CHAPTER XII .-- SIEGE OF OLMUTZ.
Fouquet, on the first movement towards Schweidnitz, had been detached from Landshut to sweep certain Croat Parties out of Glatz; Ziethen, with a similar view, into Troppau Country; both which errands were at once perfectly done.

Daun lies behind the Bohemian Frontier (betimes in the field he too, "arrived at Konigsgratz, March 13th"); and is, with all diligence, perfecting his new levies; intrenching himself on all points, as man seldom did; "felling whole forests," they say, building abatis within abatis;--not doubting, especially on these Ziethen-Fouquet symptoms, but Friedrich's Campaign is to be an Invasion of Bohemia again.

"Which he shall not do gratis!" hopes Daun; and, indeed, judges say the entrance would hardly have been possible on that side, had Friedrich tried it; which he did not.
Schweidnitz being done, and Daun deep in the Bohemian problem,--Friedrich, in an unintelligible manner, breaks out from Grussau and the Landshut region (April 19th-25th), not straight southward, as Daun had been expecting, but straight southeastward through Neisse, Jagerndorf: all gone, or all but Ziethen and Fouquet gone, that way;--meaning who shall say what, when news of it comes to Daun?
In two divisions, from 30 to 40,000 strong; through Jagerndorf, ever onward through Troppau, and not till THEN turning southward: indubitable march of that cunning Enemy; rapidly proceeding, his 40,000 and he, along those elevated upland countries, watershed of the Black Sea and the Baltic, bleakly illumined by the April sun; a march into the mists of the future tense, which do not yet clear themselves to Daun.
Seeing the march turn southward at Troppau, a light breaks on Daun: "Ha! coming round upon Bohemia from the east, then ?" That is Daun's opinion, for some time yet; and he immediately starts that way, to save a fine magazine he has at Leutomischl over there.

Daun, from Skalitz near Konigsgratz where he is, has but some eighty miles to march, for the King's hundred and fifty; and arrives in those parts few days after the King; posts himself at Leutomischl, veiled in Pandours.

Not for two weeks more does he ascertain it to have been a march upon the Olmutz Country, and the intricate forks of the Morawa River; with a view to besieging Olmutz, by this wily Enemy! Upon which Daun did strive to bestir himself thitherward, at last; and, though very slow and hesitative, his measures otherwise were unexceptionable, and turned out luckier than had been expected by some people.
Olmutz is an ancient pleasant little City, in the Plains of Mahren, romantic, indistinct to the English mind; with Domes, with Steeples eminent beyond its size,--population little above 10,000 souls;--has its Prince-Archbishop and ecclesiastic outfittings, with whom Friedrich has lodged in his time.