Greatest Battles
Silesia, 5 December 1757
How Frederick the Great overcame the odds at the Battle of Leuthen
the blue-coated Prussian soldiers marched south over hard frozen ground blanketed with a light dusting of snow towards the nondescript village of Sagschutz at midday on 5 September 1757. A string of low hills masked their march from the watchful eyes of their Austrian foe arrayed for battle less than two miles to the west.
Prussian King Frederick II ‘The Great’ believed his army had a strong chance for success in the coming battle that would decide whether Prussia retained Silesia or lost it to the Austrians. He intended to send his well-trained infantry against the Austrian flank in what was known in military lexicon as an ‘oblique order of attack.’ Simply put, the Prussians would advance diagonally against the southern end of the Austrian line.
When Frederick had completed making his final adjustments for attack at 1.15pm, he rode over to two corporals who would carry the colours into battle for the first battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment. Frederick wanted to make sure they knew exactly where to lead their battalion. The 45-year-old Prussian king told them to march straight towards
the enemy whose troops were on a low rise a short distance to the northeast. It was imperative that the three battalions spearheading the attack drive the enemy from its position at all costs, he told them.
“It’s a case of do or die!” he said. “You’ve got the enemy in front, and all our army behind. There is no space to retreat, and the only way to go forward is to beat the enemy!”
When Great Britain and France went to war again in May 1756, the major powers in Europe quickly took sides. Austria, Russia, Sweden and Saxony sided with France, while Prussia and Hanover sided with Great Britain. Austrian Empress Maria Theresa had a score to settle with Prussia. Frederick had taken the wealthy province of Silesia from Austria during the so-called Silesian Wars of the 1740s. He did so in order to improve the economy of his largely agrarian realm, which lacked minerals and industry. The empress desperately wanted Silesia back.
Frederick invaded Saxony on 29 August 1756 to secure the region for his forces and deny it to the Austrians. After a six-week campaign, the Saxons surrendered. The Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire declared war on Prussia on 17 January 1757.
Frederick followed up his Saxony campaign by invading the Austrian province of Bohemia adjacent to Saxony on the south. Although he defeated an Austrian army led by Prince Charles of Lorraine, the empress’ brother-in-law, at Prague on 6 May, Austrian Marshal Leopold von Daun handed Frederick his first defeat at Kolin on 18 June.
Frederick then turned his attention to a Francoimperial army approaching from the west. Leaving Prussian Lt Gen Augustus William, Duke of Brunswick-bevern, in Silesia with 41,000 troops to defend the province against the Austrians, Frederick marched east to engage the Franco-imperial army. He soundly defeated French and Imperial forces on 5 November at Rossbach in Saxony.
The Austrians moved quickly against Bevern while Frederick was addressing the threat posed by the Franco-imperial army. Lorraine and Daun defeated and captured Bevern on 22 November on the outskirts of Breslau. Frederick knew that the Austrians were rampaging through central Silesia, but he was unable to reach Breslau in time to stave off disaster. Three days later the Breslau fell to the Austrians.
The Prussian king wanted revenge for the defeat of his troops at Breslau. After assimilating the remnants of Bevern’s army with his own at the Silesian town of Parchwitz 30 miles north of Breslau, Frederick marched against the Austrians on 4 December. The Austrians deployed for battle the following day in a five-mile line just west of Breslau. The Austrian line stretched from Nippern in the north to Sagschutz in the south. The villages of Frobelwitz and Leuthen fell within the Austrian line.
Frederick was with the Prussian advance guard when it collided with an Austrian cavalry screen outside Borne early on 5 December. The Prussians won the clash, and they captured 600 Saxon Chevaulegers fighting with the Austrians. The Prussians had so intimidated the Austrian light horse that it would not interfere with the Prussian deployment at midday. In this way, Frederick deprived Lorraine and Daun of their reconnaissance arm when they most needed it. As the morning
“Shells ripped gaping holes in the Prussian lines, but the Prussian troops waver” did not
dragged on, Lorraine and Daun, who had their command post at a cluster of hilltop windmills just north of Leuthen, had no idea where Frederick was or even if he was going to attack them that day.
Frederick surveyed the Austrian battle lines at mid-morning from the Schonberg a mile and a half from the Austrian position. He quickly determined that his best opportunity for success lay in attacking the Austrian left flank. Frederick set off at 11.00am at the head of his army on a three-mile flank march to Sagschutz.
While Frederick was leading the bulk of his army south to assail the Austrian flank near Sagschutz, Austrian right wing commander Lt Gen Giuseppe Lucchese sent urgent requests to Lorraine at noon demanding reinforcements against an imminent Prussian attack. Without making a personal assessment of the situation, Lorraine ordered Lt Gen Karl Leopold von Arenberg to reinforce the right wing with his reserve infantry corps. Committing his reserve in such a manner defied military norm.
Shortly afterwards Lorraine received another urgent request for reinforcements. This one came from Lt Gen Franz Leopold von Nadasdy, the Hungarian commander of the Austrian left wing. He insisted that the Prussians were about to attack his troops. For reasons unknown, Lorraine did not even reply to Nadasdy’s request.
Nadasdy’s flank rested on the low rise known as the Kiefenberg just south of Sagschutz. Facing south on the Kiefenberg were 13 inexperienced battalions of Wurttembergers, who were posted behind abattis. At a right angle to the Wurttembergers facing west were a total of 20 battalions of Bavarians and Austrians.
To carry out his oblique order of attack, Frederick put three infantry battalions in the front as an advance guard. The first line behind them consisted of 20 infantry battalions, and the second line was composed of 11 more infantry battalions. Frederick directed his subordinates that each battalion was to follow at 50 paces behind the battalion to its right. The echeloned formation meant that the units would strike the enemy line a series of successive blows over a 15-minute period. Maj Gen Karl von Wedel’s three veteran battalions, one from the
13th regiment and two from the 26th regiment, constituted the advance guard.
Stationed to the right of the main battle line were six battalions whose sole purpose was to protect the Prussian right flank. The flank was further protected by Lt Gen Hans Joachim von Zieten’s 53 squadrons
of cavalry. On the opposite end of the line, Lt Gen Georg Wilhelm von Driesen had 55 squadrons. His troops were hidden behind the Sophienberg.
The three veteran regiments that led the
Prussian main attack began their advance at 1.00pm. As the Prussian infantrymen swept forward, the Austrian gunners went into action. Shells ripped gaping holes in the Prussian lines, but the Prussian troops did not waver.
Frederick had ordered his artillery corps to bring along ten 12-pounder siege guns from the fortress of Glogau. These thick-barrelled fortress guns, known as ‘brummers,’ were brought along to make up a deficiency that Frederick’s army had in longrange artillery. He ordered the crews manning the brummers to go into action on the Glanzberg to support the attack. Prussian shells slammed into the German musketeers on the Kirchberg, shattering torsos and severing limbs.
Unable to withstand the storm of iron, the
German and Austrian infantry fled towards Leuthen with the Prussian infantry in pursuit. After just 20 minutes of fighting, the Prussians had overrun the Kiefenberg and driven all of Nadasdy’s infantry north towards Leuthen. In an attempt to stave off disaster, Nadasty ordered his cavalry to charge the right flank of the Prussian line; however, Zieten’s troops disrupted and defeated the charge.
A lull occurred at mid-afternoon as Lorraine and Daun scrambled to form a new battle line facing south behind Leuthen. Some of the first reinforcements to arrive took up positions in the buildings of Leuthen in an effort to buy time for the rest of the army to redeploy into a new battle line. The struggle for control of the fortress-like churchyard of the Catholic Church became a focal point of the battle for both sides from 3.30 to 4.30pm. Despite a valiant resistance by the Rot-wurzburg Battalion, the Prussians ultimately carried the position.
General Lucchese, who was responsible for the right flank of the new line, hurled his 65 fresh cavalry squadrons against the Prussian left flank at 4.30pm in an attempt to drive the Prussians back. As the Austrian white-jacketed cuirassiers with their black metal breastplates and Austrian dragoons in their red and green coats thundered towards the vulnerable left flank of the Prussian infantry,
Prussian left wing cavalry commander Driesen waved his first line into action.
Driesen’s first line consisted of 10 squadrons of the vaunted Bayreuth Dragoons. Although they intercepted the Austrians, they soon became hardpressed. Driesen’s second line, consisting of cuirassier squadrons, rode to the dragoons’ assistance. The cavalry melee tipped in favour of the Prussians when Prince von Wurttemberg added his 30 Prussian hussar squadrons to the fight.
At that point, the Austrian horsemen fled the field, but not before some of them collided with the Austrian infantry, disrupting their formations. In the meantime, Frederick had massed his guns on the Butterberg. The massed artillery shelled the Austrian infantry on the plain north of Leuthen. When the Austrian foot began fleeing the field, Prussian cuirassiers and hussars rode them down.
The Prussians lost 20 per cent of their army at Leuthen, but the Austrians lost 33 per cent of their army. The Prussians suffered 6,300 casualties. The costs for the Austrians was significantly higher. They lost 10,000 men on the battlefield, and 12,000 more were captured. By the end of December, Lorraine had withdrawn his army to Bohemia.
Frederick’s twin victories at Rossbach and Leuthen prevented Prussia from being defeated early in the war and also compelled the British to sign a formal alliance with Prussia in January 1758. The hard campaigning had taken its toll on the Prussian war effort, though. Frederick’s war chest was depleted and his regiments were severely under strength. British Prime Minister William Pitt assured Frederick that he could expect generous financial aid from the British to purchase equipment and provisions.
Many of Frederick’s best soldiers had died on the battlefields of Saxony and Austria. The new recruits would require extensive training if they were to be counted on to carry out Frederick’s complex tactics.
Frederick had the audacity to approach Austrian Empress Maria Theresa after his victory at Leuthen with a proposal that they discuss peace terms. But the empress had assurances from the French and Russians that they remained committed to the war against Prussia. Her advisors assured her that as long as the coalition against Prussia remained intact it would ultimately defeat the enemy.
The empress believed that under the proper circumstances Austrian arms could once again vanquish the Prussians on the battlefield. To increase the likelihood of this happening, she made Daun the new Austrian supreme commander.
Frederick contemplated an invasion of Moravia in 1758. Yet before Frederick could pursue operations against the Austrians, he had to confront the Russians who were advancing against him.
In January 1758 the Russian Imperial Army captured Konigsberg in East Prussia. The Prussians and Russians subsequently collided at Zorndorf in Brandenburg in August 1758. The outcome of the battle was inconclusive. But a pattern had emerged. Frederick would have to put out one fire after another as long as the war lasted.