We next find the indefatigable Loudon in position at Hohenfriedberg, a small Silesian town, which he had to abandon on the night of the 11th September, finding his flank turned by the Prussian vanguard on their gaining the pass of Kauder. On the 18th he occupied the defiles of Giersdorf, and that night, by a cannonade prevented the enemy from advancing to Wahlenburg. He next laid siege to the strong and important fortress of Kosel, seventy-three miles distant from Breslau, and threatened the whole province with subjection. The Russians and Austrians now effected their junction again, and together made themselves masters of Berlin on the 4th October; after which the affairs of the great Frederick seemed desperate; but he resolved to retrieve them by some decided effort. Crossing the Elbe, he hurried into Saxony, followed by Daun with eighty thousand men, whom he routed at Toorgau on the 23rd November. By this he recovered all that he had previously lost; the Russians retired into Poland, the Austrians evacuated the desolated province of Silesia, and the Swedes took refuge on the shores of the Baltic. By the defeat of Daun, Loudon was compelled abruptly to raise the siege of Kosel and retire out of the province. In 1760, Bohemia, Silesia, and other parts of Germany presented a lamentable aspect. Cities were empty, villages desolate, and castles in ruins. The fields were ravaged and destroyed, till a famine was at hand; wives and children had perished; husbands and fathers had been driven into the ranks of adverse armies, to fight for bare subsistence rather than their blackened hearths and rifled homes; trade was neglected; the seats of learning abandoned; the land untilled: and all this curse had fallen upon the people by the mad ambition of their kings and princes. During the winter Loudon's activity prevented Frederick from obtaining recruits, provisions, or forage from the principalities or circles of Neiss, Groskau, Frankestien, Strehlen, Neustadt, and Oppelen. In January he repaired to Vienna, to assist at the councils of war and arrange the plan of the new campaign. In this year (1761) he was destined by the Court of Vienna to undertake a war of sieges in Silesia, where he was to be supported by the Russians; and on the 10th of March he resumed the command of his division. In April he wrote to the Empress stating that since the 18th instant he had revoked the truce made with General Goltze, and intended to fix his head-quarters at Caretau, a league from Glatz. In May he patrolled the country about Lignitz and Jauer to levy contributions, and eighty-seven of his men were cut off by General Tatter at Rostock. About the 12th May, on Frederick's approach, he retired into Bohemia, by the way of Gattesberg, before eighty thousand men, and on the 6th of June established his head-quarters at Hauptmonsdorf. Frederick was resolved to act solely on the defensive, being tired of the war.