Frederick the Great

“ He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 61.
39
No, notwithstanding your virtues, notwithstanding your attractions,
My soul is not satisfied.
No, you are but a coquette;
You subjugate the hearts of others, and do not give your own.
40 In this wicked world power seldom respects weakness. ”

“ The story of Frederick the Great is a story of incessant wars, wars against frightful odds, for all Europe was combined against him, and for seven years the Austrians, the French, the Russians, and the Swedes surrounded his realm, with the bitter determination to crush him, if not to annihilate the Prussian kingdom. ”

“ Among all the renowned warriors of the past, but few can be found who have contributed more to fill the world with desolated homes, with the moans of the dying, with the cry of the widow and the orphan, than Frederick the Great ”

“ The student who reviews the life-work of Frederick without either the sympathy or the bias of German patriotism may return a calmer answer to the question,—Is Frederick rightly termed “The Great”? Having followed the main steps in his long career, we may at its close sift out and set down those qualities and achievements, if such exist, which entitle him not merely to a place among the great, but to a place in that small circle of the world’s heroes whose memory is so illustrious that greatness is always coupled with their names. ”

“ I prepare myself for every event. Fortune may be kind or be unkind, it shall neither dishearten me nor uplift me. If I am to perish, let it be with honor, and sword in hand.”
Frederick was, with great energy, gathering all his resources for a decisive conflict in his fortresses along the banks of the Neisse. ”

“ Few royal princes ever had a more unfortunate childhood and youth than Frederick the Great. His mother, Sophia Dorothea of Hannover, a sister of George II. of England, was an amiable, mild-tempered woman who was devotedly attached to him, but had no power to protect him from the violence of his hard and tyrannical father. As a boy his chief tastes were music and French literature, which he could only indulge by stealth: the king not only called him "idiot!" ”

“ Their wings of foragers and skirmishers were widely extended, so that the hungry army swept with desolation a breadth of country reaching out many leagues. Though the Austrian army was traversing the friendly territory of Bohemia, still Prince Charles was anxious to leave behind him no resources for Frederick to glean. Frederick, with his army, pressed along, following the wide-spread trail of his foes. The Austrians, with great skill, selected every commanding position on which to erect their batteries, and hurl back a storm of shot and shell into the bosoms of their pursuers. ”

“ It is no exaggeration to say that the writings which Frederick the Great addressed to posterity are the arcana imperii of modern Germany. Those who desire to learn the secret of Germany's strength, wealth, and efficiency, should therefore most carefully study the teachings of Frederick the Great. ”

“ King Frederick has been happy; he does not even remember that more than two years of calm content and enjoyment have been granted him—two years in which he dared lay aside his sword, and rest quietly upon his laurels. This happy season had been rich in blessings; bringing its laughing tribute of perfumed roses and blooming myrtles. Two years of such happiness seems almost miraculous in the life of a king.
Our happy days are ever uneventful. True love is silent and retiring; it does not speak its rapture to the profane world, but hides itself in the shadows of holy solitude and starry night. ”

“ Early the next morning Frederick commenced the vigorous pursuit of the retiring foe. A storm arose. For twelve hours the rain fell in torrents. But the Prussian army was impelled onward, through the mud, and through the swollen streams, inspired by the almost supernatural energy which glowed in the bosom of its king. It seemed as if no hardships, sufferings, or perils could induce those iron men, who by discipline had been converted into mere machines, to wander from the ranks or to falter on the way. ”

“ He was the son of wealthy parents in Berlin, and had been a preacher. The death of a beloved wife, leaving him with an only daughter, had plunged him into the profoundest melancholy. Frederick, when Crown Prince, took a great fancy to him, making him nominally his reader, giving him charge of his library. He is represented as a man of small figure, genial, and affectionate, of remarkable vivacity, very courteous, and one who was ever careful never, by word or action, to give pain to others.
48 His next younger brother, Augustus William, who had accompanied him on the expedition. ”

“ With this army—forty-nine thousand strong—Frederick was to advance, by one short day’s march, upon Iglau, where the Austrian garrison amounted to but ten thousand men.
In the mean time, on the 24th of January, Charles Albert, King of Bavaria, through the intrigues of the French minister and the diplomacy of Frederick, was chosen Emperor of Germany. This election Frederick regarded as a great triumph on his part. It was the signal defeat of Austria. Very few of the sons of Adam have passed a more joyless and dreary earthly pilgrimage than was the fortune of Charles Albert. ”

“ When the sun is most lustrous, we turn away our eyes, lest they be blinded by his rays; but when clouds and darkness are around about us, we look up curiously and questioningly. King Frederick's sun is no longer clear and dazzling, dark clouds are passing over it; a shadow from these clouds has fallen upon the young and handsome face of the king, quenched the flashing glance of his eye, and checked the rapid beating of his heart. ”

“ In a letter which Frederick wrote from Loo to Voltaire, dated August 6th, we find the following sentiments:
“I write from a place where there lived once a great man,27 which is now the Prince of Orange’s house. The demon of ambition sheds its unhappy poisons over his days. He might be the most fortunate of men, and he is devoured by chagrins in his beautiful palace here, in the middle of his gardens and of a brilliant court.” ”

“ Those who were not killed outright were wounded, and were taken captive. This is one of the “slight pleasantries” of war.
Frederick’s army was now in a state of great destitution. The region around was so stripped of its resources that it could afford his foragers no more supplies. It was difficult for him to fill his baggage-trains even in Silesia, so much had that country been devastated by war; and wherever any of his supply wagons appeared, swarms of Austrian dragoons hovered around, attacking and destroying them. To add to the embarrassments of the Prussian king, his purse was empty. ”

“ But Albert passed away before he was so much as able to visit the Empire, and in the long reign of his kinsman and successor Frederick III (1440-93) the imperial authority sunk down to its lowest point. A cold, phlegmatic, slow and unenterprising prince, Frederick of Austria busied himself with no great plans of reform or aggression, but seemed absorbed in gardening, in alchemy, and in astrology rather than in affairs of State. Under his nerveless rule the Luxemburg claims over Bohemia and Hungary passed utterly away. ”

“ The king was not at all pleased either with his son’s studies or his recreations. Philosophy and literature were as obnoxious to the sturdy old monarch as were music and all amusements save the rough pastime of hunting stags and boars. He was a thorough materialist, having no other thought than to drill his troops and develop the resources of his realm. ”

“ After losing fourteen thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, forty-five cannon, and twenty-two flags, Frederick was compelled to order a retreat. His magnificent regiment of guards, one thousand in number, picked men, undoubtedly the best body of troops in the world, was almost annihilated. The loss of the Austrians was about nine thousand men. They were so accustomed to be defeated by Frederick that they were equally surprised and delighted by this dearly-earned victory. ”

“ Still the conquerors had such dread of their foe that they dared not emerge from their ramparts to pursue him. Had they done so, they might easily have captured or slain his whole army. Frederick bore adversity with great apparent equanimity. He did not for a moment lose self-control, or manifest any agitation.416 With great skill he conducted his retreat. Immediately after the battle he wrote to his friend Lord Marischall:
“Prosperity, my dear lord, often inspires a dangerous confidence. ”

“ Frederick, highly elated by the wonderful and almost miraculous change in his affairs, entered his carriage in company with his two brothers, and drove rapidly toward Berlin. The next day,373 at two o’clock in the afternoon, they reached the heath of Britz, five miles out from the city. Here the king found an immense concourse of the citizens, who had come on horseback and in carriages to escort him to his palace. Frederick sat in an open phaeton, accompanied by the Prince of Prussia and Prince Henry. The throng was so great that the horses could only proceed at the slowest pace. ”

“ Frederick divided his retreating army into two columns. One, led by the young Leopold, was to retire through Glatz. The other, led by Frederick, traversed a road a few leagues to the west, passing through Königgratz. It was an awful retreat for both these divisions—through snow, and sleet, and mud, hungry, weary, freezing, with swarms of Pandours hanging upon their rear. Thousands perished by the way. The horrors of such a retreat no pen can describe. Their very guides deserted them, and became spies, to report their movements to the foe. ”

“ The victory of Frederick was one of the most memorable in the annals of war. The Austrians lost in killed and wounded ten thousand men. Twenty-one thousand were taken prisoners. This was a heavier loss in numbers than the whole army of Frederick. The victors also took fifty-one flags, and a hundred and sixteen cannon.
As the king cast his eye over the blood-stained field, covered with the wounded and the dead, for a moment he seemed overcome with the aspect of misery, and exclaimed, “When, oh when will my woes cease?” ”

“ Thou knowest the chances of war. The life of kings is not more regarded than that of private people. I know not what will happen to me.
“If my destiny is finished, remember a friend who loves thee always tenderly. If Heaven prolong my days, I will write to thee after to-morrow, and thou shalt hear of our victory. Adieu, dear friend; I shall love thee till death.
Frederick.”
It is worthy of notice that there is no indication that the king sent any word of affectionate remembrance to his neglected wife. ”

“ It is enough to immortalize Frederick, and to rank him among the greatest generals. It develops, in the highest degree, both his moral and his military qualities.”
Voltaire, in summing up a sketch of this campaign of 1757, writes in characteristic phrase:
“Even Gustavus Adolphus never did such great things. One must, indeed, pardon Frederick his verses, his sarcasms, and his little malices. All the faults of the man disappear before the glory of the hero.” ”

“ He drained bogs, planted colonies, established manufactures, and in every way encouraged the use of Prussian products. He carried with him invariably a stout rattan cane. Upon the slightest provocation, like a madman, he would thrash those who displeased him. He was thoroughly an arbitrary king, ruling at his sovereign will, and disposing of the liberty, the property, and the lives of his subjects at his pleasure. Every year he was accumulating large masses of coin, which he deposited in barrels in the cellar of his palace. ”

“ Through night and storm, almost without sleep and without food, drenched and chilled, he was galloping over the hills and through the valleys,244 climbing the steeples, fording the streams, wading the morasses, involved in a struggle which now threatened even the crown which he had so recently placed upon his brow. Had Frederick alone suffered, but few tears of sympathy would have been shed in his behalf; but his ambition had stirred up a conflict which was soon to fill all Europe with the groans of the dying, the tears of the widow, the wailings of the orphan. ”

“ There were nearly thirty thousand men, infantry and cavalry, thus assembling under the banners of Frederick for battle. They were in as perfect state of drill as troops have ever attained, and were armed with the most potent implements of war which that age could furnish. The king was visibly affected by the spectacle. Whether humane considerations touched his heart, or merely poetic emotion moved him, we can not tell. But he was well aware that within a few hours not merely hundreds, but thousands of those men, torn by shot and shell, would be prostrate in their blood upon the plain ”

“ Yet there was no very great or essential dissimilarity between the condition of Germany under Frederick III and that of the France of the Armagnac and Burgundian feuds. The elements of political life were in each case the same. There was a monarchy whose great history was still remembered even in the days of its impotence and ruin. There was a real sense of national life, a consciousness so strong that it could bend even the selfish instincts of feudal nobles into cherishing an ambition wider and more patriotic than that of making themselves little kings over their own patrimony. ”