Then, in the last hour of the fight, something like a simultaneous attack was carried out and it succeeded. After long indecision, Zieten stormed the southern heights with desperate courage and the confused struggle was taken up a third time by the King’s forces on the north. By eight o’clock, thirteen hours after the Prussians had left camp, the Austrian resistance was at an end. Ere midnight Daun was fleeing across the Elbe, while Frederick, seated on the altar-step of a village church, scribbled a note to Finckenstein, promising to send details of the victory next day. [Illustration: PLAN OF TORGAU, NOVEMBER 3, 1760.] Before dawn, he was once more among his troops riding through the lines and embracing Zieten. At Torgau he had frustrated the Austrian reconquest of Saxony and reduced their forces by some 16,000 men. But when his own loss came to be counted he strictly forbade his adjutants to reveal the sum. Torgau was the bloodiest battle of the war and the Prussians had suffered most. Their casualties exceeded by nearly one thousand those of the beaten side. In spite of Liegnitz and Torgau the campaign of 1760 seemed to have changed Frederick’s situation but little. Dresden was still beyond his reach, but he was able to spend a pleasant winter at Leipzig, surrounded by books and men of letters. Diplomacy, as before, promised much and performed little, but drilling and recruiting went on without pause. Although the quality of the Prussian army could not but deteriorate, the numbers were astonishingly maintained. Commissions were given to mere lads, freebooters were welcomed, and the lands of the lesser German princes were scoured for men, till in the spring of 1761 a hundred thousand soldiers were ready to take the field. To furnish the necessary funds no new taxes were laid upon the Prussians, but Frederick issued great quantities of base coin and Saxony, where the Austrians might otherwise have found support, was harried to the verge of devastation. It was believed at Vienna that Frederick would resort to his plan of the preceding year by pitting himself against the army which covered Dresden. The Empress therefore implored Daun once more to take command. He consented, but only on the astounding condition that he should not be expected to make conquests. Then the King of Prussia transferred himself to Silesia, which became the principal scene of the events of 1761, perhaps the dreariest of all campaigns.