CHAPTER THREE
The Armed Camp, 1745-56
'It is splendid to have acquired some glory, but we should be much at
fault if we slipped into a sense of false security. We must prepare our
resources well in advance, in the knowledge that the time or occasion
might arrive when we will have to employ them' ('Principes G6n6r-
aux', 1748, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 4). This was the rule which Frederick
laid down for his army after the war.
The physical means of war-making accumulated impressively
during the years of peace. Frederick made good the losses in man-
power by the brutal expedient of retaining the Austrian and Saxon
soldiers who had been made prisoner in the last war. He transformed
the strategic geography of Silesia by extending the fortifications at
Neisse, the portal towards Moravia, and by planting a new fortress at
Schweidnitz, close to the border passes with Bohemia. New muskets,
artillery and stocks of ammunition were set out in the arsenals, and
the regiments piled up stocks of clothing in churches and other
suitable large buildings.
Likewise Frederick rapidly overcame the financial embarrass-
ments of 1745. 'Ants are careful to use the summer months to
accumulate the provisions they will eat during the winter. In the
same way the prince in peacetime must save the money he will have
to expend when he is at war' (Oeuvres, IV, 7). By the time of the
mobilisation of 1756 Frederick had 13,500,000 thaler at his disposal -
enough, he thought, to see him comfortably through three cam-
paigns.
If the army of 1745 had been a not unimpressive force, 'the
Prussian army that went to war in 1756 was the ultimate creation of
the era of enlisted armies. With every justification it bore on its
glorious colours the inscription: Pro Gloria et Patria!' (Osten-Sacken,
1911, I, 205).
In part his masterpiece was the production of the care which
Frederick devoted to the theoretical formation of his officers. On 2
April 1748 he completed the last of those five notebooks with gilded
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