Finally Prince Frederick Charles says:—
Soldiers! the faithless and covenant-breaking Austria has now for some time, without any declaration of war, disregarded the frontiers of Prussia in Upper Silesia. So I might have equally considered myself entitled to cross the Bohemian frontier without any declaration of war. But I have not done so. To-day I have forwarded a regular declaration of war, and to-day we tread the territory of our enemies, in order to protect our own country. May our commencement have God’s sanction. [Is this the same God with whose help Benedek promised to strike down the enemy?] Let us rest our cause in His hands, who guides the hearts of men, who decides the fate of nations and the result of battles, as it is written in the Scriptures. Let your hearts beat for God and your hands strike the foe. In this war, as you know, Prussia’s dearest interests, nay, the continued existence of our beloved Prussia, are in question. The enemy avows, in the most open manner, the wish to dismember and humiliate her. Shall then the rivers of blood which your fathers and mine poured out under Frederick the Great, and that which we lately poured out at Düppel and Alsen, have been poured out in vain? Never! we will maintain Prussia as she is, and make her stronger and more powerful by victory. We will show ourselves worthy of our fathers. We rely on the God of our fathers that He will be gracious to us, and bless the arms of Prussia! So, now, forward with our old battle-cry: “With God for king and fatherland. Long live the king.”
CHAPTER X.
The Austro-Prussian war.—My husband with the army.—Parting letters.—Dr. Bresser.—The course of the war.—Victory of Custozza.—Austrian reverses in Bohemia.—War correspondence in the newspapers.—Discussions with my father.—A long letter to my husband.
SO it had come again—this greatest of all misfortunes—and was greeted by the populace with the accustomed rejoicing. The regiments marched out (in what state were they to return?) and wishes for victory, and blessings, and the shouting of the street boys were their accompaniment.
Frederick had been ordered to Bohemia some time previously, even before war had been declared; and just when matters were in such a position as to enable me to entertain a confident hope that the quarrel about the duchies, so unblessed and so contemptible, would be settled amicably. And, therefore, this time I was spared the heart-rending leave-taking which precedes the setting off of one’s beloved directly “to the war”. When my father brought me the news in triumph: “Now it is off,” I had been already alone for a fortnight. And for some time I had quite made my mind up to this news, as a criminal in his cell has made up his mind to the reading of the death-sentence.
I bowed my head and said nothing.
“Keep up a good heart, my child. The war will not last long; in a day or two we shall be in Berlin. And as your husband came back from Schleswig-Holstein, so he will come back from this campaign, but covered with much greener laurels. It may, indeed, be unpleasant for him, being himself of Prussian extraction, to fight against Prussia, but after he entered into the Austrian service he became one of us body and soul. Those Prussians! the arrogant windbags! they want to turn us out of the Bund! they will soon repent it; if Silesia becomes ours again, and if the Hapsburgs——”
I stretched out my hand: “Father—one request—leave me to myself”.