Munchberg, July 2, 1734.Far away in the east the Austrian officers discerned a Prussian column of observation, consisting of about twelve thousand horse and foot, wending along from hollow to height, their polished weapons flashing back the rays of the afternoon sun. Frederick, carefully examining the ground, immediately made arrangements to bring forward his troops under curtain of the night for a decisive battle. His orderlies were silently dispatched in all directions. At eight oclock the whole army was in350 motion. His troops were so concentrated that the farthest divisions had a march of only nine miles. Silently, not a word being spoken, not a pipe being lighted, and all the baggage being left behind, they crossed the bridge of the Striegau River, and, deploying to the right and the left, took position in front of the slumbering allied troops.
FORE:At Oppeln there was a bridge across the Oder by which the king hoped to escape with his regiment to the free country beyond. There he intended to summon to his aid the army of thirty-six thousand men which he had sent to G?tten under the Old Dessauer. The discharge of the musketry of the Austrians blasted even this dismal hope. It seemed as though Frederick259 were doomed to drain the cup of misery to its dregs; and his anguish must have been intensified by the consciousness that he deserved it all. But a few leagues behind him, the bleak, snow-clad plains, swept by the night-winds, were strewed with the bodies of eight or nine thousand men, the dying and the dead, innocent peasant-boys torn from their homes, whose butchery had been caused by his own selfish ambition.Lord Hyndford, who says that by this rude assailment he was put extremely upon his guard, rejoined:
At the same time that the tidings of the death of Augustus William were communicated to the king, he received also the tidings, which to him were truly heart-rending, that Wilhelmina, worn down with care and sorrow, was fast sinking into the grave.The emperor was probably induced to this decisive course not merely by motives of humanity, but also by the consideration that by thus saving the life of Frederick he would forever attach him to the interests of the house of Austria. The kings of Poland and Sweden also wrote to the king, earnestly interceding for the life of the Crown Prince.M. Pitsch made no reply. The king, probably feeling at the moment some physical monition of approaching death, cried out, Lord Jesus, to thee I live. Lord Jesus, to thee I die. In life and in death thou art my gain.Let the courts take this for their rule; and whenever they do not carry out justice in a straightforward manner, without any regard of person and rank, they shall have to answer to his majesty for it.In the kings will, the only reference to any future which might be before him was the following: