Once decided, his dispositions were, as usual, excellent.
[Map: Battle of Hochkirch] His plan was an able one.

He himself, with thirty thousand men, was to start as soon as it was dark on Friday evening, sweep round to the south, follow the base of the Devil's Mountain, and then through the hollows and thick wood till he was close to the force on the right of Hochkirch; and was to fall suddenly on them, at five o'clock on Saturday morning.

The orders were that, as soon as Hochkirch was taken, the rest of the army, sixty thousand strong, were to march against Frederick, both in front and on his left, and so completely smash and crumple him up.
Frederick had no premonition of the storm that was gathering.

On Thursday and Friday the Austrians were engaged, as usual, in felling trees, forming abattis, throwing up earthworks, and in all ways strengthening their position.

Everything seemed to show that Daun was still bent upon standing upon the defensive only.
As the lurking Croats and Pandoors had, every night, crept up through the brushwood and hollows, and skirmished with the Prussian outposts away on the right, scattered firing was not heeded much in Hochkirch.