“in order to march straight on Field-Marshal Daun, to fight him, and to drive him altogether out of Bohemia into Moravia. I flatter myself that in a few days I shall be able to give you good news of our success; and when this expedition is happily over, I believe that the town of Prague will fall of its own accord, and that then with hands more free, I shall be able to send a detachment against the French.”
The King’s confidence was in great part warranted by what he had already seen in the present war. It seemed that only a Browne would dare to attack Prussian troops led by their King. Had not Prince Charles been overruled by his generals, he would have abandoned Prague to avoid a battle. Daun had retreated before Bevern till he became overwhelmingly superior in force, and he advanced only when his Queen promised him gratitude for a victory and her continued favour if he were beaten. The most that could be expected from such commanders as these was that they would stand on the defensive in a strong position.
This very fact made the tactics of the Prussians doubly formidable. Drilled to the last degree of perfection, they could change their formation with a speed which their enemies admired but could not rival. Frederick could therefore veil his movement till the last moment. Having chosen the enemy’s most vulnerable wing, he could strengthen the wing opposed to it without fear that the enemy would either accomplish the countermove in time or attack the section which he had weakened. It was therefore of little consequence that the Austrians greatly outnumbered the Prussians in the part of the field where no fighting was likely to take place. The battle was gained because the Prussians swiftly overcame all that nature and art could oppose to them at the spot selected by the King for contact. The doomed wing would be broken, the centre laid bare, and then the cautious Austrian would make off, rejoicing that it was not dishonourable to be beaten by the King of Prussia, and that the attack demanded so much preliminary marching that the weary victors were not often terrible in pursuit.
Such were the tactics attempted in the battle of June 18, 1757, when Frederick attacked Daun in his camp overlooking the highroad between Vienna and Prague, within sight of the town of Kolin. The country undulates sufficiently to make it impossible for the King to have ascertained every detail of the problem with which he was confronted. But from many points, and with especial clearness from an isolated height across the highway, he could see that the Austrian right wing held the crest of a gentle slope south of the road and parallel with it, and that it was at the further extremity of this wing that the ground seemed most favourable to the attack.