Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War

by Herbert J. Redman

  Thus ended the Battle of Prague, fought between 0930 hours and about 2200 hours, though in fact the heaviest part of the fighting did not last over three hours. It was a hard fought action,74 and the casualty lists reflected that sobering fact. Frederick’s exhausted army lost some 11,740 men killed/wounded and some 1,560 prisoners, including about 400 officers. This was a total of approximately 13,200 lost from all causes. Another source puts total losses at approximately 11,582.75The vanquished Austrian army suffered as well. Some 10,000 killed/wounded, 4,275 prisoners, and, if it mattered, 60 pieces of artillery taken by the bluecoats.76 This was a big percentage of loss, approximately 24 percent.77 In addition to the above, Frederick had lost Marshal Schwerin (the king vomited on hearing the news).78

  Considering the ferocity of the encounter, the question inevitably arises, “Could the battle have been handled differently?” Warnery suggested, years afterwards, that the initial attack by Winterfeldt-Schwerin should probably have taken place some 2,000 paces farther south, round about where Ziethen’s forces were deployed at the start of the whole action.79 Yet even this clever hussar had to note the army was stunned by the stubborn resistance of the Austrians at Lobositz, Reichenberg, and Prague. Myths of Prussian invincibility were certainly shaken. Some of the men “felt only bad could come from further [military] efforts.”80 That being the case, the Prussians were up against it.

  Maria Theresa may be pardoned for thinking she required allies, like the French and even the Russians, to help win the war against these Prussians. As it worked out, except for some isolated successes, which were few and far between, none of Austria’s allies ever came close to shouldering the burden for the war effort. Nowhere near what Austria itself was putting forth. One might tend to overrate the contributions of those allies.

  The rotten French army, in particular, was a huge disappointment. France had once been a proud military power. Its decline had occurred earlier in the century, and it was to slide still further in the Seven Years’ War. For it, the coming French Revolution may well have been an outright relief. Even the Russians, though formidable, had big flaws. They had vulnerable supply lines that seemed to stretch forever in the “wrong” direction, armies which could actually have been much larger, the reluctance to try to combine on major operations with the Austrians. With a couple of notable exceptions. In sum, the Russians could have done more. The hard to fathom decline in Swedish military fortunes from the salad days of the young Charles XII was also downright sad. Space will only permit the briefest of commentaries about the various allied powers.

  Suffice it to say, in the end, it was Austria’s war to win or lose based largely on the fortunes of her own military arms.

  Chapter Seven

  The Siege of Prague

  Nevertheless, the victors now prepared to lay siege to Prague, which held some 46,000 men behind its walls—quite an increase over the 4,000-man garrison Browne had originally put there.1 Daun, upon hearing the news, halted his forces near Brandeis. Orders were issued to retreat to Czaslau—some 42 miles from Prague—picking up those stragglers from Prince Charles’s defeated army in the process.

  As for Prince Charles, having been patched up at Prague, he set about planning out to break out of the city before the enemy had to chance to besiege him. This would be no easy task.2 A half-hearted probe to break out from the eastern side of the walls to go join Daun was made, but Prussian posts in that direction were too strong to break through.3 Then another effort was attempted near Welleslawin. Marshal Keith was there before the battle with a strong detachment. Charles, seeing the task for the moment too difficult, withdrew his forces back into Prague to await rescue by Daun.

  Actually, the Austrians had been aided by enemy error. At Branik, immediately after the battle, Frederick should have been met by Prince Moritz with 15,000 men, including 30 squadrons of horse. This detachment should have been at its post no later than 1200 hours on the fateful day of the battle. Just in time to catch the anticipated fleeing of Austrian troops. (Since the king was confident of victory before Prague.) Moritz’s pontoon train was held up (more problems with substandard roads again) and a dearth of pontoons to do the all-important job of bridging the river prevented the crossing before it was too late and proved fatal to the plan. Colonel Seydlitz, in a valiant effort to forge the treacherous Moldau, got stuck fast in quicksand and mud, and so had to be rescued.4 On a more positive note, Seydlitz was already displaying the fiery characteristics of his nature that would later help him to so much advancement.5

  Prince Moritz was unable to reach Branik until his arrival there was of no real immediate value. What could have been a truly decisive moment was thus missed. Although counterfactual history is generally discouraged, with good reason, we can look for a moment at what may have transpired. Had Moritz been at his appointed post, the retreating Austrian force, already disorganized by the battle, would in all probability have been hacked to pieces. Prague should then have fallen quickly, and Frederick can scarcely have waited long to march against Marshal Daun’s relief force. This is speculation, of course. The actual reality of the situation was not quite so bright for the bluecoats, even for the ranks of the royal staff. On the day after the battle, the king’s faithful adjutant, Major Oelsnitz, was captured by the Austrians. He had been mortally wounded in the battle and was forced to spend his last hours in Austrian captivity.6

  Meanwhile, Frederick, instead of investing Prague immediately, was compelled to wait.7 For starters, he needed siege equipment. That would have to be brought from Dresden, and there were extensive necessary preliminaries inherent in eighteenth-century siege warfare that had to be performed. Prince Charles also realized this and spent as much time as he could on better preparing the fortress for the coming siege. And, on his side, he had that other as yet intangible: Daun’s relief force. The contending armies had both been shaken by the late battle; the king felt the need to take a short breather.

  Frederick had not forgotten about Daun either. Ziethen, with 43 squadrons of horse, was sent on May 9 to spy out the marshal. Just to see what he was up to. It was not a bad trade-off. Since cavalry were practically useless against the walls of a fortress, Frederick at first showed a marked reluctance to send any force other than cavalry to go corral Daun. The general consensus among the bluecoats was that Daun’s force was too small and too disorganized as yet to attempt to rescue his comrades in Prague and otherwise interfere with their plans. It did not take Ziethen long at all to learn the truth.8

  The latter’s 1,100 horsemen, stiffened by Major-General Hans Caspar von Krockow9 and General Manstein—themselves leading four good battalions of infantry—struck hard towards Suchdol. Daun had a considerable force of hussars and Croats, backed up by some regular infantry, at the nearby St. John’s Chapel. The Austrians unleashed Lt.-Col. Ballasti (with 100 hussars in tow) to attack Puttkammer’s nearby force. The latter body was under Lt.-Col. Varnery. His post did not prove vulnerable, and he quite forcefully beat off the enemy’s first lunge.

  Meanwhile, Werner (dispatched to shadow the Austrian movements and send reports back to headquarters) was broadsided at Krattenau. His opponent, consisting of some 600 men, made an unwise decision. He appeared to hesitate a little. Colonel Luzinsky, their leader, must have felt he had a tiger by the tail before Werner was done. The better discipline of the Prussians again saved the day, for the preliminary Austrian move was a most unpleasant surprise.

  The Austrians were clearly intent on Böhm-Leipa, and, May 10, Frederick sped off the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern with 18 battalions and 15 squadrons of cavalry to go after Daun. As soon as the latter realized the situation, he hitched backwards, back upon Kuttenberg and Haber.10 This in spite of a clear, pronounced superiority of forces. Puttkammer reported, from being astride the posts between Prague and the vicinity of Daun’s army, that the marshal’s force was gaining strength daily. As for Bevern, he seized the main Austrian magazine at Kolin, pushing off Ziethen’s more mobile force to lay hold of another
Austrian supply depot, this one at Suchdol. The whitecoats who were there were not prone to leave without some “persuading.”

  Bevern would not suffer to let Daun be free to pursue his agenda, which involved the rescue of the forces at Prague. June 5, with his entire available force, the duke moved out from Kolin, aiming to crush Nádasti’s force, still isolated at the chapel. The normally resolute Nádasti, when his scouts reported the approach of an unidentified enemy force, decided this time that discretion was the better part of valor. His force rose and made off, leaving the crucial post of Kuttenberg to the bluecoats.11 Their forces seized the magazine at Newhoff, inflicting a loss of 240 men killed, wounded, and captured. Bevern’s follow-up ended at Neschkarziz. This rather shocking move placed Prussian spotters firmly on Daun’s “throat” at Czaslau. The latter, who had been reorganizing some of the fugitives from Prague and preparing to act,12 withdrew on Haber as fast as he could, moving with some celerity through the hilly mountain country and narrow defiles.

  Moreover, Bevern was not quite through just yet. His detachments nipped at the enemy force in the defile at Czurckowitz, which caught Nádasti (himself now ensconced at Czaslau) by surprise. No appreciable damage resulted; this put Daun finally in a better position to menace the main Prussian forces standing before Prague. For a time, Daun had been unable to try anything to help his friends in Prague because the bluecoats shadowing him would not permit it.13

  Charles’s communications had been severed by the Battle of Prague, and all of the higher points of vantage outside the city were soon under Prussian control. The latter were busy building batteries, and awaiting the guns which were even then on the way. Still, some historians are at a loss to explain why Prince Charles did not try to escape.14 Even the usually opinionated Henry Lloyd was at a loss to explain this.15

  Nonetheless, Frederick, if no one else, had some cause for hope now. News of the Battle of Prague had seemed to act like ice to freeze the French, the Swedes, and the Russians in their tracks. Disturbing reports reached the German Reich that Prussian forces were massing deep in Austrian territory causing the Imperialists to withdraw towards home as quickly as they could.16 It was clear the outside world still feared the Prussian king and his legions. Then, on May 9, the siege really cranked up when Prussian batteries opened up on Prague.

  This was directed specifically at the Austrian posts on the Žižkaberg. The purpose was to soften them up before a quick assault by Prussian troops later that same day. The bluecoats stormed Žižkaberg. The Austrian force of some 2,500 men were evicted about 0905 hours, after the briefest of fights. General MacGuire tried his best to shift some nearby reinforcements to help stiffen the men near the rise in an effort to regain it, but his valiant effort literally blew up in his face when he was flung from his horse in the ensuing fracas and forced to retreat into Prague. Meanwhile, the Prussian batteries had already started to inflict damage in the New Town section of Prague.

  Things were just too close for comfort for Prince Charles. He had originally taken up lodging in the ample quarters of Prince Piccolomini. Both he and Browne were staying in New Town when the Prussian shelling began. Soon the enemy’s gunners “proved” in convincing style they knew how to inflict damage.17 This caused the two commanders to move to safer, but less comfortable, quarters in the Old Town part of Prague. A number of the Austrian princes were staying in Clementium College, which had had its windows boarded up and stuffed with straw against the enemy’s guns.

  On a more encouraging note, rumors were floating about a weakening of the forces before Prague as Frederick was shifting forces to confront Daun. The Prussian lines were not invulnerable. They were “under frequent cannon fire from Prague.”18 This did not sit well with the person of the restless king. Frederick had an aversion to the nuances of siege warfare; he was much more comfortable confronting his enemy on the open battlefield. His preparations to besiege the Austrians in Prague were apparently inadequate. Even that they were apparently “founded on a miscalculation.”19 As day after day passed, with little progress to show, Frederick’s frustration just increased that much more.

  The Austrians heard about the shifting of Prussian forces to confront Marshal Daun. Prince Charles sent a probing force on May 10 to see if the enemy were still around. The latter rode forward straight towards the lines of the bluecoats. It was immediately apparent that Frederick’s army, or some part of it anyhow, was still about. The Austrians forthwith withdrew into the fortress. There were a number of other possible operations kicked around at headquarters, but it became obvious the enemy were still relatively strong in their posts before Prague.

  As for the Prussians, a long, drawn-out siege was not in their best interests, so spotters went to work trying to find the storehouses of the Austrian defenders. If these could be located, and pulverized, so much the better. Frederick had his position at the Žižkaberg, while Keith (who had his camp on the Lorenzberg), used his post to observe Prague and direct the Prussian guns firing from the Weissenberg. The two forces kept in touch by bridges and fast riders. Their best hope lay in destroying the enemy’s ability to resist as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  The Austrian engineers put a battery site in the Belvedere Park region. This was beside a powerful Prussian post on the Žižkaberg. Prince Charles’s engineers did not wish to see that unpleasant situation continue. Major-General Graf von Hallot, a local Saxon officer whom had been summoned out of retirement—specifically to handle the defense of Prague—by Prince Charles, had drawn up a contingency plan for the Austrian army to maintain itself in Prague as long as possible. He recommended the army should immediately resuscitate its plan about attacking the enemy on the Žižkaberg, as well as two nearby rises.

  Without these rises, the whitecoats could not hope to wrestle the Žižkaberg back. On the other hand, neither could the Prussians hope to retain the Žižkaberg without keeping them. What needed done seemed rather obvious. So the planners worked out a scheme to grab the posts: the Galgenburg and the Old Tower Height. There were a number of difficulties associated with their capture.

  For starters, the drawbridges and transportation roads between these rises had all been cut; they were under the close scrutiny of the Prussians. However, there was no question the heights needed to be recovered. This would give better range of fire for Austrian batteries sited out against the Prussian lines. As drawn out, the outline of the plan called for three different attack columns to be launched against the stations on the Žižkaberg. Among the assault forces were men armed with scaling ladders, as well as picks and shovels. This would allow for entrenchments to be erected, as well as to attack the Prussian lines hard-by.

  The attack directly on the Žižkaberg was to be carried out by the most powerful group of the assault forces. On May 11, Hallot’s draft was submitted to Prince Charles for consideration. Of some fear this plan required the removal of some of the obstructions erected between them and the targets. This also included part of the city walls. The entire attack group was to pass this way and only then split up into six separate corps. The ground over which the impending attacks would be made had been thoroughly scouted out by hand-picked officers. The corps attacking the Žižkaberg was 1,200 men strong, with an equal number in the three columns that backed up this first assault group. A total of 600 men were put out as general laborers, these were just behind the soldiers detailed to make the assault. The forward troops were told off to march straightway on the double against the enemy.

  The bluecoats were rather preoccupied with the construction of their siege works. The Prussians were encouraged by the progress of shutting in the city. Even at that point, there was no firm word at hand about the status of Daun’s relieving force or even where it was. Other than fetching some livestock the Prussians had contrived to get too close for their own good, little of note happened from May 12 to 14. This latter capture was a most important one, since food for the shut-in people would become important in short order. Artillery and any “unnece
ssary” cavalry horses were butchered right after the siege began. This was done to save food for the human population as well as provide needed meat.20 On May 14, according to Horace St. Paul, a spy arrived in Prague with word that the king had left his posts before the city and was marching to confront the growing threat of Marshal Daun.21 The latest plan was to repair the drawbridges around Prague, and to also watch for Prussian efforts to build up walls of circumvallation in an attempt to curtail Austrian irregulars from the walls of the city. In response, the Austrians were busy trying to protect the lower Moldau and to keep as many posts in the open country as possible so as not to get hemmed into the fortress alone.

  The Prussian guns for the siege had finally been ordered. The grouping was impressive: 20 heavy twelve-pound guns, 12 heavy mortars, and ten 24-pounders. It would take time to bring these powerful pieces of ordnance to the scene. The bluecoats were in a waiting game until then.

  As for the Austrians, a few of the officers commanding sections of the wall were more capable than others of building up new works to hold out the Prussians. The withdrawal of much of the siege force to go confront Daun near Kolin meant a contraction of the Prussian posts hard-by. For instance, Croats ventured forth and quietly regained the Custom House Hill. The latter was a point of vantage to enemy spotters which had been deployed there beforehand.

  Conditions within Prague were not improved when a marked shortage of picks, axes, and shovels presented itself to the deprived garrison. On May 17, the defenders were greeted by another depressing sight. The trains bringing up those heavy siege guns we have just mentioned finally put in their appearance that day. In the meanwhile, a nearby bluecoat patrol at a local monastery called Saint Margareth was being pressured by some new Austrian pickets which had been advanced close to it.