The camp was so utterly destroyed that Frederick could not even obtain pen and ink. He was obliged to write with a pencil. Not a loaf of bread nor a cup of wine was left for the exhausted king. The hungry soldiers, after a conflict of five hours, having had neither breakfast nor dinner, found no refreshments awaiting them; yet, without a murmur, they smoked their pipes, drank some spring water, and rejoiced in their great victory.
FORE:His withdrawal from the French alliance removed the menace from the English Hanoverian possession. George II. eagerly sent an army of sixty thousand men to the aid of Maria Theresa against France, and freely opened to her his purse. The French were defeated every where. They were driven from Prague in one of the most disastrous wintry retreats of blood and misery over which the demon of war ever gloated. The powerless, penniless emperor, the creature of France, who had neither purse nor army, was driven, a fugitive and a vagabond, from his petty realm of Bavaria, and was exposed to humiliation, want, and insult.Olmütz was ninety miles from Troppau, in Silesia, where Frederick had established his base of supplies. This was a long line of communication to protect. General Daun, with a numerous Austrian army, all whose movements were veiled by clouds of those fleet and shaggy horsemen called Pandours, was forty miles to the west, at Leutomischel. Cautious in the extreme, nothing could draw him into a general battle. But he watched his foe with an eagle eye, continually assailing his line of communication, and ever ready to strike his heaviest blows upon any exposed point.
ONE:Frederick paid no regard to the remonstrance of the emperor. The bishop, in his distress, applied to the French for aid, and then to the Dutch, but all in vain. He then sent an embassy to Berlin, proposing to purchase Herstal. The king consented to sell upon the same terms his father had offered, adding to the sum the expenses of his military expedition and other little items, bringing the amount up to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The money was paid, and the Herstal difficulty was settled. This was Fredericks first act of foreign diplomacy. Many severely censured him for the violent course he pursued with a power incapable of resistance. All admitted the energy and sagacity which he had developed in the affair.The severity of discipline in the Prussian army was dreadful. The slightest misdemeanor was punished mercilessly. The drill, exposure, and hardships in the camp made life to the soldier a scene of constant martyrdom. Desertion was almost impossible. The only avenue of escape was suicide. In the little garrison at Potsdam, in ten years, over three hundred, by self-inflicted death, escaped their miseries. Dr. Zimmerman states that it not unfrequently happened that a soldier murdered a child, and then came and gave himself up to justice. They thought that if they committed379 suicide they would be subject to eternal punishment. But the murdered infant was sure to go to heaven, and the murderer would have time to repent and make his peace with God.
TWO:Let him learn arithmetic, mathematics, artillery, economy, to the very bottom; history in particular; ancient history only slightly, but the history of the last hundred and fifty years to the exactest pitch. He must be completely master of geography, as also of whatever is remarkable in each country. With increasing years you will more and more, to an especial degree, go upon fortification, the formation of a camp, and other war sciences, that the prince may, from youth upward, be trained to act as officer and general, and to seek all his glory in the soldier profession. You have, in the highest measure, to make it your care to infuse into my son a true love for the soldier business, and to impress on him that, as there is nothing in the world which can bring a prince renown and honor like the sword, so he would be a despised creature before all men if he did not love it and seek his glory therein.There is the forgiveness of enemies. Your majesty is bound to forgive all men. If you do not do this, how can you ask to be forgiven?
THREE:The Prince of Soubise had rendezvoused fifty thousand French and Saxon troops at Erfurt, about a hundred and seventy miles west of Dresden. He had also, scattered around at different posts, easily accessible, a hundred thousand more well-armed and well-disciplined troops. Frederick took twenty-three thousand men and marched to assail these foes in almost despairing battle. To plunge with so feeble a band into such a mass of enemies seemed to be the extreme of recklessness.
FORE:I have been to Lebus. There is excellent land there; fine weather for the husbandmen. Major R?der passed this way, and dined with me last Wednesday. He has got a fine fellow for my most all-gracious fathers regiment. I depend on my most all-gracious fathers grace that he will be good to me. I128 ask for nothing, and for no happiness in the world but what comes from him; and hope that he will some day remember me in grace, and give me the blue coat to put on again.
The five great powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to ruin the Marquis of Brandenburg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan, think they, for the next campaign, collecting funds, studying about magazines for man and horse; or is he deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of it. He is sitting peaceably in his room feeding his dogs.165Old Prince Leopold of Dessau, whom he had left in command of the army in Silesia, was one of the most extraordinary men of any age. He invented the iron ramrod, and also all modern military tactics. The soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on the parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command. Out of his rough head proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable drill-sergeants in various languages repeat and enforce.80149 The queen can not console herself for this reverse. She vents her despair in the abuse of that poor princess. She wanted me to refuse the marriage decidedly, and told me that she should not mind my quarreling again with the king provided I would only show firmness, in which case she would be well able to support me. I would not follow her advice, and declared to her plainly that I did not choose to incur the displeasure of my father, which had already caused me so much suffering.The thought alone, he wrote, of your death, my dear Suhm, affords me an argument in proof of the immortality of the soul. For is it possible that the spirit which acts in you with so much clearness, brightness, and intelligence, which is so different from matter and from bodythat fine soul endowed with so many solid virtues and agreeable qualitiesis it possible that this should not be immortal? No! I would maintain in solid argument that, if the greatest part of the world were to be annihilated,426 you, Voltaire, Boileau, Newton, Wolfius, and some other geniuses of this order must be immortal.107CHAPTER VIII. DEVELOPMENTS OF CHARACTER.THE BATTLE OF PRAGUE, MAY 6, 1757.Hardly, he replied, in that dress. Besides, your majesty has grown thinner.
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