I have the honor to inform your humanity that we are Christianly preparing to bombard Neisse; and that, if the place will not surrender of good-will, needs must that it be beaten to powder. For the rest, our affairs go the best in the world; and soon233 thou wilt hear nothing more of us, for in ten days it will all be over, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing you and hearing you in about a fortnight.
ONE:My dear Monsieur Jordan, my sweet Monsieur Jordan, my quiet Monsieur Jordan, my good, my benign, my pacific, my most humane Monsieur Jordan,I announce to thy serenity the conquest of Silesia. I warn thee of the bombardment of Neisse, and I prepare thee for still more projects, and instruct thee of the happiest successes that the womb of fortune ever bore.47
TWO:It will generally be admitted by military men that Frederick did not display much ability of generalship in this campaign. He was fearless, indomitable in energy, and tireless in the endurance of fatigue, but in generalship he was entirely eclipsed by his formidable rival. Indeed, Frederick could not be blind to this, and he had sufficient candor to confess it. Subsequently, giving an account of these transactions in his Works, he writes:Of this ex-tutor Frederick bethinks him; and in the course of that same dayfor there is no delayFrederick, who is at Berlin, beckons General G?rtz to come over to him from Potsdam instantly.
THREE:
FORE:The king was fond of children; he liked to have his grand-nephews about him. One day, while the king sat at work in his cabinet, the younger of the two, a boy of eight or nine, was playing ball about the room, and knocked it once and again into the kings writing operation, who twice or oftener flung it back to him, but next time put it in his pocket, and went on. Please your majesty, give it me back, begged the boy, and again begged: majesty took no notice; continued writing. Till at length came, in the tone of indignation, Will your majesty give me my ball, then? The king looked up; found the little Hohenzollern planted firm, hands on haunches, and wearing quite a peremptory562 air. Thou art a brave little fellow. They wont get Silesia out of thee? cried he, laughing, and flinging him his ball.194
BAPTISM OF FREDERICK.General R?mer, in command of the Austrian cavalry, had crushed the right wing of the Prussians. Resolutely he followed up his victory, hotly chasing the fugitives in the wildest disorder far away to the rear, capturing nine of their guns. Who257 can imagine the scene? There were three or four thousand horsemen put to utter rout, clattering over the plain, impetuously pursued by six or seven thousand of the finest cavalry in the world, discharging pistol-shots into their flying ranks, and raining down upon them sabre-blows.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.
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