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Such was the situation from which Frederic extricated himself, with dazzling glory, in the short space of thirty days. He marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of November the armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one; but they were ill-disciplined, and their general was a dunce.
On the 3d of December the Austrians were beaten at Lissa, as the French had been at Rosbach, and Frederick II. became the national hero of Germany; the Protestant powers, but lately engaged, to their sorrow, against him, made up to the conqueror; admiration for him permeated even the French army.
The defeat of the French army at Rosbach, and the retreat of the Russians from Pomerania, had entirely changed the face of affairs in the empire. The French king was soon obliged to abandon his conquests on that sida of the Rhine, and his threats sounded no longer terrible in the ears of the Hanoverian and Prussian allies.
"I expect that was because he and Dennison nearly had a row about it; he swore that he thought about Omar Khayyam, and Dennison swore that he did a rotten sort of thing to quarrel about, anyway. I never heard of the man until yesterday. I've often heard of Rosbach," he added. "What's going to happen now?" Fred asked, and from some cause or other he was shaking with laughter.
Such was the situation from which Frederic extricated himself, with dazzling glory, in the short space of thirty days. He marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of November the armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one; but they were ill disciplined, and their general was a dunce.
All that related to the honour of France was sacred to him. Thus he removed the column of Rosbach from the Prussian territory.
"I prefer these trophies," said his Majesty, "to all the treasures of the King of Prussia; I will send them to my old soldiers of the campaign of Hanover, who will guard them as a trophy of the victories of the grand army, and of the revenge that it has taken for the disaster of Rosbach."
The news of the battle of Rosbach stirred the blood of the whole of the mighty population from the Alps to the Baltic, and from the borders of Courland to those of Lorraine. Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by a great host of strangers, whose speech was unintelligible, and whose petulant and licentious manners had excited the strongest feelings of disgust and hatred.
* While the Austrians were conducting them to prison, on their route they chanced to hear of the victory their master had gained at Rosbach. Animated by these tidings, they unanimously rose upon the escort that guarded them, which happening not to be very strong, they entirely dispersed.
The king of Prussia, who, like Caesar, thought nothing was done while any thing was left undone, stayed no longer at Rosbach than till the routed forces of the French and Imperialists, whom he had defeated there on the fifth of November, were totally dispersed.
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