Prussia has always its King, and his unrivalled talent; but that is
pretty much the only fixed item: Prussia VERSUS France, Austria,
Russia, Sweden and the German Reich, what is it as a field of
supplies for war! Except its King, these are failing, year by year;
and at a rate fatally SWIFT in comparison. Friedrich cannot now do
Leuthens, Rossbachs; far-shining feats of victory, which astonish
all the world. His fine Prussian veterans have mostly perished;
and have been replaced by new levies and recruits; who are inferior
both in discipline and native quality;--though they have still,
people say, a noteworthy taste of the old Prussian sort in them;
and do, in fact, fight well to the last. But "it is observable,"
says Retzow somewhere, and indeed it follows from the nature of the
case, "that while the Prussian Army presents always its best kind
of soldiers at the beginning of a war, Austria, such are its
resources in population, always improves in that particular, and
its best troops appear in the last campaigns." In a word, Friedrich
stands on the defensive henceforth; disputing his ground inch by
inch: and is reduced, more and more, to battle obscurely with a
hydra-coil of enemies and impediments; and to do heroisms which
make no noise in the Gazettes. And, alas, which cannot figure in
History either,--what is more a sorrow to me here!

Friedrich, say all judges of soldiership and human character who
have studied Friedrich sufficiently, "is greater than ever," in
these four Years now coming. [Berenhorst, in Kriegskunst;
Retzow; &c.] And this, I have found more and more to
be a true thing; verifiable and demonstrable in time and place,--
though, unluckily for us, hardly in this time or this place at all!
A thing which cannot, by any method, be made manifest to the
general reader; who delights in shining summary feats, and is