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ONE:Voltaire replied from Leipsic:Immediately after the battle, Frederick wrote rather a stately letter to his mother, informing her of his victory, and that he was about to pursue the foe with a hundred and fifty thousand men. Fifty thousand of the defeated Austrians entered Prague, and stood at bay behind its ramparts. Frederick seized all the avenues, that no provisions could enter the city, convinced that starvation, combined with a vigorous assault, would soon compel the garrison to surrender themselves, the city, and all its magazines. On the 9th of May the bombardment with red-hot balls commenced. The siege lasted six weeks, creating an amount of misery over which angels might weep. The balls of fire were constantly kindling wide and wasting conflagrations. Soon a large portion of the city presented only a heap of smouldering ruins. TWO:There was, after all, says Valori, at times a kind of devout feeling in this prince, who possessed such a combination of qualities, good and bad, that I know not which preponderates.
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ONE:Monday morning the storm ceased. There was a perfect calm. For leagues the spotless snow, nearly two feet deep, covered all the extended plains. The anxiety of Frederick had been so great that for two nights he had not been able to get any sleep. He had plunged into this war with the full assurance that he was to gain victory and glory. It now seemed inevitable that he was to encounter but defeat and shame. TWO:When the king reached Lissa he found the village full of Austrian officers and soldiers in a state of utter disorganization and confusion. Had the Austrians known their strength or the weakness of the king, they might easily have taken him captive. Frederick was somewhat alarmed. He, however, assumed a bold front, and rode to the principal house in the town, which was a little one side of the main street. The house was crowded with Austrian officers, bustling about, seeking lodgings for the night. The king stepped in with a slight escort, and said gayly,
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ONE: TWO: It will have been easy for you to conceive my grief when you reflect upon the loss I have had. There are some misfortunes which are reparable by constancy and courage, but there are others against which all the firmness with which one can arm ones self, and all the reasonings of philosophers, are only vain and useless attempts at consolation.121 Of the latter kind is the one with which my unhappy fate overwhelms me, at a moment the most embarrassing and the most anxious of my whole life. I have not been so sick as you have heard. My only complaints are colics, sometimes hemorrhoidal, and sometimes nephritic.
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ONE: Frederick.Frederick was, with great energy, gathering all his resources for a decisive conflict in his fortresses along the banks of the Neisse. By almost superhuman exertions he had collected an army there of about seventy thousand men. The united army of Austria and Saxony marching upon him amounted to one hundred thousand regulars, together with uncounted swarms of349 Pandours sweeping around him in all directions, interrupting his communications and cutting off his supplies. TWO:We approached, he writes, Marshal Neippergs army without being discovered by any one man living. His troops were then cantoned in three villages. But at that time I had not sufficient experience to know how to avail myself of such an opportunity. I ought immediately to have ordered two of my columns to surround the village of Mollwitz, and then to have attacked it. I ought at the same instant to have detached my dragoons with orders to have attacked the other two villages, which contained the Austrian cavalry. The infantry, which should have followed, would have prevented them from mounting. If I had proceeded in this way I am convinced that I should have totally destroyed the Austrian army.52With that answer! Sir Thomas replied, in tones of surprise. Is your majesty serious? Is that your majestys deliberate answer?
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ONE:There is nothing left for us, my dear lord, but to mingle and blend our weeping for the losses we have had. If my head were a fountain of tears, it would not suffice for the grief I feel.Old Prince Leopold of Dessau, whom he had left in command of the army in Silesia, was one of the most extraordinary men of any age. He invented the iron ramrod, and also all modern military tactics. The soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on the parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command. Out of his rough head proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable drill-sergeants in various languages repeat and enforce.80 TWO:In the following terms, Frederick, the moment the battle was over, announced his victory, not to his wife, but to his friend Jordan:To the summons which Frederick sent to Maria Theresa, demanding the surrender of Silesia, no response could be returned, consistent with the dignity of the crown, but a peremptory refusal. The reply was unanswerable in its logic. Though it was, in general, couched in courteous terms, one sentence crept into it of rather scornful defiance.
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