With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War

by G. A. Henty

Thus, after eight months of constant and weary anxiety, Frederick, by the two heavy blows he had dealt successfully at the Confederates, stood in a far better position than he had occupied at the opening of the first campaign; when, as his enemies fondly believed, Prussia would be captured and divided without the smallest difficulty.

Frederick wintered at Breslau, whither came many visitors from Prussia, and there was a constant round of gaieties and festivity. Frederick himself desired nothing so much as peace. Once or twice there had been some faint hope that this might be brought about by his favourite sister, Wilhelmina, who had been ceaseless in her efforts to effect it; but the two empresses and the Pompadour were alike bent on avenging themselves on the king, and the reverses that they had suffered but increased their determination to overwhelm him.

Great as Frederick's success had been, it did not blind him to the fact that his position was almost hopeless. When the war began, he had an army of a hundred and fifty thousand of the finest soldiers in the world. The two campaigns had made frightful gaps in their ranks. At Prague he had fought with eighty thousand men, at Leuthen he had but thirty thousand. His little kingdom could scarcely supply men to fill the places of those who had fallen, while his enemies had teeming populations from which to gather ample materials for fresh armies. It seemed, even to his hopeful spirit, that all this could have but one ending; and that each success, however great, weakened him more than his adversaries.

The winter's rest was, however, most welcome. For the moment there was nothing to plan, nothing to do, save to order that the drilling of the fresh levies should go on incessantly; in order that some, at least, of the terrible gaps in the army might be filled up before the campaign commenced in the spring.

1758 began badly, for early in January the Russians were on the move. The empress had dismissed, and ordered to be tried by court martial, the general who had done so little the previous year; had appointed Field Marshal Fermor to command in his place, and ordered him to advance instantly and to annex East Prussia in her name.

On the 16th of January he crossed the frontier, and six days later entered Koenigsberg and issued a proclamation to the effect that his august sovereign had now become mistress of East Prussia, and that all men of official or social position must at once take the oath of allegiance to her.

East Prussia had been devastated the year before by marauders, and its hatred of Russia was intense; but the people were powerless to resist. Some fled, leaving all behind them; but the majority were forced to take the required oath, and for a time East Prussia became a Russian province. Nevertheless its young men constantly slipped away, when opportunity offered, to join the Prussian army; and moneys were frequently collected by the impoverished people to despatch to Frederick, to aid him in his necessities.

A far greater assistance was the English subsidy of 670,000 pounds, which was paid punctually for four years, and was of supreme service to him. It was spent thriftily, and of all the enormous sums expended by this country in subsidizing foreign powers, none was ever laid out to a tenth of the advantage of the 2,680,000 pounds given to Frederick.

In the north the campaign also opened early. Ferdinand of Brunswick bestirred himself, defeated the French signally at Krefeld, and drove them headlong across the Rhine. Frederick, too, took the field early, and on the 15th of March moved from Breslau upon Schweidnitz. The siege began on the 1st of April, and on the 16th the place surrendered. Four thousand nine hundred prisoners of war were taken, with fifty-one guns and 7000 pounds in money.

Three days later Frederick, with forty thousand men, was off; deceived Daun as to his intentions, entered Moravia, and besieged Olmuetz. Keith was with him again, and Fergus had returned to his staff. The march was conducted with the marvellous precision and accuracy that characterized all Frederick's movements, but Olmuetz was a strong place and stoutly defended.