_ „., THE THEATRE OF WARwithin narrow bounds until a short distance from Dresden, now
becomes a mighty stream, corresponding to the splendour of the city
and the landscape. The hills in the direction of Lusatia offer a quite
magnificent sight' (Riesebeck, 1784, II, 5).
Dresden, as a fortress, was large enough to accept a powerful
garrison. Moreover in the Seven Years War the Austrians cunningly
integrated its defence with that of the adjacent Plauensche-Grund, a
broad valley which was dominated by a succession of wall-like
heights along the eastern side. Frederick found that this emplacement
was too strong to be taken by direct assault (Ligne, 1923, 170), and in
addition the extensive Tharandter-Wald interfered with the Prussian
movements around the flank.
Behind Dresden again the ground rose gradually to the hilly
region of the 'Saxon Switzerland'. The landscape was bizarre in the
extreme. Isolated sandstone mesas, which would not have appeared
out of place in the Wild West, here sat incongruously among verdant
fields and beechwoods. The river Elbe was reduced to a simulacrum of
the Colorado, a narrow brown ribbon describing loops around the
foot of the massy heights.
The Austrians discovered that the access to this region, and thus
to the Bohemian border, could be barred by holding the heights above
the Miiglitz, a stream which ran through a very steep and densely
wooded valley until a short distance above Dohna, and thence across
the narrow riverine plain to the Elbe. On the far, or eastern, side of
the Elbe, the Austrian field-marshal Daun enjoyed another good site
for his encampments among the basalt crags of Stolpen.
To the rear of the Miiglitz line, the last coherent defensible
position inside Saxony was offered by the famous 'Camp of Pima',
where we shall find ourselves shortly. It was, however, too much of a
self-confining prison to be able to commend itself to the Prussians or
the Austrians, and it became of strategic importance only in the
peculiar circumstances of the autumn of 1756. For Frederick's purpose
the one useful position in the neighbourhood was the height of Cotta,
on the upper Gottleuba, where he could place a corps close to the
Bohemian border.
Frederick did not need to progress as far as Pirna, the Miiglitz or
even the Plauensche-Grund in order to take advantage of the trans-
verse routes inside Saxony. As Tempelhoff pointed out, the commer-
cial life and therefore the communications inside north-west Bohe-
mia were poorly developed. In Saxony, on the other hand, towns like
Chemnitz, Freiberg and Bautzen were important trading centres, and
'the interconnecting roads are as good as they reasonably can be, in a
hilly region. Hence it is easy for an army to move inside the Saxon
frontier, and support whatever detachments are positioned there to