History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 12
- Pages
- about 263
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4.8 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
BOOK XII. -- FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE,
BEGINS. -- December, 1740-May, 1741.
Schlesien, what we call Silesia, lies in elliptic shape, spread on the
top of Europe, partly girt with mountains, like the crown or crest
to that part of the Earth;--highest table-land of Germany or of the
Cisalpine Countries; and sending rivers into all the seas. The summit
or highest level of it is in the southwest; longest diameter is from
northwest to southeast. From Crossen, whither Friedrich is now driving,
to the Jablunka Pass, which issues upon Hungary, is above 250 miles;
the AXIS, therefore, or longest diameter, of our Ellipse we may call 230
English miles;--its shortest or conjugate diameter, from Friedland in
Bohemia (Wallenstein's old Friedland), by Breslau across the Oder to the
Polish Frontier, is about 100. The total area of Schlesien is counted to
be some 20,000 square miles, nearly the third of England Proper.
Schlesien--will the reader learn to call it by that name, on occasion?
for in these sad Manuscripts of ours the names alternate--is a fine,
fertile, useful and beautiful Country. It leans sloping, as we hinted,
to the East and to the North; a long curved buttress of Mountains
("RIESENGEBIRGE, Giant Mountains," is their best-known name in
foreign countries) holding it up on the South and West sides.
This Giant-Mountain Range,--which is a kind of continuation of the
Saxon-Bohemian "Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE)" and of the straggling
Lausitz Mountains, to westward of these,--shapes itself like a bill-hook
(or elliptically, as was said): handle and hook together may be some
200 miles in length.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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