s now enabled, by eluding the vigilance of the
Austrians, to throw himself upon Dresden, for the purpose of regaining a
position indispensable to him on account of its proximity to Bohemia,
Silesia, the Mere, and Saxony. His project, however, failed,
notwithstanding the terrible bombardment of the city, and he vented his
wrath at this discomfiture on the gallant regiment of Bernburg, which he
punished for its want of success by stripping it of every token of
military glory.

The constant want of ready money for the purpose of recruiting his army,
terribly thinned by the incessant warfare, compelled him to circulate a
false currency, the English subsidies no longer covering the expenses of
the war, and his own territory being occupied by the enemy. Saxony
consequently suffered, and was, owing to this necessity, completely
drained, the town council at Leipsic being, for instance, shut up in the
depth of winter without bedding, light, or firing, until it had voted a
contribution of eight tons of gold; the finest forests were cut down and
sold, etc.

Berlin meanwhile fell into the hands of the Russians, who, on this
occasion, behaved with humanity. General Todleben even ordered his men
to fire upon the allied troop, consisting of fifteen thousand Austrians,
under Lacy and Brentano, for attempting to infringe the terms of
capitulation by plundering the city. The Saxons destroyed the chateau of
Charlottenburg and the superb collection of antiques contained in it, an
irreparable loss to art, in revenge for the destruction of the palaces
of Bruhl by Frederick. No other treasures of art were carried away or
destroyed either by Frederick in Dresden or by his opponents in Berlin.
This campaign offered but a single pleasing feature: the unexpected
relief of Kolberg, who was hard pushed by the Russians in Pomerania, by
the Prussian hussars under General Werner.

Misfortune continued to pursue the King throughout the campaign of 1760.
Fouquet, one of his favorites, was, with eight thousand men, surprised
and taken prisoner by Laudon in the Giant Mountains near Landshut; the
mountain country was cruelly laid waste. The important fortress of Glatz
fell, and Breslau was besieged. This city was defended by General
Tauenzien, a man of great intrepidity. The celebrated Lessing was at
that time his secretary. With merely three thousand Prussians he
undertook the defence of the extensive city, within whose walls were
nineteen thousand Aus