his hands, drove them over the mountains, and followed with his army into Bohemia. But here he soon experienced the difficulty of feeding troops in a thinly-peopled district, and surrounded with the swarms of irregular cavalry, Pandours, and others, which Hungary had sent forth in aid of her Queen. He was already retiring when Prince Karl, reinforced since his late defeat, again advanced upon Frederick, and at Sohr threatened to cut him from Silesia, by turning the right of the position in which his camp lay. With only 18,000 men against 30,000, the King promptly changed front to meet the attack, and, though his numbers only allowed him to form on a single line, in order to confront the enemy on an equally extended space, yet, without a pause, he advanced upon the dense masses and powerful artillery of the Austrians in an onset so vigorous as at once drove in their right wing in complete disorder; then transferring his victorious cavalry to the other wing of his army, hitherto kept out of the fight, he made a second attack on that side, which completed the discomfiture of the

enemy.

In these, the last battles of the second Silesian war, Frederick's generalship appears in a middle or progressive state between the mere routine and uninventive manoeuvres of Mollwitz and Chotusitz, and the triumphs of tactics which he afterwards exhibited in the Seven Years' (third Silesian) War. In the interval since the last peace he had remedied the manifest deficiencies of his cavalry so effectually, as to have established an immense superiority in that arm over the Austrian horse, whose charges had formerly been so easily successful. And possessing in these, and his admirable infantry, materials so perfect, he showed first, in these later battles, that he knew how to use them, so as to derive from each, in its own part of the battle, the full effect of its superiority.

But there was none of that admirable manoeuvring which subsequently became the characteristic feature of his military actions, founded no less on the ductility and steadiness of movement, than on the fighting power, of his army, and which, before the hostile lines. engaged, had already opened a path to the most decisive victory.

The peace of Dresden, the result of Frederick's victories, by which Silesia was again guaranteed to him, endured for ten years; and for so long the King led the life which amid his wars he had been sighing for. The world, too, eager to know all it could of a warrior already so renowned, and no longer occupied with his military actions only, turned a very curious scrutinising eye on the Court of Berlin; and there exist, consequently, in public and private records of the time, ample details of the habits and doings of the principal figure. Frederick managed at once to be extremely industrious, and to have plenty of leisure. To do this is to solve one of the most difficult problems of life, and to go far towards finding out the secret of happiness; for it is to impart to daily pleasures the zest of content at having earned them. He lived a life very much like that of a conscientious country gentleman in England who scrupulously fulfils the duties of the magistracy and the poor-law, manages to the minutest particulars his own property, knows the circumstances and affairs of everybody in his parish, and gives what is left of his time to society and hospitality. But Frederick was far too much addicted to details to be a perfect ruler. It is impossible to combine in the same person the large general glance of the statesman, and the microscopic scrutiny of the ordinary man of business; and Frederick's faculties as a ruler must have suffered from his habits of superintending in their minute particulars petty affairs. The practice of the Caliph Haroun

Alraschid, of going forth at night with Giaffir, his vizier, and Mesrour, the chief of his eunuchs, to observe secretly, and in disguise, the manner in which the laws were executed in the city of Bagdad, and to remedy isolated acts of injustice, may be supposed to have exercised a wholesome, if a desultory, influence on the corrupt judicature of an Eastern community. But this kind of interference, as a deus ex machina, would have a very different effect in a civilised country, where established laws were administered by trained and respectable functionaries. We fear, then, that we cannot join in the applause which Mr Carlyle demands for his hero, when he records such exceptional instances of royal interference as that of the case of Miller Arnold. It probably did (even if the King's decision were just, which is by no means evident) more harm than good. The true secret of ruling, in any position of authority, is not in doing everything yourself, but in making every subordinate perform his share of the labour, and take his share of the responsibility. In the navy they call a captain who does everybody's business a G.C.B.-Gunner, Carpenter, and Boatswain-Frederick's fault was that he was G.C.B.

a

Socially, he had talents, conversational powers, and a fondness for discussion, whether light or philosophic, which would have made him one of the most agreeable men of his time, but for a marked malevolence which rendered the atmosphere around him insecure and capricious. His biting propensity showed itself equally to his brother monarchs and to his humblest dependents. It was partly owing to this that he passed through life solitary, though in the midst of courts or of armies, with many faithful subjects, but with no friend.

Politically, he was rather astute than wise, for his mind had not the elevation of view and grandeur of

VOL. XCVIII.—NO. DXCVII.

purpose essential to wisdom. His was always a peddling policy, aiming at mere material advantages, and sticking at nothing in order to compass them. It was a lower than peddling spirit that led him once, when conversing with an envoy, who accidentally let fall a note, to set his foot on that note, while he bowed his visitor out, and then to master its contents. But it would have been difficult to persuade him that honesty is the best policy, for that note revealed to him a highly important fact, and he took full advantage of his knowledge; and his discovery of a great plot against his territories and his power was effected by still more discreditable means. It was after many years of peace that he had reason to suspect the existence of a design hostile to Prussia on the part of Austria, Russia, and Saxony. Thereupon he suborned a Saxon government-clerk to copy and transmit to him certain state-papers. After a long study of these, it became apparent to him that the Powers in question were combining against him; and according to his invariable impulse he determined to anticipate the attack.

Former campaigns in Bohemia had convinced him that it was extremely difficult to carry on a campaign in that country, so thinly peopled and partially cultivated, with no other means of bringing convoys than the roads through the mountain barrier afforded. But by first seizing Saxony he would command for a campaign in Bohemia the great water-way of the Elbe. He would also thus disarm a country more than suspected of being hostile to him; and by invading Bohemia from the Saxon instead of the Silesian frontier, he could dispense with the presence of another Prussian army in Saxony, since that country would be sufficiently intimidated by finding his advancing columns always between it and Austria.

For these reasons, in September 1756, he began the Seven Years' War

Ꭰ

by marching 65,000 men through Saxony to the mountain frontier, blockading with his left wing the Saxon army that had shut itself into a position on the Elbe, which, though impregnable to attack, did not admit of retreat or succour. Marshal Browne, with an Austrian army, advanced to deliver the Saxons. Frederick, without ceasing to blockade them, advanced through the mountains, met Browne on the southern slopes, and fought with him the battle of Lobositz, which, though scarcely a victory to either, convinced the Austrian Marshal that he could not penetrate to his allies that way. He therefore attempted to reach them by the other side of the Elbe, failed, and the Saxons were starved into surrender; whereupon Frederick compelled these prisoners of war to serve in his army, of which his ever faithful advocate merely remarks, "How Friedrich defended such hard conduct to the Saxons? Reader, I know only that Destiny and Necessity, urged on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at this time; and that Friedrich did not in the least dream of making any defence, and will have to take your verdict, such as it may be;" which oracular utterance will probably not much assist the reader in arriving at a conclusion.

The Saxon and Silesian frontiers together now formed a sharp angle enclosing the part of Bohemia where Browne's army lay. In April 1757, Frederick passed the mountains at several points, and began that campaign which more than any other illustrates the particular character of his merit as a general. His special faculty did not (as Napoleon's did) lie in strategy, or in the art of so combining the movements of his troops through the theatre of war, as to obtain decided successes before the fighting began, by placing his army at an advantage relatively to that of the enemy. At the outset of this campaign, far from concentrating his troops against the divid

ed enemy, he separated them still more, and passing the mountains in four columns, which presently merged into three, he pressed back first three, then two, Austrian columns, till they united at Prague, between the Elbe and Moldau, leaving the King with the right wing, and Schwerin with the left, to effect a junction in the fork of the rivers, in presence of the concentrated enemy who overlooked them from the high hill above Prague; evidently a situation of peril too great to be risked, except in case of extreme necessity.

But Frederick's genius lay in manoeuvring before a battle, and then in fighting it; and in this he excelled Napoleon almost as much

as

Napoleon excelled him in strategy. With nothing like the range of mind of Bonaparte, and consequently very inferior in that branch of warlike science which pre-eminently requires faculties of extensive grasp, his training from youth in all the minutiae of drill had fitted him far better for directing the actual conflict. He knew exactly what his troops could effect in the way of orderly marching and manoeuvring in the face of the enemy: he knew how inferior was that enemy in similar power. Up to this campaign he had aimed only at bringing the hostile lines face to face in parallel order, when he trusted to the superior steadiness, quickness in firing, and general fighting quality of his troops, for victory. But now, after long pondering over the problem of how to turn the superiority of his army to still better account, he was about to exhibit the result of his thoughts in action. His whole system of tactics was founded on the fact, that if an army can be placed in order of battle across the extremity of the enemy's line the first fronting west, let us say, the second, north-that this second army must then, under penalty of being helplessly enveloped and destroyed, proceed to change front to a direction which shall bring it parallel

to its antagonist. And since for a whole line, covering miles of ground, to effect this is a slow and difficult process, so it was almost certain that only a part of the line could complete the change before the onset in which it would have singly to oppose the whole weight of the enemy. And if an army in the very act of changing front, all disjointed, should be attacked by another army swiftly advancing in compact order, the result would be not merely a defeat but a

rout.

In the Austrians he found an enemy of all others the best against whom to manœuvre thus. For, besides being extremely slow in moving when they did move, their propensity for sticking in strong positions, fortifying them, and there awaiting the attack, indisposed them to move at all. Accordingly at Prague, after uniting with Schwerin and reconnoitring them, he found that their left on the high hill, and their front covered with difficult ground and with works, were both impregnable, but that the ground on their right admitted of an attack. Whereupon, in such order as only Prussian armies could at that time march in that is to say, with his two lines in order of battle wheeled by sections to the left into two open columns, which by the simultaneous wheeling back of these sections into line (a matter of half a minute) would again form order of battle-he made a long circuit till his army, which had originally fronted the enemy, was formed across their right flank. The Austrians, on becoming aware of his object, had met the movement by throwing back part of their line at right angles. On this part the Prussians threw themselves, enveloping it at both ends, and, after some of the heaviest fighting ever transacted, breaking and defeating it, while the rest of the Austrian line, seeking to re-form on a front more consonant to the facts of the battle, was still in a state of fusion.

The defeated right wing, separated from the other, fled southward; the rest of the conflict was a succession of attempts of the remainder of the Austrian army to form front opposite the advancing Prussians, and a succession of bloody struggles for the ground on which they so attempted to form, ending with the retreat of the whole left wing into the fortress of Prague. Yet in these operations the King committed a capital error in strategy. He left 20,000 men under Keith, on the other side of the Moldau, to guard the communications with Saxony. If the Prussians were to gain the battle, Keith's presence there would be unnecessary. they were to lose it, they could not expect to rejoin Keith, since the circuit they had made before attacking had placed the enemy between him and them; and therefore, in this case also, Keith's presence on the other bank would be useless. His corps ought therefore to have accompanied the general movement, and aided in the battle.

If

After this very successful vindication of his theories, the King with one part of his army besieged the beaten armies in Prague, watching all avenues with cannon to prevent them from issuing, and reducing them to starvation by throwing the burden of an army on the magazines intended only for a suitable garrison; while with the rest of his forces he covered the siege eastward from an Austrian army under Marshal Daun, which, reinforced by the beaten right wing from Prague, was advancing to relieve the fortress. Frederick at first interposed directly between the city and Daun's army, with his left on the road which runs eastward from Prague to Kolin. Finding Daun's position inaccessible, he threatened to turn it by moving his left along that road and following it with his whole army. But Daun, changing front in time, confronted him next day on a line of hills parallel to the Kolin road. The Austrian left

rested on ground considered by the King unassailable; the front on a steep slope, covered by villages, was also judged too strong for attack; and the King, with the success at Prague strong in his mind, resolved to attempt a similar operation by moving against the right flank of the enemy. But there was this difference, that whereas at Prague he passed round the enemy's flank, here the obstacles of ground, and the necessity of holding to Prague, forbade that, and he marched to attack and break through the extremity of that flank; and whereas at Prague part of the enemy's line had been thrown back, here the front of the Austrians remained as before. The King's dispositions were adapted to these different circumstances, and in no battle did he ever manœuvre in an order and with an exactitude that at the outset promised better. Keeping his right on the Kolin road, which connected him with his army at Prague, he shot out his left, strongly reinforced, till it came in contact with the Austrian flank, which it at tacked and drove back. Thus the hostile lines formed an angle, and met only at the apex; the Austrian line being, however, stronger than the Prussian in the proportion of 60,000 against 36,000. It was the very essence of this oblique attack that this obliquity should be preserved, so as to keep the Prussian right wing out of action, till, by the gradual rolling up of the Austrians and progressive advance of the Prussians, the proper moment should arrive for engaging; for, line to line, the Austrians were superior in length and depth. All at first promised well: the Austrian flank was beaten in and rolled back; the Prussians were strongest at that point; and before them was the gap through which they could advance and continue to destroy all attempted formations of the enemy. Daun, in despair of retrieving affairs, had already given

orders for retreat, when an accident, by deranging Frederick's plans, reversed the fortunes of the day.

The line was moving steadily in the required direction, when a regiment of the right wing, particularly galled by the fire of the Austrian skirmishers from the bigh corn, formed front to drive them off. The regiments that followed, conforming to this movement, formed up and attacked: thus the wing which it was essential to keep out of action was prematurely engaged. This left a middle portion isolated between the attacking force on the left, and this new attack; which fragment kept moving on, till an order of the King, hastily given, or misunderstood, caused it also to commit itself to the general advance on the Austrian front. The original order of battle was now irretrievably lost. The superior weight of the Austrians, thus brought directly to bear, prevailed, and the Prussians, heavily defeated, quitted the field, not in the direction of Prague (for they were, by the direction of the battle, driven off that road), but towards the Elbe. The siege was immediately raised by the King's orders, and the beaten army, fortunately not briskly pursued by its slow antagonists, retreated across the mountains into Lusatia. Nevertheless, there was nothing in this defeat to shake the confidence of Frederick in his tactical theories; for, so far as the battle had been fought in accordance with them, it had gone well.

All the fruits of the early part of the campaign were thus lost, and the Prussians were confronted, on their own side of the mountains, by a superior Austrian enemy. This was of itself sufficiently disastrous; but this was not all the disaster. A French army (which had long since passed the Rhine, but which had hitherto been confronted by an English force), now set free by the convention of Kloster-seven, and reinforced by contingents from va