The truth is, apart from his specific pieces of ill-luck, there had now begun for Friedrich a new rule of procedure, which much altered his appearance in the world.

Thrice over had he tried by the aggressive or invasive method; thrice over made a plunge at the enemy's heart, hoping so to disarm or lame him: but that, with resources spent to such a degree, is what he cannot do a fourth time: he is too weak henceforth to think of that.
Prussia has always its King, and his unrivalled talent; but that is pretty much the only fixed item: Prussia VERSUS France, Austria, Russia, Sweden and the German Reich, what is it as a field of supplies for war! Except its King, these are failing, year by year; and at a rate fatally SWIFT in comparison.

Friedrich cannot now do Leuthens, Rossbachs; far-shining feats of victory, which astonish all the world.

His fine Prussian veterans have mostly perished; and have been replaced by new levies and recruits; who are inferior both in discipline and native quality;--though they have still, people say, a noteworthy taste of the old Prussian sort in them; and do, in fact, fight well to the last.

But "it is observable," says Retzow somewhere, and indeed it follows from the nature of the case, "that while the Prussian Army presents always its best kind of soldiers at the beginning of a war, Austria, such are its resources in population, always improves in that particular, and its best troops appear in the last campaigns." In a word, Friedrich stands on the defensive henceforth; disputing his ground inch by inch: and is reduced, more and more, to battle obscurely with a hydra-coil of enemies and impediments; and to do heroisms which make no noise in the Gazettes.
And, alas, which cannot figure in History either,--what is more a sorrow to me here! Friedrich, say all judges of soldiership and human character who have studied Friedrich sufficiently, "is greater than ever," in these four Years now coming.