A word would set all in swift motion, but the machine had to be arrested until it should be known that the Prussian ultimatum was rejected. Klinggräffen, Frederick’s ambassador at Vienna, caused some delay by asking for instructions. On the 24th the King wrote to General Winterfeldt, the most impatient advocate of war: “The cursed courier is not yet here, so I have been compelled to stop the regiments till the 28th. Klinggräffen deserves to be made a porter by way of punishment. Such stupid tricks are unpardonable and the prolonged uncertainty is unbearable.” On the 26th, however, after hearing from Vienna, the King was able to set all in motion anew. “The answer,” he wrote to his brother, the Prince of Prussia, “is impertinent, high, and contemptuous, and as for the assurances that I asked of them, not a word, so that the sword alone can cut this Gordian knot.... At present, we must think only of making war in such a fashion as to deprive our enemies of the desire to break the peace too soon.” While one royal messenger was bearing this message from Potsdam to Berlin, others were on their way to Vienna, to Dresden, and to every division of the Prussian army. Klinggräffen was instructed to return a third time to the charge, with the final offer that if the Empress-Queen would declare definitely that she would not attack Frederick that year or the next, the troops now moving should be recalled. More profit was, however, expected from the message to the Saxon Court. King Augustus, or Count Brühl, was to be informed, “with every expression of my affection and of your respect that good breeding can supply,” that Frederick was compelled by the Court of Vienna to enter Saxony with his army in order to pass into Bohemia. “The estates of the King of Saxony,” continued the royal missive, “will be spared as far as present circumstances allow. My troops will behave there with perfect order and discipline, but I am obliged to take precautions so as not to fall again into the position in which the Saxon Court placed me during the years 1744 and 1745.... I desire nothing more ardently than to behold the happy moment of peace, so that I may prove to this Prince the full extent of my friendship, and place him once more in the tranquil possession of all his estates, against which I have never had any hostile design.”