136 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63
conceived his passion for tobacco, women, and feats of daredevil
horsemanship like riding through the sails of a windmill. He learnt
his military trade as a hussar in the Silesian Wars, and in the early
1750s he passed into the dragoons and finally into the cuirassiers,
which gave him a grounding in all the branches of the cavalry. For his
conduct at Kolin he received the Pour le M6rite and was promoted to
major-general, and before the year was out he was a lieutenant-
general wearing the orange sash of the Black Eagle. Such a rise was
without precedent in the Prussian service, but Frederick was never in
any doubt that he had done right to advance him over the heads of his
seniors.
Seydlitz's notorious promiscuity, a legacy of his Brandenburg-
Schwedt days, undermined his health so seriously that any slight
wound threatened to incapacitate him for months at a time through
shock and infection. This failing apart, Seydlitz was admired for his
private as well as for his military virtues. He accepted his rise to high
command with a modesty that disarmed any resentment. He was
neither an intellectual nor a zealot, yet he held learning and religion
in the highest regard. He was an enemy of corporal punishment, but
he subjected his soldiers to a hard schooling and he was a stickler for
the externals of military discipline. 'His appearance was one of
warlike beauty. He was thinly built and very tall. He was a lover of
military splendour, and seemed to have been poured into his uniform
- a circumstance which added mightily to the impact he made as a
soldier, and to the effect he had on his fellows' (Blankenburg, in Volz,
1926-7, II, 275).
In action Seydlitz possessed to a supreme degree the quality
which the eighteenth century called coup d'oeil. Frederick explained
that 'out of all the commanders I have seen, he is the only one who
can exploit the full potential of his cavalry' (Catt, 1884, 83). The
relationship with the king is in fact of some interest, for Seydlitz was
the sole Prussian general who was capable of striking awe into Old
Fritz himself. He used to look on with an amused and detached air
when Frederick launched himself into his more extravagant flights of
rhetoric, and he did not hesitate to challenge the royal opinions on
tactics, horsemanship, and the qualities of foreign soldiers, whom the
king usually held in contempt.
Seydlitz commanded the Garde du Corps at the head of
Frederick's party when it set out from Zittau on 25 August. The
weather in the first days of the progress was fine, and 'the king rode
all the time at our head, sometimes alone, sometimes with one or
other companion, but invariably behaving with the utmost gracious-
ness to all who approached him. If it was Seydlitz, Frederick used to
beg him to keep his pipe in his mouth, for he knew he was a passionate