The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power

by John S. C. Abbott

The Prussians retreated, in a broken band of but twenty-five thousand men, into the heart of Silesia, to Breslau, its beautiful and strongly fortified capital. This city, situated upon the Oder, at its junction with the Ohlau, contained a population of nearly eighty thousand. The fugitive troops sought refuge behind its walls, protected as they were by batteries of the heaviest artillery. The Austrians, strengthened by the French, with an army now amounting to ninety thousand, followed closely on, and with their siege artillery commenced the cannonade of the city. An awful scene of carnage ensued, in which the Austrians lost eight thousand men and the Prussians five thousand, when the remnant of the Prussian garrison, retreating by night through a remote gate, left the city in the hands of the Austrians.

It was now mid-winter. But the iron-nerved Frederic, undismayed by these terrible reverses, collected the scattered fragments of his army, and, finding himself at the head of thirty thousand men, advanced to Breslau in the desperate attempt to regain his capital. His force was so inconsiderable as to excite the ridicule of the Austrians. Upon the approach of Frederic, Prince Charles, disdaining to hide behind the ramparts of the city on the defensive, against a foe thus insulting him with inferior numbers, marched to meet the Prussians. The interview between Prince Charles and Frederic was short but very decisive, lasting only from the hour of dinner to the going down of a December's sun. The twilight of the wintry day had not yet come when seven thousand Austrians were lying mangled in death on the blood-stained snow. Twenty thousand were made prisoners. All the baggage of the Austrian army, the military chest, one hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon, and fifty-nine standards fell into the hands of the victors. For this victory Frederic paid the price of five thousand lives; but life to the poor Prussian soldier must have been a joyless scene, and death must have been a relief.

Frederic now, with triumphant banners, approached the city. It immediately capitulated, surrendering nearly eighteen thousand soldiers, six hundred and eighty-six officers and thirteen generals as prisoners of war. In this one storm of battle, protracted through but a few days, Maria Theresa lost fifty thousand men. Frederic then turned upon the Russians, and drove them out of Silesia. The same doom awaited the Swedes, and they fled precipitately to winter quarters behind the cannon of Stralsund. Thus terminated the memorable campaign of 1757, the most memorable of the Seven Years' War. The Austrian army was almost annihilated; but the spirit of the strife was not subdued in any breast.

The returning sun of spring was but the harbinger of new woes for war-stricken Europe. England, being essentially a maritime power, could render Frederic but little assistance in troops; but the cabinet of St. James was lavish in voting money. Encouraged by the vigor Frederic had shown, the British cabinet, with enthusiasm, voted him an annual subsidy of three million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Austria was so exhausted in means and in men, that notwithstanding the most herculean efforts of the queen, it was not until April of the year 1758 that she was able to concentrate fifty thousand men in the field, with the expensive equipments which war demands. Frederic, aided by the gold of England, was early on the move, and had already opened the campaign by the invasion of Moravia, and by besieging Olmutz.

The summer was passed in a series of incessant battles, sweeping all over Germany, with the usual vicissitudes of war. In the great battle of Hockkirchen Frederic encountered a woful defeat. The battle took place on the 14th of October, and lasted five hours. Eight thousand Austrians and nine thousand Prussians were stretched lifeless upon the plain. Frederic was at last compelled to retreat, abandoning his tents, his baggage, one hundred and one cannon, and thirty standards. Nearly every Prussian general was wounded. The king himself was grazed by a ball; his horse was shot from under him, and two pages were killed at his side.

Again Vienna blazed with illuminations and rang with rejoicing, and the queen liberally dispensed her gifts and her congratulations. Still nothing effectual was accomplished by all this enormous expenditure of treasure, this carnage and woe; and again the exhausted combatants retired to seek shelter from the storms of winter. Thus terminated the third year of this cruel and wasting war.

The spring of 1759 opened brightly for Maria Theresa. Her army, flushed by the victory of the last autumn, was in high health and spirits. All the allies of Austria redoubled their exertions; and the Catholic States of Germany with religious zeal rallied against the two heretical kingdoms of Prussia and England. The armies of France, Austria, Sweden and Russia were now marching upon Prussia, and it seemed impossible that the king could withstand such adversaries. More fiercely than ever the storm of war raged. Frederic, at the head of forty thousand men, early in June met eighty thousand Russians and Austrians upon the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort. For seven hours the action lasted, and the allies were routed with enormous slaughter; but the king, pursuing his victory too far with his exhausted troops, was turned upon by the foe, and was routed himself in turn, with the slaughter of one half of his whole army. Twenty-four thousand of the allies and twenty thousand Prussians perished on that bloody day.

Frederic exposed his person with the utmost recklessness. Two horses were shot beneath him; several musket balls pierced his clothes; he was slightly wounded, and was rescued from the foe only by the almost superhuman exertions of his hussars. In the darkness of the night the Prussians secured their retreat.