THREE: Desperate Exertions of Frederick.Aid from England.Limited Resources.Opening of the Campaign.Disgraceful Conduct of Voltaire.Letter to Voltaire.An Act of Desperation.Letter to Count Finckenstein.Frankfort taken by the Prussians.Terrible Battle of Kunersdorf.Anguish of Frederick.The Disastrous Retreat.Melancholy Dispatch.Contemplating Suicide.Collecting the Wrecks of the Army.Consternation in Berlin.Letters to DArgens.Wonderful Strategical Skill.Literary Efforts of the King.
THREE:With that vigilant eye upon him, Frederick was compelled to some vigor of action. On the night of October 17th he commenced the bombardment. The noise was terrific. It could not294 be prevented but that the shot and shell should do some harm. Some buildings were burned; several lives were lost. M. Valori, who knew that the result could not be doubtful, was induced to go to Breslau and await the surrender. After the garrison had made apparently a gallant resistance, and Frederick had achieved apparent prodigies of valor, the city was surrendered on the 31st of October. Most of the garrison immediately enlisted in the Prussian service.
THREE:The unsuccessfulest negotiation well imaginable by a public man. Strehlen, Monday, 7th August, 1741Frederick has vanished into the interior of his tent, and the two diplomatic gentlemen, the wind struck out of them in this manner, remain gazing at one another. Here, truly, is a young, royal gentleman that knows his own mind, while so many do not. Unspeakable imbroglio of negotiations, mostly insane, welters over all the earth; the Belleisles, the Aulic Councils, the British Georges, heaping coil upon coil; and here, notably in that now so extremely sordid murk of wiggeries, inane diplomacies, and solemn deliriums, dark now and obsolete to all creatures, steps forth one little human figure, with something of sanity in it, like a star, like a gleam of steel, sheering asunder your big balloons, and letting out their diplomatic hydrogen. Salutes with his hat, Gentlemen, gentlemen, it is of no use! and vanishes into the interior of his tent.After briefly alluding to the many quarrels in which Voltaire had been involved, the king adds:
TWO:Still centuries elapsed, leaving little for history to record but war and woe. Fierce tribes swept in all directions. Battle was lifes great business. Man, ignorant, degraded, brutal, could have had but few if any joys. Perhaps, through his degradation, his woes were only such as beasts feel. By degrees, from this chaos, a certain kind of governmental order emerged. Small tribes became united under powerful chieftains. Kings arose. There were all varieties of political organizations, dukedoms, principalities,18 marquisates, and electorates. It is recorded that Adalbert, bishop of Prag, about the year 997, with two companions, as apostles of Christianity, first penetrated these wilds. Like Christian heroes they went, with staff and scrip, regardless of danger. The bishop was fifty years of age, and his gray hairs floated in the breeze. As he landed a stout savage struck him with the flat of his oar, and sent him headlong to the ground.In broken bands the Prussians retreated down by the way of Oetscher to the bridges at G?ritz, where they had crossed the Oder, and where their heavy baggage was stationed. Frederick was among the last to quit the fatal field. As a swarm of Cossacks approached the spot where he stood, a party of his friends charged them fiercely, cutting to the right and left, and held them for a moment at bay. One of Fredericks adjutants seized the bridle of his horse, and galloped off with the unresisting monarch.
TWO:Great God! my sister of Baireuth, my noble Wilhelmina, dead; died in the very hours while we were fighting here.CAPTAIN OF THE GIANT GUARDS.