297 FREDERICK AND WAROeuvres, XXVIII, 49-50; 'Pens^es', 1755, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 133; 'Des
Marches d'Arm6e', 1777, Oeuvres, XXIX, 113-14). Throughout the
wars, the Catholics of Glatz and Upper Silesia remained an element of
instability in the Prussian army, on account of their loyalty to their
religion and to the Habsburgs. These folk were still unreconciled at
the end of the reign.
British public affairs were recognised to be a unique phenomenon
in the Europe of the time, and it is by no means incompatible with the
more conventional interpretations of 'Limited War' that Frederick
should have set out to manipulate British political opinion in his
favour. He found a receptive general public for the accounts of the
victorious Prussian battles and campaigns, and, when the need arose,
he sought to move politically active people in specific directions, as
in favour of continuing the subsidy to Prussia in 1758 and 1759, or
against the ministry of Bute in 1761.
More surprising, perhaps, is the extent to which Frederick and his
enemies thought it worth their while to maintain a favourable
climate of opinion in continental Europe, where the political tradi-
tion was much more authoritarian. Frederick wrote to Voltaire: 'I
wage war on my enemies by all possible means' (24 February 1760,
Oeuvres, XXIII, 70). His weapons embraced official relations, politi-
cal tracts, outright forgeries, and little satires at the expense of
targets like the pope, Daun, Kaunitz and the Pompadour. The narra-
tives were given a certain credibility by the sobriety of the style, and
Frederick took care to have them published in foreign newspapers as
well as in the Prussian gazettes. In fact much of the undesirable detail
was suppressed, 'for some things are better left unsaid' (PC 12505),
and the style and the timing of the release were conceived 'so as to
make the greatest impression on the public in general, and especially
abroad' (PC 12441), as when Frederick desired to accentuate the
allied vandalisms in Berlin in 1760, after the unfavourable publicity
given to his recent bombardment of Dresden.
Frederick was not insensible to the opinions of his own subjects.
Anxious to disguise the appalling realities of the battle of Zorndorf,
he commanded the Te Deum to be sung in the churches throughout
the Prussian lands. Mitchell found that the officers themselves were
kept as far as possible in ignorance of the extent of military failures,
like the disastrous end to the campaign of 1761:
His Prussian Majesty very rarely communicates to the Secretary
of State (Finckenstein) his plan of military operations. If the
attempt succeeds, he sends [him] a Relation... but when the
project miscarries, little or nothing is said of it, and every man
is left to make his own conjectures, for His Prussian Majesty