GERMANY. 453 



ether great advantages. The Russians, after entering Germany, gave 

 a new turn to the aspect of the war ; and the cautious yet enterpris- 

 ing genius of count Daun aid his Prussian majesty under infinite 

 difficulties, notwithstanding ail his great victories. Ai first he defeat- 

 ed the Russians ai Zorndorf ; but an attack made upon his army, in 

 the night time, by count Daun, at Hockirchen, had nearly proved ratal 

 to his affairs, though he retrieved them with admirable presence of 

 mind. He was obliged, however, to sacrifice Saxony, for the safety 

 of Silesia ; and it has been observed, that few periods of history afford 

 such room for reflection as this campaign did : six sieges were raised 

 almost at the same time ; that of Colberg, by the Russians ; that of 

 Leipsic, by the duke of Deux Ponts, who commanded the army of 

 the empire ; that of Dresden, by count Daun ; and those of Neisg, 

 Cosel, and Torgau, also by the Austrians. 



Many important events which passed at the same time in Ger- 

 many, between the French, who were driven out of Hanover, and the 

 English, or their allies, must be omitted on account of the brevity 

 necessary to be observed in this compendium. The operations on 

 both sides are of little importance in history, because nothing was 

 done that was decisive, though the war was extremely bloody and 

 burdensome to Great Britain. Great was the ingratitude of the 

 empress-queen to his Britannic majesty and his allies, who were now 

 daily threatened with the ban of the empire. The Russians had 

 taken possession of the kingdom of Prussia, and laid siege to Col- 

 berg, the only port of his Prussian majesty in the Baltic. Till then, 

 he had entertained too mean an opinion of the Russians ; but he soon 

 found them by far the most formidable enemies he had to encounter. 

 They advanced, under count Soltikoff, in a body of 100,000 men, to 

 Silesia. In this distress he acted with a courage and resolution that 

 bordered upon despair ; but was, at last, totally defeated by the Rus- 

 sians, with the loss of 20,000 of his best troops, in a battle near Frank- 

 fort on the Oder. He became now the tennis-ball of fortune. Suc- 

 ceeding defeats seemed to announce his ruin, and all avenues towards 

 peace were shut up. He had lost, since the first of October 1756, 

 the brave marshal Keith, and forty brave generals, besides those who 

 were wounded and made prisoners. At Landschut, the imperial 

 general Laudohn defeated his army under Fouquet, on which he had 

 great dependence, and thereby opened to the Austrians an easy pas- 

 sage into Silesia. None but Frederic II would have thought of con- 

 tinuing the war under such repeated losses ; but every defeat he 

 received seemed to give him fresh spirits. It is not, perhaps, very 

 easy to account for the inactivity of his enemies after his defeat near 

 Frankfort,but by the jealousy which the imperial generals entertained 

 of their Russian allies. They had taken Berlin, and laid the inhabi- 

 tants under pecuniary contributions ; but towards the end of the cam- 

 paign he defeated the imperialists in the battle of Torgau, in which 

 count Daun was wounded. This was the best fought action the king 

 of Prussia had ever been engaged in ; but it cost him 10,000 of his 

 best troops, and was attended with no great consequences in his favour. 

 New reinforcements which arrived everyday from Russia, the taking 

 of Colberg by the Russians, and of Schweidnitz by the Austrians, 

 seemed almost to have completed his ruin ; when his most formidable 

 enemy, the empress of Russia, died, January 5, 1762. George II had 

 died on the 25th of October 1760. 



