CHAP. XXI.] 



AUSTRIAN CAVALRY. 



333 



was of incalculable value to them, and Frederick was 

 continually incurring terrible risks through his weakness 

 in this particular. The splendid materitd however in his 

 cavaliy, and their magnificent training and morale, 

 almost always on the field of battle secured, by hard 

 fighting, the safety that their ill-managed outpost work 

 often so seriously endangered. 



Frederick continually refers to the great difficulties 

 he encountered, through the extraordinary vigilance and 

 dexterity of the Austrian hussars, in concealing the 

 movements of their army. In 1744, he says, that the 

 Austrians had 10,000 Hungarian hussars, who cut off 

 the communications of his army, in a country much 

 intersected with morasses, forests, hills, and defiles.^ 

 They were able, he relates, to discover all that passed 

 in his camp, while he could not send out patrols without 

 calculating on the probability of their loss. So that in 

 fact his army was virtually confined to the enceinte of 

 the camp. This added enormously to the difficulty 

 of foraging and obtaining provisions. 



The Austrians had a force of Uhlans in the Seven 

 Years' War, which were raised among the inhabitants of 

 the Ukraine. In person, dress, and manner of fighting, 

 they resembled the Tartars and Calmucks. They were 

 armed with a lance about fifteen feet long, pistols, sabres, 

 sometimes with carbines, and sometimes, according to 

 General Lloyd, even at that date, with bows and arrows. 

 Large numbers of Croats, a species of irregular light 

 cavalry, also served in the Austrian army in all the wars 

 against Frederick, so that in that type of mounted 

 soldier, the Austrians had a great advantage over 

 him. 



In this war the Hungarians organised a corps of 

 mounted riflemen, which rendered most important ser- 

 vices. They were armed with rifles having conical 

 touch-holes. They formed a part of the army of the 

 Duke of Brunswick.* 



Carlyle's history of Frederick the Great teems with 

 references to the excessive difficulty the king had in 

 ^ Frederick's Memoirs, i. 2U. ■ Bismarck, 335. 



