197 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63though to the king's surprise he found the energy to marry the vicious
seventeen-year-old Countess Susanne von Hacke.
For all of the king's efforts the number of troops in the field never
exceeded 110,000, and this figure was raised only by dint of a prom-
iscuous impressment of Austrian and Saxon captives, and by making
heavy drafts on the Prussian cantons. The forces of the enemy
alliance amounted to about 230,000 men, and Frederick could not
believe that he would be able to withstand these vastly superior
numbers before July. In the meantime, however, he decided to hold
his main army of 55,000 troops in the Camp of Meissen, which offered
direct protection to the Elbe magazines, Brandenburg and Berlin, and
from where he could move if necessaiy to Silesia or Pomerania.
Lieutenant-General Fouqu6 was standing guard with about 12,000
men in southern Silesia in the area of Landeshut, and in April Prince
Henry gathered another 35,000 or so in the central position of Sagan,
so as to deter the Austrians from raiding into Silesia and discourage
the Russians from pushing across the Oder.
On 13 June the Reichsarmee began its ponderous march from Hof
in central Germany to the theatre of war in Saxony, where it was
going to bring Daun's force at Dresden to a strength of 100,000 men. In
the short interval remaining to him Frederick aimed a pre-emptive
blow at the isolated Austrian corps of Lieutenant-General Franz
Moritz Lacy, on the east bank of the Elbe. This Lacy was a man of
mixed Irish and German Baltic blood, and a kinsman and proteg^ of
the Field-Marshal Browne who had been mortally wounded at
Prague. He was the founder of the Austrian staff corps, and he was
also making his name as one of the quickest-moving of those excel-
lent young field officers who were emerging in the enemy army at this
stage in the war.
Frederick crossed to the right bank of the Elbe, and on 19 June he
was at Radeburg, ready to launch his attack, when he learnt that
Lacy had vanished during the night. He remarked to Catt:' "My blow
has fallen on thin air. How very sad! I really ought to go off and hang
myself. Have you ever felt that urge?" "No sir, I cannot say that I
have." "My bad luck seems to be hounding me everywhere. I would
have beaten Lacy, but he got away" ' (Catt, 1884, 426).
After the blow at Maxen few people were ever bold enough to
mention the word 'detachment' in Frederick's hearing. Now, at the
start of the campaign of 1760, Frederick experienced the loss of
another force of the same kind in peculiarly painful circumstances.
Lieutenant-General Henri- Auguste von Fouqu6, Frederick's old com-
panion from the Rheinsberg days, had been ordered to reoccupy the
post of Landeshut and thereby secure an important road junction that
would facilitate any return of the royal army to Silesia. On 23 June