116 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63For some minutes Frederick and his party remained on the highest
point of the Prosek ridge, examining the Austrian positions. Many
men in the Prussian army could see that their fate was being decided,
and their speculations afterwards engendered a host of detailed but
contradictory accounts as to what was debated on the hilltop.
Frederick eventually concluded that a frontal attack held little
prospect of success, for the Austrian camp stretched along a broken
plateau which overlooked the difficult valley of the lower
Rocketnitzer-Bach. He accordingly sent Schwerin and Winterfeldt
galloping off to the east to determine whether there was any prospect
of reaching around and behind the Austrian right. He did not go with
them in person for his stomach was violently upset. The two officers
made a rapid reconnaissance, and saw that the eastern side of the
plateau fell gently into a zone of green meadows which might indeed
offer the Prussians an easy avenue to the rear of the enemy position.
The army moved off to the left in three columns at about seven
o'clock on this fine morning, and it seemed that the whole landscape
on both sides of the valley was covered by the troops of the rival
forces. (See Map 8, p. 348.) The leading regiments veered to the right
in the neighbourhood of the village of Hlaupetin, and hastened south
so as to win an adequate frontage for their attack.
For a time the Austrians lost sight of the dark columns as they
passed to the west of Chwala, but by about ten in the morning the
direction of the movement had declared itself and the Austrian
commanders began to rush detachments from their main body to-
wards the open eastern flank. Forty companies of grenadiers were
among the infantry whom Field-Marshal Browne collected for this
purpose, and a mass of Austrian cavalry (twelve regiments of cuiras-
siers and dragoons, and five weak regiments of hussars) arrived at a
blocking position between the village of Sterbohol and a large pond to
the south.
The character of the opening phase of the battle was shaped by
Schwerin, who was determined to throw in whatever troops first
came to hand, in order to gain the eastern slopes of the plateau before
the Austrians. Thus Lieutenant-General Schonaich and the twenty
leading squadrons of the Prussian horse were pushed willy-nilly into
combat with the multiple lines of the Austrian cavalry near Sterbo-
hol. This gave rise to a long and indecisive battle while the cuirassiers
and dragoons surged backwards and forwards, and the rival hussars
sought to win the southern flanks of the enemy.
The first guns of the heavy artillery followed the cavalry for some
time, but at Unter-Poczernitz the pieces stuck fast in the narrow
streets. This blockage deprived the Prussians of the artillery support
they so badly needed on this part of the field, and forced the regiments