223 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63Beck, and it was afforded some very necessary protection by the
swampy meadows of the Freyburger-Wasser, and the abatis which
had been cut in the Nonnen-Busch, where the Prussian jaegers
skirmished daily with the Croats.
The life in the Bunzelwitz camp was an arduous one. The sun
beat down on the unshaded works, and towards the end of the night,
when the men on the day shifts might have been sleeping soundly, the
entire army stood under arms in its battle positions around the
perimeter. 'Officers and soldiers alike had to live on bread and water.
So as to set an example to the soldiers, the king made a point of
staying every night in one or other of the batteries, where he had a
bale of straw brought up to serve as his chair' (Warnery, 1788,474). In
fact the circuit was rather long for the 36,000-38,000 infantry at
Frederick's disposal, and so every battalion was absorbed in holding
the line, leaving him with no reserve except the cavalry massed in the
south-eastern corner.^ v
The main Russian army arrived outside the Bunzelwitz camp on
25 August, and the Austrians came up the next day. The main
Austrian army was massed opposite the southern sector near Wicken-
dorf, as Frederick had almost certainly anticipated, and he took the
precaution of planting his night-time headquarters tent on the little
bump of the Farben-Hohe, just to the west of Alt-Jauernick. From
here, when the sun began to reveal the landscape, Frederick could
observe almost every object of interest for miles around. To the left
the royal gaze swept over the smooth elongated pyramids of the
Zobten-Berg range, the scarred hill of Wiirben closer at hand, and
finally in the immediate foreground the gently sloping plain to the
north of Alt-Jauernick which offered such a magnificent field of
action for the Prussian cavalry grouped in the interior of the camp. As
he turned to his right Frederick took in the boxy tower of Alt-
Jauernick church, the onion dome of Wickendorf, the distant pin-
nacle of Schweidnitz, and then the bulky blue lumps of the Glatz
mountains shading into the long curtain of the Riesen-Gebirge. Lastly
the spire of Hohenfriedeberg and the low hills beyond Striegau
brought reminders of how often he had carried his armies to this part
of the world.
Frederick was certain that the allies were going to attack, and
equally confident that he would give them a bloody nose. His assur-
ance derived partly from the tactical strength of the works, and also
from his location, so near his fortress-depot of Schweidnitz (PC 13153,
13156, 13160; Mitchell, 1850, II, 233).
Such an assault was indeed being debated in the allied camp.
Loudon's first proposals were rejected by the Russians on 27 and 29
August, but he returned with an extremely well-thought-out plan for