[Sidenote: 1743.] [Sidenote: February.] Stair was deeply chagrined; and the discipline of his troops, who had been long kept idle in quarters which they detested, suffered so much that it was only restored by the strongest measures.[165] The winter set in with unusual severity, making the ground easy for purposes of transport and neutralising the value of the inundations on which the fortresses of the north-west frontier of France depended chiefly for their defence. Stair was eager to pounce upon some of them while the frost lasted, but the Austrian generals would not hear of it. He then proposed to attack one or other of the fortresses in Lorraine, Metz, Longwy, or Thionville, preparatory to an invasion of France by the Moselle; but again the Austrians dissented.[166] Their great object was to move King George's army into Germany, in order to frighten some of the minor German princes into alliance with Austria; and Stair, as he bitterly complained, was so much hampered by his instructions that he felt absolutely helpless.[167] The Hanoverians again, though supposed to be under his command, received independent orders from the King which were not communicated to Stair, and they declined to obey any other.[168] At last, after many struggles with Austrian generals and English ministers, the British army in February 1743 began its march eastward, as the Austrians had desired. The regiments were sadly distressed by the absence of multitudes of officers, who had gone home on leave for their duties in Parliament or for more private and trivial objects. "I thought it hard to refuse them leave," wrote Stair with biting sarcasm, "when they said that their preferment depended on the interest of their friends at Court. They had no notion that it depended on their exertions here."[169] To such a pass had twenty years of peace under Walpole brought the discipline of the Army.