ONE:As we have mentioned, the Russian general had such a dread of Frederick that he did not dare to pursue him. In his report of the victory to the Czarina Charlotte, speaking of his own heavy loss of over eighteen thousand men, he writes, Your majesty is aware that the King of Prussia sells his victories at a dear rate. To some who urged him to pursue Frederick, he replied, Let me gain but another such victory, and I may go to Petersburg with the news of it myself alone, with my staff in my hand.
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ONE:But no sooner did Frederick get an intimation that Austria was contemplating this enlargement of her domains than he roused himself to prevent it with all the vigor of his earlier years. It was a very delicate matter; for Charles Theodore, the elector, and his nephew August Christian, heir to the electorate, a young gentleman of very illustrious pedigree, but of a very slender purse, had both been bribed by Austria secretly to co-operate in the movement. The reader will be interested in Carlyles account, slightly abbreviated, of Fredericks skill in diplomacy:General Daun, elated by this victory, relinquished the plan of retiring to Bohemia, and decided to remain in Saxony for the winter. Frederick had but thirty-six thousand men in Saxony. Daun commanded seventy-two thousand.
FORE:The father was now rapidly forming a strong dislike to the character of his son. In nothing were they in harmony. Five princesses had been born, sisters of Fritz. At last another son was born, Augustus William, ten years younger than Frederick. The king turned his eyes to him, hoping that he would be more in sympathy with the paternal heart. His dislike for Fritz grew continually more implacable, until it assumed the aspect of bitter hatred.
FORE:Speaking of Frederick at this time, Bielfeld says: Notwithstanding all the fatigues of war, the king is in perfect health, and more gay and pleasant than ever. All who approach his majesty meet with a most gracious reception. In the midst of his camp, and at the head of sixty thousand Prussians, our monarch appears to me with a new and superior air of greatness.
FORE:Frederick was rapidly awaking to the consciousness that Maria Theresa, whom he had despised as a woman, and a young wife and mother, and whose territory he thought he could dismember with impunity, was fully his equal, not only in ability to raise and direct armies, but also in diplomatic intrigue. About the middle of August he perceived from his camp in Chlum that Prince Charles was receiving large re-enforcements from the south. At the same time, he saw that corps after corps, principally of Saxon troops, were defiling away by circuitous roads to the north. It was soon evident that the heroic Maria Theresa was preparing to send an army into the very heart of Prussia to attack its capital. This was, indeed, changing the aspect of the war.Frederick declares, in his history, that never were tidings more welcome to him than these. He had embarked in the enterprise for the conquest of Moravia with the allies. He could not, without humiliation, withdraw. But, now that the ally, in whose behalf he assumed to be fighting, had abandoned him, he could, without dishonor, relinquish the field. Leaving the Saxons to themselves, with many bitter words of reproach, he countermanded his order for Silesian re-enforcements, assembled his troops at Wischau, and then, by a rapid march through Olmütz, returned to his strong fortresses in the north.
FORE:The latter part of April Prince Charles had gathered a large force of Austrian regulars at Olmütz, with the manifest intention of again invading Silesia. The King of Poland had entered into cordial alliance with Austria, and was sending a large army of Saxon troops to co-operate in the enterprise. Fredericks indignation was great, and his peril still greater. Encamped in the valley of the Neisse, assailed on every side, and menaced with still more formidable foes, he dispatched orders to the Old Dessauer immediately to establish an army of observation (thirty thousand strong) upon the frontiers of Saxony. He was to be prepared instantly, upon the Saxon troops leaving Saxony, to ravage the country with the most merciless plunderings of war.
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