To the foregoing telegram the following answer from Verona reached Böhmisch-Trübau:—
The Army of the South and its commander return their thanks to their beloved ex-commander and his brave army. Convinced that we also shall soon have to send our congratulations for a similar victory.
“Convinced! Convinced!” ...
“Does not your heart leap up, my children, when you read such things?” shouted my father in delight. “Can you not rise up to a sufficient height of patriotic feeling to throw into the background your private circumstances at the sight of such triumphs, you, Martha, to forget that your Frederick, and you, Lilly, that your Conrad is exposed to some danger? Danger which probably they will come out of safe and sound: and even to succumb to which—a fate which they share with the best sons of our country—would redound to their fame and honour. There is not a soldier who would not willingly die to the call, ‘For our country!’ ”
“If, after a lost battle, a man is left lying with shattered limbs on the field,” I replied, “and lies there undiscovered for four or five days and nights in indescribable agonies from thirst and hunger, rotting while still alive, and so perishes, knowing all the while that his death has not helped his country you talk of one bit, but has brought his loved ones to despair, I should like to know whether all this time he is gladly dying to the call you speak of.”
“You are outrageous, and besides you speak in such shrill tones, quite unbecoming for a lady.”
“Oh yes, the true word, the naked reality, is outrageous, is shameless. Only the phrase which by thousandfold repetition has become sanctioned is ‘proper,’ but I assure you, father, that this unnatural ‘joy in dying’ which is thus exacted from all men, however heroic it may seem to him who uses the phrase, sounds to me like a spoken death-knell.”
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Among Frederick’s papers, many years later, I found a letter which in those days I sent to the seat of war. This letter shows as clearly as possible with what feelings I was filled at that time.
“Grumitz, June 28, 1866.