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"Neipperg has quitted Neisse; but walks invisible within clouds of Pandours; nothing but guessing as to Neipperg's motions. Rightly swift, and awake to his business, Neipperg might have done, might still do, a stroke upon us here. But he takes it easy; marches hardly five miles a day, since he quitted Neisse again.
Indeed this punctilious deliberation, and slow exactitude as on the review-ground, is wonderful and noteworthy at the first start of Friedrich; the faithful apprentice-hand still rigorous to the rules of the old shop. Ten years hence, twenty years hence, had Friedrich found Neipperg in this condition, Neipperg's account had been soon settled!
Neipperg's head-quarters, this night, are a small Village or Hamlet, called Mollwitz: there and in the adjacent Hamlets, chiefly in Laugwitz and Gruningen, his Army lodges itself: he is now fairly got between us and Ohlau, if, in the blowing drift, we knew it, or he knew it.
Neipperg's trumpets clangor, his aides-de-camp gallop: he has his left wing formed, and the other parts in a state of rapid genesis, Horse and Foot pouring in from Laugwitz, Barzdorf, Gruningen, before the Prussians have quite done deploying themselves, and got well within shot of him. Neipperg himself, were he once complete, will command the right wing.
Might not the Enemy grow more tractable to Robinson's seductions in such case? In another day or so, he may hope to be within forced-march of Breslau, to detach Feldmarschall Browne or some sharp head; and to do a highly considerable thing? Unluckily for Neipperg's Adventure, the Prussians had wind of it, some time ago.
Neipperg's right is covered by that. His left rests on the Hamlet of Gruningen, a mile-and-half northeast of Mollwitz; meant to have rested on Hermsdorf nearly east, but the Prussians have already taken that up.
He is giving his final orders, and on the point of setting off, when Seven Austrian Deserters, 'Dragoons of Lichtenstein, come in; and report, That Neipperg's Army is within a few miles! And scarcely had they done answering and explaining, when sounds rise of musketry and cannon, from our outposts on that side; intimating that here is Neipperg's Army itself.
In Jagerndorf, an open Town, are only some three or four thousand men, 'with three field-pieces, and as much powder as will charge them forty times. Happily these proved only the Pandour outskirts of Neipperg's Army, scouring about to reconnoitre, and not difficult to beat; the real body of it is ascertained to be at Freudenthal, fifteen miles to westward, southwestward; making towards Neisse, it is guessed, by the other or western road, which is the nearer to Glatz and to the Austrian force there.
Friedrich's Camp is about five miles from Neipperg's on the other side of Steinau. A tolerable champaign country; I should think, mostly in stubble at this season. Friedrich's Oppeln preparations are about complete; and he intends to advance straightway. Friedrich answers, by silence chiefly, to the effect, "Tush, tush;" but not quite negatively, and does in effect wait.
His hope in the Schweidnitz direction had lasted only a few hours; a hope springing on the mere spur of pique, soon recognizable by him as futile; and now anxieties for self-preservation had succeeded it on Neipperg's part. It was August 16th, when Friedrich stirred out of Strehlen; August 21st, when he encamped at Reichenbach.