That, it appears, was the design. But, on Wednesday, there came in an Austrian deserter; who informs us that Prince Karl is not now in Konigsgratz, but in motion up the Elbe; already some fifty miles up; past Jaromirz: his rear at Konigshof, his van at Arnau,--on a level with burnt Trautenau, and farther north than we ourselves are. This is important news. "Intending to block us out from Schatzlar? Hmh!" Single scouts, or small parties, cannot live in this Kingdom Wood, swarming with Pandours: Friedrich sends out a Colonel Katzler, with 500 light horse, to investigate a little.
Katzler pushes forward, on such lane or forest road-track as there is, towards Konigshof; beats back small hussar parties;--comes, in about an hour's space, not upon hussars merely, but upon dense masses of heavy horse winding through the forest lanes; and, with that imperfect intelligence, is obliged to return. The deserter spake truth, apparently; and that is all we can know. Forage scheme is given up; the order is, "Baggage packed, and MARCH to-morrow morning at ten." Long before ten, there had great things befallen on the morrow!--Try to understand this Note a little:--"The Camp of Staudentz- which two persons (the King, and General Stille, a more careful reporter, who also was an eye-witness) have done their best to describe--will, after all efforts, and an Ordnance Map to help, remain considerably unintelligible to the reader; as is too usual in such cases. A block of high-lying ground; Friedrich's Camp on it, perhaps two miles long, looks to the south; small Village of Staudentz in front; hollow beyond that, and second small Village, Deutsch Prausnitz, hanging on the opposite slope, with shaggy heights beyond, and the Kingdom Forest there beginning: on the left, defiles, brooks and strait country, leading towards the small town of Eypel: that is our left and front aspect, a hollow well isolating us on those sides. Hollow continues all along the front; hollow definite on our side of it, and forming a tolerable defence:--though again, I perceive, to rightward at no great distance, there rise High Grounds which considerably overhang us." A thing to be marked! "These we could not occupy, for want of men; but only maintain vedettes upon them. Over these Heights, a mile or two westward of this hollow of ours, runs the big winding hollow called Georgengrund (GEORGE'S BOTTOM), which winds up and down in that Kingdom Forest, and offers a road from Konigshof to Trautenau, among other courses it takes.
"From the crown of those Heights on our right flank here, looking to the west, you might discern (perhaps three miles off, from one of the sheltering nooks in the hither side of that Georgengrund), rising faintly visible over knolls and dingles, the smoke of a little Forest Village. That Village is Sohr; notable ever since, beyond others, in the Kingdom Wood. Sohr, like the other Villages, has its lane-roads; its road to Trautenau, to Konigshof, no doubt;but much nearer you, on our eastern slope of the Heights, and far hitherward of Sohr, which is on the western, goes the great road [what is now the great road], from Konigshof to Trautenau, well visible from Friedrich's Camp, though still at some distance from it. Could these Heights between us and Sohr, which lie beyond the great road, be occupied, we were well secured; isolated on the right too, as on the other sides, from Kingdom Forest and its ambushes. 'Should have been done,' admits Friedrich; 'but then, as it is, there are not troops enough:' with 18,000 men you cannot do everything!"Here, however, is the important point. In Sohr, this night, 29th September, in a most private manner, the Austrians, 30,000 of them and more, have come gliding through the woods, without even their pipe lit, and with thick veil of hussars ahead! Outposts of theirs lie squatted in the bushes behind Deutsch Prausnitz, hardly 500yards from Friedrich's Camp. And eastward, leftward of him, in the defiles about Eypel, lie Nadasti and Ruffian Trenck, with ten or twelve thousand, who are to take him in rear. His "Camp of Staudentz" will be at a fine pass to-morrow morning. The Austrian Gentlemen had found, last week, a certain bare Height in the Forest (Height still known), from which they could use their astronomer tubes day after day; [Orlich, ii. 225.] and now they are about attempting something!
Thursday morning, very early, 30th September, 1745, Friedrich was in his tent, busy with generals and march-routes,--when a rapid orderly comes in, from that Vedette, or strong Piquet, on the Heights to our right: "Austrians visibly moving, in quantity, near by!" and before he has done answering, the officer himself arrives:
"Regular Cavalry in great force; long dust-cloud in Kingdom Forest, in the gray dawn; and, so far as we can judge, it is their Army coming on." Here is news for a poor man, in the raw of a September morning, by way of breakfast to him! "To arms!" is, of course, Friedrich's instant order; and he himself gallops to the Piquet on the Heights, glass in hand. "Austrian Army sure enough, thirty to thirty-five thousand of them, we only eighteen. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 139.] Coming to take us on the right flank here; to attack our Camp by surprise: will crush us northward through the defiles, and trample us down in detail? Hmh! To run for it, will never do. We must fight for it, and even attack THEM, as our way is, though on such terms. Quick, a plan!" The head of Friedrich is a bank you cannot easily break by coming on it for plans: such a creature for impromptu plans, and unexpected dashes swift as the panther's, I have hardly known,--especially when you squeeze him into a corner, and fancy he is over with it!
