_ „., THE THEATRE OF WARnatural obstacle to their progress was the line of the Oder, which they
reached at the little fortress of Ciistrin or at the university town of
Frankfurt, according to whether they chose the routes to the north or
the south of the Warthe Marshes. Once they were across the Oder, the
Russians were separated from Berlin by fifty miles of level heathland
and fields, where could be seen 'scattered spires of wheat, rye, barley
and oats, shooting from the sands, like the hairs upon a head almost
bald' (Adams, 1804, 3).
Magdeburg, Dresden, Vrague and the system of the ElbeThe Brandenburg heartland lacked any position whatsoever which
could be held against an enemy approaching from the south. A
raiding force could have reached Berlin in less than ten hours from the
nearest Saxon frontier post at Mittelwalde. A more respectable army,
basing itself on the Elbe at Wittenberg, could cover the eighty-five
miles to the capital in six marches, which was still dangerously close
in strategic terms. Frederick concluded: 'The best defence we can
make is to march into Saxony, as we did in the winter of 1745. If we
retired behind the Spree or the Havel we would lose the whole
country' ('Principes G£n6raux', 1748, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 16).
Now it became evident that the strategic centre of the monarchy
lay not in Berlin, but in the fortress-depot of Magdeburg. This was a
large and rather ugly town, encased in fortifications built by
Frederick William I. It was rarely visited by foreign tourists, and it
never figured in the histories of the campaigns. However, Magdeburg
stood at one of the most important road junctions and river crossings
of the region of the lower Elbe, and it commanded the province of
Magd<$burg-Halberstadt, the richest in the Prussian state, which
extended as a fertile and open plain from the Harz Mountains in the
west to the Brandenburg heathlands in the east.
In times of hostilities Magdeburg served as 'the repository of
whatever he [Frederick] finds necessary to place out of reach of
sudden insult' (Moore, 1779, 11,111). Thus in the Seven Years War it
received the royal treasury and the court of the queen. For offensive
action, the Elbe was capable of bearing provisions, ammunition and
heavy artillery from Magdeburg all the way through Saxony and into
northern Bohemia (PC 9007).
Saxony and Bohemia as far as Prague may therefore be con-
sidered an extension of the 'system' of the Brandenburg heartland.
The direct route from Berlin to Dresden ran through barren territoiy,
and Frederick preferred to come at Saxony from the north-west,
basing himself on Magdeburg, and assembling his troops in the area of
Halle.