192 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63
superior forces of the Russians on the heights of Baunau. This bold
move saved the fortress of Glogau nearby. On 1 October Frederick
discovered that the Russians and the corps of Loudon had retreated to
the far bank of the Oder. He followed them across the river on the
night of 7 October, and established himself on the far side in the camp
of Sophienthal, where he spent most of the remainder of the month. It
was evident that he was regaining a moral ascendancy over the allies.
Finally on 24 October the Russians marched away to winter quarters.
By now the accumulated tensions of the campaign had reduced
Frederick once more to a state of collapse. He wrote to Heniy on the
27th: 'What is wrong with me is a rheumatism in my feet, one of my
knees and my left hand. I have also been in the grips of an almost
continual fever for eight days now ... I feel so weak and exhausted
that I will not be able to leave here for another fifteen days' (PC
11551).
Meanwhile a new campaign took shape in Saxony, where the Reichs-
armee had been reducing the strongholds one by one. Frederick had
sent a first reinforcement in that direction under that bourgeois
adventurer Major-General Johann Jakob 'von' Wunsch, and
Lieutenant-General Finck followed with a second contingent. By
13 September the Prussians had recovered Wittenberg, Torgau and
Leipzig.
Wunsch and Finck were, however, far too weak in numbers to
contemplate any attempt to regain the great prize of Dresden. The
commandant, Count Schmettau, had defended the same place with
great spirit in 1759, but now he was in receipt of a letter which
Frederick had penned on 14 August, under the immediate impact of
Kunersdorf. This message gave him the freedom to give up Dresden, if
he could obtain good terms, and Schmettau accordingly capitulated
to the Reichsarmee on 4 September. The garrison of 3,350 men
marched out four days later, and one-third of the troops immediately
defected to the enemy. Frederick afterwards put Schmettau under
arrest, and dismissed him from the army with a miserly pension.
Schmettau uttered a protest and received the reply: 'You ought to be
glad you still have your head on your shoulders!' (Retzow, 1802, II,
132).
The rival forces made their way to Saxony in ever greater
numbers. Prince Henry had deliberately drawn the attention of Daun
upon himself, as we have seen, and towards the end of September the
two main armies moved west into the electorate. Henry united with
the Finck-Wusch corps on 4 October, and on the 16th he fell back to a
camp near Torgau. This position was very well chosen, and Henry
directed a number of counter-moves which frustrated every enter-