108 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63It was also the longest drawn out, and it finished with the Prussians at
the end of their resources and the Austrians with the bulk of their
troops intact. The enemy had appeared to absorb themselves into the
texture of the landscape. Their infantry had stood with a firmness
which it had never displayed before, and their artillery now seemed
capable of dominating a battlefield. Frederick at once grasped the
implications. He told Schwerin: 'We will have to be very careful not
to attack them like a pack of hussars. Nowadays they are up to all
sorts of ruses, and, believe me, unless we can bring a lot of cannon
against them, we will lose a vast number of men before we can gain
the upper hand' (PC 8144).
In the Principes G6n&raux Frederick had written sternly about
the necessity of concentrating all available forces for combat, yet at
Lobositz he went into action at the head of less than half of the troops
he had brought into Saxony. Most of the rest were still blocking the
Pirna camp. The Austrians were not displeased to find that Frederick
was committed so deeply inside Bohemia on the western side of the
Elbe. This gave Field-Marshal Browne the chance he had been seeking
to assemble a flying corps of 8,800 men on the east bank, and march
through the hills and attempt to break through to relieve the Saxons.On 13 October the king left Lobositz for Saxony, and told Keith to
make arrangements to evacuate the army from Bohemia, since it was
impossible for the cavalry to subsist any longer in this exhausted
countryside. Frederick was hastening north because he had learnt of
the unexpected appearance of the Austrian corps of relief on the right
bank of the Elbe nearly opposite the Pirna camp. He reached Struppen
early on the afternoon of 14 October, and was told that the starving
Saxons had crossed to the right bank the day before. These wretched
folk had been unable to establish contact with Browne, and were now
piled in demoralised confusion at the foot of the Lilienstein rock.
The Saxon commander Rutowski opened negotiations later on
the afternoon of the 14th, and harsh terms of capitulation were soon
agreed. The Saxon officers were allowed their freedom, but the men
were yielded 'at discretion' - in other words, left to the mercy of the
Prussians. One of the Gardes du Corps caught sight of Frederick dining
with the Saxon generals after the document had been signed: 'Oppo-
site the king sat the deserving Field-Marshal Rutowski, who had
commanded the Saxons. His situation was at once sad and humiliat-
ing, but Frederick was speaking to him about "Joseph", the king of
Poland's court dwarf, and he went on to express his delight at the skill
of the clown Petrini in these comic arts' (Kalkreuth, 1840, II, 131).
On 17 October the Saxons filed back across the Elbe by a bridge of
hoats which had been built by the Prussians. Frederick had long