sia had neither strong fortresses like Flanders, nor mountain chains like Spain, nor a frontier stream like France. Its territory, open on every side, was entirely composed of flat plains, unprotected by great rivers, and surrounded on the south, east, and north by its enemies. The contest seemed utterly desperate, and there did not seem a chance of escape for the Prussian monarchy. up 41. Frederic in vades Saxony, and conquers Frederic began the contest by one of those strokes which demonstrated the strength of his understanding and the vigor of his determination. Instead of waiting to be attacked, he carried the war at once that country. into the enemy's territories, and converted the resources of the nearest of them to his own advantage. Having received authentic intelligence of the signature of a treaty for the partition of his kingdom by the great powers, on the 9th of May, 1756, he suddenly entered the Saxon territories, made himself master of Dresden, and shut the whole forces of Saxony in the intrenched camp at Pirna. Marshal Brown having advanced at the head of sixty thousand men to relieve them, he encountered and totally defeated him at Lowositz, with the loss of fifteen thousand men. Deprived of all hope of succor, the Saxons in Pirna, after having made vain efforts to escape, were obliged to lay down their arms, still fourteen thousand strong. The whole of Saxony submitted to the victor, who thenceforward, during the whole war, turned its entire resources to his own support. Beyond all question, it was this masterly and successful stroke, in the very outset, and in the teeth of his enemies, which added above a third to his warlike resources, and enabled him subsequently to maintain his ground against the desperate odds by which he was assailed, Most of the Saxons taken at Pirna, dazzled by their conqueror's fame, entered his service: the Saxon youth hastened in crowds to enroll themselves under the banners of the hero of the North of Germany. Frederic, at the same time, effectually vindicated the step he had taken in the eyes of all Europe, by the publication of the secret treaty of partition, which 42. Austrians at lin. he had discovered in the archives at Dresden, in spite of the efforts of the electress to conceal it. Whatever might have been the case in the former war, when he siezed on Silesia, it was apparent to the world that he now, at least, was strictly in the right, and that his invasion of Saxony was not less justifiable on the score of public morality, than important in its consequences to the great contest in which he was engaged. The allies made the utmost efforts to regain the advantages they had lost. France, instead of the twenty-four He defeats the thousand men she was bound to furnish by the Prague, and is defeated at Ko- treaty of partition, put a hundred thousand on foot; the Diet of Ratisbon placed sixty thousand troops of the empire at the disposal of Austria; but Frederic still preserved the ascendant. Breaking into Bohemia in March, 1757, he defeated the Austrians in a great battle under the walls of Prague, shut up forty thousand of their best troops in that town, and soon reduced them to such extremities, that it was evident, if not succored, they must surrender. The cabinet of Vienna made the greatest efforts for their relief. Marshal Daun, whose caution and scientific policy was peculiarly calculated to thwart the designs and baffle the audacity of his youthful antagonist, advanced at the head of sixty thousand men to their relief. Frederic advanced to meet them with less than twenty thousand combatants. He attacked the Imperialists in a strong position at Kolin, on the 18th of July, and, for the first time in his life, met with a bloody defeat. His army, especially that division commanded by his brother, the prince royal, sustained severe losses in the retreat, which became unavoidable, out of Bohemia; and the king confessed in his private correspondence that an honorable death alone remained to him. Disaster accumulated on every side. The English and 43. Hanoverian army, his only allies, capitulated at Desperate situation of the Closterseven, and left the French army, sixty thousand strong, at liberty to follow the Prussians; the French and the troops of the empire, with the Duke of Prussian mon archy. Richelieu at their head, menaced Magdeburg, where the royal family of Prussia had taken refuge, and advanced toward Dresden. The Russians, seventy thousand strong, were making serious progress on the side of Poland, and had recently defeated the Prussians opposed to them. The king was put to the ban of the empire; and the army of the empire, mustering forty thousand, was moving against him. Four huge armies, each stronger than his own, were advancing to crush a prince who could not collect thirty thousand men round his banners. At that period he carried a sure poison always with him, determined not to fall alive into the hands of his enemies. He seriously contemplated suicide, and gave vent to the mournful, but yet heroic sentiments with which he was inspired, in a letter to Voltaire, terminating with the lines, Pour moi, menaçé de naufrage, Je dois, en affrontant l'orage, 44. The king's mar at Rosbach and Then it was that the astonishing vigor and powers of his mind shone forth with their full luster. Collecting hastily twenty-five thousand men out of his velous victories shattered battalions, he marched against the Leuthen. Prince of Soubise, who, at the head of an army of sixty thou sand French and Imperial troops, was advancing against him through Thuringia, and totally defeated him, with the loss of eighteen thousand men, on the memorable field of Rosbach. Hardly was this triumph achieved, when he was called, with his indefatigable followers, to stem the progress of the Prince of Lorraine and Marshal Daun, who were making the most alarming progress in Silesia. Schweidnitz, its capital, had fallen; a large body of Prussians, under the Duke de Bevorn, had been defeated at Breslau. That rich and important province seemed on the point of falling again into the hands of the Austrians, when Frederic reinstated his affairs, which seemed wholly desperate, by one of those astonishing strokes which distinguish him, perhaps, above any general of modern times. In the depth of winter he attacked, at Leuthen, on the 5th of December, 1757, Marshal Daun and the Prince of Lorraine, who had sixty thousand admirable troops under their orders, and, by the skillful application of the oblique method of attack, defeated them entirely, with the loss of thirty thousand men, of whom eighteen thousand were prisoners! It was the greatest victory that had been gained in Europe since the battle of Blenheim. Its effects were immense: the Austrians were driven headlong out of Silesia; Schweidnitz was regained; the King of Prussia, pursuing them, carried the war into Moravia, and laid siege to Olmutz; and England, awakening, at the voice of Chatham, from its unworthy slumber, refused to ratify the capitulation of Closterseven, resumed the war on the Continent with more vigor than ever, and intrusted its direction to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who soon rivaled Turenne in the skill and science of his method ical warfare. Disasters sus troops in other quarters, and victory of Zorndorf. But it was the destiny of the King of Prussia-a destiny 45. which displayed his great qualities in their full lustained by his ter—to be perpetually involved in difficulties, from the enormous numerical preponderance of his enemies, or the misfortunes of the lieutenants to whom his subordinate armies were intrusted. Frederic could not be personally present every where at the same time; and wherever he was absent, disaster revealed the overwhelming superiority of the force by which he was assailed. The siege of Olmutz, commenced in March, 1758, proved unfortunate. The battering train at the disposal of the king was unequal to its reduction, and it became necessary to raise it on the approach of Daun with a formidable Austrian army. During this unsuccessful irruption into the south, the Russians had been making alarming progress in the northeast, where the feeble force opposed to them was wellnigh overwhelmed by their enormous superiority of numbers. Frederic led back the flower of his army from Olmutz, in Moravia, crossed all Silesia and Prussia, and encountered the sturdy barbarians at Zorndorf, defeating them with the loss of seventeen thousand men, an advantage which delivered the eastern provinces of the monarchy from this formidable invasion. This victory was dearly purchased, however, by the sacrifice of ten thousand of his own best soldiers. Frederic's de-. feat at Hohen kirchen. Fred But, during the king's absence, Prince Henry of Prussia, whom he had left in command of sixteen thousand 46. men, to keep Marshal Daun in check, was wellnigh overwhelmed by that able commander, who was again at the head of an army of fifty thousand. eric flew back to his support, and, having joined his brother, took post at Hohenkirchen. The position was unfavorable; the army inferior to the enemy. "If Daun does not attack us here," said Marshal Keith, "he deserves to be hanged." "I hope," answered Frederic, “he will be more afraid of us than the rope." The Austrian veteran, however, saw his advantage, and attacked the Prussians during the night with such skill, that he threw them into momentary confusion, took one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and drove them from their ground, with the loss of seven thousand men. Then it. was that the courage and genius of the king shone forth with their full luster. Though grievously wounded in the conflict, and after having seen his best generals fall around him, he rallied his troops at daybreak, formed them in good order behind the village which had been surprised, and led them leisurely to a position a mile from the field of conflict, where he offered battle to the enemy, who did not venture to accept it. Having remained two days in this position to reorganize his troops, he decamped, raised the siege of Neiss, and succeeded in taking up his winter quarters at Breslau, in the very middle of the province he had wrested from the enemy. in which Fred The campaign of 1759 was still more perilous to Frederic; but, if possible, it displayed his extraordinary Terrible battle talents in still brighter colors. He began by ob- of Cunnersdorf, serving the Austrians, under Daun and the Prince eric is defeated. of Lorraine, in Silesia, and reserved his strength to combat the Russians, who were advancing, eighty thousand strong, |