POSITION OF THE ARMIES IN SAXONY AND SILESIA.

Towards the end of April the king of Prussia altered his position, and withdrew that part of his chain of cantonments, extending from the forest of Thurundt to the right of the Elbe. He now took possession of a very strong camp between the Elbe and the Mulda, which he intrenched in every part that was accessible, and fortified with two hundred and fifty pieces of cannon. By these precautions he was enabled to keep his ground against the army of count Daun, and at the same time detach a body of troops, as a reinforcement to his brother prince Henry, who assembled a separate army near Franckfort upon the Oder, that he might be at hand either to oppose the Russians, or march to the relief of Silesia, which the enemy was bent upon invading. It was for this purpose that the Austrian general Laudohn advanced, with a considerable army, into Lusatia about the beginning of May; and general Beck, with another body of troops, took possession of Corbus: meanwhile count Daun continued in his old situation on the Elbe; general Lascy formed a small detached army upon the frontiers of Saxony, to the southward of Dresden; and the prince de Deuxponts marched into the same neighbourhood with the army of the empire. Prince Henry of Prussia having encamped with his army for some time at Sagan, in Silesia, moved from thence to Gorlitz, in Lusatia, to observe the motions of general Laudohn, encamped at Koningsgratz; from whence, in the beginning of June, he marched into the country of Glatz, and advanced to the neighbourhood of Schweidnitz, which he seemed determined to besiege, having a train of eight pieces of cannon. With a view to thwart his designs, prince Henry reinforced the body of troops under general Fouquet; and at the same time he sent a detachment into Pomerania, under colonel Lessow, who defeated the rear guard of general Tottleben, and compelled that officer to evacuate Pomerania. By this time, however, mareschal Soltikoff had arrived from Petersburg, and taken the command of the grand Russian army, which passed the Vistula in June, and began its march towards the frontiers of Silesia.