Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

What profit would Leuthen bring to Prussia? was Frederick’s first thought after the glorious fifth of December, and may well be ours. He himself was worn and ill. In the excitement of victory he had closed the long day of Leuthen with a jest. Pressing on to the castle of Lissa, he found it full of Austrian officers. “Bonjour, Messieurs,” cried the King, suddenly appearing out of the darkness, “can you find room for me?” But reaction and depression followed the strain of 1757. “If the year upon which I am entering,” he wrote on his birthday (January 24, 1758), “is to be as cruel as that which is at an end, I hope it will be my last.”

Every kind of anxiety, public and private alike, pressed at the same time upon the hero of Rossbach and Leuthen. His brother, Augustus William, for whom a chance bullet might at any moment clear the throne, had not yet succumbed under the burden of disgrace, and wearied Frederick with complaints and acid congratulations. His brother-in-law, Ferdinand of Brunswick, was stricken with fever, and the King’s mind was full of vague fears which he confessed but could not account for. Upon his sister, Wilhelmina, who had more need of it, he lavished sympathy and encouragement in a flood of tender messages.

“I am delighted that you are having some music and a little dissipation,” he writes, early in the new year; “believe me, dear Sister, there is nothing in life that can console us but a little philosophy and the fine arts.... I swear to give thanks to Heaven on the day when I can descend from the tight-rope on which I am forced to dance.”

If we must choose a simile from the circus to describe Frederick during this war, he might be likened to an acrobat juggling with five bomb-shells at once. Of three, the Swedes, the Russians, and the Imperialists, he had not yet felt the full weight, and with a supreme effort he had flung the French and the Austrians high into the air. What would be his task in 1758?

While he harvested the fruits of Leuthen without pause Frederick permitted himself to hope that his victory would bring peace. After the fall of Breslau on December 19, 1757, he estimated the Austrian losses and found them overwhelming. He even gave out that at a sacrifice of less than 4000 Prussians killed and wounded, he had reduced the enemy’s force by 47,707 men. He was still gathering in prisoners and deserters every day. Before the year was out he could assure Prince Henry that, according to sound opinion, Prince Charles’s army consisted of no more than 13,000 foot and 9000 horse. “If this does not lead to peace,” writes Frederick on December 21st, “no success in war will ever pave the way thither.” A week later he is still hopeful, “but even if one were sure of it, we must none the less labour to make our position formidable, since force is the only argument that one can use with these dogs of Kings and Emperors.” Leuthen indeed gave Maria Theresa another opportunity to prove her constancy and courage. Frederick made overtures to her for peace, but she refused to engage in any negotiation apart from her allies. Early in January, 1758, the King became aware that Austria whatever it might cost her, was determined on another campaign.

Gradually the prospect grew clearer. Almost beyond the hopes of the Queen her alliance with France survived the double shock of Rossbach and Leuthen. At the beginning of February Louis promised to send 24,000 men into Bohemia. Since his encounter with Soubise, Frederick regarded the French as brigands rather than warriors, but their onset compelled him to place a sturdy watch-dog in the West. This part was played by Ferdinand of Brunswick, who drove them across the Rhine before March was over. Another foe, the Swedes, were even less considerable. Frederick jeered at them as “cautious people who run away eighty miles so as not to be taken,” and assured his sister, the Queen of Sweden, of his willingness to grant them peace. So long as France was willing to pay subsidies, however, the Swedes were willing to provide 30,000 men. They still occupied their “bastion,” Pomerania, in force, and therefore Lehwaldt must still act as the Ferdinand of the North. The King himself proposed to astonish Europe by his dealings with the Austrians and Imperialists. From his ally he might look for the same assistance as in the previous year. He laboured in vain to persuade the Sea Powers that the Protestant cause and their own interests demanded that they should attack France with their own troops. But in April Pitt undertook to furnish an annual subsidy of £670,000, and for four years the money was punctually paid.

Map for the SILESIAN AND SEVEN YEARS WARS

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, London & New York.

With Silesia at his back, the French and Swedes held in check, and England in close alliance, Frederick’s prospects for the campaign of 1758 might seem almost brilliant. He had some 206,000 men under arms. Ready money was not plentiful, but Frederick procured it in a thoroughly Prussian fashion—unscrupulous but practical. His own subjects he spared so far as possible. At times indeed he treated even them in the manner of his father. In January, 1758, the merchants of Breslau answered “Impossible” to a royal demand that they should advance 300,000 thalers to the Jews who had charge of the coinage. Frederick’s minister reported the fact, adding that the Jews enjoyed no credit in the mercantile world. The King’s annotation, scrawled in German on the back of the report, is still treasured in the archives pf the General Staff at Berlin, It runs as follows: “I will cook something for the President if he don’t get the money out of those merchants at once without arguing.”