ONE:
FORE: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; and he could not but know that for all the carnage and the suffering, he, above all others, would be responsible at the bar of God.The English envoy, Sir Guy Dickens, being utterly baffled in all his endeavors to discover the enterprise upon which the king was about to embark, wrote to his court:
FORE:The impartial student of history must admit that, were the government of the world taken from the hands of men, and placed in the hands of women, still the anticipated millennium of righteousness and peace might be far distant.Notwithstanding this letter, Frederick refused to give General Zastrow any further employment, but left him to neglect, obscurity, and poverty. Zastrow wrote to the king imploring a court-martial. He received the following laconic reply:
