311 FREDERICK AND WARcult in the eighteenth century, which was a period of unitary armies
and linear tactics. A force, once committed to an engagement, was
effectively lost to the control of the commander (Tempelhoff, 1783r-
1801, I, 129). Through his time-consuming flank marches Frederick
therefore sought to extract the greatest possible advantage from the
marching-power of the Prussian troops before this degradation of
control set in. It was true that the striking wing was committed
beyond recall once battle was joined, but in his 'refused' wing
Frederick still had a force that was responsive to command - a
consideration that weighed importantly in what he wrote about the
Oblique Order.
The Oblique Order worked to near-perfection at Leuthen, and
Frederick held throughout his life to the ideal of attacking with a
single wing. However, it would probably be misleading to describe
the battle tactics of 1757 as the culminating form of Frederician
corpse-making. They accorded well enough with Frederick's tem-
perament, but they were the product of a lengthy evolution, as we
have seen, and they were themselves to undergo profound changes.
Before long, Frederick had to take stock of some very significant
advances that the enemy alliance was making in the art of war. When
we look at the progress of his immediate enemies, the Austrians and
Russians, it is evident that the balance of military proficiency was
already swinging away from Frederick by the time of the outbreak of
the Seven Years War. Austria entered hostilities as a state whose
army and institutions had been radically changed by the lessons of
the Silesian Wars. The progress of the Russians was almost as drama-
tic, though it took longer for Elizabeth's armies to become fully
effective in the common struggle.
The allies, and the Austrians in particular, arrived at an astute
and very complete knowledge of Frederick and his army. In the
matter of fundamental institutions the Austrian chancellor Kaunitz
explored the advantages of Frederick derived from a military system
that actually promoted population and manufactures, and from a
nobility which could make its way only by merit and service ('Votum
iiber das Militare', in Bleckwenn, 'Zeitgenossische Studien', 1974, in
Altpreussischer Kommiss, 1971, etc.). Concerning war on the large
scale, the Austrian major-general Tillier explained to the Russian
ministry on 16 January 1759 that Frederick's seemingly miraculous
survival could be traced to recognisable assets like the internal
qualities of the army, the military character of the government, the
personal leadership of the king, and a strategic geography of rivers
and fortresses which made possible the strategy of interior lines.
'Taking these circumstances into account, we assert that his almost
invariable system is to make a sudden descent upon one or other of the