An Austrian army under Field Marshal von Browne has prepared a fortified base at Budin to block any Prussian moves out of the Mittel-Gebirge.

Browne has been in secret communication with the Saxon prime minister, Heinrich Count Bruhl, and has planned a rescue mission up the right bank of the Elbe to Königstein, near Pirna, to help the Saxon army escape across the river and join its allies.

On the 28th, Browne receives an enthusiastic agreement from Bruhl on his proposal; the date of the rendezvous of the two forces is to be the night of 11/12 October.

Frederick and his twenty-eight thousand men are meanwhile making their way through the Mittel-Gebirge toward the Bohemian plain.

Browne's intelligence tells him that the Prussians will exit from the mountains at Lobositz (present Lovosice in the Czech Republic), a few miles northwest of his fortified base at Budin.

He recalls his small relief force up the Elbe and races with thirty-three thousand men up to Lobositz on the 28th to lay an ambush for Frederick as he debouches from the narrow passes of the mountains.