The anxiety with which Frederick awaited the spring of 1745, when he must expect to have to fight in earnest for Silesia, was rendered more intense by a sudden change in the attitude of his allies. He had joined in the struggle with the expectation that Austria would be attacked by the French and hampered both by the war in Italy and by the forces of the Emperor. On January 20th, however, Charles Albert died, and the youth who succeeded him was soon beaten to his knees. By the Treaty of Füssen, in April, Austria and Bavaria agreed to ignore the past; and the latter for the first time guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction and promised to vote for the husband of Maria Theresa at the imperial election. The effect of this treaty upon Frederick’s position will be appreciated when it is borne in mind that the road from France to Austria passed through Bavaria, while the Austrian Netherlands, which France coveted, lay at her very door. Thus it was easy to suspect that in the coming campaign Prussia would receive little effective help from France. Suspicion passed into certainty when Louis XV. elected to accompany his army in person.
The campaign of 1745 might therefore be expected to fall into two separate halves. In the Netherlands, France would be pitted against the Sea Powers and an Austrian contingent, while in Silesia Austria would make a great effort against Prussia. At the same time the secondary struggle of Austria with Spain and France would go on in Italy, while French and Austrian corps would guard the Rhine. It is evident at a glance that the withdrawal of the French and Bavarians must greatly improve the prospects of Austria with regard to Silesia. And when (May, 1745) she was joined by Saxony, whose help all parties desired, in an undertaking to make no peace until Frederick should resign Silesia and Glatz to the one and part of his hereditary dominions to the other, the Queen might well be sanguine. Much of her advantage was, however, thrown away by an error common to Hapsburg rulers, who are wont to believe that no family is so fitted as their own for command. The invasion of Silesia was entrusted to Prince Charles of Lorraine, the nominal leader of the army in the previous year, while Traun, the real author of the Austrian success, was sent to watch the Imperial election at Frankfort. The consequence was that the Austrians did not move till May, and that they were worse generalled than the Prussians.
Meanwhile Frederick had been assiduous in preparing for war and in negotiating to avoid it. He was ready to put 80,000 foot and 30,000 horse into the field: but he had sued in vain for the alliance of Saxony and the aid of England and of Russia. The King, who in 1740 had offered millions to Maria Theresa and planned a partition of her dominions, must in 1745 implore Louis XV. for a subsidy to avert the partition of his own. But the danger to Prussia, though real, was not yet as overwhelming as her enemies believed. “Excellent bearskin to be slit into straps,” chuckles Frederick’s admirer, “only the bear is still on his feet.”
The King could still count upon two mighty allies,—upon his army, whose spirit had been restored by the successes of the Old Dessauer in the defence of Silesia, and upon himself. Both grew year by year more valuable. At this crisis, as events were soon to prove, Frederick’s spirit was worthy of the Queen herself. “I have made it a point of honour,” he wrote to Podewils on April 27, 1745, “to contribute more than any other to the aggrandisement of my House. I have played a leading part among the crowned heads of Europe. These are so many personal engagements which I have taken and which I am resolved to fulfil even at the cost of my fortune and my life.” Since the middle of March he had been making ready in Silesia, and in April he sent home directions for carrying on the government if Berlin should be in danger.
Next month he learned that his French allies, who were bent on capturing Tournay, had gained a great victory at Fontenoy (11th May, 1745). He received the news with mixed feelings. He had been striving to find words which might force into the mind of Louis XV. the truth that victories in the Netherlands would do nothing for the common cause in Germany. “We beg the King of France,” he wrote, “not to imagine that any efforts of his in Flanders can procure the least relief for the King of Prussia. If the Spaniards land in the Canary Islands, if the King of France takes Tournay, or if Thamas Kuli-Chan besieges Babylon it is all one,” since such feats could not influence the war in Bohemia and Moravia. Yet it was not disheartening to know that Dettingen had been avenged and that other foes of Austria could more than hold their own. With renewed hope, Frederick bent all his energies to the task of holding Silesia.
The King had learned much from Traun, and he was no longer compelled to consult the interests of his allies. He therefore avoided the mistakes of the former year. In 1745 his clear gaze penetrated the heart of the problem which he had to solve, and he followed the right course with the coolest daring. Silesia, he knew, was divided from the country of the enemy by a mountain rampart more than three hundred miles in length and pierced by many roads. Veiled by clouds of light horse, Prince Charles might choose any of these roads without betraying his choice to the army of defence. What Neipperg had accomplished when he entered Silesia in 1741 might be repeated by Prince Charles on a greater scale, and with less favour from fortune the Prussians might this time be crushed in detail. Frederick therefore drove sentiment from his breast, abandoned south-eastern Silesia to the Hungarians, and concentrated all his force in the neighbourhood of Neisse, a stronghold which the Prussians had made impregnable. His design was to admit the invaders to Silesia in the hope of catching them at a disadvantage and of destroying their enterprise at a blow.
The result was that, when the allies came, they came in the highest spirits. Their progress had been as fortunate as they could have hoped. First, as usual, troops of wild riders poured into Silesia from the south-east. They enjoyed the success which Frederick’s plan assured to them, and treason among his soldiers gave them Cosel, a fortress on the upper Oder. Then Prince Charles moved northward from Königgrätz into the mountains and 30,000 Saxons joined him on the way. On June 3, 1745, the combined army marched proudly down into the plain. Breslau lay little more than two days’ march to the north-east of them.
The fixed idea of Prince Charles was that Frederick would behave in 1745 as he had behaved in 1744; that is to say, that he would retreat. This delusion had been carefully fostered by the King. Discovering that one of the spies whom he kept in the Austrian camp was in fact selling Prussian secrets to the enemy, Frederick cleverly hinted to him that he was afraid of being cut off from Breslau. The spy informed Prince Charles, who readily gave credit to information which confirmed his previous belief. Frederick then ordered some repairs on the roads leading to the capital and supplied further proof of his intention, if any were needed, by leaving the passes unguarded. Prince Charles therefore emerged from the mountains in entire ignorance of the fact that he was to be attacked by a force of 70,000 men. The invaders encamped upon a plain some five miles broad and as flat as the field of Mollwitz, with the little town of Hohenfriedberg on the edge of the mountains to their rear, and Striegau, a place of greater size, on the hills before them. The Saxon vanguard, which had already been in contact with the enemy, was instructed to seize Striegau next morning, if the Prussians still ventured to hold it. “There can be no God in heaven,” said Prince Charles, “if we do not win this battle.”
Frederick’s camp lay almost at right angles to the line of the allies between Hohenfriedberg and Striegau. That night (June 3–4, 1745) the Prussians stole silently from their stations, crossed a stream which separated them from the enemy, and ranged themselves before him in line of battle. At dawn they began a general attack as furious as it was unexpected. The Saxons, always unfortunate in war, were the first to suffer, and their dogged resistance only increased their loss. The Austrian infantry stood firm, but their cavalry could no longer face the Prussians. Thus the Austrian centre and right wing, though favoured by the ground, could gain no advantage sufficient to compensate for the disasters of the Saxons on the left. Hohenfriedberg was a soldiers’ battle, and the decisive stroke was an irresponsible charge of the Baireuth dragoons, who dashed at the enemy through a dangerous gap in the Prussian line. The shock carried all before it. More than sixty standards were captured by this regiment alone. By eight o’clock in the morning the Austrians were in retreat towards the mountains and the invasion of Silesia was at an end.
The allied army fled so quickly, writes the historian of the Evangelical church at Hohenfriedberg, that little damage was done in the place, and the inhabitants were soon able to bear what succour they could to the wounded, who lay in thousands on the plain below. In about four hours’ fighting the victors had lost more than 4000 men killed or wounded, and the vanquished about 10,000. These figures do not, however, represent one tithe of the advantage which Frederick gained at Hohenfriedberg. He had reduced the allied army by some 25,000 men, of whom 7000 were prisoners and many more deserters. Every German army at that time included thousands of professional soldiers who fought for either side indifferently and preferred the victors’ pay to their pursuit. Thousands more fought against their will, and the retreat through mountains gave them an opportunity to slip away. For a month the Prussians hung in the rear of the allies and drove them as far as Königgrätz. Instead of his defensive attitude in Silesia, Frederick now took up a defensive-offensive in Bohemia, a plan which was as creditable to his strategy as the battle had been to his tactics. Above all other advantages he had gained this at Hohenfriedberg—that he could henceforth trust his cavalry. Worthless at Mollwitz, respectable at Chotusitz, at Hohenfriedberg they proved themselves superb. The panel which commemorates the victory in the Prussian Hall of Fame portrays the dragoons swooping down upon the white-clad infantry of Austria.