275 THE WAR OF THE BAVARIAN SUCCESSION, 1778-9the cordon was secure for the winter, and he returned to Silberberg
and Breslau to prepare for the next campaign and keep himself
informed of the course of the political negotiations, which were
beginning to take an interesting turn.
Frederick was still revolving ambitious plans of offensive war
for the next season. The gulf with Prince Henry ran deeper than
ever, and in December Frederick agreed to his brother's request to be
allowed to resign from the command of the army in Saxony. He was
probably only too glad to replace him by the Hereditary Prince Carl
Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick, for whom a brilliant future was
predicted. On 16 January 1779 the king furnished Brunswick with his
plan for the next campaign. The army from Saxony was to invade
north Bohemia and come at the line of the Upper Elbe from the rear,
while the royal army executed the cherished design of the sweep
through Moravia towards Vienna.
Henry protested against his brother's emphasis on offensive ac-
tion (PC 27140), and in fact it is doubtful whether the Prussian army,
or Frederick's physical or mental constitution, were in any way equal
to the kind of effort which the king had in mind for 1779. It was the
Austrians who made all the running when mild weather in February
and March made it possible to resume the skirmishing along the
borders. Thus on 18 January the Austrians descended on two weak
Prussian battalions which were stranded at Habelschwerdt, due
south of Glatz town. Captain Capeller and one hundred men offered a
heroic resistance from a blockhouse until the wooden structure was
set on fire by howitzer shells and he was forced to surrender. Frederick
moved up with his reserve to Silberberg, so as to be able to lend
support along the frontier as necessary.
This march was the last one that Frederick ever undertook in
command of forces in the field. The very names of the leaders of the
Austrian raiding parties, Clerfayt and Wurmser, are a reminder that a
new generation of officers was at hand, and there was something
senile and querulous in the way Frederick protested: 'These men are
the kind of people we call "glory-hunters". For the sake of gaining
decorations and distinctions from their court they harass us by every
conceivable means, and sacrifice their soldiers regardless of the cost'
(PC 27185).
By now the course of the war was being overtaken by political
developments. The Austrian treasury had been plunged ever deeper
into debt by the very success of Joseph and Lacy in outmarching the
Prussians in troops on the Elbe. The Austrians had only 175,000
soldiers under arms on the eve of hostilities, but 297,000 men stood
ready to take the field in 1779 (Peters, 1902, 347), and the issue of
rations for men and horses far exceeded that for the campaign of 1760,