231 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63questioned the justice of the war and believed that Frederick was
conducting it in an irresponsible way.
What gave Henry's opinion its weight was his undeniable pro-
fessional skill. 'He was an educated soldier, in the best sense of the
term' (Massenbach, 1808, I, 14), and two qualities in particular
impressed his contemporaries. He followed the tradition of Schwerin
in maintaining orderly administration and effective discipline. In-
deed, a Saxon landowner once exclaimed that 'he would rather see
Prince Henry march through his estates with 50,000 men than
another general with one-tenth of that number' (Lehndorff, 1910-13,
I, 229). Second, when it came to the conduct of operations, Heniy
excelled at exploiting every opportunity offered by terrain and the
passage of time:
The positions which he took up always answered their purpose.
They were always secure, and they always corresponded to the
difficult situations in which he often found himself. He made an
accurate study of the character of his opponents, and he
invariably punished them when they were careless enough to
offer him an opening. (Retzow, 1802,1, 333)Nowhere could Frederick find a fellow spirit after Winterfeldt
was killed in 1757. The king enjoyed the great advantage of the
concentration of political and military authority, but by the same
token the burden of the conflict weighed far more heavily on him
than on any other statesman or general. He was isolated in the army,
as we have seen, and also within the circle of his own military family.
The adjutant Berenhorst testifies:
By the fourth and fifth years of the war Frederick no longer
commanded love, respect or even fear among the nearest and
most intimate members of his suite. I can say this because I saw
it with my own eyes. When we rode behind him there was a
mischievous young brigade-major of the cavaliy, called
Wodtke, who set out to amuse us by going into comic
contortions behind his back, imitating the way he sat in the
saddle, pointing at him and so on. Wodtke bestowed on
Frederick the nickname 'Grave-Digger'. Later on he abbreviated
it to 'Digger', and this is what he called the great hero when we
came together in private and engaged in jokes and malicious
talk. (Berenhorst, 1845-7,1, 181)The strain on the king was manifest in physical and psychologi-
cal symptoms - the haemmorrhoids, the rheumaticky pains, the
headaches, the hankering after a release by suicide - and in an