160 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63believe, the intelligence he had of the strength of the Austrian
detachments sent against the convoy. Perhaps it was,
unhappily, that the first convoy passed unmolested, though the
escort was much inferior to that which accompanied the last,
which may have occasioned this fatal security. (8 July, PROSP
90/72)Daun's main army had meanwhile cut its way through the woods
and emerged in open country at Dobramillitz, twenty miles south of
the Schmirschitz camp. On 27 June the Austrians moved north-east to
Klenowitz, as if to challenge the Prussians to battle, and Frederick
made his preparations accordingly. On the night of 30 June, however,
Daun neatly side-stepped Frederick by executing a passage of the
Morava in three columns, almost under the noses of the Prussians,
and the next day he pushed rapidly up the east bank and established
direct contact with Olmiitz. Frederick had assumed that if the Aus-
trians crossed the Morava anywhere, it would be further downstream
towards Kremsier, where the river formed a single main channel.
The news of the Domstadtl ambush reached Frederick on the
morning of 1 July, and even before he heard of the relief of Olmiitz he
decided to raise the siege 'without losing one moment, or seeming in
the least disconcerted' (Mitchell, 8 July, PRO SP 90/72). The contrast
with the clogging half-measures of 1744, when the garrisons were left
in Tabor, Budweis and Frauenberg, is a measure of Frederick's pro-
gress as a commander. He remarked to Keith: 'It is better to make a
disagreeable decision than to decide nothing at all, or wait until
things become quite impossible' (PC 10104).
Frederick seems to have been put on his mettle by his strategic
defeat at the hands of the Austrians. His activity and his inventive-
ness returned, and over the following five weeks he executed a retreat
which must be counted among the most interesting of his achieve-
ments. The Prussians were encumbered by 5,000 carts, not to mention
the siege train, and the king feared that if he retreated northwards
along the familiar Troppau route he might be exposed to a kind of
Domstadtl writ large. He accordingly decided to cut loose from his
line of communication and make north-west across the hills to
Bohemia, where he might seize the Austrian magazine at Koniggratz,
and open the avenues to Glatz and Lower Silesia.
The Prussians set off on 2 July. Frederick took the lead with a first
column, and Keith came up with the second. The king moved rapidly
through Mahrisch-Trubau and Zwittau, and, after a two-night halt at
the vast Renaissance castle at Leitomischl, he pressed on through
Hohenmauth to reach Koniggratz on 13 July. The Prince de Ligne
observed that under normal circumstances the Austrians could have