Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/420

 disaffection, however, was that Frederick, instead of choosing for his counselors the best and ablest men of the nation, brought with him his old favorites—foreigners—who neither understood nor cared for the best interests of the country. Among these may be mentioned Christian, the Prince of Anhalt, and George, the Count of Hohenloh. Placing these in command of the army, he greatly offended the able and tried generals, Mansfield and Thurn.

Nevertheless, the chief cause of the downfall of Bohemia was the character of her own sons. Never in the whole previous history of the nation was there such a scarcity of able and patriotic men. During the Hussite war, when one great leader fell, another immediately arose to fill his place; but in this period of moral decline, there was not a man found in the whole nation that possessed the qualities of a great leader. Thus it was that the management of affairs fell into the hands of strangers; and the natives, instead of helping them with their co operation and sympathy, looked upon them with jealousy, and even refused to contribute to the support of soldiers that were hired to do their fighting for them. They looked to the peasants and middle class to do this; but these, thinking that the nobles began the war and had far more to lose by its unsucessfulunsuccessful [sic] ending than themselves, contributed a mere pittance. The emptiness of the war treasury, time and again, was the source of great embarrassment to the officers; for it often happened that the ragged and half-starved soldiers, on the very eve of some battle, refused to fight unless their rations were first paid them. And yet, at this time, the wealth of the nobility and the citizens of Prague was enor-