<87> post towards the Elbe, which will secure their subsistence, and to continue to act as long as possible upon the defensive. He is sensible that the enemy will endeavour to profit of their superiority of numbers, and oblige him to make detachments; but what he chiefly fears, is the fate of those detachments. This apprehension is but too well founded, as his army does not abound with generals capable to command detachments, and to act of themselves without directions, as circumstances may require.
The force of the army here and at Wilsdruff the King of Prussia computes at 58000 men, so there would remain 32000 for the army in Silesia, and that against the Swedes; but in a subsequent conversation, His Prussian Majesty reckoned the army in Silesia at almost 50 bataillons and 64 squadrons, and 6000 men employed against the Swedes. This does by no means agree with the numbers given, but, taking the medium of the difference between the two accounts, I think the number in the field may amount to upwards of 100000 men, besides which His Prussian Majesty says there are in the garrisons of Silesia, Pomerania etc. etc. about 40 bataillons.
The King of Prussia assured me the army was recruited and would be compleat; that even the 21 bataillons lost at Maxen and on the banks of the Elbe1 were already almost replaced, that he had been enabled to do this partly by the number of officers and men wounded in the two battles of last summer, who are now recovered and fit for service, and partly from the number of soldiers who had saved themselves and returned after the unhappy affair of Maxen; that for the cavalry lost on that occasion, though he could not restore them in corps, he had endeavoured to supply that defect by new levies of squadrons to be added to other regiments.
As to the artillery, he told me it would be as numerous as last year, and that he had left 40 or 50 pieces which he could not possibly carry into the field. This, I confess, surprised me after the immense loss of artillery in the last campaign.
With regard to magazines he entered into no detail, but said in general that he had done his utmost to have them filled and provided in the best manner; but I believe the subsistence of the army in Saxony must, in a great measure, depend upon His Prussian Majesty's remaining master of the navigation of the Elbe.
The King of Prussia owned with great candour that he was sensible the army he had was not equal in goodness to what he had brought into the field the former years; that one part of his troops were fit only to be shewn at a distance to the enemy, — if possible, to impose upon them that the other part were discouraged and dispirited by the memory of the misfortunes of the last campaign, but that he would
1 Vergl. Bd. xviii, 675. 676.