Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War

by Herbert J. Redman

  This brought the little maneuvering to an end, and both armies settled in for the night of August 16–17. An isolated Prussian effort was made near Hirschfeld during the overnight, which compelled General Colloredo, at the scene, to change his forward post to one facing the Neisse. The king did not make any obvious gestures to give away the possible Prussian attack scheme. A series of feints were conducted to throw off the enemy spotters.83 About 0900 hours, in a driving rain on August 17, the bluecoats commenced their energetic business yet again. In response, Nádasti was unbuckled to cross the Neisse and take up a post at Friedland. About this same time, Winterfeldt (with some 20,000 troops in tow) made straight for the rises near Ronau. Prussian guns gained a local superiority, and Winterfeldt’s men marched for Seckendorf, aiming for the heights near Friedland and an expectant grapple with Nádasti. The bluecoats encountered a force of some 1,500 men, under Colonel Joseph von Brentano-Cimaroli, thereabouts. But Winterfeldt’s men did not press the issue, and instead paused close-by.84 The day wore on, however, with no sign of a general action as Nádasti would not be drawn out. However, as even the reluctant Kaunitz would admit to, Prussia’s ability to wage war needed to be curtailed, and quickly at that, to aid the Allied cause.85

  Once more, the two opposing forces encamped overnight almost on top of each other. Early in the pre-dawn hours of August 18, General Beck, accompanied by some 60 irregulars, tried to pick his way through the Prussian pickets to nab the king’s baggage train. Draskovitch engaged the foe with the general idea of diverting their attention while Beck went about his business. Draskovitch did his part all well and good, but his comrade failed utterly with his much more pertinent part of the mission.

  Although Beck came up empty, the entire daylight hours of August 18 were spent by the Austrians in better preparing for a general battle. New lines of abatis were constructed, and some badly needed adjustments were made in the battle lines. But Frederick did not press matters, even though he was well supplied with ammunition and some 57 big guns—among which were 10 24-pounders, 10 25-pounder mortars, 27 12-pounder cannon, and 10 howitzers.86 On August 19, he sent a detachment to reoccupy Görlitz, as it was clear Prince Charles and Daun had no intention of being lured out for a finish fight, and prepared to march his army on Bernstadt.

  The Austrians were tipped off to the enemy’s intentions by a Prussian deserter, but the retrograde movement on Bernstadt was wrongly interpreted as a possible attack against the Austrian flank. At this point, the king had no such intentions. Finally, when the nature of the move was discerned, the Austrians sent light troops to vigorously harass the Prussian rearguard.

  Winterfeldt returned from his aborted mission on August 20,87 and for the next four days the Prussian king made preparations for a new errand: to march to Saxony and face the French and the Imperialists. The latter were threatening to reconquer the area in the absence of substantial resistance. A real problem, though, confronted the Prussian monarch. To take his entire army to face the enemies in western Saxony meant leaving an intact, and formidable, foe in the form of the main Austrian army at his rear. To leave such a force unopposed was to invite a sweep by the latter up through Silesia and/or Brandenburg and risk losing Berlin, while staying put was tantamount to sacrificing western Prussia and most of Saxony to the allies. Having failed utterly to lure out the Austrian main army, the latter option was no longer open.

  This would compel Frederick to divide up his forces in an attempt to keep both large enemy troop concentrations busy. In turn, this would mean leaving fairly small forces available in front of the Austrians, while the king went to the Western Front to confront his enemies there. In the end, it was decided to leave Bevern and Winterfeldt in charge of Silesia and the Southern Front (with some 43,000 men), while Frederick himself, with only 13,000 men, joined by Moritz’ 10,000, was to march against the allies in Saxony.88 Winterfeldt at the moment was ensconced in Rademaritz, confronting Nádasti at Königshayn. The king’s forces about then actually assumed two camps. The main post was between Kemnitz and Bernstadt, under Frederick’s direct command, while the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern kept the other body behind the Pleisnitz River, the direct obstacle to any attack thereabouts. Winterfeldt kept to his camp, and the entire Prussian army was now deployed so that it could not be easily surprised. The communications were shaky at best, and Winterfeldt had to send men against a roaming Austrian detachment on August 23 near Greiffersdorf. The Austrian advanced posts about then were: Morocz was still holding the Austrian right near Grosshennersdorf; Beck near local windmills there; General Schröger was deployed into lower Silesia, and General Benevento Count Petazzi had 2,000 Croats at Dittersbach on the left.

  The gamble was a desperate one for the Prussians.

  Chapter Twelve

  Operations in Silesia; Preliminaries to Rossbach

  On August 25, Frederick marched off, headed for Thüringen.1 His portable equipment was traveling in quick-moving wagons to expedite the movement.2 The army was as mobile as it could be. After a short march, the troops reached Dresden on August 29. Newly promoted Seydlitz was in the vanguard, accompanying the king.3 The weather was a pleasant mixture of fine Summer days and cool nights. The army rested at the Saxon capital until August 31, while the allies inexorably closed in.4 The operations on the Western Front since Hastenbeck had been the following: D’Estrèes had been slow in following up Cumberland, whose 40,000 men might still have proven a hindrance to the advance of the French, but for Cumberland’s weak leadership skills. The French high command had at last lost patience with the dilatory d’Estrèes and replaced him with Richelieu.5 Soubise with the second French army (some 30,000 men), the road into Saxony and Hanover now opened, swept across the Rhine River near Frankfurt-on-Rhine—August 1—and moved northeast to link up with the Imperialists at Erfurt.6

  The latter had been set in motion by the news of Kolin. Although it was true this army was only moderately effective, there was still cause for concern. Combining Soubise with Richelieu and adding in these Imperialist troops, commanded by Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, would have given a solid force of more than 150,000 men to lead the advance into Prussia. Frederick’s puny force of some 23,000 men could hardly be expected to impede their march.7

  On August 11, Hildburghausen left Furth—where his army had been training for months—with 25,000 men under arms, including some 8,000 Austrians, the latter featuring a couple of good cavalry units, and moved towards Erfurt.8 Meanwhile, Soubise briefly threatened Magdeburg, but could not storm the great Prussian fortress.

  On August 25, Soubise occupied Erfurt and, thereby, linked up with the leading elements of the Imperialists. Their nearest enemy was at Dresden, about 170 miles distant. The allied force would be some 55,000 men, and Soubise was entertaining hopes of marching for Berlin. Richelieu was within supporting distance with his large army and Cumberland was effectively eliminated by the Convention of Kloster-Zeven (September 9).9 By the terms of this convention, Cumberland and Richelieu agreed to stop the fighting between them. Cumberland forthwith returned to England, the few Prussians who had been with him retired into Prussia, and Richelieu was left with no opponent in Hanover, save for a little Hanoverian force under General Ludwig von Zastrow.10

  Meanwhile, the broader war was waging as well. While the British navy ruled the waves, there had been comparatively little advantage derived from this, from the Prussian point-of-view. The English sent an expeditionary force (12,000 strong) by sea to Rochefort—arriving on September 23—which achieved limited success by capturing the Ile d’ Aix. But the weather proved uncooperative for a full landing, and the mission was subsequently aborted.

  Things looked dark indeed for the Prussian king and his tiny nation. His fears included a linking of the two allied forces in the west, but he knew he would most likely have to confront at least Soubise and Hildburghausen in short order. At the end of August, in driving rain, the king rose from Dresden and moved off towards Erfurt. Frederick was in the advance, where
he could usually be found when his army was on the march, in the company of the enterprising soldier of fortune Lt.-Col. von Mayr and his “Freibataillone” [Free Battalion #2].

  We last left Mayr before the castle of Tetschen early in the invasion of Austria. Following that little triumph, he embarked, with the first of the later to be celebrated Prussian free corps (a force of nearly 1,500 men), on a run through the German Reich, in an attempt to dissuade and upset the war effort against the Prussians. Mayr moved on Pilsen, Nurnburg (June 1), Furth, extracting men, materials and money. Mayr had proven the worth of the so-called “little war.”11 Next day, the freecorps passed Zirndorf, plundering. June 13, the bluecoats were in Mark-Einskirchen, trying to disrupt the Reich commissariat. The Imperialists would not infinitely tolerate the intrusion, though. An Imperialist force (6,000 strong), determined to intercept him, tried to overtake Mayr at Buchenbach, but were foiled. In July, his men had made their way back to the Prussian lines, to the relief of the king.12

  Now Mayr was in the advance with Frederick, trail blazing as was usual. Keith had command of the body of the main army, with Prince Ferdinand and Moritz as subordinates. Seydlitz, who was just at the beginning of what would be a fine career as Frederick’s best cavalry officer,13 took his horse towards Leipzig to drive away some French irregulars there, along with the famed Austrian Szėchėny Hussars. The latter showed the now usual French attitude among their light forces (“discretion being the better part of valor”) and retreated on the first rumors of the approach of the Prussians.

  The bluecoats passed through Döbeln, Grimma (September 3), and Pegau.14 At the last point, Seydlitz encountered and defeated a body of light cavalry, two hussar regiments from Laudon’s command. This was September 7, the one real encounter of the march. The episode did demonstrate Seydlitz’s supply of that intangible often called “gumption.” One of the enemy units was the Szėchėny Hussars (the other was that of Splenyi). The Prussian’s solution to superior numbers was to send a small picked force of 50 hussars, armed with giant timbers to “open” the door to Pegau. The rest of the men stayed out of sight until the scouts had performed their job. Then, Seydlitz’s minions came barreling out like a “bat out of Dante Alighieri’s Hell” before the enemy knew what hit them. Seydlitz took a great number of prisoners, more than a hundred in this endeavor. The king was favorably impressed by the whole conduct of Seydlitz on a relatively minor misson. About the same time the rains stopped and a refreshing spell of fine weather helped reinvigorate the king and his little band.15

  The Prussian army moved through Rothau, brushing Leipzig and, crossing the Saale, reached Naumburg (September 10). Here Frederick took the road to Erfurt. On the morning of September 13, the Prussian vanguard of some 9,000 men under Mayr finally appeared near Erfurt. The allied garrison took alarm as the Prussian light troops/hussars emerged on the rises above the place, and, while Mayr’s men deployed into an encampment encircling Erfurt on the north and east, the allies were hastily retiring on Eisenach and Gotha.16

  This was all rather odd, as this line-of-march took Soubise and Hildburghausen away from the big army of Richelieu, rather than towards it. There does not appear any reason why they did so. The Prussians occupied Erfurt about 1600 hours and moved forward upon the village of Ilgershofen. The evidence of the decline of discipline in the French army was immediately abundant in the area. They had burned homes, tortured, often raped the inhabitants—friend and foe alike—and outright murdered innocent civilians, robbed villages and churches. Nor was this brutality confined to the living. In the cemeteries, the dead were exhumed, coffins opened and the unfortunate remains scattered. This was rather typical behavior for the rank-and-file (not to mention large segments of the officers, who should have known better) of the French in this period. Nor should we make the assumption such behavior was confined to just the French army.

  The locals were so relieved to be rid of the French horde and the traveling lackeys, gamblers, and prostitutes which accompanied this band like locusts, they kissed Frederick’s hand, his coattails, and even his horse. The king dined at the nearby Schloss Friedenstein, and returned to his quarters with little fanfare and no pomp. The monarch spent much of the night resting on a wooden bench. With a nearby bodyguard, of course. For a crowned head, this was a most refreshing, humble attitude. The high-minded Soubise represented a strong contrast. It was a comparison enhanced all the more by the latter’s ineptness as a military commander. But then, “Old Fritz” commanded respect in a way the haughty Soubise never could have!

  On September 15, Seydlitz (who had by then come to the attention of many of higher echelon of the army) with some 1,500 irregulars went forward to Gotha. Frederick followed close on his heals on into the place. Soubise and Hildburghausen were preparing to move against Gotha. The disadvantages of a combined command now manifested themselves. Soubise copped an attitude when Hildburghausen appeared; the Frenchman clearly did not want to take orders from a foreign national. The French court had to directly order Soubise to comply with instructions (September 10). All of this was going on while rumors were just a’flying about Frederick’s activities. It was clear the king was in the offing. The pace had been grueling. “In the first two weeks of September the Prussians marched 170 miles.”17

  The allied army marched (September 18), pushing out the light troops of Turpin and Laudon ahead. The advance of the latter drove Seydlitz from Gotha in surprise (about 0800 hours). Seydlitz withdrew his Meinecke Dragoons when the enemy appeared, although the light hussar screen to the north of town was in for a nasty surprise when the “small” Austrian patrol they discerned that morning turned out to be a well organized assault formation. About 0930 hours, there was a sharp tussle, in which the Prussians were gradually forced to give ground. Seydlitz’ withdrawal was only temporary. While the enemy celebrated their recapture of Gotha, many of the troopers sat down at their ease to drink beer or wine. The energetic Seydlitz rounded up some reinforcements, and rode down from Freimar, making his horse very visible on the move so the Allies could see them.18

  This episode is very revealing of the state of allied discipline at this stage of the war, specifically the forces of Soubise and Hildburghausen. Seydlitz, with all the bluff of a master Poker player, deployed his force of 1,500 men (3rd Dragoons, 1st Hussars, 4th Hussars) in a fashion that seemed to lend credence to a greater force than was actually at hand. A “deserter” was sent out, announcing the nearness of the king with his main army. The same intelligence was conveyed from local peasants.19 The Prussians struck about 1430 hours, and their attack was so unexpectedly successful they nabbed Hildburghausen’s adjutant, Lt.-Col. Eisenberg. The resistance was indeed most spirited, but within the space of an hour and a half the beaten allies were streaming away to Mechterstadt. Prussian losses were 23 killed/wounded and 13 prisoners. The allies lost 80 men, along with more of the assorted crowds accompanying them.

  But Gotha was not to be of much use to Seydlitz, for Frederick did not deign move that far without the allies hitching backwards. So, September 21, the gallant horseman bid adieu to the kitchen of the Friedenstein (with its amenities), and Gotha was again re-occupied by the unsteady allies. But they were not left at peace for long. Nervous allied pickets let word out the Prussians were again at hand on September 25. Still stinging from Seydlitz’ latest deception, the allied force now quickly deployed for battle. The horse rode out, probing for a phantom enemy that just refused to put in an appearance. Guns were sited, and strong detachments moved forth, seeking a confrontation. Everything required was there, except for an enemy to fight. This tells us as much about the state of the Allied forces confronting Frederick’s Prussians at this point as anything. Their objectives were not clear, their steps far from sure-footed.

  The allies, for instance, had hitched into Eisenach; a hasty decision which did not prove to be a wise one. As unsteady as the Imperialists were, their French comrades under Soubise were even more so. Eisenach was in more broken country, less vulnerable
to the preying eyes of Prussian cavalry. Hildburghausen’s Imperialists marched independently of Soubise’ more tattered French. Although the Imperialists reached camp on September 11, it took more than four days for the scattered Allied detachments to come in. The French were up to Büttstädt, coming forward from Langensalza.

  Frederick was to see a repeat of the same kind of delay that the Austrians had meted out in the south, a reluctance to give battle by his opponents. For four weeks, the Prussians wasted precious time trying to force the enemy out into the open for a finish fight. Allied numerical superiority was more than two to one in their favor, even without allowing reinforcements from Richelieu. The latter failed to provide either troops or supporting movements to try to take some of the pressure off of the combined army of Soubise and Hildburghausen.20 As for the king, he alluded to suicide in letters during this period to Wilhelmine, his sister, but did not seriously entertain the notion.21

  Meanwhile, the other fronts had not been inactive. While still on the march to Erfurt, the king heard of Lehwaldt’s defeat at Gross-Jägersdorf—covered below—by the Russians and of the probable loss of East Prussia. On October 11, word reached Frederick that the Austrians were marching on Berlin, and he at once moved to the rescue, leaving Keith on the Saale with some 7,000 men to watch the allies. Seydlitz with the Szekely Hussars rode out on October 12. Prince Moritz was dispatched with 8,000 men from Torgau towards the Prussian capital, while Ferdinand of Brunswick was sent on September 14 with six battalions and 11 squadrons towards Halle, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt to confront Richelieu; the latter maneuvering sluggishly in the region. Soon Halberstadt did fall to the French, but the only other action Richelieu took was to finally detach some 15,000 men under Marshal Victor François Duke de Broglie to join the allies.