
FORE:307 Elsewhere, Frederick, speaking of these two winter campaigns, says: Winter campaigns are bad, and should always be avoided, except in cases of necessity. The best army in the world is liable to be ruined by them. I myself have made more winter campaigns than any general of this age. But there were reasons. In 1740 there were hardly above two Austrian regiments in Silesia, at the death of the Emperor Charles VI. Being determined to assert my right to that duchy, I had to try it at once, in winter, and carry the war, if possible, to the banks of the Neisse. Had I waited till spring, we must have begun the war between Crossen and Glogau. What was now to be gained by one march would then have cost us three or four campaigns. A sufficient reason, this, for campaigning in winter. If I did not succeed in the winter campaigns of 1742, a campaign which I made to deliver Moravia, then overrun by Austrians, it was because the French acted like fools, and the Saxons like traitors.64

FORE:Fredericks army was now in a state of great destitution. The region around was so stripped of its resources that it could afford his foragers no more supplies. It was difficult for him to fill his baggage-trains even in Silesia, so much had that country been devastated by war; and wherever any of his supply wagons appeared, swarms of Austrian dragoons hovered around, attacking and destroying them. To add to the embarrassments of the Prussian king, his purse was empty. His subjects could endure no heavier taxation. All the plate which Frederick William had accumulated had been converted into coin and expended.357 Even the massive silver balustrades, which were reserved until a time of need, were melted and gone. He knew not where to look for a loan. All the nations were involved in ruinous war. All wished to borrow. None but England had money to lend; and England was fighting Frederick, and furnishing supplies for his foes.

FORE:Toasts were then drank with great enthusiasm to the health of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, to the queens consort, Francis, Grand-duke of Lorraine; and universal and cordial was the response of applause when the toast was proposed to the brave Prince Charles.

FORE:I have called you together, not to ask your advice, but to inform you that to-morrow I shall attack Marshal Daun. I am aware that he occupies a strong position, but it is one from which he can not escape. If I beat him, all his army must be taken prisoners or drowned in the Elbe. If we are beaten, we must all perish. This war is become tedious. You must all find it so. We will, if we can, finish it to-morrow. General Ziethen, I confide to you the right wing of the army. Your object must be, in marching straight to Torgau, to cut off the retreat of the Austrians when I shall have beaten them, and driven them from the heights of Siptitz.

FORE:At length, however, Frederick succeeded in pushing forward a detachment of his army to seize the magazines and the post he so greatly coveted. The troops marched all night. Toward morning, almost perishing with cold, they built enormous fires.304 Having warmed their numbed and freezing limbs, they pressed on to Iglau, to find it abandoned by the garrison. The Austrian general Lobkowitz had carried away every thing which could be removed, and then had reduced to ashes seventeen magazines, filled with military and commissary stores. The king was exceedingly chagrined by this barren conquest. He was anxious to advance in all directions, to take full possession of Moravia, before the Austrians could send re-enforcements to garrison its fortresses; but the Saxon lords refused to march any farther in this severe winter campaign. Frederick complained to the Saxon king. His Polish majesty sent an angry order to his troops to go forward. Sullenly they obeyed, interposing every obstacle in their power. Some of the leaders threw up their commissions and went home. Frederick, with his impetuous Prussians and his unwilling Saxons, spread over Moravia, levying contributions and seizing the strong places.All the courts of Europe were involved in these intrigues, which led to minor complications which it would be in vain to attempt to unravel. In the secret treaty into which Frederick entered with France on the 5th of June, 1741, the Count of Belleisle engaged, in behalf of his master, Louis XV., to incite Sweden to declare war against Russia, that the semi-barbaric power of the North, just beginning to emerge into greatness, might be so occupied as not to be able to render any assistance to Austria. France also agreed to guarantee Lower Silesia, with Breslau, to Frederick, and to send two armies, of forty thousand men each, one across the Upper and the other across the Lower Rhine, to co-operate with his Prussian majesty. The forty thousand men on the Upper Rhine were to take position in the vicinity of the Electorate of Hanover, which belonged to George II. of England, prepared to act immediately in concert with the Prussian army at G?tten under the Old Dessauer, in seizing Hanover resistlessly, should England make the slightest move toward sending troops to the aid of Maria Theresa.

FORE:During all the day of Wednesday weeping friends stood around the bed, as the lamp of life flickered in its socket. Every moment it was expected that the emperor would breathe his last. At two oclock the next morning the spirit took its flight, and the lifeless clay alone remained. The grief-stricken empress closed the eyes of her departed husband, kissed his hands, and was carried out more dead than alive. Thus ended the male line of the house of Hapsburg, after five centuries of royal sway. The emperor died on the 20th of October 1740, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
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