326 FREDERICK AND WARat Potsdam. This became the repository of highly secret maps, like the
survey of Silesia which Major Wrede compiled between 1747 and
- The Wrede map was, however, the only one of the kind
available to Frederick in the Seven Years War, and it had some
distinct limitations. There was a gap in the coverage in the areas of
Strehlen and Neumarkt. Moreover, while the slopes of individual
hills were represented well enough by hachuring, Wrede gave no
indication of the nature of extensive regions of high ground.
The most reliable map of all was therefore the one which
Frederick formed in his head, over the course of his thousands of miles
of campaigning (e.g. PC 12159). He could write in 1779: 'Lower
Silesia, Bohemia, and Upper Silesia with Moravia are the areas of
which we have a detailed knowledge. This will stand us in good stead
if, in the event of new wars, these provinces again become the theatre
of operations' ('Reflexions sur les mesures a prendre au cas d'une
guerre nouvelle avec les Autrichiens', 28 September 1779, Oeuvres,
XXIX, 131).
Frederick's staff was very small, and our myopic king became
literally the eyes of the army when he rode out on reconnaissance
with the advance guard or a little escort. He looked not only for the
positions of the enemy troops but for signs like smoke from cooking
fires and bakeries, which might tell him that the Austrians would
shortly be on the move. This was dangerous work, for it brought
Frederick into the zone of the enemy outposts.
Frederick devoted much effort and imagination to every aspect of
what we now call 'intelligence': 'If we always had advance notice of
the intentions of the enemy, we could, with a small army, hold a
permanent advantage over a larger one' ('Principes G^neraux', 1748,
Oeuvres, XXVII, 46). He was probably at his most successful in the
work of gathering intelligence of a long-term, strategic kind. The Jew
Sabatky acted as his liaison with the more corruptible of the Russian
officers, and Frederick had at least one spy in the heart of the Austrian
headquarters (PC 8526). Personable and resourceful young men were
told off as 'sleepers' to Vienna, where they melted into the local
society and got on intimate terms with the serving girls of the great
ladies. 'The discoveries made by these young Adonises were quite
incredible. Some of these gentlemen maintained liaisons with the
Viennese chamber maids for a couple of years on end, and they wrote
reports which contained far greater and more important disclosures
than all the dispatches of the envoys' (Zimmermann, 1790, I, 288).
Oddly enough, day-to-day operational intelligence was usually
lacking altogether. Frederick interrogated enemy prisoners and deser-
ters in person, but he seldom derived anything of value from them.
The peoples of most of the theatres of war - the Bohemians, the