Often, too, she accompanied him into the field.  Leopold’s career as a soldier in important commands begins with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession.  He had made many improvements in the Prussian army, notably the introduction of the iron ramrod about 1700, and he now took the field at the head of a Prussian corps on the Rhine, serving at the sieges of Kaiserswerth and Venlo.  In the following year (1703), having obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, Leopold took part in the siege of Bonn and distinguished himself very greatly in the battle of Hoechstaedt, in which the Austrians and their allies were defeated by the French under Marshal Villars (September 20, 1703).  In the campaign of 1704 the Prussian contingent served under Prince Louis of Baden and subsequently under Eugene, and Leopold himself won great glory by his conduct at Blenheim.  In 1705 he was sent with a Prussian corps to join Prince Eugene in Italy, and on the 16th of August he displayed his bravery at the hard-fought battle of Cassano.  In the following year he added to his reputation in the battle of Turin, where he was the first to enter the hostile entrenchments (September 7, 1706).  He served in one more campaign in Italy, and then went with Eugene to join Marlborough in the Netherlands, being present in 1709 at the siege of Tournay and the battle of Malplaquet.  In 1710 he succeeded to the command of the whole Prussian contingent at the front, and in 1712, at the particular desire of the crown prince, Frederick William, who had served with him as a volunteer, he was made a general field marshal.  Shortly before this he had executed a coup de main on the castle of Moers, which was held by the Dutch in defiance of the claims of the king of Prussia to the possession.  The operation was effected with absolute precision and the castle was seized without a shot being fired.  In the earlier part of the reign of Frederick William I., the prince of Dessau was one of the most influential members of the Prussian governing circle.  In the war with Sweden (1715) he accompanied the king to the front, commanded an army of 40,000 men, and met and defeated Charles XII. in a severe battle on the island of Ruegen (November 16).  His conduct of the siege of Stralsund which followed was equally skilful, and the great results of the war to Prussia were largely to be attributed to his leadership in the campaign.  In the years of peace, and especially after a court quarrel (1725) and duel with General von Grumbkow, he devoted himself to the training of the Prussian army.  The reputation it had gained in the wars of 1675 to 1715, though good, gave no hint of its coming glory, and it was even in 1740 accounted one of the minor armies of Europe.  That it proved, when put to the test, to be by far the best military force existing, may be taken as the summary result of Leopold’s work.  The “Old Dessauer” was one of the sternest disciplinarians in an age of stern discipline, and the technical training of the infantry, under his