ONE:On the 8th of September Fritz returned to Potsdam from this his first military expedition, with his regiment of giants. He was then seventeen years of age. His soldierly bearing had quite rejoiced the king, and he began to think that, after all, possibly something might be made of Fritz.THE LITTLE DRUMMER.
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ONE:The Prussian kingdom, which thus fell to Frederick by divine right, consisted of an assemblage of duchies, marquisates, principalities, and lordships, comprising an area of nearly fifty-seven thousand square miles, being about the size of the State of Michigan, and very similarly situated as to climate and soil. It was unfortunately not a compact country, as several of the states could only be reached by passing through the territories of other powers. The annual revenue amounted to a little over six million dollars. There was also in the treasury a sum, which Frederick William had saved, of about seven million dollars. The army consisted of seventy-six thousand men, in the highest state of discipline, and abundantly furnished with all the materiel of war.
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ONE:Olmütz was ninety miles from Troppau, in Silesia, where Frederick had established his base of supplies. This was a long line of communication to protect. General Daun, with a numerous Austrian army, all whose movements were veiled by clouds of those fleet and shaggy horsemen called Pandours, was forty miles to the west, at Leutomischel. Cautious in the extreme, nothing could draw him into a general battle. But he watched his foe with an eagle eye, continually assailing his line of communication, and ever ready to strike his heaviest blows upon any exposed point.On the 20th of April, Frederick, having secretly placed his army in the best possible condition, commenced a rapid march upon Prague, thus plunging into the very heart of Bohemia. He advanced in three great columns up the valley of the Elbe and the Moldau. His movements were so rapid and unexpected that he seized several Austrian magazines which they had not even time to burn. Three months provisions were thus obtained for412 his whole army. The first column, under the king, was sixty thousand strong. The second column, led by General Bevern, numbered twenty-three thousand, horse and foot. The third, under Marshal Schwerin, counted thirty-two thousand foot and twelve thousand horse. On the 2d of May the banners of Frederick were seen from the steeples of Prague. They appeared floating from the heights of the Weissenberg, a few miles west of the city. At the same time, the other two columns, which had united under Marshal Schwerin, appeared on the east side of the Moldau, upon both banks of which the city is built.
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