Even the lesser scheme failed, however, because Augustus, though a weakling, was a man of honour. His army was less than twenty thousand strong, but it sufficed to hold Pirna and to block the highway of the Elbe. On September 9, 1756, Frederick entered Dresden, but Augustus had fled to the army and lay safe in the impregnable rock-fortress of Königstein. While the invader was rifling his archives for proofs of a great conspiracy against Prussia, he offered to observe the most benevolent neutrality and begged for an exact statement of what more could be expected from him. He received the answer on September 14th from the lips of Frederick’s favourite, Winterfeldt. It was nothing less than that he should join Prussia in attacking Maria Theresa. “How can I turn my arms against a Princess who has given me no cause for complaint, and to whom, in virtue of an old defensive alliance of which Your Majesty is aware, I ought to furnish 6000 auxiliaries, only that it is doubtful whether the present war is a case of aggression?” Such was the old King’s reply to the Prussian tempter, and he coupled with it renewed assurances of neutrality. Frederick reiterated his demands and expressed regret that he could not extend complaisance further. By no effort of diplomacy could he shake the honourable firmness of Augustus, and it was therefore necessary to gain the highroad into Bohemia by force. Frederick had surrounded Pirna, but he did not venture to assault it, though Napoleon declared at first sight that there were nine points of attack. It was clear, however, that hunger must soon force the Saxons to move and that their only hope lay in succour from the Austrians. Browne, the Irishman who had proved himself to be one of the Queen’s best generals, therefore led an army northward to the foot of the mountains and was confronted by Frederick in person at Lobositz. On October 1, 1756, a fierce fight of seven hours proved indecisive. Early in the day the King sent twenty squadrons of horse to meet disaster at the hands of the Austrian gunners, and later the Prussian infantry showed that they were still the men of Mollwitz and of Soor. The Prussians kept the field of battle, but of nearly 6400 killed and wounded more than half were theirs. The relief of Pirna was checked but not frustrated. Lobositz is, however, chiefly memorable as the day on which the Austrians first encountered the Prussians at their best and were not beaten. It is no more than Frederick’s due to remark that the troops whom he had now to face were men who had learned what his father’s army had to teach. They had adopted the Old Dessauer’s iron ramrod, and the swiftness of their fire was no longer less than the half of their opponents’. Their artillery, thanks to the labours of Prince Lichtenstein, was always good and not seldom superior to the Prussian.