The impartial student of history must admit that, were the government of the world taken from the hands of men, and placed in the hands of women, still the anticipated millennium of righteousness and peace might be far distant.
In the following letter, which Frederick wrote at this time to his friend D’Argens, he unbosoms his sorrows with unusual frankness. The letter was dated Breslau, March 1, 1759:
“I have passed my winter like a Carthusian monk. I dine alone. I spend my life in reading and writing, and I do not sup. When one is sad, it becomes, at last, too burdensome to hide one’s grief continually. It is better to give way to it than to carry one’s gloom into society. Nothing solaces me but the vigorous application required in steady and continuous labor. This distraction does force one to put away painful ideas while it lasts. But alas! no sooner is the work done than these fatal companions present themselves again, as if livelier than ever. Maupertuis was right; the sum of evil does certainly surpass that of good. But to me it is all one. I have almost nothing more to lose; and my few remaining days—what matters it much of what complexion they be?”
During this dismal winter of incessant and almost despairing labor the indefatigable king wrote several striking treatises on military affairs. It is manifest that serious thoughts at times occupied his mind. He doubtless reflected that if there were a God who took any cognizance of human affairs, there must be somewhere responsibility to Him for the woes with which these wars were desolating humanity. To the surprise of De Catt, the king presented him one evening with a sermon upon “The Last Judgment,” from his own pen. He also put upon paper his thoughts “On the new kind of tactics necessary with the Austrians and their allies.” He seems himself to have been surprised that he had been able so long to resist such overpowering numbers. In allusion to the allies he writes:
“To whose continual sluggishness and strange want of concert—to whose incoherency of movements, languor of execution, and other enormous faults, we have owed, with some excuse for our own faults, our escape from destruction hitherto.”[127]
CHAPTER XXX.
FOURTH CAMPAIGN OF THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR.
Desperate Exertions of Frederick.—Aid from England.—Limited Resources.—Opening of the Campaign.—Disgraceful Conduct of Voltaire.—Letter to Voltaire.—An Act of Desperation.—Letter to Count Finckenstein.—Frankfort taken by the Prussians.—Terrible Battle of Kunersdorf.—Anguish of Frederick.—The Disastrous Retreat.—Melancholy Dispatch.—Contemplating Suicide.—Collecting the Wrecks of the Army.—Consternation in Berlin.—Letters to D’Argens.—Wonderful Strategical Skill.—Literary Efforts of the King.
By the most extraordinary exertions, which must have almost depopulated his realms of all the young men and those of middle age, Frederick succeeded in so filling up his depleted ranks as to have in the opening spring of 1759 two hundred thousand men in field and garrison. Indeed, regardless of all the laws of nations, he often compelled the soldiers and other men of conquered provinces to enlist in his armies. How he, in his poverty, obtained the pecuniary resources requisite to the carrying on of such a war, is to the present day a matter of amazement.
England furnished him with a subsidy of about four million dollars. He immediately melted this coin, gold and silver, and adulterated it with about half copper, thus converting his four millions into nominally eight millions. But a few weeks of such operations as he was engaged in would swallow up all this. The merciless conscription, grasping nearly every able-bodied man, destroyed nearly all the arts of industry. The Prussian realms, thus impoverished by war’s ravages and taxation, could furnish the king with very meagre supplies. When the king invaded any portion of the territory of the allies, he wrenched from the beggared people every piece of money which violence or terror could extort. Wealthy merchants were thrown into prison, and fed upon bread and water until they yielded. The most terrible severities were practiced to extort contributions from towns which had been stripped and stripped again. Still violence could wrench but little from the skinny hand of beggary. These provinces, swept by war’s surges year after year, were in the most deplorable state of destitution and misery.