235 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63the main force on an arc to the north and east of Schweidnitz, with
the right resting on the Zobten-Berg (which gave its name to the
whole position) and the left extending to the Striegauer-Wasser.
Loudon hovered in front of the Eulen-Gebirge, and there was a corps
under Beck in Upper Silesia.
Frederick knew that his army was quite unequal to the ordeal of
taking the Austrian camp by head-on assault. Instead, with ample
time at his disposal, he was content to wait until his reinforcements
reached Breslau and the grass was growing high in the fields, and then
force the Austrians off their positions by manoeuvre and diversion.
For detached command he now had the services of the Duke of
Bevern, who had returned from the 'war' against the Swedes. Bevern
had lost the royal favour after the battle of Breslau in 1757, but he was
"a worthy man and a great officer, beloved by the whole army'
(Mitchell. 4 February 1761, PRO SP 90/77).
Reinforcements of an altogether more curious nature arrived in
midsummer, in the form of 15,000-20,000 of Frederick's former en-
emies the Russians. An advance guard of 2,000 Cossacks crossed the
Oder on 25 June, and the regulars made the passage at Auras on the
30th. Frederick was wearing the Russian order of St Andrew in their
honour. He greeted Chernyshev and his staff on the left bank, and
took them to dine with him in Lissa Castle of happy memory.
The Russian corps reached the army south of Breslau on the night
of 1 July, and Frederick at once initiated the move against Daun. He
intended not just to uncover the way to Schweidnitz, but to antici-
pate the Austrians on the hill slopes behind. Lieutenant-General
Wied was therefore detached with 18,000 men (twenty-five bat-
talions and twenty-six squadrons) to make a right-flanking hook
south-west by way of Freyburg around Daun's left, while the main
army executed a frontal advance behind a wide screen of Cossacks,
Prussian hussars and Bosniaks as if to make a direct assault.
The device succeeded only in part. Daun got wind of the plan
through a deserter. He evacuated the Zobten-Berg position on the
same night, but fell back only as far as another well-prepared camp on
the hills between Ober-Bogendorf and Kunzendorf.
Frederick moved first to his old camp at Bunzelwitz, then re-
newed the two-pronged advance on 5 July. On the next day Wied ran
into the corps of Lieutenant-General Brentano, on the far side of the
Adelsbach valley, and was beaten off with 1,331 casualties. However,
the Austrians were so impressed by the threat to their western flank
that they abandoned the Kunzendorf position, and moved to their
right-rear to the Ne Plus Ultra of their 'Camp of Burkersdorf in the
Waldenburg Hills, the last emplacement from where Daun could
keep up the communication with Schweidnitz.