179 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63his master by defying every call to surrender, and as a sign of his
resolution he cleared the field of fire by burning the suburbs in front of
the Altstadt fortifications- 'the whole circuit of the town appeared to
be in flames, ruins and smoke' (Mitchell, 1850, I, 459).
Frederick turned back west in response to the threat to Dresden.
He passed the field of Hochkirch, which aroused some melancholy
reflections, but on 20 November he reached Dresden with an advance
guard of cavalry. Daun fell back into his hills. Frederick was further
gratified to learn that the Reichsarmee had retreated from before
Leipzig, and that Haddik's corps of Austrians had abandoned the
enterprise on Torgau.
Frederick stayed in Dresden for nearly three weeks, and then
travelled to Silesia to spend the winter in Breslau. He dispatched each
day's work as early as his could, and devoted the rest of the time to
reducing his tumultuous memories to some kind of order. He was
disturbed by the growing technical expertise of the Austrians, and by
the certainty of a continuing war against near-overwhelming odds.
There was a new savagery of temper, occasioned by the experience of
the battle of Zorndorf. There was also satisfaction that the brilliant
campaign which closed the year had effaced the memory of his
humiliation at Hochkirch.
A notable air of deliberation attended all of Frederick's doings in the
first months of 1759. He had renounced all ambition of taking the
royal army once more on adventures south of the border hills, and for
the first time since the Hohenfriedeberg campaign he was content to
let the enemy carry the war to him, hoping to win 'a good decisive
battle, which will render it safe for me to send detachments to where
the need is most urgent' (PC 10812). Fortunately the mild winter and
the late opening of the campaign enabled Frederick to restore the field
army to a well-found 130,000 men, despite some initial shortages of
remounts and clothing. He intended to hold the main force of 44,000
in Lower Silesia and apportion the rest among Heniy in Saxony,
Fouque in Upper Silesia, and Dohna on the Polish flank. Meanwhile
Frederick maintained an easy routine in Breslau, allowing himself
ample time to join Quantz in the evening concerts, and to talk over
his excursions into prose and verse with Catt.
In April Frederick drew the main army together in cantonments
around Landeshut, and he sought to gain himself some time by
sending small raiding corps across the border. Fouqu6 ruined the
magazines at Troppau and Jagerndorf in Austrian Upper Silesia,
while Henry launched a similar expedition from Saxony into north
Bohemia, where he destroyed magazines to the worth of 6,000-
700,000 thaler: