as noblest in the older, conservative
Catholicism which Frederick defied. Maria Theresa never forgot her
loss of Silesia. It was said of her that she could not see a
Silesian without weeping, and with steady patience she set herself
to draw all Europe into an alliance against Frederick.

Her rival's caustic tongue helped her purpose. He gave personal
offence not only to Elizabeth, the ruler of Russia, but to Madame
Pompadour, the real sovereign of France under Louis XV. Both of
these ladies urged their countries against the insulter. The three
leading powers of continental Europe having thus leagued against
Prussia, the lesser states soon joined them. Only England stood
outside the coalition. Her war with France originating in the
colonies and on the ocean, led her into an alliance with Prussia.
But England was safe on her island, and few of her troops fought
upon the Continent. She sent Frederick some money help; part of the
time she kept the French troops from his frontier; that was all.

The succession of Frederick's remarkable battles are too numerous to
detail. In one campaign he crushed the French at Rossbach, and
overthrew the Austrians at Leuthen. Then he defeated the Russians at
Zorndorf. Torgau was his last great triumph, and therefore his own
account of that contest is here presented in connection with the
concise narrative of the entire war by the standard German
historian, Menzel. Frederick was a vigorous writer as well as a
great fighter, and it is only fair to caution the reader against
accepting too fully the perhaps unconscious egotism of the monarch's
personal view. Some critics consider General Zieten the real winner
of this battle.

WOLFGANG MENZEL

In the autumn of 1756, Frederick, unexpectedly and without previously
declaring war, invaded Saxony, of which he speedily took possession, and
shut up the little Saxon army, thus taken unawares on the Elbe at Pirna.
A corps of Austrians, who were also equally unprepared to take the
field, hastened, under the command of Browne, to their relief, but were,
on October 1st, defeated at Lowositz, and the fourteen thousand Saxons
under Rutowsky at Pirna were in consequence compelled to lay down their
arms, the want to which they were reduced by the failure of their
supplies having already driven them to the necessity of eating
hair-powder mixed with gunp