ONE:Do not resist any longer. Submit to whatever is required of you. I will answer with my life that the marriage will never really take place. It is necessary, at whatever cost, to appease the king for the present. I will explain to the queen that this is the only means of obtaining a favorable declaration from the King of England.250 General Neipperg, as his men were weary with their long march, did not make an attack, but allowed his troops a short season of repose in the enjoyment of the comforts of Neisse. The next morning, the 6th, Frederick continued his retreat to Friedland, ten miles farther north. He was anxious to get between the Austrians and Ohlau. He had many pieces of artillery there, and large stores of ammunition, which would prove a rich prize to the Austrians. It was Fredericks intention to cross the River Neisse at a bridge at Sorgau, eight miles from Friedland; but the officer in charge there had been compelled to destroy the bridge, to protect himself from the Austrian horsemen, who in large numbers had appeared upon the opposite banks. Prince Leopold was sent with the artillery and a strong force to reconstruct the bridge and force the passage, but the Austrian dragoons were encountered in such numbers that the enterprise was found impossible.
TWO:
ONE:The unhappy Crown Prince was in an agony of despair. Again and again he frantically exclaimed, In the name of God, I beg you to stop the execution till I write to the king! I am ready to renounce all my rights to the crown if he will pardon Katte! As the condemned was led by the window to ascend the scaffold, Fritz cried out to him, in anguish as intense as a generous heart can endure, Pardon me, my dear Katte, pardon me! Oh that this should be what I have done for you!
TWO:As the king was about to embark upon this enterprise, it was proposed to place upon the banners the words For God and our Country. But Frederick struck out the words For God, saying that it was improper to introduce the name of the Deity into the quarrels of men, and that he was embarking in war to gain a province, not for religion.43 In a brief speech to his soldiers he said,Take them freely. The empress sends me as much money as I wish. I assure you that by this means I get rid of the demon of poverty as soon as I find him approaching me.
ONE:One night, about the middle of August, as the king was tossing restlessly upon his pillow, he sprang from his bed, exclaiming63 Eureka! I now see what will bring a settlement. Immediately a special messenger was dispatched, with terms of compromise, to Kannegiesser, the kings embassador at Hanover. We do not know what the propositions were. But the king was exceedingly anxious to avoid war. He had, in many respects, a very stern sense of justice, and would not do that which he considered to be wrong. When he abused his family or others he did not admit that he was acting unjustly. He assumed, and with a sort of fanatical conscientiousness, detestable as it was, that he was doing right; that they deserved the treatment. And now he earnestly desired peace, and was disposed to present the most honorable terms to avert a war.
TWO:The fault-finding character of the king, and his intense devotion to perfecting his army, both increased with his advancing years. After one of his reviews of the troops in Silesia, in the year 1784, he wrote in the following severe strain to the commanding general:As soon as the car shall begin to move, the drums shall beat the dead march, and the hautboys shall play the well-known anthem, O blessed head, covered with blood and wounds! The car will stop at the iron gate. The regiment will defile before it. My two sons, Augustus William and Henry, will remain with the regiment. You, as my eldest son, with little Ferdinand, my youngest son, will walk in uniform behind the car.
