Frederick's Note From Kunersdorf
The king wrote to Berlin on the evening after the battle:
This morning at 11 o'clock I have attacked the enemy. ... All my troops have worked wonders, but at a cost of innumerable losses. Our men got into confusion. I assembled them three times. In the end I was in danger of getting captured and had to retreat. My coat is perforated by bullets, two horses of mine have been shot dead. My misfortune is that I am still living ... Our defeat is very considerable: To me remains 3,000 men from an army of 48,000 men. At the moment in which I report all this, everyone is on the run; I am no more master of my troops. Thinking of the safety of anybody in Berlin is a good activity ... It is a cruel failure that I will not survive. The consequences of the battle will be worse than the battle itself. I do not have any more resources, and - frankly confessed - I believe that everything is lost. I will not survive the doom of my fatherland. Farewell forever!
|
||||
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Kunersdorf
Famous quotes containing the words frederick and/or note:
“Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically
digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one. The
knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and their effects, and of the laws of nature, natural science.”
—John Frederick William Herschel (1792–1871)
“I note that the Africa loves to depict the grace of reptiles.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)