CHAP. 1714. even meditated a coup-de-main against the king, in his XII. capital of Berlin. Informed of this design, Frederick lost not a moment in anticipating it by a sudden attack on his part on his enemies. Assembling his troops in the depth of winter with perfect secresy, he surprised a large body of Saxons at Naumberg, made himself master of their magazines at Gorlitz, and soon after made his triumphant entry into Dresden, where he dictated a glorious peace, on 25th December 1745, to his enemies, which permanently secured Silesia to Prussia. It was full time for the Imperialists to come to an accommodation. In eighteen months Frederick had defeated them in four pitched battles, besides several combats; taken forty-five thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded an equal number of his enemies. His own armies had not sustained losses to a fifth part of this amount, and the chasms in his ranks were more than compensated by the multitude of the prisoners who enlisted under his banners, anxious to share the fortunes of the hero who had already filled Europe with his renown. The ambitious and decided, and, above all, indomitHis decided able character of Frederick, had already become conspi 36. and indomi table charac- cuous during these brief campaigns. His correspondence, appears. all conducted by himself, evinced a vigour and a tranchant ter already style at that period unknown in European diplomacy, but to which the world has since been abundantly accustomed in the proclamations of Napoleon. Already he spoke on every occasion as the hero and the conqueror -to conquer or die was his invariable maxim. On the eve of his invasion of Saxony, he wrote to the Empress of Russia, who was endeavouring to dissuade him from that design :-" I wish nothing from the King of Poland (Elector of Saxony) but to punish him in his Electorate, XII. 1714. and make him sign an acknowledgment of repentance CHAP. in his capital." During the negotiations for peace he wrote to the King of England, who had proposed the mediation of Great Britain :-" These are my conditions. I will perish with my army before departing from one iota of them if the Empress does not accept them, I will rise in my demands." 37. services to during the years The peace of Dresden lasted ten years; and these were of inestimable importance to Frederick. He em- His great ployed that precious interval in consolidating his con- his kingdom quests, securing the affections by protecting the interests next ten of his subjects, and pursuing every design which could peace of conduce to their welfare. Marshes were drained, lands were broken up and cultivated, manufactures established, the finances were put in the best order, and agriculture, as the great staple of the kingdom, was sedulously encouraged. His capital was embellished, and the fame of his exploits attracted the greatest and most celebrated men in Europe. Voltaire, among the rest, became for years his guest; but the aspiring genius and irascible temper of the military monarch could ill accord with the vanity and insatiable thirst for praise of the French author, and they parted with mutual respect but irretrievable alienation. Meanwhile, the strength of the monarchy was daily increasing under Frederick's wise and provident administration. The population nearly reached six million of souls; the cavalry mustered thirty thousand, all in the highest state of discipline and equipment; and the infantry, esteemed with reason the most perfect in Europe, numbered a hundred and twenty thousand bayonets. These troops had long been accustomed to act together in large bodies-the best training, next to actual service CHAP. XII. 1714. 38. in the field, which an army can receive. They had need of all their skill, discipline, and courage; for Prussia was ere long threatened by the most formidable conCoalition federacy that ever yet had been directed in modern times against a single state. Austria, Russia, France, Saxony, and Sweden, and Saxony, united in alliance for the purpose of partitioning the Prussian territories. Russia, France, Sweden against Prussia. 39. These allies had ninety millions of men in their dominions, and could with ease bring four hundred thousand men into the field. Prussia had less than six millions of inhabitants, who were strained to the uttermost to array a hundred and sixty thousand combatants; and, even with the aid of England and Hanover, not more than fifty thousand auxiliaries could be relied on. Prussia had neither strong fortresses like Flanders, nor mountain chains like Spain, nor a frontier stream like France. Its territory, open on every side, was entirely composed of flat plains, unprotected by great rivers, and surrounded on the south, east, and north by its enemies. The contest appeared utterly desperate; there did not seem a chance of escape for the Prussian monarchy. Frederick began the contest by one of those strokes Frederick which demonstrated the strength of his understanding Saxony, and and the vigour of his determination. Instead of waiting to that coun- be attacked, he carried the war at once into the enemy's invades conquers try. territories, and converted the resources of the nearest of them to his own advantage. Having received authentic intelligence of the signature of a treaty for the partition of his kingdom by the great powers, on 9th May 1756, he suddenly entered the Saxon territories, made himself master of Dresden, and shut up the whole forces of Saxony in the intrenched camp at Pirna. Marshal Brown having advanced at the head of sixty thousand men to relieve them, he encountered and totally defeated him at Lowositz, with the loss of fifteen thousand men. Deprived of all hope of succour, the Saxons in Pirna, after having made vain efforts to escape, were obliged to lay down their arms, still fourteen thousand strong. The whole of Saxony submitted to the victor, who thenceforward, during the whole war, turned its entire resources to his own support. CHAP. XII. 1714. 40. effects of Beyond all question, it was this masterly and successful stroke, in the very outset, and in the teeth of his Great enemies, which added above a third to his warlike re- this stroke. sources, and enabled him subsequently to maintain his ground against the desperate odds by which he was assailed. Most of the Saxons taken at Pirna, dazzled by the conqueror's fame, entered his service: the Saxon youth hastened in crowds to enrol themselves under the banners of the hero of the North of Germany. Frederick, at the same time, effectually vindicated the step he had taken in the eyes of all Europe, by the publication of the secret treaty of partition, which he had discovered in the archives at Dresden, in spite of the efforts of the Electress to conceal it. Whatever might have been the case in the former war, when he seized on Silesia, it was apparent to the world that he now, at least, was strictly in the right, and that his invasion of Saxony was not less justifiable on the score of public morality, than important in its consequences to the great contest in which he was engaged. 41. the He defeats the Aus The Allies made the utmost efforts to regain the advantages they had lost. France, instead of twenty-four thousand men she was bound to furnish by trians at the treaty of partition, put a hundred thousand on foot; is defeated the Diet of Ratisbon placed sixty thousand troops of Prague, and at Kolin. CHAP. XII. 1714. 42. situation of monarchy. the Empire at the disposal of Austria; but Frederick still preserved the ascendant. Breaking into Bohemia, in March 1757, he defeated the Austrians in a great battle under the walls of Prague, shut up forty thousand of their best troops in that town, and soon reduced them to such extremities that it was evident that, if not succoured, they must surrender. The cabinet of Vienna made the greatest efforts for their relief. Marshal Daun, whose cautious and scientific policy was peculiarly calculated to thwart the designs and baffle the audacity of his youthful antagonist, advanced at the head of sixty thousand men to their relief. Frederick advanced to meet them with less than twenty thousand combatants. He attacked the Imperialists in a strong position at Kolin, on the 18th July, and, for the first time in his life, met with a bloody defeat. His army, especially that division commanded by his brother, the prince-royal, sustained severe losses in the retreat, which became unavoidable, out of Bohemia; and the king confessed in his private correspondence that an honourable death alone remained to him. Disaster accumulated on every side. The English Desperate and Hanoverian army, his only allies, capitulated at the Prussian Closterseven, and left the French army, sixty thousand strong, at liberty to follow the Prussians; the French and the troops of the Empire, with the Duke of Richelieu at their head, menaced Magdeburg, where the royal family of Prussia had taken refuge, and advanced towards Dresden. The Russians, seventy thousand strong, were making series progress on the side of Poland, and had recently defeated the Prussians opposed to them. king was put to the ban of the Empire; and the army of the Empire, mustering forty thousand, was moving The |