The returning sun of spring was but the harbinger of new woes for war-stricken Europe.  England, being essentially a maritime power, could render Frederic but little assistance in troops; but the cabinet of St. James was lavish in voting money.  Encouraged by the vigor Frederic had shown, the British cabinet, with enthusiasm, voted him an annual subsidy of three million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Austria was so exhausted in means and in men, that notwithstanding the most herculean efforts of the queen, it was not until April of the year 1758 that she was able to concentrate fifty thousand men in the field, with the expensive equipments which war demands.  Frederic, aided by the gold of England, was early on the move, and had already opened the campaign by the invasion of Moravia, and by besieging Olmutz.

The summer was passed in a series of incessant battles, sweeping all over Germany, with the usual vicissitudes of war.  In the great battle of Hockkirchen Frederic encountered a woful defeat.  The battle took place on the 14th of October, and lasted five hours.  Eight thousand Austrians and nine thousand Prussians were stretched lifeless upon the plain.  Frederic was at last compelled to retreat, abandoning his tents, his baggage, one hundred and one cannon, and thirty standards.  Nearly every Prussian general was wounded.  The king himself was grazed by a ball; his horse was shot from under him, and two pages were killed at his side.

Again Vienna blazed with illuminations and rang with rejoicing, and the queen liberally dispensed her gifts and her congratulations.  Still nothing effectual was accomplished by all this enormous expenditure of treasure, this carnage and woe; and again the exhausted combatants retired to seek shelter from the storms of winter.  Thus terminated the third year of this cruel and wasting war.

The spring of 1759 opened brightly for Maria Theresa.  Her army, flushed by the victory of the last autumn, was in high health and spirits.  All the allies of Austria redoubled their exertions; and the Catholic States of Germany with religious zeal rallied against the two heretical kingdoms of Prussia and England.  The armies of France, Austria, Sweden and Russia were now marching upon Prussia, and it seemed impossible that the king could withstand such adversaries.  More fiercely than ever the storm of war raged.  Frederic, at the head of forty thousand men, early in June met eighty thousand Russians and Austrians upon the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort.  For seven hours the action lasted, and the allies were routed with enormous slaughter; but the king, pursuing his victory too far with his exhausted troops, was turned upon by the foe, and was routed himself in turn, with the slaughter of one half of his whole army.  Twenty-four thousand of the allies and twenty thousand Prussians perished on that bloody day.

Frederic exposed his person with the utmost recklessness.  Two horses were shot beneath him; several musket balls pierced his clothes; he was slightly wounded, and was rescued from the foe only by the almost superhuman exertions of his hussars.  In the darkness of the night the Prussians secured their retreat.