40 THE SILESIAN WARS, 1740-5worst quarters to them. You refused to listen to the representations
which their generals made to you, and finally their troops returned to
Saxony half-dead' (Herrmann, 1922, 253). We can only assume that
Frederick was already engaged in the process of destroying Saxon
military power.
Frederick abandoned the desolate surroundings of Seelowitz on 5
April. He had done his work in Moravia, and now at last he made up
his mind to move into Bohemia and lend a more direct kind of support
to the French who, it was wrongly reported to him, were facing an
imminent Austrian counter-attack. Frederick described an anti-
clockwise circuit around to the north of Briinn, and marched his
leading elements rather quickly across the border highlands into
north-eastern Bohemia. On 17 April he planted his headquarters in
the little walled town of Chrudim, which was set in a fertile hollow.
This move is better described as a new 'dislocation of quarters',
in the contemporary parlance, than as proper advance, for the
parasitical Prussian army was still scattered over a wide tract of
countryside.
It took Frederick a long time to appreciate that he himself was
the target of the hostile designs. The Austrians, so often taxed by
historians with lack of enterprise, had determined that Frederick was
their most dangerous enemy, and by taking considerable risks they
were to maintain the strategic initiative until almost the end of the
coming campaign. They reduced their troops in Bohemia to a mere
10,000, and commissioned Prince Charles of Lorraine, the brother-in-
law of Maria Theresa, to build up a striking force of some 30,000 men
in Moravia and come at the Prussians from the rear.
All of this remained unknown to Frederick. His body of hussars
was small in number and inexperienced in reconnaissance work, and
thus 'throughout the campaign the Prussians were compelled to ask
eveiy traveller or peasant for what they knew about the enemy
movements' (Schmettau, 1806, II, 283). Such information was not
readily forthcoming, and it was of particular relevance for what was
to ensue that Bohemia was separated from Moravia by a screen of
low, rocky and heavily wooded hills, inhabited by 'a rough intract-
able set of men' (Marshall, 1772, III, 313). The Hungarian militia
seconded the work of these wild gentry, and the Prussians were able to
penetrate this region only in sizeable parties.
At last on 10 May an accumulation of reports convinced
Frederick that large Austrian forces were on the move westwards
from Moravia, and that an enemy corps from southern Bohemia was
coming up to join them. Frederick therefore ordered the army to leave
its quarters and assemble at Chrudim. The king staked out the lines of
the camp in person, and at eight on the morning of 13 May he set out