Three hours of daylight finished the affray.  Taken by surprise as they were, the Austrians proved unable to sustain the vigorous Prussian assault, and were utterly routed, leaving ten thousand dead and wounded on the field, and eighty-two pieces of artillery in the enemy’s hands.  Shortly afterwards Daun, advancing to carry out his share of the scheme of annihilation, fell upon the right wing of the Prussians, commanded by General Ziethen, and was met with so fierce an artillery fire that he halted in dismay.  And now news of Laudon’s disaster was brought to him.  Seeing that the game was lost and himself in danger, he emulated his associate in his hasty retreat.

Fortune and alertness had saved the Prussian king from a serious danger, and turned peril into victory.  He lost no time in profiting by his advantage, and was in full march towards Breslau within three hours after the battle, the prisoners in the centre, the wounded—­friend and foe alike,—­in wagons in the rear, and the captured cannon added to his own artillery train.  Silesia was once more delivered into his hands.

Never in history had there been so persistent and indomitable a resistance against overwhelming numbers as that which Frederick sustained for so many years against his numerous foes.  At length, when hope seemed almost at an end, and it appeared as if nothing could save the Prussian kingdom from overthrow, death came to the aid of the courageous monarch.  The Empress Elizabeth of Russia died, and Frederick’s bitterest foe was removed.  The new monarch, Peter III., was an ardent admirer of Frederick, and at once discharged all the Prussian prisoners in his hands, and signed a treaty of alliance with Prussia.  Sweden quickly did the same, leaving Frederick with no opponents but the Austrians.  Four months more sufficed to bring his remaining foes to terms, and by the end of the year 1762 the distracting Seven Years’ War was at an end, the indomitable Frederick remaining in full possession of Silesia, the great bone of contention in the war.  His resolution and perseverance had raised Prussia to a high position among the kingdoms of Europe, and laid the foundations of the present empire of Germany.

THE PATRIOTS OF THE TYROL.

On the 9th of April, 1809, down the river Inn, in the Tyrol, came floating a series of planks, from whose surface waved little red flags.  What they meant the Bavarian soldiers, who held that mountain land with a hand of iron, could not conjecture.  But what they meant the peasantry well knew.  On the day before peace had ruled throughout the Alps, and no Bavarian dreamed of war.  Those flags were the signal for insurrection, and on their appearance the brave mountaineers sprang at once to arms and flew to the defence of the bridges of their country, which the Bavarians were marching to destroy, as an act of defence against the Austrians.

On the 10th the storm of war burst.  Some Bavarian sappers had been sent to blow up the bridge of St. Lorenzo.  But hardly had they begun their work, when a shower of bullets from unseen marksmen swept the bridge.  Several were killed; the rest took to flight; the Tyrol was in revolt.