30 THE SILESIAN WARS, 1740-5
the coming battle to the greatly experienced Schwerin:
By 1741 the Prussians had been twenty-six years absent from
war. When there was talk at the Parole of 'columns', and the
sequence of the battalions that were supposed to make them up,
our brave idiots got together and muttered 'What the hell are
these columns? Well, I know what I shall do. I'll follow the man
in front, and where he goes I'll go as well!' (Berenhorst, quoted
in Koser, 1894, 302)Frederick and Schwerin had about 21,600 troops to pit against the
19,000 Austrians. The Prussians owned the advantage of the solidity
of their 16,800 infantry, so well schooled on the parade square. The
Austrians had just 10,000 foot soldiers, many of them recruits, but in
compensation their 8,000 cavalry gave them a powerful offensive
capacity, and they had a great depth of recent experience among
their officers and generals. These gentry declared: 'We'll throw them
back where they came from... we'll have their guts for garters!' (Gr.
Gstb., 1890-3, I, 392).
The sun rose into a clear sky on 10 April 1741, illuminating an
expanse of thick but hard-frozen snow. The troops loaded their
knapsacks onto the company baggage waggons, then formed up in
five marching columns. Frederick probably shared the feelings re-
corded by one of his drummers: 'Only a fool will claim that he is as
calm in his first battle as in his tenth ... I know that my heart was
pounding when reveille sounded on the morning of that memorable
day' (Dreyer, 1810, 16).
No further news was yet at hand concerning the whereabouts of
the Austrians, and the army set off at 10 a.m. in the direction of
Ohlau. A little later, news reached Frederick from peasants and
captured hussars that the enemy were disposed among the villages of
Mollwitz, Griiningen and Hiinern close under Brieg, and he accord-
ingly swung the columns to the left.
Little could be seen of the Austrians through the gaps in the
woods, but the Prussian army was still 3,500 paces short of Mollwitz
when at noon the order came to enter battle formation. The right
wing was told to align itself on the prominent village of Hermsdorf (or
a small wood to its left), and the left wing was to look for the church
tower of Pampitz. Frederick later reproached himself for not con-
tinuing the advance directly on Mollwitz, where he believed he
might have caught the Austrian infantry intact, like the French
troops who were bottled up in Blenheim village in 1704. He was being
too hard on himself, for we now know that the Austrian infantry was
scattered over a wide area around Mollwitz, and could never have
been trapped in this way. However, the move into lines of battle was