The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

In the Seven Years' War Prussia stood practically alone against the united strength of all Europe; and it was the success of her King, Frederick, in withstanding the assaults of the vast and determined coalition that won him from the unanimous voice of military critics the title of the "Great." The tremendous conflict, the most gigantic in Europe, between the Thirty Years' War and the French Revolution, was the natural outcome of that earlier contest in which Frederick had seized Silesia. If this strong and able monarch was the type of the new spirit of doubt and endless questioning which had begun to permeate Europe, his chief antagonist, Maria Theresa, was no less emblematic of all that was noblest in the older, conservative Catholicism which Frederick defied. Maria Theresa never forgot her loss of Silesia. It was said of her that she could not see a Silesian without weeping, and with steady patience she set herself to draw all Europe into an alliance against Frederick.

Her rival's caustic tongue helped her purpose. He gave personal offence not only to Elizabeth, the ruler of Russia, but to Madame Pompadour, the real sovereign of France under Louis XV. Both of these ladies urged their countries against the insulter. The three leading powers of continental Europe having thus leagued against Prussia, the lesser states soon joined them. Only England stood outside the coalition. Her war with France originating in the colonies and on the ocean, led her into an alliance with Prussia. But England was safe on her island, and few of her troops fought upon the Continent. She sent Frederick some money help; part of the time she kept the French troops from his frontier; that was all.

The succession of Frederick's remarkable battles are too numerous to detail. In one campaign he crushed the French at Rossbach, and overthrew the Austrians at Leuthen. Then he defeated the Russians at Zorndorf. Torgau was his last great triumph, and therefore his own account of that contest is here presented in connection with the concise narrative of the entire war by the standard German historian, Menzel. Frederick was a vigorous writer as well as a great fighter, and it is only fair to caution the reader against accepting too fully the perhaps unconscious egotism of the monarch's personal view. Some critics consider General Zieten the real winner of this battle.

WOLFGANG MENZEL

In the autumn of 1756, Frederick, unexpectedly and without previously declaring war, invaded Saxony, of which he speedily took possession, and shut up the little Saxon army, thus taken unawares on the Elbe at Pirna. A corps of Austrians, who were also equally unprepared to take the field, hastened, under the command of Browne, to their relief, but were, on October 1st, defeated at Lowositz, and the fourteen thousand Saxons under Rutowsky at Pirna were in consequence compelled to lay down their arms, the want to which they were reduced by the failure of their supplies having already driven them to the necessity of eating hair-powder mixed with gunpowder. Augustus III and Bruhl fled with such precipitation that the secret archives were found by Frederick at Dresden.

The Electress vainly strove to defend them by placing herself in front of the chest; she was forcibly removed by the Prussian grenadiers, and Frederick justified the suddenness of his attack upon Saxony by the publication of the plans of his enemies. He remained during the whole of the winter in Saxony, furnishing his troops from the resources of the country. It was here that his chamberlain, Glasow, attempted to take him off by poison, but, meeting by chance one of the piercing glances of the King, tremblingly let fall the cup and confessed his criminal design, the inducement for which has ever remained a mystery, to the astonished King.

The allies, surprised and enraged at the suddenness of the attack, took the field, in the spring of 1757, at the head of an enormous force. Half a million men were levied, Austria and France furnishing each about one hundred fifty thousand, Russia one hundred thousand, Sweden twenty thousand, the German empire sixty thousand. These masses were, however, not immediately assembled on the same spot, were, moreover, badly commanded and far inferior in discipline to the seventy thousand Prussians brought against them by Frederick. The war was also highly unpopular, and created great discontent among the Protestant party in the empire.

On the departure of Charles of Wuertemberg for the Imperial army, his soldiery mutinied, and, notwithstanding their reduction to obedience, the general feeling among the Imperial troops was so much opposed to the war that most of the troops deserted and a number of the Protestant soldiery went over to Frederick. The Prussian King was put out of the ban of the empire by the Diet, and the Prussian ambassador at Ratisbon kicked the bearer of the decree out of the door.