208 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63
losing their master. The danger was in fact very real, for a sutler
woman was brought down not far from him. But Frederick remained
as cheerful as ever, and encouraged his suite to follow coolly in his
tracks' (Anon., 1788-9, III, 17-18; see also Seidl, 1781, III, 310).
By 4 p.m. the advance guard had turned south towards the
wooded hills and reached the Schweidnitz-Waldenburg road.
Lieutenant-General Wied went ahead to anticipate the Austrians on
the heights of Hoch-Giersdorf, and the army joined him there after
clearing an abatis on the road. The cannonade had lasted without
intermission from daybreak until 7.30 p.m. 'The noise carried as far as
Breslau, and it was so considerable that the officers of the garrison
believed there had been a battle. It was just a march, but it occa-
sioned more cannon fire than had been fired in more than one open
combat in times past' (Oeuvres, V, 75).
A last brief push on 18 September served only to lodge the
Prussians a little deeper in the hills between Hoch-Giersdorf and the
Miinsterhohe south-east of Reussendorf. Frederick wrote that he had
been able to beat some Austrian detachments, but 'so far the only
effect has been to make Daun more cautious than ever, and encour-
age him to hold onto a series of absolutely impregnable positions in
the hills' (PC 12366).
The initiative passed to the allies. Away in the Russian headquarters
the French liaison officer Marc-Rene de Montalembert suggested that
an allied raid on Brandenburg and Berlin might force Frederick to
break up his concentration south of Schweidnitz. The Russians re-
sponded with enthusiasm, and in the first week of October Major-
General Totleben and Lieutenant-General Chernyshev descended on
Berlin with two raiding corps from the Russian army, totalling 17,600
men. The first Russian attacks were beaten off by the garrison of
Berlin, aided by 16,000 men who had raced thither from Saxony and
the inactive theatre of war against the Swedes in Pomerania. On 7
October, however, Lacy reached the neighbourhood with 18,000
Austrians and Saxons from Daun's army. In the face of the now
overwhelming forces of the allies, the Prussians abandoned Berlin,
and the governor of the city surrendered to the Russians on the 9th.
For three days Berlin and Potsdam lay at the mercy of the allies.
Lacy sent Prince Emeric Esterhazy with the Kaiser regiment to stand
guard over Sans Souci and the Potsdam Schloss. Esterhazy held
Frederick in holy awe, and he contented himself with removing a
royal portrait and two flutes as souvenirs of the great man. No such
restraint was exercised at Berlin, where the Austrians, the Cossacks
and the vengeful Saxons made free with the palace of Charlotten-
burg, smashing the celebrated collection of classical statuaiy which