Not until her six weeks’ stay at the sanatorium was ended did she learn, on returning to Berlin, that war had been determined upon. Concessions had become useless, for Napoleon already treated Prussia as a vassal. On August 9 the King had given orders for the mobilization of the entire army. Negotiations were under way with Austria, Russia, and England in order to effect an understanding. But Austria was too much weakened, Russia too far away, and even England could not give immediate assistance. So Prussia remained isolated, and its shortsightedness and slothfulness during the previous year brought forth sad fruit. One more attempt was made to conciliate Napoleon. He declared that he would attack Prussia with all his forces before Russia could come to its assistance, but that all might still be well, if Prussia would immediately disarm. What Napoleon expected of the King when he was disarmed was clear to everybody, and to no one more so than to the Queen. When, on her return, she learned what had been determined upon as consistent with the honor and well-being of the fatherland, she advocated the war, highly as she valued peace. The arch-enemy of Prussia learned this and made use of it by charging that she instigated the war. The newspapers which he controlled began rude attacks upon this splendid woman in order to lower her in the eyes of her people. Had she suspected the real condition of the army, a state of affairs which the King only began to realize when war was at hand, she might have counselled otherwise. But her high opinion of the army of Frederick the Great was confirmed by the confidence of its officers. General Rüchel, who had retaken Frankfort from the French, was so fatuous as to declare that the Prussian army had plenty of field-marshals equal to General Bonaparte. A colonel deplored the fact that the heroic army of the great Frederick should be furnished with cannon, rifles, and swords for the battle with the French, instead of clubs with which “to beat back these dogs.” “Why do we need fortifications?” asked another. “Our fortress is the army, behind whose invincible ranks we can defy the enemy.” Even a few days before the battle, when the Prussian army was virtually surrounded, a Prussian general staff officer declared that the enemy was already cut off by their clever strategy and Napoleon “as certainly ours as if we already had him in this hat.” But what was the real state of affairs? The fortresses were in bad condition, the commanders were weak dotards, the strategetical points unoccupied, so that in case of retreat the road to the capital was open to the enemy. The superior officers were old and graduates of Frederick’s antiquated school of war, and the younger ones full of patrician insolence. The army itself was not in training, and consisted principally of recruited foreigners. The commander-in-chief was superannuated.