173 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63by threatening his eastern supply lines, which ran from Bohemia by
way of Zittau, and from southern Silesia by way of Bautzen.
The Prussian army decamped on 26 September, and the next day
Frederick detached Lieutenant-General Retzow with about 9,000
troops to hasten ahead in the direction of Bautzen and Weissenberg.
Daun responded to this danger by abandoning the Stolpen position on
5 October, but instead of falling back into Bohemia, as Frederick had
hoped, he moved laterally to another strong camp at Kittlitz, where
he arrived on the 7th. In other words, the scene of the confrontation
had merely been shifted thirty miles to the east.
It was now time for another attempt to get across the Austrian
communications with Silesia. As a preliminary operation, Frederick
ordered Retzow, who now commanded 10,000 men, to seize the
dominating Strohm-Berg, which lay within artillery range of the
right wing of the Austrian camp. Retzow got under way early on 10
October, but when the mist rose at 11 a.m. he found that the
Austrians had anticipated him on the hill with heavy artillery and
four companies of grenadiers. Retzow was disinclined to attack, and
Frederick placed him under open arrest.
At the same time the First bound of the 30,000 troops of the royal
army took them to Hochkirch, where Frederick intended to stay only
until provisions arrived from Bautzen and enabled him to resume the
eastward march. Meanwhile he arranged the army in a straggling
camp which faced generally east in the shape of a shallow 'S'. (See
Map 19, p. 366.) The centre extended from Rodewitz to the neigh-
bourhood of Hochkirch, and was well emplaced above the Zschorna-
Kohlwesa hollow. The nine battalions on the left wing were re-
inforced by a battery of heavy artillery standing in an earthwork, but
their position was an isolated one, since Frederick was using them to
facilitate his communications with Retzow's camp at Weissenberg.
It was, however, the arrangement of the southern, or right, wing
around Hochkirch that excited the most interest. Eleven battalions of
regular infantiy and twenty-eight squadrons were positioned in the
locality, of which three battalions and fifteen squadrons under the
command of Zieten formed a salient projecting to the west. Hoch-
kirch was a village of narrow streets, but its splendid new church
resembled a small cathedral in size, and the massive churchyard wall
was set with a palisade. South of the churchyard a low redoubt
contained a battery of guns (twenty 12-pounders and six lighter
pieces). Three battalions of grenadiers guarded the battery and two
adjacent works, and beyond them again the free battalions of
Angelelli and Du Verger were stationed on the far side of a birch wood.
All of this would have been eminently defensible if it had not
been located so close under the dominating ridge of the Kuppritzer-