FORE:The doge and senate were brought to terms. They seized the beautiful Barberina, placed her carefully in a post-chaise, and, under an escort of armed men, sent her, from stage to stage, over mountain and valley, till she arrived at Berlin. The Venetian embassador was then discharged. The young English gentleman, James Mackenzie, a grandson of the celebrated advocate, Sir George Mackenzie, eagerly followed his captured inamorata, and reached Berlin two hours after Barberina. The rumor was circulated that he was about to marry her.307 Elsewhere, Frederick, speaking of these two winter campaigns, says: Winter campaigns are bad, and should always be avoided, except in cases of necessity. The best army in the world is liable to be ruined by them. I myself have made more winter campaigns than any general of this age. But there were reasons. In 1740 there were hardly above two Austrian regiments in Silesia, at the death of the Emperor Charles VI. Being determined to assert my right to that duchy, I had to try it at once, in winter, and carry the war, if possible, to the banks of the Neisse. Had I waited till spring, we must have begun the war between Crossen and Glogau. What was now to be gained by one march would then have cost us three or four campaigns. A sufficient reason, this, for campaigning in winter. If I did not succeed in the winter campaigns of 1742, a campaign which I made to deliver Moravia, then overrun by Austrians, it was because the French acted like fools, and the Saxons like traitors.64
