I am so stupefied with the misfortune which has befallen494 General Finck that I can not recover from my astonishment. It deranges all my measures. It cuts me to the quick. Ill luck, which persecutes my old age, has followed me from Kunersdorf to Saxony. I will still strive what I can. The little ode I sent you, addressed to Fortune, was written too soon. One should not shout victory until the battle is over. I am so crushed by these reverses and disasters that I wish a thousand times I were dead.The British court was frantic with rage. Frederick had a strong army on the frontiers of Hanover. The first hostile gun fired would be the signal for the invasion of that province, and it would inevitably be wrested from the British crown. The lion roared, but did not venture to use either teeth or claws. England was promptly brought to terms. It was grandly done of Frederick. There was something truly sublime in the quiet, noiseless, apparently almost indifferent air with which Frederick accomplished his purpose.PRINCE LEOPOLD INSPECTING THE ARMY IN HIS CART.
FORE:Joseph, the oldest son of Maria Theresa and Francis, by the will of his mother became emperor. But Maria Theresa still swayed the sceptre of imperial power, through the hands of her son, as she had formerly done through the hands of her amiable and pliant husband. The young emperor was fond of traveling. He visited all the battle-fields of the Seven Years War, and put up many monuments. Through his minister at Berlin, he expressed his particular desire to make the acquaintance of Frederick. The interview took place at Neisse on the 25th of August, 1769. His majesty received the young emperor on the grand staircase of the palace, where they cordially embraced each other.
Voltaire, in summing up a sketch of this campaign of 1757, writes in characteristic phrase:After having restored peace to my kingdom; after having conquered countries, raised a victorious army, and filled my treasury; after having established a good administration throughout my dominions; after having made my enemies tremble, I resign, without regret, this breath of life to Nature.The battle, thus commenced, continued to rage for four long312 hours, with all its demon energies, its blood, its wounds, its oaths, its shrieks, its death; on the right wing, on the left wing, in the centre; till some ten or twelve thousand, some accounts say more, of these poor peasant soldiers lay prostrate upon the plain, crushed by the hoof, torn by the bullet, gashed by the sabre. Many were dead. Many were dying. Many had received wounds which would cripple them until they should totter into their graves. At the close of these four hours of almost superhuman effort, the villages all around in flames, the Austrians slowly, sullenly retired from the contest. Prince Charles, having lost nearly seven thousand men, with his remaining forces breathless, exhausted, bleeding, retired through Czaslau, and vanished over the horizon to the southwest. Frederick, with his forces almost equally breathless, exhausted, and bleeding, and counting five thousand of his soldiers strewn over the plain, in death or wounds, remained master of the field. Such was the famous battle of Chotusitz.
