Frederick had demonstrated good leadership by rallying…
October 1758 CE
There is no one to blame but himself.
Andrew Mitchell, the British envoy who is with them, attributes Frederick's loss to the contempt he had for his enemy and his unwillingness to give credit to intelligence that did not agree with his imagination.
The grief he feels at the loss of his greatest friend, and possibly one of his only friends, James Keith, is intense.
His grief had been added to when he learned a couple of days later that his beloved elder sister, Wilhelmine, who had shared their father's wrath in 1730 during the Katte affair, had died on the same day.
He sulks in his tent for a week.
At one point, he shows his librarian a small box of opium capsules, eighteen in total, that he could use to "journey to a dark place from which there was no return."
Despite having rescued his army from catastrophe, he remains depressed and suicidal.
It could have been worse for Frederick.
The fabled discipline of his army had held up: once the Prussians were out of the burning village, unit cohesion and discipline had returned.
Their discipline has neutralized any strategic advantage the Austrians could have gained, and Daun's caution nullifies the rest.
People
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Austria, Archduchy of
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Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Duchy of
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Saxony, Electorate of
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Holy Roman Empire
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Sweden, (second) Kingdom of
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Hesse-Kassel, Landgraviate of
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France, (Bourbon) Kingdom of
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Bavaria, Electorate of
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Brunswick-Lüneburg, Electorate of (Electorate of Hanover)
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Spain, Bourbon Kingdom of
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Prussia, Kingdom of
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Britain, Kingdom of Great
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Pomerania, Swedish
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Russian Empire
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