126 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63finer day, or a more splendid sight' (Ligne, 1795-1811, XIV, 19).
Already Frederick's scheme had undergone its first disruption.
Towards 2 p.m. Hiilsen's force climbed towards Krzeczhorz with
sounding music. The Prussians evicted the Banal Croats from the
walled churchyard and an ancient earthwork extending to the west,
and within half an hour they had cleared the village and reached the
celebrated Oak Wood behind. After this first success, instead of
finding himself master of an empty ridge, Hiilsen discovered that he
was face-to-face with the Austrian division of Wied, which Daun had
moved laterally from his reserve. Hiilsen was glad to receive a
reinforcement of three battalions of grenadiers from the main army,
and he used the newcomers to prolong his front to the right.
Zieten meanwhile had moved on a wide arc to the east, keeping
approximate pace with Hiilsen's left. In the process he swept back
Nadasti's force of 4,000 Croats and 6,700 Austrian and Saxon light
cavalry. Zieten then halted in line, to the east of the Oak Wood, in
full accord with the spirit of Frederick's instructions.
Down on the Kaiser-Strasse the army had been waiting in pla-
toon columns, ready to move in support of the advance guard.
Frederick gave the expected command shortly before 3 p.m., and
when the infantry shouldered their muskets a blaze of reflected light
flashed along the columns. Frederick seems to have been encouraged
by the lack of substantial opposition to Hiilsen (for the movement of
Wied's division was probably hidden from him by the crest of the
ridge), and rather than follow all the way in Hiilsen's tracks, as had
been originally intended, he now sought to save time by ordering the
army to make straight for the Oak Wood.
The columns had scarcely begun to climb the slopes from the
Kaiser-Strasse when Frederick issued the astonishing order for the
division of the left wing to wheel their component platoons into line,
then advance against the ridge on a broad battle frontage. Prince
Moritz was determined to adhere to the original scheme of marching
all the way to the ridge in columns, and over Frederick's shouted
protests he ordered the troops to continue on their way:
For the third time Frederick called out: 'Prince Moritz, form
into line!' The prince repeated: 'Forwards, forwards!' At this the
king galloped up and halted with the muzzle of his horse against
the prince's saddle. 'For God's sake', he shouted, 'form front
when I tell you to do so!' The Prince at last gave the appropriate
order in a sorrowful tone of voice, and he commented... 'Now
the battle is lost!' (quoted in Duncker, 1876, 76).Why had Frederick changed his mind yet again, abandoning the