It did seem to beholders in this year 1660 that Frederick was doomed, could not survive; but since he did survive it, he was able to battle out yet two more campaigns, enemies also getting worn out; a race between spent horses.  Of the marches by which Frederick carried himself through this fifth campaign it is not possible to give an idea.  Failure to bring Daun to battle, sudden siege of Dresden—­not successful, perhaps not possible at all that it should have succeeded.  In August a dash on Silesia with three armies to face—­Daun, Lacy, Loudon, and possible Russians, edged off by Prince Henri.  At Liegnitz the best of management, helped by good luck and happy accident, gives him a decisive victory over London’s division, despite Loudon’s admirable conduct; a miraculous victory; Daun’s plans quite scattered, and Frederick’s movements freed.  Three months later the battle of Torgau, fought dubiously all day, becomes a distinct victory in the night.  Neither Silesia nor Saxony are to fall to the Austrians.

Liegnitz and Torgau are a better outcome of operations than Kunersdorf and Maxen; the king is, in a sense, stronger, but his resources are more exhausted, and George III. is now become king in England; Pitt’s power very much in danger there.  In the next year most noteworthy is Loudon’s brilliant stroke in capturing Schweidnitz, a blow for Frederick quite unlooked for.

In January, however, comes bright news from Petersburg:  implacable Tsarina Elizabeth is dead, Peter III. is Tsar, sworn friend and admirer of Frederick; Russia, in short, becomes suddenly not an enemy but a friend.  Bute, in England, is proposing to throw over his ally, unforgivably; to get peace at price of Silesia, to Frederick’s wrath, who, having moved Daun off, attacks Schweidnitz, and gets it, not without trouble.  And so, practically, ends the seventh campaign.

French and English had signed their own peace preliminaries, to disgust of Excellency Mitchell, the first-rate ambassador to Frederick during these years.  Austria makes proffers, and so at last this war ends with Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg; issue, as concerns Austria and Prussia, “as you were before the war.”

VI.—­Afternoon and Evening of Frederick’s Life

Frederick’s Prussia is safe; America and India are to be English, not French; France is on the way towards spontaneous combustion in 1789;—­these are the fruits of the long war.  During the rest of Frederick’s reign—­twenty-three years—­is nothing of world history to dwell on.  Of the coming combustion Frederick has no perception; for what remains of him, he is King of Prussia, interesting to Prussia chiefly:  whereof no continuous narrative is henceforth possible to us, only a loose appendix of papers, as of the extraordinary speed with which Prussia recovered—­brave Prussia, which has defended itself against overwhelming odds.  The repairing of a ruined Prussia cost Frederick much very successful labour.