The king, upon receiving these strange and unexpected tidings, immediately rode into Lowen. It was an early hour in the morning. He entered the place, not as a king and a conqueror, but as a starving fugitive, exhausted with fatigue, anxiety, and sleeplessness. It is said that his hunger was so great that he stopped at a little shop on the corner of the market-place, where “widow Panzern” served him with a cup of coffee and a cold roast fowl. Thus slightly refreshed, the intensely humiliated young king galloped back to his victorious army at Mollwitz, having been absent from it, in his terror-stricken flight, for sixteen hours. The chagrin of Frederick in view of this adventure may be inferred from the fact that, during the whole remainder of his life, he was never known to make any allusion to it whatever. After the king, swept away in the wreck of his right wing of cavalry, had left the field, and was spurring his horse in his impetuous flight, his generals in the centre and on the left, in command of infantry so highly disciplined that every man would stand at his post until he died, resolutely maintained the battle. Frederick William had drilled these men for twenty years as men were never drilled before or since, converting them into mere machines. They were wielded by their officers as they themselves handled their muskets. Five successive cavalry charges these cast-iron men resisted. They stood like rocks dashing aside the torrent. The assailing columns melted before their terrible fire--they discharging five shots to the Austrians’ two. [Illustration: BATTLE OF MOLLWITZ, April 10, 1741. _a._ Advance of Prussians. _b._ Where Rothenburg met the Hussars. _c._ Prussian Infantry. _dd._ Prussian Cavalry. _e._ Austrian Infantry. _fff._ Austrian Cavalry. _gg._ Retreat of Austrians.] After the fifth charge, the Austrians, dispirited, and leaving the snow plain crimsoned with the blood and covered with the bodies of their slain, withdrew out of ball range. Torn and exhausted, they could not be driven by their officers forward to another assault. The battle had now lasted for five hours. Night was at hand, for the sun had already set. The repulsed Austrians were collected in scattered and confused bands. The experienced eye of General Schwerin saw that the hour for decisive action had come. He closed up his ranks, ordered every band to play its most spirited air, and gave the order “Forward.” An Austrian officer, writing the next week, describes the scene.