generally
trustworthy.

Chapter 18

1757, 1758

Pitt

The war kindled in the American forest was now raging in full
conflagration among the kingdoms of Europe; and in the midst stood
Frederic of Prussia, a veritable fire-king. He had learned through
secret agents that he was to be attacked, and that the wrath of Maria
Theresa with her two allies, Pompadour and the Empress of Russia, was
soon to wreak itself upon him. With his usual prompt audacity he
anticipated his enemies, marched into Saxony, and began the Continental
war. His position seemed desperate. England, sundered from Austria, her
old ally, had made common cause with him; but he had no other friend
worth the counting. France, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Saxony, the
collective Germanic Empire, and most of the smaller German States had
joined hands for his ruin, eager to crush him and divide the spoil,
parcelling out his dominions among themselves in advance by solemn
mutual compact. Against the five millions of Prussia were arrayed
populations of more than a hundred million. The little kingdom was open
on all sides to attack, and her enemies were spurred on by the bitterest
animosity. It was thought that one campaign would end the war. The war
lasted seven years, and Prussia came out of it triumphant. Such a
warrior as her indomitable king Europe has rarely seen. If the Seven
Years War made the maritime and colonial greatness of England, it also
raised Prussia to the rank of a first-class Power.

Frederic began with a victory, routing the Austrians in one of the
fiercest of recorded conflicts, the battle of Prague. Then in his turn
he was beaten at Kolin. All seemed lost. The hosts of the coalition were
rolling in upon him like a deluge. Surrounded by enemies, in the jaws of
destruction, hoping for little but to die in battle, this strange hero
solaced himself with an exhaustless effusion of bad verses, sometimes
mournful, sometimes cynical, sometimes indignant, and sometimes
breathing a dauntless resolution; till, when his hour came, he threw
down his pen to achieve those feats of arms which stamp him one of the
foremost soldiers of the world.

The French and Imperialists, in overwhelming force, thought to crush him
at Rosbach. He put them to shameful rout; and then, instead of bonfires
and Te Deums, mocked at them in doggerel rhymes of amazing indecency.
While he was beating the French, the Austrians took Silesia from him. He
marched to recover