letters he received and the rumours he heard, formed his resolution, and this resolution he next morning formally announced. He resigned his post of Captain General, his regiment, in short all his military employments. The King was startled, and attempted to alter his determination, but in vain. Thus did the harsh victor of Culloden surrender the darling passion and object of his life, — the army, sooner than submit to what he deemed an unfounded aspersion on his conduct. He lived till 1765 in comparative obscurity, and died, perhaps worn out by inaction, in his forty-sixth year. It is due It is due to this Prince to say, that, aggrieved as he thought himself by the King, he never let fall amidst all his irritation a single word inconsistent with his strictest duty as a subject or a son. It is also remarkable that of all the Ministers in England the only one disposed to afford him any countenance or protection was Pitt, -the very man whom the Duke had always in the most marked manner thwarted and opposed. Nay, Pitt had even risked the displeasure of his Master rather than fail in justice to his enemy. When the King had told Pitt that he had given the Duke no orders for such a treaty, Pitt had answered with firmness; “But "full powers, Sir,-very full powers!" The Princess Dowager behaved on this occasion in her usual spirit of prudence and caution. When the Duke called upon her, and was beginning to mention his resolution to resign, she rang the bell, and asked him if he would not see the children! After the battle of Kolin and the Convention of ClosterSeven the position of Frederick, — hemmed in on almost every side by victorious enemies, - was not only most dangerous but well-nigh desperate. To his own eyes it seemed so. He revolved in his thoughts, and discussed with his friends, the voluntary death of Otho as a worthy example to follow.* Fully resolved never to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, nor yet to survive any decisive overthrow, he carried about his person a sure poison in a small glass phial. Yet amidst all his growing difficulties, and with the prospect of death close before him, * See two letters from Voltaire to Frederick in October 1757. (Correspondance avec le Roi de Prusse, vol. i. p. 322-327.) 1757. BATTLE OF ROSBACH. 119 this extraordinary man never relaxed either in his poetical recreations or his warlike designs. He could still find amusement in composing an ode, feeble and profane, against the Duke of Cumberland.* He could still with indomitable skill and energy make every preparation for encountering the Prince de Soubise. He marched against the French commander at the head of only 22,000 men; but these were veterans, trained in the strictest discipline, and full of confidence in their chief. Soubise, on the other hand, owed his appointment in part to his illustrious lineage, as head of the House of Rohan, and still more to Court-favour, as the minion of Madame de Pompadour, but in no degree to his own experience or abilities. He had under his orders nearly 40,000 of his countrymen, and nearly 20,000 troops of the Empire; for the Germanic Diet also had been induced to join the league against Frederick. On the 5th of November the two armies came to a battle at Rosbach, close to the plain of Lützen, where in the preceding century Gustavus Adolphus conquered and fell. By the skilful manœuvres of Frederick the French were brought to believe that the Prussians intended nothing but retreat, and they advanced in high spirits as if only to pursue the fugitives. Of a sudden they found themselves attacked with all the compactness of discipline, and all the courage of despair. The troops of the Empire, a motley crew, fled at the first fire; some of the French regiments showed scarcely greater steadiness; Soubise was bewildered and helpless; and the rout became universal. So rapid was the victory that the right wing of the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, was never engaged at all. Great numbers of the French were cut down in their flight by the Prussian cavalry, not a few perished in the waters of the Saale, and full 7,000 were made prisoners, with a large amount of baggage, artillery, and standards. * This ode seems intended as a parody" de Jérémie et du divin "Baruc." Here are four of the least hobbling lines "Et toi, Stade, l'arche où notre Salomon 66 Plaça son tabernacle et son sacré Mammon, (Euvres Posthumes, vol. xv. p. 212. ed. 1789.) It has been said, with great truth and point, of our James the First, that he seemed made up of two men,an able well-read scholar, who wrote, -and a drivelling idiot, who acted.* The exact converse of this character might be aptly applied to Frederick. On the very day after the battle of Rosbach the illustrious victor sat down in his tent to write in French rhymes a farewell to the French army. So coarse and ribald is this effusion that it could only appear in print by the aid of numerous blanks and asterisks, and the feebleness of the lines is fully equal to their ribaldry.* Alas, for human intellect to find even its glory thus blended with its shame! The battle of Rosbach was not more remarkable for its military results than for its moral influence. It was hailed throughout Germany as a triumph of the Teutonic over the Gallic race. It was a victory of their own gained by a leader of their own, not by a chief of foreign blood and lineage, a Montecuculi or a Prince Eugene. Throughout the whole of that great and noble-minded people,-from the Oder to the Rhine,-from the mouth of the Elbe to the sources of the Drave,-even in the Austrian states themselves,-the day of Rosbach was ere long considered as a common theme of national pride and national rejoicing. At this day the .fame of Frederick has become nearly as dear to all true Germans as the fame of Arminius. It was a spell which even Jena could not break, and which shone forth with redoubled power after Leipsick. Nay, even on the field of Rosbach itself this feeling was already in some degree apparent. It is * Edinburgh Review, No. cxxxii. p. 31. † See the Euvres Posthumes, vol. xv. p. 217. Ten of the lines (which are at least inoffensive) will be a sufficient trial of the reader's patience : "Je vous l'avoue en confidence 1757. ENTHUSIASM OF THE GERMANS. 121 recorded how one of Frederick's soldiers, as he stooped to make prisoner one of Soubise's, suddenly saw, on turning round, the sabre of an Austrian cuirassier waving in the air, and ready to descend on his own head. "Brother German," cried the Brandenburgher, "let me "have the Frenchman!" "Take him," answered the Austrian, and slowly rode away.* So precarious was now Frederick's position that the battle of Rosbach, as he said himself, gained him nothing but leisure to fight another battle elsewhere.† During his absence on the Saale the Austrian armies had poured over the mountains into Silesia; they had defeated the Prussians under the Duke of Bevern; they had taken the main fortress, Schweidnitz, and the capital, Breslau; nearly the whole province was already their's. A flying detachment of 4,000 cavalry, under General Haddick, had even pushed into Brandenburg, and levied a contribution from the city of Berlin. The advancing season seemed to require winter quarters, but Frederick never dreamed of rest until Silesia was recovered. He hastened by forced marches from the Saale to the Oder, gathering reinforcements while he went along. As he drew near Breslau, the Imperial commander, Prince Charles of Lorraine, flushed with recent victory, and confident in superior numbers, disregarded the prudent advice of Marshal Daun, and descended from an almost inaccessible position to give the King of Prussia battle on the open plain. Frederick, who had previously exclaimed that he would attack the enemy even though he found them entrenched on the church-steeples of Breslau ‡, was overjoyed at the prospect of engaging them on level ground. He assembled his officers, and addressed them with much earnestness and eloquence, showing the importance, nay, the necessity to them all, of victory, and bidding them repeat his expressions to their men. On the 5th of December, one month from the battle of Ros * Archenholtz, vol. i. p. 122. There were two Austrian cavalry regiments at Rosbach among the troops of the Empire. (p. 116.) "Je n'y gagne que de pouvoir m'opposer avec sureté à d'autres "ennemis." (Lettre au Marquis d'Argens, Nov. 1757. Œuvres Posthumes, vol. x. p. 42.) Preuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 104. bach, the two armies met at Leuthen, a small village near Breslau, Frederick with 40,000, Prince Charles of Lorraine with between 60,000 and 70,000 men. For several hours did the conflict rage doubtfully and fiercely. It was decided mainly by the skill and the spirit of the Prussian Monarch. "The battle of Leuthen," says Napoleon, "was a master-piece. Did it even stand alone it "would of itself entitle Frederick to immortal fame.” * In killed, wounded, and taken the Austrians lost no less than 27,000 men ; above 50 standards, above 100 cannon, above 4,000 waggons, became the spoil of the victors; Breslau was taken, Schweidnitz blockaded, Silesia recovered; the remnant of the Imperial forces fled back across the mountains; and Frederick, after one of the longest and most glorious campaigns that History records, at length allowed himself and his soldiers some repose. In no country-scarce even in Prussia-was the fame of Frederick more extolled, more widely spread, more truly popular, than in England. His birthday was kept with as much rejoicing as King George's.* The streets of London were illuminated in honour of his victories, and the " King of Prussia became a favourite sign at country inns. Religious zeal combined in his behalf with military ardour; the faith of his fathers was supposed to be his own; the scepticism of the scoffer was little known, unless to travellers and statesmen, and he was enthusiastically hailed as the true "Protestant Hero." The policy of the new administration in support of Prussia met, therefore, with general applause. Early in 1758 Pitt concluded a new Convention by which England agreed to pay to Prussia a Subsidy of 670,000l.; and the money was voted with scarce a dissentient voice in the House of Commons. In fact, from the combination of parties, and the ascendency of the Great Commoner, opposition, even in his absence, appeared well nigh defunct or disarmed. On the 21st of *"La bataille de Leuthen est un chef-d'oeuvre de mouvemens, de "manœuvres et de resolution; seule elle suffirait pour immortaliser "Frederic, et lui donner rang parmi les plus grands généraux." (Mémoires publiés par Montholon, vol. v. p. 215.) This battle was at first called Lissa from the name of the neighbouring woods. † Entick's History of the War, vol. iii. p. 20. |