304 FREDERICK AND WAR
when you consider that a contemporary army was a unitary
force, without organic articulation, you must concede that the
difficulty of employing it grew in proportion to its size. Thus, in
relation to the conditions of the period, Tempelhoff was quite
correct to write about 'burdensome strength', however much
scorn Clausewitz pours on the idea. (Caemmerer, 1883, 37)Sixty thousand troops were about the maximum that could be
managed by the command and control machinery of the time.
The divorce between what Frederick taught and what he did was
still more evident in the matter of the pursuit: 'Exploit your victories,
pursue the enemy to the utmost, and push your advantages as far as
they will go' ('Castram^trie', 1770, Oeuvres, XXIX, 92; see also
Principes G6n6raux', 1748, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 80; 'Pens6es', 1775,
Oeuvres, XXVIII, 120-2; 'Instruction fiir die Cuirassier-, Dragoner-
und Husaren-Regimenter', 1778, Oeuvres, XXX, 339). Only the pur-
suit after Leuthen came at all close to this ideal, and even here Zieten
moved so slowly on the trail of the Austrians that he had to be
replaced by Fouque. After his other victories Frederick was held back
by the physical and moral exhaustion of his army, the shortage of
provisions, or the need to race back to the far extremity of the theatre
of war.
Not even the Prussian army could spend its whole time marching
and fighting, and Frederick twice saw fit to entrench himself in fixed
positions that were as strong as anything of the kind that were
fashioned by Field-Marshal Daun. He bided his time at Schmottseif-
fen in 1759 until the allies declared their intentions, and at Bunzelwitz
in 1761 he dug himself in for the sake of physical survival.
Still less to Frederick's liking, in the strategic context of the war,
were the increasingly frequent episodes in which the momentum of
the campaign was halted on terms dictated by the enemy. The
marching-power of the Prussian infantry, and the manoeuvrability of
the Prussian cavalry, could be deployed to the best effect only on the
plains of Silesia and northern Saxony, 'a terrain where we are assured
of victory' (to Henry, 24 March 1759, PC 10797; see also 'Reflexions',
27 December 1758, Oeuvres, XXVIII, 164-5; 'Political Testament',
1768, in Frederick, 1920, 155; Fouqu6 to Frederick, 2 January 1759, in
Fouqu6, 1788,1, 77-80; Nivernais, 1756, in Volz, 1908,1, 286; Kunisch,
1978, passim). Simply by withdrawing to the hills which overlooked
the plains, Daun was able to nullify the Prussians' chief advantages
and bring his own powerful artillery into play.
Frederick was forced to recognise the change in the character of
warfare which had been wrought by the Austrian guns and spades,
and the result was a new cautiousness in his minor-strategic outlook