There are some European generals whom it is difficult to class, as they showed great capacity and won great victories as well in age as in youth.  Prince Eugene was one of these, and Frederick of Prussia was another.  Eugene showed high talent when very young, and won the first of his grand victories over the Turks at thirty-four; but it was not so splendid an affair as that of Belgrade, which he won at fifty-four.  He was forty-three when he defeated the French at Turin, under circumstances and with incidents that took attention even from Marlborough, whom he subsequently aided to gain the victories of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, as he had previously aided him at Blenheim.  At seventy-one Eugene led an Austrian army against the French; and though no battle was fought, his conduct showed that he had not lost his capacity for command.  Frederick began his military life when in his thirtieth year, and was actively engaged until thirty-three, showing striking ability on several occasions, though he began badly, according to his own admission.  But it was in the Seven Years’ War that his fame as a soldier was won, and that contest began when he was in his forty-fifth year.  He was close upon forty-six when he gained the Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen.  Whatever opinion others may entertain as to his age, it is certain that he counted himself an old man in those days.  Writing to the Marquis d’Argens, a few days before he was forty-eight, he said, “In my old age I have come down almost to be a theatrical king”; and not two years later he wrote to the same friend, “I have sacrificed my youth to my father, and my manhood to my fatherland.  I think, therefore, I have acquired the right to my old age.”  He reckoned by trials and events, and he had gone through enough to have aged any man.  Those were the days when he carried poison on his person, in order that, should he be completely beaten, or captured, he might not adorn Maria Theresa’s triumph, but end his life “after the high Roman fashion.”  When the question of the Bavarian succession threatened to lead to another war with Austria, Frederick’s action, though he was in his sixty-seventh year, showed, to use the homely language of the English soldier at St. Helena when Napoleon arrived at that famous watering place, that he had many campaigns in his belly yet.  The youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old soldier of Liegnitz and Zorndorf.

Some of Frederick’s best generals were old men.  Schwerin, who was killed in the terrible Battle of Prague, was then seventy-three, and a soldier of great reputation.  Sixteen years before he had won the Battle of Mollwitz, one of the most decisive actions of that time, from which Frederick himself is said to have run away in sheer fright.  General Ziethen, perhaps the best of all modern cavalry commanders, was in his fifty-eighth year when the Seven Years’ War began, and he served through it with eminent distinction, and most usefully to his sovereign.  He could not have exhibited more dash, if he had been but eight-and-twenty, instead of eight-and-fifty, or sixty-five, as he was when peace was made.  Field-Marshal Keith, an officer of great ability, was sixty when he fell at Hochkirchen, after a brilliant career.