_ „., THE THEATRE OF WARand stores, though the actual head of navigation for the larger boats
lay twenty miles upstream at Melnik.
From Leitmeritz the Prussians could reach the capital city of
Prague in three marches. As a fortress, the capital of Bohemia was
extensive but not particularly strong, and scarcely tenable by any-
thing short of a large army. Even when Frederick took the place, in
1744, it was something of an embarrassment for him. Conversely, all
the other Bohemian towns were too small to serve as depots for the
invading army, and in any case it was found to be difficult to gather
provisions and intelligence in central Bohemia, where the com-
munications were rudimentary and the population implacably hos-
tile. After the experiences of 1744 Frederick renounced the ambition
of plunging any further south, and his thoughts turned more and more
to the attractions of the wide, fertile and warm valley of the upper
Elbe as it stretched east past Kolin towards Pardubitz and Koniggratz.
The Silesian Oder, and the avenues to Moravia
and north-east BohemiaIt is time to turn back north of the hills and pass to the regime of the
Oder and the Silesian strategic system. This was country that was
dominated by the Prussians. The short and easy avenue from Bran-
denburg to Silesia lay by way of Crossen, 'a very pretty, neat town,
handsome square; a wooden bridge over the Oder; the road pleasant,
through meadows and oak woods along the banks of the Oder'
(Mitchell, 1850, II, 40). Next upstream came Glogau in Silesia,
another agreeable town, where Frederick established an important
artillyy depot and extensive magazines of cereals (the counterpart of
Magdeburg on the Elbe). Convoys of boats, bearing military re-
quisites of all kinds, made their slow way upstream to the armies and
garrisons in Silesia. Frederick commented in 1758 that the clothing for
the recruits had failed to arrive in proper time. 'It has a lot to do with
the water level this spring, which has been so low that the boats can
only accept half loads, and they take six weeks over a journey that
usually lasts five' (Orlich, 1842, 123). When Frederick marched to do
battle with the Russians in August 1759 it was actually possible for his
cavalry to wade the river below Frankfurt (see p. 183).
A good fast road followed the west (left) bank of the Oder to
Breslau, the fortress capital of Silesia. Here Frederick bought the
former Spatgen Palace before the Seven Years War, and he began to
enlarge it in a style befitting a royal residence. This establishment
was to prove most convenient for him, since Breslau was the strategic
heart of Silesia.