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There he first put up at Pardubitz in a vile, big inn, for bed a "trough eighteen inches too short, a mattress forced into it which cocked up at both ends" such as most travellers in remoter Germany at that period have experienced. Carlyle was unfavourably impressed by the Bohemians; and "not one in a hundred of them could understand a word of German.
Friedrich's main magazine is now at Pardubitz, the extreme northeast angle of the parallelogram. Parallelogram has one river in it, with the innumerable rocks and brooks and quagmires, the river Sazawa; and on the north side, where are Kuttenberg, Czaslau, Chotusitz, places again become important in this business, it is bounded by another river, the Elbe.
One column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes through Glatz, takes the Magazine of Pardubitz along with it: good to go in several columns, the enemy will less know which to chase. Friedrich, with another column, will wait for Nassau about Konigsgratz, then go by the more westerly road, through Nachod and the Pass of Braunau.
To which, however, it is again understood, Maria Theresa has emphatically answered, "No, finish first!" At Bohdenetz, short way across from Pardubitz, he himself is; Prince Leopold is near Kolin: thirty miles of river-bank to dispute.
Except Pardubitz, where also the due battalions are left, Friedrich now holds no post south of the Elbe in this quarter; Elbe-Sazawa Tract is gone like the others, to all appearance. And we must now say, Silesia or Prag? Prince Leopold, Council-of-War being held on the matter, is for keeping hold of Prag: "Pity to lose all the excellent siege-artillery we brought thither," says he.
Audible booming of cannon, of musketry and battle, echoing through the woods, penetrates to Friedrich's quarters at Bohdenetz in the Pardubitz region: Attack upon Kolin, Nassau defending himself there? Out swift scouts, and see! Many scouts gallop out; but none comes back. Friedrich, for hours, has to remain uncertain; can only hope Nassau will defend himself.
On the whole, its course is southward for the first seventy or eighty miles, washing Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz it turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by hill and plain, through the rest of its five or six hundred miles.
He never returned without prisoners. He passed the Elbe near Pardubitz, took the magazines, and was the cause of the great dearth and desertion among the Prussians, and of that hasty retreat to which they were forced.
Traun's late manoeuvrings, which have been so enigmatic, to right and to left, upon Prag and other points, issue now in an attempt towards Pardubitz; which reveals to Friedrich the intention Traun has formed, of forcing him to choose one of those two places, and let go the other.
Formidable, fatal, thinks Friedrich; and yet admirable on the part of Traun: 'a design beautiful and worthy of admiration. If we stay near Prag, what becomes of our communication with Silesia; what becomes of Silesia itself? If we go towards Pardubitz, Prag and Bohmen are lost! What to do?
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