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.52
TWO:The king could be very courteous. He gave a dinner-party, at which General Loudon, one of the most efficient of the Austrian generals, and who had often been successfully opposed to Frederick, was a guest. As he entered the king said,
TWO:About two hundred miles south of Berlin there was quite an important marquisate called Baireuth. The marquis had a good-looking young son, the heir-apparent, who had just returned from the grand tour of Europe. Upon the death of his father he would enter upon quite a rich inheritance. This young marquis, Frederick by name, Baron Borck proposed as a substitute for77 the Duke of Weissenfels. It was understood that Wilhelmina was such a prize that kings, even, would be eager to obtain her hand. There could therefore be no doubt but that the Marquis of Baireuth would feel signally honored by such nuptials. The worn and weary mother eagerly accepted this proposal. She suggested it to the king. Sullenly he gave it his assent, saying, I will passively submit to it, but will take no active part whatever in the affair. Neither will I give Wilhelmina one single copper for dowry.But Frederick did not seem to think himself at all bound by his treaty obligations with France to refrain from entering into secret arrangements with the foe which would promote his interests, however antagonistic those arrangements might be to his assumed obligations. He was the ally of France in the attempt to wrest territory from the young Queen of Austria, and to weaken her power. His armies and those of France were acting in co-operation. Frederick now proposed to the common enemy that, if Silesia were surrendered to him, he would no longer act in co-operation with his ally; but, that France might not discover his perfidy, he would still pretend to make war. The Austrians were to amuse themselves in defending Neisse from a sham siege until the pleasant weeks of autumn were gone, and then they were to march, with all their guns and ammunition, south to Vienna, there to fight the French. Frederick, still assuming that he was the ally of France, was to avail himself of the excuse that the season of ice and snow was at hand, and withdraw into winter quarters. Such, in general, were the terms which Frederick authorized his minister, Goltz, to propose to Lord Hyndford, as the agent of England and Austria.
TWO:And how sad for mankind that the very interpreters of Heavens commandmentsthe theologians, I meanare sometimes the most dangerous of all! professed messengers of the Divinity, yet men sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior, their soul blown out with mere darkness, full of gall and pride in proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of their opinion is an atheist; and every king who does not favor them will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne, and yet intrinsically insignificant.
