A good example of the disproportion between the British and American frigates is furnished by the fight between the British frigate _Guerrière_ and the American frigate _Constitution_, on August 19, one of the first naval actions in the war. The _Guerrière_ was armed with twenty-four broadside guns, discharging projectiles with a total weight of 517 pounds; the _Constitution_ with twenty-eight broadside guns, discharging a weight of 768 pounds. The crew of the _Guerrière_, counting men only, numbered 244, that of the _Constitution_ with a similar limitation 460. Finally the _Guerrière's_ tonnage amounted to 1,092, as against the _Constitution's_ 1,533. The _Guerrière's_ guns proved very ineffectual from the start, while the marksmanship, not only of the American gunners but of the riflemen in the _Constitution's_ tops, was the wonder of the British. It is stated that none of her shot fell short. After a fight lasting nearly two hours the _Guerrière_ surrendered. The ship was a complete wreck, and she had lost fifteen men killed and six mortally wounded as against seven killed and three mortally wounded on board her opponent. The effect of the engagement both on British and on American public opinion was altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic importance. The inequality in strength of the opposing frigates was not understood, and any defeat of the mistress of the seas seemed an event of considerable significance. The Americans soon met with other similar successes. On October 18 their sloop _Wasp_, of eighteen guns, reduced the British sloop _Frolic_, a weaker vessel, though of similar armament, to a helpless hulk after a ten minutes' cannonade. The moral effect of this victory was not impaired by the fact that the conqueror and her prize were compelled to surrender a few hours later to the British seventy-four _Poictiers_. On the 25th the _United States_, of forty-four guns, captured the _Macedonian_, of thirty-eight, after three hours' fighting, and on December 29 the British thirty-eight-gun frigate _Java_, with a very inexperienced crew, was captured by the _Constitution_ after a running fight of three hours and a half.[58] [Pageheading: _THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN OF 1813._] With the retreat of the French army from Russia the main scene of operations on the continent was shifted from Russia to Germany. Great Britain took little part in the actual warfare in Germany, and if she had a larger share in the political negotiations which ultimately determined the distribution of forces, still Austria and not Great Britain was the power whose diplomacy had most effect on the course of events. The upheaval of Europe against Napoleon, however, would have been much less effective if it had not been supported by English subsidies, and Austria, in the crippled state of her finances, would probably have had to remain inactive if she had not been able to rely on English gold and perhaps still more on English credit.