271 THE WAR OF THE BAVARIAN SUCCESSION, 1778-9and Vices gesticulating at him from the terrace. Upstream from
Kukus and Schurz the hills of the right bank were veiy densely
wooded, and the Austrians had cut an abatis there which made all
movement absolutely impossible.
The river Elbe presented the least of the obstacles. It was only a
stone's throw wide, and so shallow at this season that the Croats were
able to wade across without difficulty and make a nuisance of
themselves in the bushes on the Prussian side.
The check at Jaromiersch had an important strategic dimension.
Joseph's chief militaiy adviser, Field-Marshal Lacy, has been derided
as a practitioner of a vicious type of strategy called the 'cordon
system', which is supposed to have had the effect of scattering troops
evenly over long stretches of ground, rendering them vulnerable to
attack at any one point. The cordon system, if it ever existed, was
never brought into play in the war of 1778. Instead, at considerable
cost in effort and money, Lacy held the bulk of the 100,000-strong
Elbe-Armee in a single mass, ready to match any concentration
which Frederick might form against the otherwise thinly held line of
the upper Elbe. The king could not possibly have left this powerful
army unwatched, so close to his borders, and thus his intended
reconnaissance in force became a confrontation between the two
royal commands. Frederick ordered up the uncommitted reserve from
Nachod, which increased his infantiy in the Camp of Welsdorf from
twenty-five battalions to forty.
In the middle of July Baron Thugut arrived with a private
message from Maria Theresa begging Frederick to join her in bringing
a negotiated end to the hostilities. Frederick replied in courteous
terms, but he could not entirely persuade himself of Maria Theresa's
sincerity or of the reality of the differences of opinion between her
and the warlike Joseph: 'We will have to beat these buggers if we
want to bring them to a more reasonable frame of mind' (PC 26611).
Frederick did not believe that he could beat any of the buggers at
Jaromiersch, and so he turned the original plan of campaign on its
head and looked to his brother Henry to provide the diversion with
the Prusso-Saxon army. Henry at first responded most magnificently.
His task was to turn the strategic flank of the second Austrian army,
under Loudon, which was positioned on both sides of the middle Elbe
close to the Saxon border. Henry made his most important moves
behind the screen of the border hills. First he transferred his army to
the right or eastern bank of the Elbe, and then, having been joined by
the Saxon contingent, he forced the Upper Lusatian/Bohemian border
by way of a number of 'impracticable' passes. Leaving the Saxons at
Gabel, to guard his communications, he pressed through the rocky
woods to Niemes, just short of the Iser valley.