numbers, by moving 20,000 men from one side to the
other. The Saxon officers remonstrated when called on to take the
oath of allegiance to their enemy. They said that such a thing was
unexampled. He replied that he was not afraid of being original.
Their resistance had compelled him to withdraw from Bohemia, after an
indecisive action. In 1757 he won a great battle at Prague, where he
sacrificed 18,000 men and Schwerin was killed. The main Austrian army
was shut up in the city, and Frederic expected them to surrender; but
a relieving force, under Daun, defeated him at Kollin, and he withdrew
to his own country, that is, he withdrew into Saxony, which he had
made his home, Dresden being then the most civilised and luxurious
place in Germany. For six years he did not see Berlin, which was
twice occupied by the enemy. Up to that midsummer of 1757 his success
in war, like that of Marlborough, had been unbroken. Kollin was the
first of three great battles which he lost. In the following year he
was again defeated by Daun, in a night attack at Hochkirch, with the
loss of 100 guns. And in 1759, which is the turning of the tide, the
Russians beat him at Kunersdorf. And yet it is to this chequered year
1757, not to the preceding career of incessant victory, that Frederic
the Great owes the immensity of his military fame.

The French had triumphed on the western side of the seat of war, and
had driven Cumberland before them, when Frederic attacked them with a
much smaller force, at Rossbach, in Saxony. With hardly any
resistance and hardly any loss, he gained a complete victory over them
and their Imperialist allies. Then he hurried to Silesia, where the
Austrians were masters. He defeated them at Leuthen, a month after
Rossbach, recovered Breslau, and made 38,000 prisoners. Nothing like
it had been seen in war. The defeat of the French made him a national
hero. Previously, his enemies were Germans, and the French were his
allies. That was forgotten and rectified. That Germany had so much
to suffer at his hands was forgiven. And the victory was so complete,
so artistic, that he was not less admired in France, where they
laughed at their unsuccessful marshals. Not long before he was spoken
of in Paris as one who had just missed being a great man. Such
language was never used again. And the tremendous reduction of
Austrian forces at Leuthen and Breslau was a still greater surprise.
A man who could do that mig