Frederick the Great

A Military Life

Christopher Duffy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317408499
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

For tactical and strategic ingenuity, for daring and ruthless determination and the capacity to inspire troops, Frederick the Great was without equal. In this detailed life of 'Old Fritz', Christopher Duffy, who has written widely on the army of Frederick and on the armies of his adversaries, Austria and Russia, has produced a definitive account of his military genius.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Seven Years War, 1756–63

The Prussian army crossed the Saxon border on a wide frontage on 29 August 1756. On the right flank the regiments of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick poured through Leipzig under the eyes of the astonished citizenry. The main force made direct for Dresden, but the Prussians were not quick enough to catch the Saxon army of 19,000 troops, who at once recoiled out of Frederick’s reach to the Camp of Pirna.

Frederick entered the undefended city of Dresden on 9 September, and the next day he rode south-east in search of the Saxons. He found them entrenched on the left bank of the Elbe in one of the most tactically strong positions in Central Europe. The western salient of the Camp of Pirna rested on the old walls and modern casemated bastions of the castle of Sonnenstein, overlooking the main square of the little town of Pirna. The corresponding eastern bulwark was formed by the great fortress of Königstein, which had been hewn out of the living rock by generations of Saxons to serve as the ultimate refuge of the electorate. The winding gorge of the Elbe rendered the long side of the encampment absolutely inaccessible. On the southern, or landward, side, the Saxons had cut abatis through the tangled country from Königstein to the neighbourhood of Neuendorf. The continuation to Sonnenstein bordered the near side of the wide Gottleuba valley, and it was along this more open sector that the Saxons concentrated their forces and their earthworks.

Frederick lodged himself in the baroque mansion of Gross-Sedlitz, from which he had a clear view of the southern front of the Saxon position beyond the Gottleuba. The sheer-sided plateau of Königstein was visible to the right, and beside it rose the bulky lump of Lilienstein, which was actually on the far side of the Elbe. Frederick carried out further reconnaissances on 11 and 16 September, but he found ample time to tour the lines of the Prussian camp: ‘He is as relaxed and happy as if he was living in a time of profound peace. He is never morose, in spite of his great and manifold occupations. He has a word for everybody he encounters … and he mixes with his soldiers as amicably as among children’ (Ewald von Kleist to Gleim, in Volz, 1926–7, II, 4).

Both the armies were anxious not to take the initiative in opening hostilities, and indeed the first Prussian soldier was not killed until 12 September – the victim of a minor skirmish. Historians have wondered ever since why Frederick, having gone to so much trouble to secure a strategic surprise, now seemed oblivious of the passage of time. Perhaps he hoped from one day to the next that starvation was about to force the Saxons to surrender, and so yield him a rich prize of hungry but intact troops.

Frederick pushed the first troops across the border into nearby Bohemia on 13 September. He wished to open fresh foraging country to his cavalry, and he was anxious to know of the exact whereabouts of the Austrian field-marshal Browne, who was assembling the enemy troops somewhere in north Bohemia. Frederick became dissatisfied with the quality of the reports he was receiving from Keith, who was in charge of the growing Prussian force in Bohemia, and so on the 28th he betook himself to the camp of Johnsdorf and assumed personal command.

On 30 September Frederick directed the 28,500 men of the army on a forced march up the stony roads of the Bohemian Mittel-Gebirge and over the pass of Paschkopole to Wellemin, just short of the Bohemian plain. The departure had been delayed by one of the heavy autumn fogs that are so common in those parts, and in order to make up the time the troops had to hurry through the afternoon and well into the night, which fell at seven in the evening.

Frederick was taken by the resemblance between the name of Wellemin and that of his favourite sister Wilhelmine, and he was in a good humour as he settled for the night in the relative comfort of his travelling coach. His generals and staff officers lay around him under the open sky: ‘They served, as it were, as a protection for the greatest treasure which Providence has bestowed upon mankind in this present age’ (Pauli, 1758–64, V, 55).

At 5.30 on the misty morning of 1 October Frederick and his generals set out to join the six battalions of the advance guard at the southern exit of the last valley of the Mittel-Gebirge. On the way he was met by an officer who reported that, as far as could be distinguished in the fog, the Austrian army appeared to be deploying on the plain below. Frederick rode on a little further, then abruptly turned his horse around and hastened back to rejoin his main force. At six he advanced the infantry down the valley in two columns, while the cavalry moved up close behind in three lines, taking up almost the entire width of the valley floor.

In its small compass the field of Lobositz owned almost every conceivable variety of landscape. Out to the north-east it was bounded by a bend of the river Elbe. To the south there rose the little town of Lobositz, and in front of that stretched the channels, ponds and swamps of the Morellen-Bach. Further west, the direction from which the Prussians were advancing, the plain of Lobositz narrowed into a valley as it entered the curious landscape of a denuded range of extinct volcanoes. To the left, as the Prussians saw it, the eerie cone of the Lobosch Hill rose to a height of 420 metres above the valley floor. The summit was a basalt plug, and on the steep slopes the fertile soil had been terraced into vineyards, divided from one another by dry-stone walls of grey volcanic rock.

On the right or southern side of the valley exit the ground rose to the lower but still respectable height of the Homolka-Berg. This was a smooth-topped, commanding height, a kind of elder brother to the Graner-Koppe at Soor, and, since it was unoccupied by the Austrians, Lieutenant-Colonel Moller planted one of the heavy batteries there. This seems to have comprised four 24-pounders, five 12-pounders, and one or more howitzers.

Frederick followed the right wing of the infantry as it advanced up the Homolka-Berg. The summit was bathed in sunlight, but in the plain to the east the town of Lobositz could be discerned only ‘as if through a veil’ (PC 8378). In fact he notes that ‘the fog was so thick that all that you could make out was a sort of enemy rearguard. It appeared that one attack would be enough to make this force recoil to the rear. I am short-sighted, and I asked some officers with better eyes than mine to tell me what was going on, but they could see no more than I did’ (PC 8144).

This ‘rearguard’ consisted of the main Austrian army of 34,000 men, which Field-Marshal Browne had artfully disposed in concealed positions over the landscape. His Croatian light infantry on the Lobosch was supported by the regulars of the corps of Lacy, standing in readiness behind the hill. The bulk of the Austrian horse and foot was held to the south, behind the Morellen-Bach, and between this force and Lacy a line of grenadiers and Croats was hidden in a sunken road. Many of the Austrian infantry were lying flat on the ground, and at least one of Browne’s batteries of heavy guns was concealed behind a screen of cavalry. His plan was to stage a limited holding action around Lobositz, and later slip across to the right bank of the Elbe and lead a flying corps to the relief of the Saxons.

The Austrians opened the battle with a cannonade from their powerful battery in front of Lobositz. The regiment of Hiilsen (21; see Map 6, p. 345) was standing at the foot of the Lobosch Hill, an easy target for the Austrian guns, and musketeer Franz Reiss recalled:

When the cannon at first spoke out, one of the shot carried away half the head of my comrade Krumholtz. He had been standing right next to me, and my face was spattered with earth, and brains and fragments of skull. My musket was plucked from my shoulder and shattered in a thousand pieces, but in spite of everything I remained unscathed, thanks be to God. (Urkundliche Beiträge, I, Heft 2, 30)

The bombardment continued with a violence that was beyond the Prussians’ experience, and whole files of their soldiers were being carried away at a time.

Frederick and his companions on the Homolka-Berg were in the path of the shot which flew over the regiment of Alt-Anhalt (3), standing directly to their front. Early in the cannonade Major-General Quadt was hit by a splinter from a shattered stone, and he tumbled, mortally wounded, over the back of his horse. Frederick was urged to take cover from the raging missiles, but he replied, ‘I did not come here to avoid them’ (Brunswick, 1902, I, Heft 4, 36).

The Prussian battery on the Homolka exacted a revenge from the bodies of Austrian cavalry which were dimly seen to be manoeuvring in chequer-board formation on the plain. The Austrians lost Lieutenant-General Radicati, one of their most popular leaders (his red marble monument is to be seen in the cathedral at Leitmeritz), but their squadrons calmly continued their evolutions, so as to throw the Prussian gunners off their aim. The Prussians deployed two further batteries in the course of the action – one on the valley floor, and another a short way up the Lobosch – but Frederick’s army enjoyed no respite from the Austrian cannonade.

Before 7 a.m. Frederick ordered the solid and genial Duke of Bevern to clear the Lobosch with the left wing of the infantry. Bevern advanced three regiments up the slopes, and he sent word before long that he was heavily engaged with the enemy.

At about the same time Frederick allowed himself to be persuaded by his brother August Wilhelm to dispatch a reconnaissance in force to clarify the situation in the plain. Eight squadrons of cavalry were chosen for this task, and while they were filtering through and around the battalions of infantry to the foot of the Homolka, their commander, Lieutenant-General Kyau, told Frederick that he believed he could detect a force of Austrian grenadiers in a dangerous flanking position in a little village (Sullowitz), and that there were two lines of enemy cavalry behind. ‘At this the king became impatient, and told him to attack regardless’ (Brunswick, 1902, I, Heft 4, 35).

The glittering troopers of the Garde du Corps (C 13), the Gens d’armes (C 10) and two squadrons of Prinz von Preussen (C 2) soon discovered the presence of the Austrians for themselves. During the advance the Garde du Corps veered sharply to its left, in order to avoid the musketry fire from Sullowitz, and by this movement they exposed the right flank of the Prussian force to a counter-attack by the Austrian Erherzog Joseph Dragoons (D 1). Frederick had raised himself in the saddle, and when the first clash came he sat back and exclaimed, ‘Now they are off!’ (Westphalen, 1859–72, I, 157). The Prussian Bayreuth Dragoons (D 5) intervened to rescue the cuirassiers, whereupon the Austrian horse withdrew swiftly and expertly behind their batteries, exposing the Prussians to a devastating fire of roundshot and canister.

The broken Prussian squadrons streamed back towards the Homolka in disarray, but Frederick saw that one of the Garde du Corps, bleeding and hatless, had forced his horse about and was making back towards the Austrian positions. ‘“Wait a moment!” said the king. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and an adjutant took it to the cavalryman to enable him to bandage his head. “My thanks”, replied the Garde du Corps. “You won’t see it again, but I’ll get my own back on the enemy and make them pay for it!”’ (Anon., 1787–9, XI, 19). With this he spurred away.

Frederick had rather less sympathy for the rest of Kyau’s force, and he told the Alt-Anhalt musketeers, ‘Pay attention to what the officers order you to do. Don’t let the cavalry through. Shoot them down if you have to’ (Urkundliche Beiträge, 1901, I, Heft 2, 3). In the event the survivors re-formed on the remainder of the Prussian cavalry (forty-three squadrons), which had meanwhile filtered through the intervals of the infantry and formed two disorderly lines. These 10,000 troopers became restless under the Austrian cannonade, and without waiting for any command they surged towards the Austrian positions. Frederick exclaimed, ‘My God, what is my cavalry doing! They’re attacking a second time, and nobody gave the order!’ (Brunswick, 1902, I, Heft 4, 37).

The attack divided into two main masses. The Austrian grenadiers and Croats made rapidly to either side as the left-hand group broke across the sunken road, and the Prussians were badly shot up by artillery and musketry, and hit by a counter-attack of three regiments of Austrian cuirassiers.

To the right, a number of regiments spilled into the Morellen-Bach. Kalkreuth writes that ‘many horses were too weak to struggle up the high bank from the swampy hollow. I remember seeing a Schönaich Hussar lying dead in the lines of the Austrian infantry. A lot of the cavalry stuck fast in the mud on the far side, and they lost a great number of dead and wounded’ (1840, II, 129). Colonel Seydlitz of the Rochow Cuirassiers (C 8) was one of those that had to be rescued from the mud.

The disorganised cavalry was now good for nothing except to help to fill out the single line of infantry which stretched across the valley floor. All the rest of the battalions were being fed into the battle on the Lobosch – the Jung-Billerbeck Grenadiers (5/20), the second battalion of Itzenplitz (13), the Kleist Grenadiers (3/6), and finally the first battalion of Munchow (36) and the second battalion of Hülsen (21). Frederick told Ferdinand of Brunswick to arrange to have thirty cartridges taken from each man of the unengaged battalions on the right and sent to the battling troops on the Lobosch.

The resistance of the Croats on the hill was now stiffened by three battalions and three grenadier companies of Austrian regulars, which were dispatched by Colonel Lacy from behind the hill. Meanwhile in the plain the mournful thudding of the Austrian drums carried across to the Prussians, and a force of Austrian infantry (cavalry, according to some accounts) appeared to be making ready to launch a counter-attack from Sullowitz. They were driven back by artillery fire from the Homolka, and some well-lobbed howitzer shells set fire to the houses of Sullowitz, which made the village untenable for the Austrians.

By 1 p.m., some of Frederick’s generals on the Homolka were in the grip of panic. The heavy batteries were almost out of ammunition, as was the infantry. The cavalry horses could hardly drag themselves along, for their strength was sapped not only by the two exhausting attacks, but by the previous days of hard marching and inadequate fodder. Everywhere the initiative seemed to be passing to the Austrians, in spite of the check at Sullowitz, and the fog had long since lifted from the plain, revealing the unengaged main force of the Austrian army drawn up in two lines behind the Morellen-Bach.

Frederick took his leave of the battle, after sending word to Bevern to make one last attack on the Lobosch. The king was still riding away from the field when Bevern’s troops made a push with the bayonet and dislodged the Austrians from their walls and ditches. Ferdinand asked Keith if the infantry of the right wing should advance in support, and he was told, ‘Yes, go ahead’ (Brunswick, 1902, I, Heft 4, 41).

The battle roared up again outside Lobositz town, where the Austrians rallied and opened fire from windows and holes in the roofs. Ferdinand brought up some howitzers, which usefully set fire to a number of houses, and the Jung-Billerbeck and Kleist Grenadiers and some of the musketeers of Arnim led a successful assault on the little town, where the flames were claiming the Austrian dead and wounded. The action came to an end between 3 and 4 p.m., when the fresh and intact Austrian force made a simultaneous right turn and was pushed by Browne north to the Elbe behind Lobositz, forming an impenetrable barrier to the pursuit.

Major Oelsnitz found the king at the village of Bilinka, and persuaded him only with some difficulty that the Austrians had been dislodged. Frederick ordered the generals to meet him in Wchinitz, hard under the Homolka mound. Here they held a kind of council of war, in which Ferdinand of Brunswick was able to carry the argument against the generals who spoke in favour of retreating. The nerves of the Prussians were still on edge, however, and a single round from an Austrian heavy cannon was enough to awaken fears of an enemy counter-attack. This was in fact Browne’s signal for the Austrian army to withdraw from its blocking position behind Lobositz, leaving the ground to the Prussians.

In the late afternoon the Prussians pitched their tents among the dead and wounded, and, as happened so often after battles, the heavens responded with peals of thunder and showered the field with rain. The Prussians had suffered about 2,900 casualties, which slightly exceeded the enemy losses. The gallant Garde du Corps to whom Frederick had given his handkerchief was nowhere to be found in the ranks. ‘After an intensive search he was discovered dead on the field. He had received many cuts and bullet wounds, and his empty pistol was in his right hand. The king’s handkerchief was still wound about his head’ (Anon., 1787–9, X, 19–20).

The immediate tactical victory undoubtedly lay with the Prussians. As Frederick wrote to Moritz of Dessau on 2 October: ‘You might think you know our army, but I assure you that after yesterday’s test you would believe that nothing is beyond its powers’ (PC 8146). Admittedly the cavalry had shown that aggressive instincts alone were of no account unless subject to discipline and control, but once more the incomparable infantry had carried the day.

As for the management of the affair, Frederick conceded that he had misread the field in the early morning mists, and run into an Austrian army when he thought he was chasing a rearguard. After the repulse of the second cavalry attack he had posted the horse in the centre of the line of battle, and ‘by means of this novel and slightly unorthodox manoeuvre I was able to outflank the enemy right with my weak force of infantry, and ultimately take the town of Lobositz, evicting the enemy and compelling them to retreat’ (PC 8146). He did not mention that the last sentences covered a period when he was already absent from the field, and incapable of exerting any influence on the decisive phase of the combat.

It is not at all easy to identify the moral victory. This was the most disconcerting action in which Frederick had yet been engaged. It was also the longest drawn out, and it finished with the Prussians at the end of their resources and the Austrians with the bulk of their troops intact. The enemy had appeared to absorb themselves into the texture of the landscape. Their infantry had stood with a firmness which it had never displayed before, and their artillery now seemed capable of dominating a battlefield. Frederick at once grasped the implications. He told Schwerin: ‘We will have to be very careful not to attack them like a pack of hussars. Nowadays they are up to all sorts of ruses, and, believe me, unless we can bring a lot of cannon against them, we will ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• One Origins
• Two The Silesian Wars, 1740–5
• Three The Armed Camp, 1745–56
• Four The Theatre of War
• Five The Seven Years War, 1756–63
• Six In Search of Old Fritz
• Seven Public Affairs, and the War of the Bavarian Succession, 1778–9
• Eight Final Years and Immortality
• Nine Frederick and War
• Maps
• Bibliography
• Index