TWO:Frederick, returning to Berlin from his six weeks campaign in Silesia, remained at home but three weeks. He had recklessly let loose the dogs of war, and must already have begun to be appalled in view of the possible results. His embassadors at the various courts had utterly failed to secure for him any alliance. England and some of the other powers were manifestly unfriendly to him. Like Frederick himself, they were all disposed to consult merely their own individual interests. Thus influenced, they looked calmly on to see how Frederick, who had thrown into the face of the young Queen of Austria the gage of battle, would meet the forces which she, with great energy, was marshaling in defense of her realms. Frederick was manifestly and outrageously in the wrong.It seems strange, said the Austrian minister of war, that his Prussian majesty, whose official post in Germany, as chamberlain of the emperor, is to present the basin and towel to the house of Austria, should now presume to prescribe rules to it.
TWO:On the 3d of July Frederick issued his declaration of war. On that very day his solid battalions, one hundred thousand556 strong, with menacing banners and defiant bugle-notes, crossed the border, and encamped on Bohemian ground. At the same moment, the kings brother, Prince Henry, with another army of one hundred thousand men, commenced a march from the west to co-operate in an impetuous rush upon Vienna. These tidings caused the utmost consternation in the Austrian capital. An eye-witness writes:
