rch from us! On the instant
Friedrich hurries back; gets his Army on march thitherward, though the
late October sun is now past noon; off instantly; a stroke yonder will
perhaps be the cure of all. Such roads we had, says Friedrich, as never
Army travelled before: long after nightfall, we arrive near the Austrian
camp, bivouac as we can till daylight return. At the first streak of
day, Friedrich and his chief generals are on the heights with their
spy-glasses: Austrian Army sure enough; and there they have altered
their posture overnight (for Traun too has been awake); they lie now
opposite our RIGHT flank; 'on a scarped height, at the foot of which,
through swamps and quagmires, runs a muddy stream.' Unattackable on this
side: their right flank and foot are safe enough. Creep round and see
their left:--Nothing but copses, swampy intricacies! We may shoulder
arms again, and go back to Konopischt: no fight here! [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ iii. 63, 64; Orlich, ii. 69.] Speaking of defensive
Campaigns, says Friedrich didactically, years afterwards, 'If such
situations are to answer the purpose intended, the front and flanks must
be equally strong, but the rear entirely open. Such, for instance,
are those heights which have an extensive front, and whose flanks are
covered by morasses:--as was Prince Karl's Camp at Marschowitz in the
year 1744, with its front covered by a stream, and the wings by deep
hollows; or that which we ourselves then occupied at Konopischt,--as you
well remember. [_Military Instructions_ (above cited), p. 44.]

"OCTOBER 26th-NOVEMBER 1st. The Sazawa-Luschnitz tract of Country is
quite lost, then; lost with damages: the question now is, Can we keep
the Sazawa-Elbe tract? For about three weeks more, Friedrich struggles
for that object; cannot compass that either. Want of horse-provender is
very great:--country entirely eaten, say the peasants, and not a truss
remaining. October 26th, Friedrich has to cross the Sazawa; we must quit
the door of that tract (hunger driving us), and fight for the interior
in detail. Traun gets to Beneschau in that cheap way; and now, in behalf
of Traun, the peasants find forage enough, being zealous for Queen and
creed. Pandours spread themselves all over this Sazawa-Elbe country;
endanger our subsistences, make our lives miserable. It is the old
story: Friedrich, famine and mud and misery of Pandours compelling,
has to retire northward, Elbe-ward, inch by inch; whither the Aus