296 FREDERICK AND WAR
peace. The women have always had a hankering to wear men's
pants, which would give rise to all sorts of confusion. (Anon.,
1788-9, 111,43)Early in the Seven Years War Frederick once ordered Lehwaldt to
arm the civilian population against the Russians, but, with this
solitary exception, he set himself firmly against the principle of
popular resistance to invaders. When he enlisted large numbers of
men of military age into the Land Militia in 1757, he intended chiefly
to deny recruits to the enemy and secure an Augmentation of
manpower for the regular army (Dette, 1914,77). He turned down the
request of the islanders of Borkum, in Ost-Friesland, to be allowed to
offer resistance to the French in 1757 (Wiarda, 1792-1817, VIII, 392),
and in 1759 he rejected a proposal from Prince Henry to revive the
project of arming the men of the eastern provinces against the
Russians.
From a superficial reading of Frederick's works and correspond-
ence, we might therefore conclude that eighteenth-century warfare
corresponded to what some historians have represented it to be - a
mechanical parade of armies which went about their murderous
business unmoved by emotion, and which killed each other off
beneath the impassive gaze of the civilians. However, it is impossible
to ignore the existence of deeply felt loyalties and patriotisms of the
people, any more than the grudges, blood feuds and racialisms of the
battlefield. Most powerful of all was the influence of religious fac-
tion, which was associated largely, if not exclusively, with the Seven
Years War, after the Diplomatic Revolution had produced an align-
ment of forces which corresponded roughly with the sectarian divi-
sions of Europe. The Seven Years War, if it was not a struggle about
religion, became a war with an important religious content, during
which well-informed people, and Frederick himself, were at times
tempted to believe that the survival of one or other of the confessions
was at stake (Riesebeck, 1784, I, 125; Lehndorff, 1910-13, I, 124;
Schlenke, 1963, 231-56).
The massacres at Hohenfriedeberg, Kolin, Rossbach and Zorn-
dorf were powered by the bitter antagonisms among the soldiers. In
the same spirit civilians put up armed resistance to the Prussians
around Neisse in 1741, in the Moravian-Bohemian border hills in
1742, and possibly also at Domstadtl in 1758. Passive opposition could
be more effective still. Simply by denying food and information the
Clvilians could imperil any army which operated in enemy country
far from its base (as Frederick experienced in Bohemia in 1744), and
he allowed that assistance from the people was one of the advantages
°f campaigning in one's own land ('Principes Generaux', 1748,