42 THE SILESIAN WARS, 1740-5size of the force, and he appreciated that the Austrians had their main
army close to the routes between the now widely separated elements
of the Prussian army. His troops were already exhausted by the hot
and dusty march, but Leopold urged them to further efforts, and in the
late evening, after eighteen hours on their feet, they reached a hastily
chosen camp to the north of Tschaslau. Leopold sent word to
Frederick, who replied that he would arrive to support him on the
17th.
The Austrian army marched through the starlit night of 16 May
to do battle with Prince Leopold before he could be joined by
Frederick. In crude numbers the Austrians were the equal of the total
Prussian force, but they were inferior in regular cavalry, and weaker
still in artillery and line infantry.
Frederick set out from Kuttenberg at 5 a.m. on the 17th and
hastened in the direction of the main army, gathering up the troops of
the advance guard as he went. The dragoons hurried ahead of the
infantry, but Frederick halted for a moment at the Romanesque
church in the village of St Jacob. A stone effigy of Christ gave the
near-pagan king a stiff blessing as he passed beneath him through the
entrance, but Frederick rushed unheeding inside and mounted the
stairs of the narrow tower, from where he saw that the Austrians were
already on the near side of Tschaslau and were advancing north-
wards. After this rapid orientation Frederick rode on to the main
army, and the infantry of the advance guard trailed in behind him.
Frederick met Leopold at about 7.30 a.m. and gave him the responsi-
bility for the left flank.
In military jargon, this was going to be an 'encounter battle' - an
action in which successive forces were incorporated in the line of
battle as they happened to arrive on the field. It was impossible to
formulate a proper plan, but it seems that Frederick intended to
throw his cavalry at the Austrians, and so win the time to form up his
infantry. The extensive Cirkwitzer Pond conveniently closed up the
right or western flank of the gathering Prussian forces, and close by
this body of water Lieutenant-General Buddenbrock assembled the
thirty-five squadrons of the cavalry of the Prussian right. To the left of
the cavalry Frederick in person gradually assembled a full twenty-
three battalions of infantry in a tract of low-lying ground, concealed
from view and fire, from which one historian has concluded that this
wing was intended to deal the main counter-attack against the
Austrians (Herrmann, 1894, 340-6).
The corresponding left or eastern wing of the infantry was
commanded by Lieutenant-General Jeetze who, perhaps contrary to
Frederick's wishes, pushed his dozen battalions onto an exposed
position on the open plateau in front of Chotusitz. This village,