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Silesia   /sɪlˈizə/   Listen
Silesia

noun
1.
A region of central Europe rich in deposits of coal and iron ore; annexed by Prussia in 1742 but now largely in Poland.  Synonyms: Schlesien, Slask, Slezsko.
2.
A sturdy twill-weave cotton fabric; used for pockets and linings.






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"Silesia" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the long war still continued; still stood Frederick the Great with his army in the field; the tremendous struggle between Prussia and Austria was yet undecided, and Silesia was still the apple of discord for which Maria Theresa and Frederick II. had been striving for years, and for which, in so many battles, the blood of German brothers had ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... an abundant supply. For strong winds and large kites it is best to use cloth as the covering. It should be sewed to the frame, and, if carefully put on, will do service for years. Silk, of course, is the ideal material; but its costliness puts it beyond ordinary means, and common silesia, such as is used in dress linings, is almost as good. Whatever the material, the kite should be fortified at the corners by pasting or sewing on quadrants of paper or cloth, so as to give double thickness at the points most liable to injury. A finished six-footer should not weigh over twenty ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... had already begun those experimentings in technique and tone that afterward revolutionized the world of music and the keyboard. He being sickly and his sister's health poor, the pair was sent in 1826 to Reinerz, a watering place in Prussian Silesia. This with a visit to his godmother, a titled lady named Wiesiolowska and a sister of Count Frederic Skarbek,—the name does not tally with the one given heretofore, as noted by Janotha,—consumed this year. In 1827 he left his regular studies at the Lyceum and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... which were the patrimony of the conqueror. They wanted some blessings, but they were free from many very great evils. They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorraine, Alsatia, under the old government of France. Such was Silesia under the King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabric are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions, and to end at last in being conquered, if not to her dominion, to her resemblance. But when we talk of conquest ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... opportunity presented itself a few months after his accession by the dispute as to the Pragmatic Sanction and Maria Theresa's right to the throne of Austria. In the two wars which immediately followed, the Prussian army overran the whole of Silesia, and the peace of 1745 left the Prussian King in possession of the entire country. East Friesland had already been absorbed the year before on the death of the last Duke without issue. In spite of the exhaustion ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... even to Silesia in Eastern Germany, where the Asiatics defeated a German army at Liegnitz (1241). But so great was the invader's loss that they retreated, nor did their leaders ever again seek to penetrate the "land of the iron-clad men." The real "yellow peril" of Europe, her submersion under ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... dominions. This request was immediately granted; he was allowed to purchase land in any part of the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria, to the amount of the sum I have mentioned; and made choice of the country of Ratibor, in Silesia, where, in all probability, he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Europe is revealed. The Prince, sought vainly in Poland, Prussia, Italy, Silesia, and Staffordshire, was really lurking in a fashionable Parisian convent. Better had he been 'where the wind blows over seven glens, and seven Bens, and seven mountain moors,' like the Prince ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... burning of his brew-house (the other buildings were saved); therefore he wrote to the honourable council at Stargard—"That by the shameful and scandalous burning of his brew-house, he had lost two fine hounds named Stargard and Stramehl, which he had brought himself from Silesia; item, two old servants and a woman; item, in the lake, two other servants had been drowned; and all by the revenge of an apprentice, because he had justly caused his brother to be executed. Therefore this apprentice ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... new sins arise, new punishments will also arise. So we see that in our day disease and misfortunes heretofore rare become general, like the English sweat, the locusts which in the year 1542 devastated great stretches of land in Poland and Silesia, and ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... Brandenburgh, who taught his daughter by means of pictures. In 1621 Rudolph Camerarius wrote a book on speech, and in 1642 Gaspard Schott mentions a case of successful instruction. In 1701 or 1704 Kerger at Liegnitz in Silesia taught some pupils orally, having what seemed a temporary school. In 1718 Georges Raphel, who had taught his three deaf daughters, wrote a book explaining his process of instruction. Among other names appearing earlier or later were those of ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... They devastated Hungary, driving the Magyar king in panic flight from his realm. They overran Poland. At a great battle in Silesia they destroyed the knighthood of Germany and filled nine sacks with the right ears of slaughtered enemies. The European peoples, taken completely by surprise, could offer no effective resistance to these Asiatics, who combined superiority in numbers with surpassing generalship. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... otherwise I found my health coming back as I got away from those icy regions towards a milder climate. My mare passed the winter in the stables of M. de Launay, head of the forage department. Our road lay through Silesia. So long as we were in that horrible Poland, it required twelve, sometimes sixteen, horses to draw the carriage at a walk through the bogs and quagmires; but in Germany we found at ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... the shoemaker, is told by Henry More in his Antidote against Atheism. He believed the whole affair. His authority is Martin Weinrich, a Silesian doctor. I have only taken the liberty of shifting the scene of the post-mortem exploits of Kuntz from a town of Silesia to Prague." ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... textbook, and yet what a living reality! Almost at the same moment when the German Empire was being proclaimed at Versailles, Bavarians were fighting shoulder to shoulder with East Prussians, regiments from Schleswig next those from Upper Silesia, soldiers from the Rhine-provinces side by side with soldiers from Saxony: a glorious demonstration of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... races in Austria-Hungary, then, are the Germans, Magyars, Czecho-Slovaks and Yugoslavs, numbering from eight to ten million each. The Austrian Germans and the Magyars occupy the centre, while the Czecho-Slovaks inhabit the north (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia), and the Yugoslavs ten provinces in the southern part of the monarchy. In order to facilitate German penetration and domination and to destroy the last remnants of Bohemia's autonomous constitution, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... then marched to Bohemia and attacked Frederick's army outside Prague, and in less than an hour completely defeated it. Frederick escaped with his family to Holland. Ferdinand then took steps to carry out his oath. The religious freedom granted by Mathias was abolished. In Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Austria proper. Many of the promoters of the rebellion were punished in life and property. The year following all members of the Calvinistic sect were forced to leave their country, a few months afterwards the Lutherans were also expelled, ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... our biographer cannot be traced with any degree of certainty, owing to the loss of the first part of his manuscript. It is, however, pretty clear that he was not a Pomeranian, as he says he was in Silesia in his youth, and mentions relations scattered far and wide, not only at Hamburg and Cologne, but even at Antwerp; above all, his South-German language betrays a foreign origin, and he makes use of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... Poetry of America" (p. 24) gives Joseph Shippen (1732-1810) the credit of the lines, and Moses Coit Tyler assigns them to the same source (History of American Literature, II, 240). Another poem by Shippen, "On the Glorious Victory near Newmark in Silesia," was contributed to the magazine in ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... Lechs, or Poles, on the Vistula, had acquired considerable power, and had a center at Gnesen, which remained the metropolis of Poland. There are legends of a first duke, Piast by name. A dynasty which bore his name continued in Poland until 1370; in Silesia, until 1675. Miecislas I. was converted to Christianity by his wife, a Bohemian princess. He did homage to the Emperor Otto I. (978). Boleslav I. (992) aspired to the regal dignity, and had himself crowned as king by his bishops. Gregory VII. excommunicated him, deprived him ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... an offset to the surrounding nations she has one open and rather noisy friendship, and that is with France. England she considered to be her enemy even before the British Government stated its view on the question of Silesia. She had decided to help France, and France had promised to help Poland, and England stood in the way of all manner of injustice and aggression. It is pathetic to think now of the work done for Poland by England during the war: the meetings that ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... Rhine, that so he might be enabled to make farther progress, and to keep the German allies of the two crowns from joining with their enemies. He assured him recruits were raising in Sweden for Marshal Bannier's army, that he might make an invasion into Silesia or elsewhere; and that the Swedes had rejected all the proposals of peace made to them, because they believed the intention of the enemy was to sow division between them and the French. The King answered, that he most sincerely wished the prosperity of the Queen his sister; and that he would ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... commaundement of the sea apostolique setting foorth towards the nations of the East, chose first to trauel vnto the Tartars, because we feared that there might be great danger imminent vpon the Church of God next vnto them, by their inuasions. [Sidenote: Boleslaus duke of Silesia.] Proceeding on therefore, we came to the king of Bohemia, who being of our familiar acquaintance, aduised vs to take our iourney through Polonia and Russia. For he had kinsfolkes in Polonia, by whose assistance, we might enter into Russia. Hauing giuen vs his letters, hee caused our charges ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... stayed in the ranks, and Frederick raided Silesia and Poland. His successors ordered all the Protestant sects into one, so that they might be more easily controlled; from which time the Lutheran Church has been a department of the Prussian state, in some cases a ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... diplomacy to have subsequently won over the French ministry to exchange the friendship of Frederick of Prussia for her own, and to engage as her ally in a war which had for its object the recovery of the lost Silesia. Silesia was not recovered. But she still clung to the French alliance as fondly as if the objects which she had originally hoped to gain by it had been fully accomplished; and, as the heir to the French monarchy was very nearly of the same age as the young archduchess, she began to entertain ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... mourners, known to us here in Jane Borthwick's translation, was written by Benjamin Schmolke (or Schmolk) late in the 17th century. He was born at Brauchitzchdorf, in Silesia, Dec. 21, 1672, and received his education at the Labau Gymnasium and Leipsic University. A sermon preached while a youth, for his father, a Lutheran pastor, showed such remarkable promise that a wealthy man paid the expenses of his education for the ministry. He was ordained and settled ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... beautiful, and holy. Let us kneel before the truth of nature; nature cannot go astray. The distinction between good and evil, the evil heritage of Judaism, must fall in the end. Max, on quiet fields, in a mountain village of Silesia, I turned somersaults with joy at the discovery that this distinction is false, and that good and evil are identical. Max, you will not be angry with me? I am no learned fellow. I never attended a high school, and now I rejoice at it, for what a German calls education can only serve to ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... year 1631, in the midst of the long Thirty Years' Was between Roman Catholics and Protestants, which finally decided that each state should have its own religion, Lowenburg, a city of Silesia, originally Protestant, had passed into the hands of the Emperor's Roman Catholic party. It was a fine old German city, standing amid woods and meadows, fortified with strong walls surrounded by a moat, and with gate towers ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... acknowledged, profitable as well as honourable; but, now that George the Second was dead, a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the House of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia? Why were the best English regiments fighting on the Main? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... permanent conquest of Russia they made a deadly, though transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were obliterated: [271] they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and filled nine sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz, the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary; and the presence or spirit of Batou inspired ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... Mecklenburg, and part of Pomerania, and was advancing with his victorious troops, increased by the addition of some regiments raised in those parts, in order to carry on the war against the emperor, having designed to follow up the Oder into Silesia, and so to push the war home to the emperor's hereditary countries of Austria and Bohemia, when the first messengers came to him in this case; but this changed his measures, and brought him to the frontiers of Brandenburg resolved to answer the desires ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... stage in her development a great possession in the equal self-sacrifice of Montcalm and Wolfe. On the other hand, the nation is doomed to suffer which bases its traditions of greatness upon such acts as the seizure of Silesia by Frederick or Bismarck's ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... Prince, and in the following year the latter settled on him a yearly pension of 600 florins. In the year 1806 there was a rupture between the two friends. At the time of the battle of Jena, Beethoven was at the seat of Prince Lichnowsky at Troppau, in Silesia, where some French officers were quartered. The independent artist refused to play to them, and when the Prince pressed the request, Beethoven got angry, started the same evening for Vienna, and,—anger still burning in his breast,—on his arrival home, he shattered a bust ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... successors are ingenious. They amount to this: As Rome grew in power and culture, so Brandenburg, since the days of the Great Elector, has been expanding in spirit and in territory. That illustrious prince began by absorbing Prussia. Frederick the Great added Silesia and a slice of Poland. Wilhelm I obtained Schleswig, Holstein, Alsace, and Lorraine by war, and Saxony and Bavaria by benevolent assimilation. The present Kaiser has already acquired Belgium by the former and Austria by ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... far from the Castle of Fuerstenstein, near the spot where the gallant Blucher, with the brave army of Silesia, won such glory, that the Baron of Fuerstenstein met a maimed soldier, who was endeavouring to reach Berlin to claim his pension, and whose age denoted that his wounds had long been his honourable though painful companions. The Baron, observing a very richly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various

... but politically is the weakest link in the chain of the Austro-Germanic alliance. The area of Hungary is almost denuded of men, for most of these have been called up to defend Germany, A, and in particular to prevent the invasion of Germany's territory in Silesia at S. The one defence Hungary has against being raided and persuaded to an already tempting peace is the barrier of the Carpathian mountains, CCC. When or if the passes shall be in Russian possession and the Russian cavalry reappear upon the Hungarian side of the hills, the first great political ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... the Lithuanian Jagellons. Christianity was introduced by the fourth of the Piasts, A. D. 964, and it was a sovereign of the same House, Boleslas I., the Brave, who gave a solid foundation to the Polish State. He conquered Dantzig and Pomerania, Silesia, Moravia, and White Russia, as far as the Dnieper. After being partitioned, in accordance with the principle that long obtained in the neighbouring Russian principalities, the component territories of Poland were reunited by Vladislaf (Ladislaf) the Short, who established ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... wife of Leopold Eberhard. She was the daughter of a baker, and had held the post of housemaid at the small court of Oels in Silesia. Having succeeded in espousing a gentleman of the name of Zedlitz, she turned her attention to the eighteen-year-old Erbprinz of Moempelgard; and her husband, Herr von Zedlitz, not approving of this new relationship, she divorced him and married ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... as far as the neighbourhood of Basle, and recurred until the year 1360 throughout Germany, France, Silesia, Poland, England, and Denmark, and much ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... Silesia on my way to London, I stopped only a few hours in Berlin, where I heard that Austria intended to proceed against Serbia so as to bring to an end an unbearable state of affairs. Unfortunately, I failed at the moment to gauge the significance of the news. I thought that once more it ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... sympathies, the office proletarians were her own poor relations. She sighed over the cheap jackets, with silesia linings and raveled buttonholes, which nameless copyists tried to make attractive by the clean embroidered linen collars which they themselves laundered in wash-bowls in the evening. She discovered that even after years of experience with actual ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... As the blue waves of light had stirred up within me a tender feeling for Aniela,—although it was no merit of hers,—so now the wooing of such a man as Kromitzki threw cold water upon the nascent affections. I know that ape Kromitzki, and do not like him. He comes from Austrian Silesia, where it seems they had owned estates. In Rome he used to say that his family had borne the title of count already in the fifteenth century, and at the hotels put himself down as "Graf von Kromitzki." But for his small, black eyes, not unlike coffee-berries, and ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the boundaries of these three regions cannot be very strictly defined; but an approximation to the limits of Middle Germany may be obtained by regarding it as a triangle, of which one angle lies in Silesia, another in Aix-la-Chapelle, and a ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... benefits of the club-house was a friend of Ritter, who helped him with his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a native Austrian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painter from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comrades placed an extremely high estimate. It was Willy Snyders the kind-hearted who, soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, dragged him from his wretched quarters, not without much coaxing, and transferred ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... of Observations exhibiting the probabilities of life; containing an account of the whole number of people of Breslau, capital of Silesia, and the number of those of every age, from one to a hundred. (Here follows the table with ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... almost exclusively to the Reformed faith; they had always preserved in a remarkable degree their love for civil and political freedom, hence their minds were prepared to receive Protestantism. Three monks from Silesia, converts to Luther's views, came into these parts to preach, passing from one village to another, and in the towns they "held catechisings and preachings in the public squares and market-places," where crowds came from all the country round to hear them. The peasants went ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... to no decisive resolution. But the burgesses, to whom the matter was referred, were animated by a lively sense of the greatness of the power which their own energy had established. The conquest of Italy encouraged the Romans, as that of Greece encouraged the Macedonians and that of Silesia the Prussians, to enter upon a new political career. A formal pretext for supporting the Mamertines was found in the protectorate which Rome claimed the right to exercise over all Italians. The transmarine Italians were received into ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... their course undisturbed. In Bohemia the counter-reformation was carried through with extreme severity. Four-and-twenty Protestant nobles and leaders were executed, and their heads with hoary beards were seen exposed on the Bridge at Prague. Silesia hastened to make its peace with the Emperor: the Princes of the Union laid down their arms, but they did not yet make their peace by this means. Tilly took possession of the Upper Palatinate, and then turned with his victorious army to ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... fulfilled, Mr. Adams immediately wrote to his father that he should, at any time, acquiesce in his recall. While waiting for the decision of his government, he travelled, with his family, in Saxony and Bohemia, and, in the ensuing summer, into Silesia. His observations during this tour were embodied in letters to his brother, Thomas B. Adams, and were published, without his authority, in Philadelphia, and subsequently in England. The work contains interesting sketches of Silesian life ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... sonnet, and found it easy, flowing, and well written. It was composed in praise of the King of Prussia, who had just conquered Silesia by a masterly stroke. As I was copying it, the idea struck me to personify Silesia, and to make her, in answer to the sonnet, bewail that Love (supposed to be the author of the sonnet of the marchioness) could applaud the man who had conquered ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... trade to that of a waiter. By 1824 he was an independent inn-keeper and was followed in the same business by the poet's father, Robert Hauptmann. The latter, a man of solid and not uncultivated understanding, married Marie Straehler, daughter of one of the fervent Moravian households of Silesia, and had become, when his sons Carl and Gerhart were born, the proprietor of a well-known and prosperous hotel, Zur ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... and true friend, his love for E——, and his conviction of its utter hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind.... He has almost resolved to make a tour in Silesia, which will keep him absent for a few weeks." The tour in Silesia was certainly made; and during the brief absence Irving wrote sundry sentimental letters to Mrs. Foster. There are occasions when he ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... a newspaper picked up in a German trench. Jauer is a city of Silesia, about fifty kilometers west of Breslau, where two battalions of the 154th Regiment of Saxon Infantry are garrisoned. One Sunday morning, Oct. 18, doubtless at the hour when the inhabitants—women and children—were wending their way to church, there was distributed throughout ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Clymenien- Kalk, or sometimes Cypridinen-Schiefer, on account of the number of minute bivalve shells of the crustacean called Cypridina serrato-striata (Figure 511), which is found in these beds, in the Rhenish provinces, the Harz, Saxony, and Silesia, as well as in Cornwall ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... Lombard-Venetian line proceeds rapidly, and is to be joined to that of Trieste. In 1847, the traveller may go, without fail, from Milan to Stettin on the Baltic. But the most interesting line for us is that of Gallicia, in connexion with that of Silesia. If prolonged from Czernowitz to Galatz, along the dead flat of Moldavia, the Black Sea and the German Ocean will be joined; Samsoun and the Tigris will thus be, in all probability, at no distant day, on the high road to our ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... the dew. At each house they sing a song, wishing the inmates good luck, referring to the "black cow in the stall milking white milk, black hen on the nest laying white eggs," and begging a gift of eggs, bacon, and so on. At the village of Ellgoth in Silesia a ceremony called the King's Race is observed at Whitsuntide. A pole with a cloth tied to it is set up in a meadow, and the young men ride past it on horseback, each trying to snatch away the cloth as he gallops by. The one who succeeds in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... detail, to give a brief sketch of his previous career. Hermann Ludwig was the only son of Graf von Pueckler of Schloss Branitz, and of his wife, Clementine, born a Graefin von Gallenberg, and heiress to the vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families were of immense antiquity, the Puecklers claiming to trace their descent from Ruediger von Bechlarn, who figures in the Nibelungenlied. Our hero was born at Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... upon the war throughout the Press of Europe and even in the calculations of the General Staffs. Nay, I will now add to the list spontaneously: In common with many others, I thought that an invasion of Silesia was probable last December. At the beginning of the war I believed that the French operations in Lorraine would develop towards the north—an opinion which will be found registered many months later in the official records recently published. In the matter of numbers my early estimates exaggerated ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... Dutchmen. There is room for trade also; Spree Havel Elbe is a direct water-road to Hamburg and the Ocean; by the Oder, which is not very far, you communicate with the Baltic on this hand, and with Poland and the uttermost parts of Silesia on that. Enough, Berlin grows; becomes, in about 300 years, for one reason and another, Capital City of the country, of these many countries. The Markgraves or Electors, after quitting Brandenburg, did not come immediately to Berlin; their next Residence ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... Theresa, in her rights to reign over his hereditary dominions. But when the Emperor was dead, France and other Powers proceeded to promote their own ambitious and selfish designs. France wished to possess the rich Netherlands, and Spain, Milan; Frederick of Prussia had no higher desire than to seize Silesia, and to drive Austria from Germany. Bavaria claimed the Austrian duchy of Bohemia. Maria Theresa was to have only Hungary and the duchy of Austria. The King of England was jealous of Prussia, and thought more of his Hanoverian throne than of his English crown. It became ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... a man come from the west side of the world, as England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, or Norway, he may, if that he will, go through Almayne and through the kingdom of Hungary, that marcheth to the land of Polayne, and to the land of Pannonia, and so to Silesia. ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... badly-handled forces, while her chief armies overthrew those of Austria and Saxony in Bohemia. The Austrian plan of campaign had been to invade Prussia by two armies—a comparatively small force advancing from Cracow as a base into Silesia, while another, acting from Olmuetz, advanced through Bohemia to join the Saxons and march on Berlin, some 50,000 Bavarians joining them in Bohemia for the same enterprise. This design speedily broke down owing to the short-sighted timidity of the Bavarian Government, which refused ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... Thus the introduction of piece wages into lower Silesia has increased the daily earnings of workmen by one-third, one-half, and even more. Engel's Stastist. Zeitschr. (1868), p. 327. The investigations of the German agricultural congress on the condition of agricultural laborers ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... one-half of chintz in cream-tinted ground, sprinkled with Dresden nosegays gaily dashed with pink and delicate green color, eight cents a yard. Four grades of delicate pink silesia and two and one-half yards of unbleached muslin for interlining, made an item of fifty cents. Hinges and corners and nail-heads of brass, satin ribbon and tacks, by considerable calculation, can be pressed into the amount ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... of a noble family in the duchy of Liegnitz, in Lower Silesia, in 1489. He studied in Cologne, in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and probably also in the University of Erfurt, though he attained no University degree. His period of systematic study being over, about 1511 he threw himself into the life of a courtier, with the prospect of ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... of the appalling superstition that prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... tradition, from a letter which he wrote to Prince Lichnowsky when the latter attempted to persuade him to play for some French officers on his estate in Silesia. Beethoven went at night to Troppau, carrying the manuscript of the (so-called) "Appassionata" sonata, which ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... scholars that everything good in music we owe to the Teutons. Haydn was largely Croatian; Mozart was strongly influenced by non-Teutonic folk-music (Tyrolese melodies frequently peep out in his works); Schubert's forebears came from Moravia and Silesia; and Beethoven was partly Dutch. If there be any single race to which the world owes the art of music it is the Italians, for they invented most of the instruments and hinted at all the vocal and ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... the inhabitants was either Lutheran or Utraquist, that is, attached to Communion under both kinds, which had been the germ of Hussitism, and was the residue that remained after the fervour of the Hussite movement had burnt itself out. In 1609 Bohemia and Silesia obtained entire freedom of religious belief; while in the several provinces of Alpine Austria unity was as vigorously enforced as the law permitted—that is, by the use of patronage, expulsion of ministers, suppression of schools; confiscation of ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... yes I do. It wouldn't be healthy, up at the house. Daisy, sing that gipsy song from 'The Camp in Silesia,' that I heard you singing a day or ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... of them I had found already in my own reading, but one of them I did not remember, and it was both comical and characteristic. A rural Protestant pastor sent a petition to the King presenting a grievance and asking redress. It was to the effect that his church was on one side of a river in Silesia, and that a younger pastor, whose church was on the opposite side, was drawing all his parishioners away from him. On the back of the petition Frederick simply wrote, "Tell him to go and preach ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... opinion that it might have been wiser for France in her own interests to claim the coal only. But it is for France to decide, and it will be for the League of Nations to watch over the solution she has insisted on, in the common interest. But concessions as to Upper Silesia and East Prussia would be received, I have little doubt, with general relief and assent; and the common sense of Europe will certainly see both the wisdom and expediency of setting German industry to work again as speedily ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in want of money. According to her own story she met the late Emperor William in 1825, during the lifetime of his father, King Frederick-William III., when she was sixteen years of age. After several clandestine meetings, she claimed that they were married late one night at Clegnitz, in Silesia, by a young country parson. The latter did not know the prince, who gave the name of William Count Brandenburg, and his occupation as that of an officer of the Royal Guards. The marriage certificate ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... constitutional and historical rights which remained to the Jugo-Slavs. But these "reforms" had nevertheless salutary effects upon the nation of peasants. The enlightened despots, spurred on by the loss of Silesia—which was at the same time a great loss in revenue as well as prestige—sought to make good the loss by the economic betterment and education of the peasantry. How else could an agrarian state increase its revenue and supply able-bodied men for the numerous armies which the overarmaments ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,

... do it in Parliament. I know a case of a noble lord, a General in the army, and he received an intimation that he might as well attend the Prussian cavalry manoeuvres last Autumn on the Lower Rhine or in Silesia—no matter where. He couldn't go: he was engaged to shoot birds! I give you my word. Now there I see old Nevil 's right. It 's as well we should know something about the Prussian and Austrian cavalry, and if our aristocracy won't go abroad to study cavalry, who is to? no class in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... elude that article of the treaty. Their punishment was immediate and terrible. [35] But of all the invaders of Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people, who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia. [36] In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by their numbers and fierceness. "The Arii" (it is thus that they are described by the energy of Tacitus) "study to improve by art and circumstances ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... dwarf, the white and Battersea beans, are the best sorts. They must have air in the middle of mild days when they are up, and once in two days they should be gently watered. Transplant cabbages, plant out Silesia and Cos lettuce from the beds where they grew in winter, and plant potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes.—MARCH. Sow more carrots, and also some large peas, rouncevals and gray. In better ground sow cabbages, savoys, and parsnips for a second crop; and towards the end of the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... might descend to a female, and so there was a young and beautiful empress on the throne at Vienna, who was going to make a great deal of history for Europe; and who would open her brilliant reign by a valiant fight for possession of Silesia, which the young king of Prussia intended to seize as an addition to his own new kingdom. This young King Frederick was also making history very fast, and after a stormy career was going to convert his Kingdom into a ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... (cited above), p. 136.] Actual Election begins; continues SUB DIO, 'in the Field of Wola,' in a very tempestuous fashion; bound to conclude within six weeks. Kaiser has his troops assembled over the border, in Silesia, 'to protect the freedom of election;' Czarina has 30,000 under Marshal Lacy, lying on the edge of Lithuania, bent on a like object; will increase them to 50,000, as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... ready to sacrifice all they have. This example from above carries the nation with them. The Reichstag knew parties and factions no more, and neither does the nation. The Emperor sounded the word which has become common property from Koenigsberg to Constance, from Upper Silesia to the Belgian frontier: "I know only Germans!" And yet how terribly is our nation otherwise disrupted by party strife. Ill-advised persons across our frontiers hoped that creed differences would make for disunion, Frenchmen and Russians expected to weaken our empire ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... made Karakorum, an ancient Turkish town, his capital. This town was a little north of China. His successor Ojadai, extended the Mongolian dominion into the centre of China, and, after raising an army of 600,000 men, he even invaded Europe. Russia, Georgia, Poland, Moravia, Silesia, and Hungary, all became the scenes of sanguinary conflicts which almost always ended in favour of the invaders. The Mongols were looked upon as demons possessed with superhuman power, and Western Europe was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... can remain under water depends very much upon his own strength and experience, the steady care with which the air-pump is managed, and other circumstances. M. Frendenberg states that in the repair of the well in the Scharley zinc mines, in Silesia, two divers descended to a depth of eighty-five feet, remaining down for periods varying from fifteen minutes to two hours. Siebe, another authority on the subject, relates that in removing the cargo of the ship Cape Horn, wrecked off the coast of South America, a diver named Hooper ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... to—it's his duty—I'm obliged," and the gendarme, who had only been transferred to this post the spring before, pulled out an enormous note-book from his pocket with a determined look, and took out the pencil. "I always write everything down. Things were bad enough in Upper Silesia, but they seem ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... in execution lay in this, that the King's Army in this campaign was constantly in motion. Twice it marched by wretched cross-roads, from the Elbe into Silesia, in rear of Daun and pursued by Lascy (beginning of July, beginning of August). It required to be always ready for battle, and its marches had to be organised with a degree of skill which necessarily called forth a ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... Kulmanus (Kuhlmann), who has been called the Prince of Fanatics, and wandered through many lands making many disciples. He was born at Breslau in Silesia in 1651, and at an early age saw strange visions, at one time the devils in hell, at another the Beatific Glory of God. His native country did not appreciate him, and he left it to wander on from university to university, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... born in Austrian Silesia; entered and served in the army, and did service as a diplomatist; wrote dramas and lyrics, and translated Byron's "Childe ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the afternoon Margery had used her clever fingers to such purpose that a white silesia flag, worked with the camp name, floated from the tip top of the front entrance to the tent. The ceremony of raising the flag was attended with much enthusiasm, and its accomplishment greeted by a deafening cheer ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... After describing how Frederick broke the guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa, he then describes how Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that was an insult. "If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions, as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise could be of more value than the old one." That passage was written by Macaulay, but so far as the mere contemporary ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... used in puddling furnaces, especially in the so-called gas puddling furnaces, in Carinthia, Steyermark, Silesia, Bavaria, Wirtemberg, Sweden, and other parts of Europe. In Steyermark, peat has been ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... Polish parts of Galicia to the new kingdom of Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia; and she might receive most satisfactory compensation for these losses by the acquisition of the German parts of Silesia and by the adherence of the largely Roman Catholic South German States, which have far more in common with Austria than with Protestant Prussia. As a result of the war, Austria-Hungary might be greatly strengthened ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... sentiment. Is it a wonder that but little more than a year after they met, the Princess decided to burn her bridges behind her and leave her husband? Through his friend, Prince Felix Lichnowsky, Liszt arranged that they should meet at Krzyzanowitz, one of the Lichnowsky country seats in Austrian Silesia. "May the angel of the Lord lead you, my radiant morning star!" he exclaims. At the same time he has an eye to the practical side of the affair, and describes the place as just the one for their meeting point, because Lichnowsky will be too busy to remain ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... compared with true coal, it is distinguished by the abundance of smoke which it produces and the choking sulphurous fumes which also accompany its combustion, but it is largely used in Germany as a useful source of paraffin and illuminating oils. In Silesia, Saxony, and in the district about Bonn, large quantities of lignite are mined, and used as fuel. Large stores of lignite are known to exist in the Weald of the south-east of England, and although the mining operations which were carried ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin

... Netherlands, and the Indies, Ferdinand took the German dominions, the hereditary Duchy of Austria, the Suabian lands, Tyrol, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola. Marriage and fortune brought to the German branch the dependent states of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia; and it had succeeded in retaining the Imperial crown. The wisdom and moderation of Ferdinand and his successor secured tranquillity for Germany through some fifty years. They were faithful to the Peace of Passau, which ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... by the payment of large subsidies, to take part with Lewis, and invade the territories of the elector of Brandenburgh in Pomerania. That elector joined by some imperialists from Silesia, fell upon them with bravery and success. He soon obliged them to evacuate his part of that country, and he pursued them into their own. He had an interview with the king of Denmark, who had now joined the confederates, and resolved to declare war against Sweden. These princes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... Chotusitz, or Czaslau, gained by the King of Prussia over the very superior forces of the Austrians. This victory occasioned the peace between the contending powers, and the cession of Silesia ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... our own, or whether any portion belongs to you, we may negotiate. We might negotiate after taking possession. That was the military way of doing business. It was the way in which Frederick II. of Prussia had negotiated with the Emperor of Austria for Silesia. [Here Mr A. gave an account of the interview of Frederick the Great with the Austrian minister, and of the fact of Frederick having sent his troops to take possession of that province the very day that ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... and when Frederick II., a hundred years after his great-grandfather, succeeded to the crown, he inherited only two million two hundred and forty thousand subjects, not so many as the single province of Silesia contains today. What was it then that, immediately after the battles of the Thirty Years' War, aroused the jealousy of all the governments, and especially of the Imperial house, and which since then has made such warm friends and such bitter ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... active service by my wounds, I shall repair to my estates in Silesia, and remain there till I have recovered. And you, comrade—will you permit me to make you an offer? If you have not yet come to a different decision, you ought to accompany me, and stay at my house till your wounds are healed. I have splendid woods, and facilities ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... "For me stand in battle, each man to man; Silesia and County Glatz to me they will not grant, Nor the hundred millions either ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of this commerce with Hungary and Transylvania is carried on with the three great provinces of the empire—Lower Austria, which alone absorbs about two-thirds of the total; Moravia and Austrian Silesia, one-fourth; and Gallicia and Austrian Poland, the imports from whence represent above one-tenth, and the exports to which form one-twentieth of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Powers a thousand miles away from his own frontiers. He therefore calmed the Court of Vienna by promising that he would discourage any rising in Austrian Poland, and he held forth the prospect of regaining Silesia. This tempting offer was made secretly and conditionally; and evoked no expression of thanks, but rather a redoubling of precautions. Yet, despite the efforts of England and Russia, the Hapsburg ruler refused to join the allies: he preferred ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... particular countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous, is the second expedient by which the commercial system proposes to increase the quantity of gold and silver. Thus, in Great Britain, Silesia lawns may be imported for home consumption, upon paying certain duties; but French cambrics and lawns are prohibited to be imported, except into the port of London, there to be warehoused for exportation. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... 1246, the pope sent ambassadors to the Tartar and Mogul khans: of these Carpini has given us the most detailed account of his embassy, and of the route which he followed. His journey occupied six months: he first went through Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland, to Kiov, at that time the capital of Russia. Thence he proceeded by the Dnieper to the Black Sea, till he arrived at the head quarters of the Khan Batou. To him we are indebted for the first information of the real names of the four great rivers which ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... occur also at Trzebnica, in Silesia, where the Poles encountered the Turks, and at Matwa in the Prussian province of Posen. In the former a girl who is admitted into the cavern is warned against touching a bell that, as in the Welsh tale, hangs in the entrance. She cannot resist the temptation ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... how grave, evidently going on. The resolution Friedrich laid before them, fruit of these two days since the news from Vienna, was probably the most important ever formed in Prussia, or in Europe during that Century: Resolution to make good our Rights on Silesia, by this great opportunity, the best that will ever offer. Resolution which had sprung, I find, and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young King himself; and which met with little save opposition from all the other sons of Adam, at the first blush and for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... right to Silesia?" said he, after a pause. "You do not think I am justified in demanding this Silesia, which was dishonestly torn from ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach



Words linked to "Silesia" :   Slezsko, textile, material, Europe, fabric, geographic region, geographical area, geographical region, cloth, geographic area



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