bread, welcome in themselves,

but far more welcome for the news which they conveyed. “The fox,”

cried Frederick, “has crept out of his hole, now I will punish his

presumption.”

On December 2nd, the day of Zieten’s junction with the King, the

Austrians had indeed determined to attack. The reason for this fatal

decision was by no means over-confidence born of success. Prince

Charles was very far from despising the adversary who had defeated him

on four stricken fields. With almost nervous anxiety, in spite of his

80,000 men, he sought to be informed of every movement in Frederick’s

camp at Parchwitz. It is true that Austrian policy would be best served

if the Queen were to regain Silesia without the armies of her allies.

It is false that she ordered the army of Silesia to give battle at

any cost. Before and after the fight Prince Charles stated expressly

that his generals were unanimous in favour of marching on Neumarkt.

The object was to save Liegnitz from Frederick and to prevent him from

making his position too strong.

Both combatants, therefore, made for Neumarkt on the same day, and the

forward movement of the Austrians was only quickened when they learned

that the Prussians had chased their vanguard from the town. On the

night of December 4th the armies lay within a few miles of each other.

The Prussians were exulting in the news that Prince Charles had crossed

the two streams which rendered his old position so formidable that

Frederick had enrolled 800 volunteers for the first attack.

With an army tuned to the highest pitch and a King who knew every

rood of the ground on the road to Breslau, the Prussians advanced to

give battle. Before five o’clock on the dismal morning of December 5,

1757, they were on the march, Frederick in the van, and only a single

battalion left in Neumarkt with the baggage. The exact position of the

Austrians was not known to them as they hastened through the broken

country east of Neumarkt towards the champaign west of Leuthen. If the

enemy had placed this champaign at their back, the attack would still

be hampered by the ground.

The Prussians had espied watch-fires on a height to the south of the

great road a few miles east of Neumarkt—a height from which in daylight

both the towers of Neumarkt and the farms and cottages of Leuthen may

be seen. Was this an Austrian wing? To their delight it proved to be

only a vanguard. Three regiments of Saxon light horse, heroes of Kolin,

had been placed there with two of Imperial hussars to collect the wreck

of the Neumarkt garrison and to watch the road to Breslau. They clung

too closely to their task and were crushed by the Prussian vanguard.

Eleven officers and 540 men were taken prisoner, many fell, and the

rest fled wildly to alarm the Austrian right. Frederick could with

difficulty check the mad pursuit of his hussars, who drew bridle almost

within cannon-shot of the enemy.

The King’s spirits rose yet higher when he learned from the prisoners

that Prince Charles had left most of his heavy guns in Breslau. He

indulged his advancing columns with the sight of the captured troopers

filing past them to Neumarkt and again condescended to repartee. “Why

did you forsake me?” he asked a Frenchman who had previously deserted

from the Prussian army. “Indeed, your Majesty,” the man replied, “our

position is too hopeless.” “Well,” said the King, “let us strike one

more blow to-day, and if I am beaten we will both desert to-morrow.”

[Illustration: PLAN OF LEUTHEN, DECEMBER 5, 1757.]

As the gathering daylight revealed Prince Charles’s army Frederick’s

confidence was more than ever justified. The Austrian position, chosen

perhaps to cover three routes to Breslau, was far too extensive. Their

line, which stretched from Nippern due south across the highroad, then

on behind Leuthen village as far as Sagschütz and the pine-clad hill

beyond, was not less than five miles long and unprotected for the

most part by the ground. Only the right wing, where the Italian Luchesi

was in command, was defended in front and flank by hills and woods and

marshes. These made it practically impossible for the Prussians to

attack at any point between Nippern and the highroad, and if they fell

upon the centre Luchesi might advance through the wood and take them in

flank.

Prince Charles, who knew something of Frederick’s methods, would have

done well to strengthen his left. But on the day of Leuthen, Fortune

seemed resolved to favour the side which trusted most to her help. By

design or by accident, Frederick’s movements were such as to convince

Luchesi that the Prussians were about to hurl all their strength upon

him. While the King reconnoitred, the heads of his columns remained

pointing in the direction of their line of march and thus seemed to

threaten the Austrian right. In each of the great battles of this year,

at Prague, at Kolin, and in a sense also at Rossbach, it was the right

wing of the allies upon which the Prussians fell. Now when he saw

Frederick diligently inspecting his own quarter of the field Luchesi

insisted on being reinforced. His clamour prevailed and, at the moment

when Frederick began the movement towards Leuthen and Sagschütz, Daun

was galloping with cavalry from the centre and left towards Nippern,

the point most distant from the danger.

The Prussian army this day surpassed itself in the swift precision of

its movements. No sooner was the King’s plan formed than Maurice and

Zieten were ranking the eager veterans for their mysterious march due

south—parallel with the Austrian line of battle and in part hidden from

its view by the undulations of the ground. Frederick rode along the

ridge between the armies and exulted as he marked the mistake of Daun.

For some two miles he might, for all the Austrians knew, be in retreat.

Then as the ground sinks into a plain he drew nearer to the enemy’s

left and hurled all his strength upon it.

Frederick and his 32,000 men had only some four hours of daylight in

which to overthrow a host nearly 80,000 strong. Despite the tension the

Prussian machine worked perfectly. The complicated attack in oblique

order was accomplished as never before or after, and an invincible

assault began. By steady valour, not by desperate onrush, the infantry

cleared the height near Sagschütz and in perhaps fifteen minutes they

took the battery which crowned it. The Austrians and Bavarians made

furious efforts to regain what the flight of their comrades from

Würtemburg had sacrificed. Nothing, however, could now withstand

the disciplined onset of the Prussians, who swept before them the

shattered regiments and the breathless supports who hurried to their

aid. Hindered by ditches, the Prussian cavalry had as yet been able to

give little help, but the irresistible advance of the infantry brought

them at length to better ground and Zieten completed the ruin of the

Austrian left.

[Illustration: THE CHARGE OF THE WALLOON DRAGOONS AT KOLIN.

FROM A RELIEF ON THE MONUMENT OF VICTORY NEAR KŘEČHOŘ, UNVEILED 1898.]

In numbers, however, Prince Charles was still superior to his

assailants. He might fairly ascribe the disaster on his left to the

blunder by which the Würtembergers, mere auxiliaries, were entrusted

with the key of the position. Out of his unbroken centre and right

he formed a new line of battle of which Leuthen village was the key.

Leuthen, with a wall of men and a hasty breastwork in front of it, with

its courtyards and churchyard packed with men, and behind it men in

thick masses with cannon, might surely be held until Luchesi and his

cavalry could come to the rescue on the right.

The advanced guard was soon driven off by the terrible fire of the

Prussians, whose heavy guns now and throughout the battle tore

frightful gaps in the crowded ranks of the enemy. But the village

proved a formidable obstacle to their progress. House after house had

to be stormed, and the churchyard was most difficult of all. At last

the Prussians carried Leuthen. Then, however, they were exposed to the

batteries behind and for perhaps an hour a furious conflict raged on

something like equal terms. Frederick sent his left wing into action,

but still the Austrians stood firm. But again, when already three of

the four hours of daylight were spent, Luchesi proved to be the evil

genius of his side. Coming up with his cavalry, he took the Prussian

infantry in flank, only to be himself outflanked, crushed, and killed

by a concealed reserve of Prussian cavalry. The panic produced by this

sudden onslaught spread to the infantry, and the Prussians pressed

home their advantage with a bayonet charge. At last the Austrians were

beaten. They flung away their muskets, forsook their guns, and fled

wildly towards Breslau. A regiment which strove to cover their flight

was reduced to one officer and eight men.

As at Rossbach, darkness robbed the victors of the full fruit of their

success. The Prussian loss of one man in five proved that Leuthen was

no easy triumph. But they struck down 10,000 men and captured 12,000,

they put to flight an army nearly three times as great as their own,

and they won Silesia and undying fame.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]