Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/468

 456 FREDERICK (PRUSSIA) and Bohemia. Frederick, immediately on her father's death, sent her an offer of pecuniary aid and his vote for her husband Francis as emperor of Germany, on condition of the ces- sion of the duchies of Glogau and Sagan, to which, as well as the greater part of Silesia, the house of Hohenzollern laid claim. This being rejected, in December he entered Lower Silesia at the head of his army, routed the handful of Austrians who were quartered on the frontier, and overran the province. In six weeks he returned to Berlin in triumph. Frederick officially pretended to justify him- self, but privately acknowledged that " ambi- tion, interest, the desire to make people talk about me, carried the day ; and I decided to make war." He had inherited from his fa- ther a splendid army of 70,000 men, formed by his general Leopold of Dessau, at that period the finest troops in the world. There was in the treasury a surplus of $6,000,000. He felt that a bold stroke might be made, and that by means of a strong military organization he could obtain for his two and a quarter million subjects a foremost place among the great na- tions around him. Hastening in the spring (1741) to rejoin his troops, he fought his first battle at Mollwitz. His army was victorious, but its leader had fled. He had beheld real war for the first time, and so completely lost his self-command as to gallop miles from the field. His personal courage had been pre- viously well established, when a volunteer un- der Prince Eugene against the French; but he saw during that campaign nothing of the fury and carnage of war. The battle of Moll- witz (April 10, 1741) decided the fate of Si- lesia. It was, however, the signal for a gen- eral war in Europe, known as that of the Austrian succession. Bavaria, with France, now took up arms. A French, Saxon, and Bavarian army invaded Bohemia, while Fred- erick marched into Moravia. The fortunes of the youthful queen grew darker still when England, her last ally, determined upon neu- trality. Frederick gained a second victory at Chotusitz, near Czaslau, May 17, 1742, and at once effaced by personal prowess the blot upon his victory at Mollwitz. Accepting Eng- lish mediation, Maria Theresa made peace with Prussia by a treaty concluded at Breslau, June 11, and ceded Silesia and the county of Glatz. Frederick withdrew from Moravia, while the Austrians everywhere triumphed against France and Bavaria. He profited by this in- terval of peace to strengthen his army and organize new conquests. England meanwhile declared for Austria, and British troops fought at Dettingen. On the death of the last count of East Friesland, in 1744, Frederick took pos- session of that country, which by the grant of the emperor Leopold in 1694 was to revert to the house of Brandenburg. He grew anx- ious in the midst of ceaseless Austrian victo- ries, and fearing to be dispossessed of Silesia, in August, 1744, he marched into Bohemia at the head of 100,000 men, took Prague, and threatened Vienna. He confesses that this campaign was filled with blunders ; that no general ever committed graver faults ; and it appears that during this year he first learned to be a general. He retreated rapidly, but only to retrieve the past. In the next campaign, at Ho- henfriedberg, he defeated a joint army of Aus- trians and Saxons (June 4, 1745), in a manner which placed him at the head of contemporary commanders. This victory was followed by those of Sorr (Sept. 30) and Kesselsdorf (Dec. 15), and the fall of Dresden ; and having no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa could avenge herself, he deserted his French ally, and made peace with Austria and Saxony by the treaty of Dresden (Dec. 25), by which he acknowledged Francis as emperor, and was confirmed in the possession of Silesia. Fred- erick by this time had doubled the number of his subjects, and had succeeded so well in hum- bling Austria and her allies, that he appeared to hold in his hand the balance of power in Germany. His people now enjoyed 11 years of peace, during which he devoted himself to the organization of his states and his army, the advancement of the arts, agriculture, manufac- tures, commerce, and education, the ameliora- tion of the laws, and the increase of the public revenues. He also wrote his Memoires pour sermr d Vhistoire de Brandebourg (2 vols., Berlin, 1751), his poem UArt de guerre, and many other productions in prose and verse. This was a period, nevertheless, of constant anxiety and insecurity; and learning in 1756 that a new coalition, including Russia and his former ally France, was forming against him, Frederick at once prepared for the encounter, suddenly allied himself with England, and the whole face of affairs was changed. Sweden, the tool of France, foil owed the French leading; and Frederick, with scarcely 5,000,000 sub- jects, including the conquered Silesians, found himself alone on the continent against nearly 100,000,000. It was resolved to crush him; but he had foreseen this design, detected all the secret intrigues, and resolved to strike the first blow. In August, 1756, with 70,000 men, he entered Saxony, and commenced the fa- mous seven years' war. His army had grown to 160,000 men, but his enemies could bring 600,000 troops into the field, and there was not a politician in Europe who did not look upon his destruction as certain. He himself thought it probable ; but he had an overflowing treasury at home, and plenty of money from England, and he hoped that genius, judgment, and resolution, with ordinary good fortune, might at least sustain him until his enemies should quarrel among themselves. At Dres- den he seized some state papers which exposed the designs of the coalition. They were pub- lished, and the world saw that this time he had right on his side. He defeated the Aus- trian general Braun at Lowositz (Oct. 1) ; the Saxon army under Rutowski surrendered a