On December 2nd, the day of Zieten’s junction with the King, the Austrians had indeed determined to attack. The reason for this fatal decision was by no means over-confidence born of success. Prince Charles was very far from despising the adversary who had defeated him on four stricken fields. With almost nervous anxiety, in spite of his 80,000 men, he sought to be informed of every movement in Frederick’s camp at Parchwitz. It is true that Austrian policy would be best served if the Queen were to regain Silesia without the armies of her allies. It is false that she ordered the army of Silesia to give battle at any cost. Before and after the fight Prince Charles stated expressly that his generals were unanimous in favour of marching on Neumarkt. The object was to save Liegnitz from Frederick and to prevent him from making his position too strong. Both combatants, therefore, made for Neumarkt on the same day, and the forward movement of the Austrians was only quickened when they learned that the Prussians had chased their vanguard from the town. On the night of December 4th the armies lay within a few miles of each other. The Prussians were exulting in the news that Prince Charles had crossed the two streams which rendered his old position so formidable that Frederick had enrolled 800 volunteers for the first attack. With an army tuned to the highest pitch and a King who knew every rood of the ground on the road to Breslau, the Prussians advanced to give battle. Before five o’clock on the dismal morning of December 5, 1757, they were on the march, Frederick in the van, and only a single battalion left in Neumarkt with the baggage. The exact position of the Austrians was not known to them as they hastened through the broken country east of Neumarkt towards the champaign west of Leuthen. If the enemy had placed this champaign at their back, the attack would still be hampered by the ground. The Prussians had espied watch-fires on a height to the south of the great road a few miles east of Neumarkt—a height from which in daylight both the towers of Neumarkt and the farms and cottages of Leuthen may be seen. Was this an Austrian wing? To their delight it proved to be only a vanguard. Three regiments of Saxon light horse, heroes of Kolin, had been placed there with two of Imperial hussars to collect the wreck of the Neumarkt garrison and to watch the road to Breslau. They clung too closely to their task and were crushed by the Prussian vanguard. Eleven officers and 540 men were taken prisoner, many fell, and the rest fled wildly to alarm the Austrian right. Frederick could with difficulty check the mad pursuit of his hussars, who drew bridle almost within cannon-shot of the enemy.