ONE:After the battle of Mollwitz, General Neipperg withdrew the defeated Austrian army to the vicinity of Neisse, where he strongly intrenched himself. Frederick encamped his troops around Brieg, and made vigorous preparations to carry the place by storm. With great energy he pushed forward his works, and in less than three weeks was ready for the assault. On the night of April 26 there was a tempest of extraordinary violence, which was followed, the next night, by a dead calm, a cloudless sky, and a brilliant moon. On both sides of the River Oder, upon which Brieg was situated, there was an open champaign country. Several bridges crossed the river. At a fixed moment two thousand diggers were collected, at appointed stations, divided into twelve equal parties. With the utmost exactness they were equipped with all the necessary implements. These diggers, with spade and pickaxe, and yet thoroughly armed, were preceded a few yards by covering battalions, who, having stealthily and silently obtained the position assigned to them, were to lie flat upon the ground. Not a gun was to be fired; not a word was to be spoken save in a whisper; not even a pipe was to be lighted. Some engineers were to mark out with a straw266 rope, just in the rear of the covering party, the line of the first parallel. Every imaginable contingency was provided for, and each man was to attend to his individual duty with the precision of clock-work.There was not a moment to be lost. General Neipperg was moving resolutely forward with a cloud of skirmishers in the advance and on his wings. With the utmost exertions Frederick immediately rendezvoused all his remote posts, destroying such stores as could not hastily be removed, and by a forced march of twenty-five miles in one day reached Neustadt. General Neipperg was marching by a parallel road about twenty miles west of that which the Prussians traversed. At Neustadt the king was still twenty miles from Neisse. With the delay of but a few hours, that he might assemble all the Prussian bands from the posts in that neighborhood, the king again resumed his march. He had no longer any hope of continuing the siege of Neisse. His only aim was to concentrate all his scattered forces, which had been spread over an area of nearly two thousand square miles, and, upon some well-selected field, to trust to the uncertain issues of a general battle. There was no choice left for him between this course and an ignominious retreat.
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TWO:Instantly the Prussian troops were ordered to the right about. Rapidly retracing their steps through the streets of Leipe, much to the surprise of its inhabitants, they pressed on seven miles farther toward Ohlau, and encamped for the night. The anxiety of Frederick in these hours when he was retiring before the foe, and when there was every probability of his incurring disgrace instead of gaining honor, must have been dreadful. There was no sleep for him that night. The Prussians were almost surrounded by the Austrians, and it was quite certain that the morrow would usher in a battle. Oppressed by the peril of his position, the king, during the night, wrote to his brother Augustus252 William, who was at Breslau, as follows. The letter was dated at the little village of Pogerell, where the king had taken shelter.The Russians marched to Poland. The Austrians returned to Saxony. As soon as Frederick heard of their retreat, instead of continuing his march to Berlin, he also turned his columns southward. On the 27th of October he crossed the Elbe, about sixty miles above Dresden, and found himself in the vicinity of General Daun, whose army outnumbered that of Frederick two to510 one. The situation of Frederick was extremely critical. Under these circumstances, he wrote to DArgens on the 28th:
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Art-Director
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TWO:O my God, help me yet this once. Let me not be disgraced in my old days. But if Thou wilt not help me, dont help those scoundrels, but leave us to try it out ourselves.
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Art-Director
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TWO:I am abandoned by all. Hostile invasion threatens the kingdom of Hungary, our person, our children, our crown. I have no resource but in your fidelity and valor. I invoke the ancient Hungarian virtue to rise swiftly and save me.There were nearly thirty thousand men, infantry and cavalry, thus assembling under the banners of Frederick for battle. They were in as perfect state of drill as troops have ever attained, and were armed with the most potent implements of war which that age could furnish. The king was visibly affected by the spectacle. Whether humane considerations touched his heart, or merely poetic emotion moved him, we can not tell. But he was well aware that within a few hours not merely hundreds, but thousands of those men, torn by shot and shell, would be prostrate in their blood upon the plain; and he could not but know that for all the carnage and the suffering, he, above all others, would be responsible at the bar of God.
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Art-Director
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