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Updated: July 25, 2025
Bent fondly round Schweidnitz; meaning, as is evident, to defend Schweidnitz against all comers, his very position symbolically intimating: "I will fight for it, Prussian Majesty, if you like!"
Friedrich has about 2,000 wagons to drag with him in these swift marches: Glogau Magazine, his one resource, should Breslau and Schweidnitz prove unattainable, is forty-five long miles northwestward. "Let us lean upon Glogau withal," thinks Friedrich; "and let us be out of this straightway! March to-night; towards Parchwitz, which is towards Glogau too.
In about three weeks hence, Friedrich, leaving Bevern in command here, and a Silesia more or less adjusted, made for Saxony; whither important reinforcements had preceded him, reinforcements under General Wied, the instant it was possible. Saxony he had long regarded as the grand point, were Schweidnitz over: "Recapture Dresden, and they will have to give us Peace this very Winter!"
Next day he arrives, not at Breslau as some had expected, but at Schweidnitz sidewards; a strong little Town, at least an elaborately fortified, of which we shall hear much in time coming. It lies a day's ride west of Breslau: and will be quieter for business than a big gazing Capital would be, were Breslau even one's own city; which it is not, though perhaps tending to be.
Plan of flowing round by the southern skirt of Friedrich, and seizing certain Heights to the southeastern or open side of Schweidnitz, Koltschen Height the key one; from which he may spread up at will, Height after Height, to the very Zobtenberg on that eastern side, and render Schweidnitz an impossibility.
It will surprise everybody that Friedrich, with his copper and other resources, actually raised his additional 60,000; and has for himself 70,000 to recover Schweidnitz, and bring Silesia to its old state; 40,000 for Prince Henri and Saxony, with a 10,000 of margin for Sweden and accidental sundries.
It was Monday, 23d, when the Siege of Neisse was abandoned: on Wednesday, Friedrich himself turns homeward; looks into Schweidnitz, looks into Liegnitz; and arrives at Berlin as the week ends, much acclamation greeting him from the multitude.
He remained in Breslau the better part of five years, studying life in new phases, gathering a library, which, as commonly happens, he afterwards sold at great loss, and writing his Minna and his Laocooen. He accompanied Tauentzien to the siege of Schweidnitz, where Frederick was present in person.
Of course he is tremendously outnumbered, thirty thousand men against eighty thousand; but he has fallen back into Silesia without making a single stand, and suffered Prince Karl to plant himself between Breslau and Schweidnitz; and the Prince is besieging the latter town with twenty thousand men, while with sixty thousand he is facing Bevern."
The allied forces stood behind Schweidnitz, and by the same marvelous strategy as of old the various corps of the French army were disposed, under Ney, Lauriston, Reynier, Macdonald, and Bertrand, so as virtually to engirdle the enemy.
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