the next great war, Winterfeldt was in constant attendance upon the king, except when employed on confidential missions in the provinces or abroad. In 1756 he was made a lieutenant-general and received the order of the Black Eagle.
In this year he was feverishly active in collecting information as to the coalition that was secretly preparing to crush Prussia, and in preparing for the war. He took a leading part in the discussions which eventuated in Frederick’s decision to strike the first blow. He was at Pima with the king, and advised him against absorbing the Saxon prisoners into his own army. He accompanied Schwerin in the advance on Prague in 1757 and took a conspicuous part in the battle there. After the defeat of Kolm, however, Winterfeldt, whom Frederick seems to have regarded as the only man of character whom he could trust to conduct the more delicate and difficult operations of the retreat, found himself obliged to work in close contact with the king’s brother, Prince William, the duke of Brunswick-Bevern, Zieten and others of his enemies. The operations which followed may be summarized by the phrase “everything went wrong”; after an angry scene with his brother, the prince of Prussia retired from the army, and when Frederick gave Winterfeldt renewed marks of his confidence, the general animosity reached its height. As it chanced, however, Winterfeldt fell a victim to his own bravery in the skirmish of Moys near Görlitz on the 7th of September. His wound, the first serious wound he had ever received, proved fatal and he died on the 8th. The court enemies provoked by his twenty years' unbroken intimacy and influence with the king, and the denigration of less gifted or less fortunate soldiers, followed him beyond death. Prince William expressed the bitterness of his hatred in almost his last words, and Prince Henry’s memoirs give a wholly incredible portrait of Winterfeldt’s arrogance, dishonesty, immorality and incapacity. Frederick, however, was not apt to encourage incompetence in his most trusted officers, and as for the rest, Winterfeldt stood first amongst the very few to whom the king gave his friendship and his entire confidence. On hearing of Winterfeldt’s death he said, “Einen Winterfeldt finde ich nie wieder,” and a little later, “Er war ein guter Mensch, ein Seelenmensch, er war mein Freund.” Winterfeldt was buried at his estate of Barschau, whence, a hundred years later, his body was transferred to the Invaliden Kirchhof at Berlin. A statue was erected to his memory, which stands in the Wilhelmsplatz there, and another forms part of the memorial to Frederick the Great in Unter den Linden.
See Hans Karl v. Winterfeldt und der Tag von Moys (Görlitz, 1857); and K. W. v. Schöning, Winterfeldts Beisetzung; eine biographische Skizze (Berlin, 1857).
WINTERGREEN, known botanically as Gaultheria procumbens, a member of the heath family (Ericaceae), is a small creeping, evergreen shrub with numerous short erect branches bearing in the upper part shortly-stalked oval, thick, smooth shining leaves with sharp-toothed edge. The flowers are borne singly in the leaf axels and are pendulous, with a pale pink waxy looking urn-shaped corolla. The bright crimson-red sub-globular, berry-like fruit consists of the much-enlarged fleshy calyx which surrounds the small thin-walled many-seeded capsule. The plant is a native of shady woods on sandy soil, especially in mountainous districts, in southern Canada and the northern United States; it is quite hardy in England. The leaves are sharply astringent and have a peculiar aromatic smell and taste due to a volatile oil known as oil of winter green, used in medicine in the treatment of muscular rheumatism (for the therapeutic action see Salicylic Acid). An infusion of the leaves is used, under the name mountain or Salvador tea, in some parts of North America as a substitute for tea; and the fruits are eaten under the name of partridge or deer berries. Other names for the plant are tea-berry, checker-berry, box-berry, jersey tea, spice-berry and ground holly.
See Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, t. 164.
WINTER’S BARK, the bark of Drimys Winteri, an evergreen tree belonging to the Magnolia family. It was formerly officinal in Europe, and is still held in esteem in Brazil and other parts of South America as a popular remedy for scurvy and other diseases. The plant is a native of the mountains and highlands from Mexico to the Straits of Magellan.
WINTERTHUR, a flourishing industrial town in the Töss valley, canton of Zürich, Switzerland, and by rail 17 m. N.E. of Zürich. It is 1450 ft. above sea-level, and has a rapidly increasing population (in 1870, 9317; in 1880, 13,502; in 1888, 15,805; and in 1900, 22,335), all German-speaking and nearly all Protestants. It is the point of junction of seven lines of railway, and is therefore of considerable commercial importance. Its main industries are cambric-weaving, cotton-printing, the manufacture of machinery, and wine-growing, Stadtberg being the best variety of wine grown in the neighbourhood of the town. It is a modern, well-built town, with a fine town-hall and well-arranged school buildings. It suffered severely from the disastrous financial enterprise of the National Railway of Switzerland which it promoted. In 1878 it had to sell its property in that line, and from 1881 to 1885 it was in great difficulties in the matter of a loan of nine million francs guaranteed in 1874 by the town, together with three others in Aargau, to that ill-fated railway. As the three co-guarantor towns were unable to pay their share, the whole burden fell on Winterthur, which struggled valiantly to meet its liabilities, and was helped by large loans from the cantonal and federal governments.
The Roman settlement of Vitudurum [Celtic dur, water] was a little north-east of the present town, at the place now known as Ober Winterthur. It was there that in 919 Burkhard II., duke of Alamannia, defeated Rudolf II., king of Transjuran Burgundy. It was refounded in the valley in 1180 by the counts of Kyburg (their castle rises on a hill, 4 m. to the south of the town), who granted it great liberties and privileges, making it the seat of their district court for the Thurgau. In 1264 the town passed with the rest of the Kyburg inheritance to the Habsburgs, who showed very great favour to it, and thus secured its unswerving loyalty. In 1292 the men of Zürich were beaten back in an attempt to take the town. For a short time after the outlawry of Duke Frederick of Austria, it became a free imperial city (1415-1442); but after the conquest of the Thurgau by the Swiss Confederates (1460-1461) Winterthur, which had gallantly stood a nine-weeks' siege, was isolated in the midst of non-Austrian territory. Hence it was sold by the duke to the town of Zürich in 1467, its rights and liberties being reserved, and its history since then has been that of the other lands ruled by Zürich. In 1717-1726 Zürich tried hard by means of heavy dues to crush the rival silk and cotton industries at Winterthur, which, however, on the whole very successfully maintained its ancient rights and liberties against the encroachments of Zürich.
See H. Glitsch, Beiträge z. ältern Winterthurer Verfassungsgeschichte (Winterthur, 1906); J. C. Troll, Geschichte d. Stadt Winterthur (8 vols., 1840-1850). (W. A. B. C.)
WINTHER, CHRISTIAN (1796-1876), Danish lyrical poet, was born on the 29th of July 1796 at Fensmark, in the province of Praesto, where his father was priest. He went to the university of Copenhagen in 1815, and studied theology, taking his degree in 1824. He began to publish verses in 1819, but no collected volume appeared until 1828. Meanwhile, from 1824 to 1830, Winther was supporting himself as a tutor, and with so much success that in the latter year he was able to go to Italy on his savings. In 1835 a second volume of lyrics appeared, and in 1838 a third. In 1841 King Christian VIII. appointed Winther to travel to Mecklenburg to instruct the princess Caroline, on the occasion of her betrothal to the Crown Prince of Denmark, in the Danish language. Further collections of lyrics appeared in 1842, 1848, 1850, 1853, 1865 and 1872. When he was past his fiftieth year Winther married. In 1851 he received a pension from the state as a poet, and for the next quarter of a century he resided mainly in Paris. Besides the nine or ten volumes of lyrical verse mentioned above, Winther published The Stag’s Flight, an epical romance in verse (1855); In the Year of Grace, a novel (1874); and other works in prose. He died in Paris on the 30th of December 1876, but the body was brought to Denmark, and was buried in the heart of the woods. In the verse of
