BOOK XIX.

FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN
THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR.

1759-1760.


Chapter I.

PRELIMINARIES TO A FOURTH CAMPAIGN.

The posting of the Five Armies this Winter--Five of them in
Germany, not counting the Russians, who have vanished to Cimmeria
over the horizon, for their months of rest--is something wonderful,
and strikes the picturesque imagination. Such a Chain of Posts, for
length, if for nothing else! From the centre of Bohemia eastward,
Daun's Austrians are spread all round the western Silesian Border
and the southeastern Saxon; waited on by Prussians, in more or less
proximity. Next are the Reichsfolk; scattered over Thuringen and
the Franconian Countries; fronting partly into Hessen and Duke
Ferdinand's outskirts:--the main body of Duke Ferdinand is far to
westward, in Munster Country, vigilant upon Contades, with the
Rhine between. Contades and Soubise,--adjoining on the Reichsfolk
are these Two French Armies: Soubise's, some 25,000, in Frankfurt-
Ems Country, between the Mayn and the Lahn, with its back to the
Rhine; then Contades, onward to Maes River and the Dutch Borders,
with his face to the Rhine,--and Duke Ferdinand observant of him on
the other side. That is the "CORDON of Posts" or winter-quarters
this Year. "From the Giant Mountains and the Metal Mountains, to