_ „., THE THEATRE OF WARMinor features of the terrainAs we shall have occasion to notice, the routes of Central Europe
answered passably well to the needs of contemporary armies. What
they lacked in hardness and consistency of surface they made good by
their magnificent profusion, and their veiy lack of definition made it
possible for troops and vehicles to by-pass the worst of the ruts and
muddy patches.
The cereals were the ancient tall-stalked strains of the kind
which may be seen in Silesia today, reaching six feet or more high.
This mass of vegetation offered fair concealment to infantrymen, and
after midsummer showers it exuded dense banks of vapour in the
warmth of the sunshine.
The most common material used in the construction of villages
was wattle and daub - whether supported by well-built half-
timbering, as in the Neumark settlements, or heaped up in something
cruder, as in Bohemia and Moravia. Brick-built houses and barns
were, however, to be found in the neighbourhood of Breslau, and on
both the Silesian and Bohemian sides of the Riesen-Gebirge the cabins
were made of horizontally laid squared-off logs. Thatch was the usual
roof covering in Austrian territory, while red tiles were almost
universal in Silesia.
Throughout the theatre of war the general aspect of the villages
was one of astonishing uniformity. The dwellings were oblong,
single-storey affairs, about forty-five feet in length, and arranged
parallel or perpendicular to the dusty road in front. Barns and
connecting walls of clay might lend a deceptive air of continuity and
solidity to the centres of some villages; more frequently, however, the
houses stood apart in little plots of ground, marked off by low picket
fences, which had the effect of stringing the villages at some length
along the main street, or even for miles up some of the higher Silesian
valleys. Altogether the light construction, the open plan, and the
lack of depth of the villages of Central Europe rendered most of them
completely unsuitable for defence. Usually the only feature of tacti-
cal significance was the village church, standing in a prominent
position behind a thick cemetery wall.
Conversely, the ponds were numerous and extensive, for they
served for the rearing of waterfowl and carp, which were important
sources of protein. Frequently they were artificial constructions,
running in chains down the course of a little stream. Even after the
earthen retaining dams were opened in springtime, to allow grass to
grow in the beds, the pond sites presented muddy and deep obstacles.
Field-Marshal Schwerin experienced this outside Prague in 1757. The