It is better than being in barracks, at home.
"While, on the other hand, it is no joke fighting these Prussians.
The fights are not skirmishes, they are battles.

It is not a question of a few hundred killed, it is a question of ding-dong fighting, and of fifteen or twenty thousand killed on each side--no joke, that.

For my part, I am quite content to take it easy at Erfurt, and to leave it to the Austrians to settle matters with these obstinate fellows." So they continued talking, and Fergus saw that, so far, no news whatever of Frederick's march against Erfurt had reached them.

He learned, too, that although there were some outlying bodies to the north, the main bulk of the force lay in and around Erfurt.
The contempt with which the French soldiers spoke of the German portion of the army was very great.

Each little state had, by the order of the Council of the Confederacy, been compelled to furnish a contingent, even if its representatives in the council had opposed the proposal; therefore very many of the men had joined unwillingly, while in other cases the French declared that the levy had been made up by hiring idlers and ne'er-do-wells in the towns, so as to avoid having to put the conscription into force in the rural districts.
The officers were declared to be as incapable as the men, and had it not been that an Austrian contingent some five thousand strong had been joined with them, and the drilling largely undertaken by the non-commissioned officers of this force, nothing approaching order or discipline could have been maintained.