327 FREDERICK AND WARMoravians, the Wendish Saxons - were recalcitrant and unreliable.
Frederick's own spies were of little use to him, for he paid most of
them poorly, and he refused to believe them when they brought him
bad news (Archenholtz, 1840, I. 278; Mitchell, 1850, I, 419; Catt,
1884, 353; Yorke, 1913, III, 224).
Frederick, who was one of nature's chatterboxes, laid down some
stern rules for the guidance of himself and his army:
The art of concealing your thoughts, or 'dissimulation', is
indispensable for every man who has the management of
weighty affairs. The whole army tries to read its fate from the
countenance of the commander. It asks itself why he happens to
be in a good or bad temper, and it tries to read some meaning
into his behaviour - in fact nothing escapes this scrutiny. When
the general is deep in thought the officers murmur among
themselves 'Our commander must he hatching some great
scheme.' If he appears sad or anxious, they declare 'Things must
be going badly!'... All of this means that the general must
behave like an actor, who assumes whatever expression best
accords with the part he wishes to play. If the commander is no
longer master of himself, he must give out that he is ill, or
devise some bogus excuse that will deceive the public.
('Principes G6n6raux', 1748, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 40)Frederick changed his cyphers as soon as he feared that they
might have been compromised, as after Soor and Landeshut, and he
reserved to himself the knowledge of the losses in battle, and the
effective strengths of the individual units and therefore of the whole
army (Mitchell, 25 November 1761, PRO SP 90/78). The British envoy
Mitchell was in Frederick's presence daily, and yet he had to report to
Holdernesse in London:I am sensible the accounts I send Your Lordship must appear
very lame and defective. But will you please to consider there is
but one person [i.e. Frederick] that knows everything, that he
does not choose to talk of disagreeable subjects, and that his
rank is such as exempts him from being importuned with
questions. As for the general officers of the army, they know
only what passes in their own bodies, but seem not in the least
informed of the general plan of operations. (4 May 1760, PRO SP
90/76)
Frederick was no less attentive in his management of ruses or
'disinformation'. He wrote: 'When we are at war we must put on the
skin of the lion or the skin of the fox, as the occasion demands. A ruse
can succeed where brute force might fail' ('Principes G6n6raux',