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.
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