183 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63Oder. He crossed at Frankfurt on 5 August and joined Saltykov, so
forming a Russo-Austrian army of about 64,000 men.
The Prussian concentration was also taking shape. Frederick
made a camp south of the Friedrich-Wilhelms Canal at Miillrose,
where by 6 August he had completed the union with Wedel's force. By
now the king was something of an expert in the art of incorporating
beaten armies. At first he kept Wedel's troops (like Bevern's after
Breslau) in moral quarantine in a separate camp, lest the atmos-
phere of defeat should infect the whole, but meanwhile he was all
graciousness and encouragement to the defeated troops. Frederick's
own spirits were cheered by the news that Ferdinand of Brunswick
had won a great victory over the French at Minden in western
Germany.
On 9 August Frederick was joined at Wulkow by Lieutenant-
General Finck with a corps of troops which had been covering Berlin,
which gave the Prussians a total force of 49,000 men. The king
planned to deal the blow against the Russians in exactly the same
style as in the campaign of Zorndorf one year before. Once again he
planned to pass the Oder downstream, or to the north of the Russian
army. If all went well he would gain an undisputed passage, and then
he would march south to the attack, trusting that speed and surprise
would help him to discover some weakness in the enemy positions.
A regiment of Prussian fusiliers was ferried across the Oder at
Goritz on 9 August, and the troops established a bridgehead which
permitted two bridges to be constructed in safety the following day.
One of the bridges was built with material from the nearby fortress of
Ciistrin, and the other was formed of the army's pontoons. The
infantry crossed the bridges on 10 August, which was a beautiful
summer night, and the cavalry waded the shallow water at Otscher.
On the far bank the army advanced to a position just short of the
village of Bischofsee, and when daylight came Frederick began to
orientate himself in this singularly barren terrain of swamps, ponds,
thickets and grassy heaths.
A certain Major Linden was found to have been in the habit of
hunting in the locality, but he proved to be completely incapable of
giving a tactical appreciation of the ground. Nor could any informa-
tion be obtained from a senior forestry official, who was reduced to
incoherence by the sight of the king, even though Frederick spoke to
him in a gentle and friendly fashion.
Frederick made a personal reconnaissance in the afternoon, and
from the low Trettiner Spitz-Berg he gained his first clear view of the
enemy. As he looked south he saw that these people had entrenched
themselves along the length of a row of hillocks, which rose like a
sandy shoreline from the yellow reed-covered levels of the Hiihner-