Loudon was with the Combined Army during all these operations; and the Prince of Hildburghausen, desirous of signalizing his own authority by some grand stroke, proposed to the Prince de Soubise the project of dislodging the Prussians from the petty principality of Gotha, where Seidlitz commanded. They began their march accordingly with their grenadiers and Austrian heavy cavalry, while Loudon led the Pandours and French light dragoons. They dispatched one column of cavalry over the heights which led to Thuringia; another on the left, preceded by hussars, approached Gotha from the side of Langensaltza; while Loudon with the Pandours, dragoons, and a body of grenadiers, formed the column of the centre. Seidlitz was ready to receive them. He was in order of battle, and had all the defiles secured by horse and cannon. A desultory conflict ensued among the woods and mountains; and though the Prince de Soubise cut a passage to the castle wall of Gotha, he was obliged to retreat and leave three officers and one hundred and sixty soldiers in the hands of Seidlitz. The Prussian column under the Prince of Bavern attempted to cover Breslau, which surrendered on the 22nd November to the Austrian generals, by whom he was made prisoner; while the remnant of his army joined Frederick, and on the 5th December the battle of Lissa, where he gained a signal victory, was fought in Silesia. Such was the severity of the season that many hundreds of soldiers were found dead on their posts; and the German generals were reproached with heartlessly exposing their men to the extremity of cold; for a campaign in winter is alike opposed to the dictates of humanity and the common rules of war, as the operations of our own troops in the Crimea have given terrible proof. In these arduous duties, though always at the head of his Croats and Pandours, Loudon never received another wound, though exposed almost daily to balls, bayonets, and sabres; and it is worthy of remark that the musket-shot received at Zabern was the only scar of his long military career. In the campaign of 1758 he received the Imperial military Order of Maria Theresa, which was instituted by the Empress Queen in the June of the preceding year. In this Order it is an inviolable principle that no officer whatsoever, "on account of his high birth, long service, wounds, or former merits, much less from mere favour, or the recommendation of others, be received; but that those only who have signalized themselves by some particular act of valour, or have aided the Imperial service by able and beneficial councils, and contributed to their execution by distinguished bravery, shall be admitted."