Nevertheless, the attackers penetrated into the southern suburbs of Torgau, but the Prussians set fire to some of the buildings in an attempt to blunt the allied advance. This turned the tide, for the Prussian guns began plastering away now as best they could, and the two sides engaged in an artillery duel for nearly two hours. Wunsch utilized this time to prepare for an advance of his own. This was delivered by five full squadrons of bluecoat horse, including the 7th Dragoons mentioned above, which charged from the north into the allied rear. Believing themselves surrounded, the allies fled, leaving a body of Austrians, sheltered by Ried’s valiant Croats, to fall back upon Eilenburg, where the allies paused. The Prussians netted hundreds of prisoners and many guns and supplies, which increased the misery of the enemy’s suffering.
Thus although Wunsch was unable to relieve Dresden, he was able to reconquer all of northern Saxony (except for Leipzig, which alone remained in the shaky hands of the Imperialists). Wunsch was determined to change that scenario as well. After a brief pause at Torgau, on September 12, his Prussians moved on Eilenburg, as a necessary stepping off before proceeding on Leipzig. The bluecoats took up between Thallwitz and leaning over on Kultschau. Wunsch, leading just two grenadier battalions, the Hesse-Kassel Regiment, the Plettenburg Dragoons, some light troops, plus about 300 hussars, moved on Leipzig. About 0700 hours on September 13, the Prussian was standing before the city. While sending in a messenger to call upon the garrison to surrender, the ever vigilant Wunsch ordered his men to attack enemy outposts in the suburbs of Leipzig and surround the place to prevent the Imperialists from making off. It was all academic.16
The commandant, Major-General Heinrich August Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, realized the futility of trying to resist. Negotiations accordingly were opened and summarily concluded. Wunsch’s men marched in about 1800 hours; the entire garrison was lost. There had been no attempt to resist: not one shot was fired by the hapless men!
Two days before Wunsch defeated the foe at Torgau, Frederick had detached Finck with some 6,000 men from Waldau to join him and form a bulwark against the enemy. Whether this would have proven sufficient is rather academic, for the fighting abilities of Zweibrücken’s army were never high to begin with. September 9, Finck reached Grossenhayn, and was on his way to link up with the Prussians at Torgau, then to Schmettau’s relief. Daun himself had been informed that Dresden had been retaken about September 5; he immediately sent a dispatch rider to inform the Russians. The arrival of this timely piece of good news was a booster shot to the Austrians.
Finck’s men were just sitting up their tents at Grossenhayn when an Austrian rider rode into the camp—needless to say, astonishing the bluecoats—with an inquiry as to where he might lodge Schmettau and his men. Finck thus finally learned of the fall of Dresden. He was visibly upset and told the Austrian to get off at once—back to Gross-Döbritz where Schmettau and his men were encamped. Finck went on to join Wunsch at Torgau.
Yet the inefficiency of allied arms in Saxony at this point was readily apparent. Prince Henry was still tying up Daun, and no further sizeable forces could be sent to Saxony while the Prussians had such a capable commander. The fall of Dresden might be expected to bring with it the reoccupation of the whole of Saxony, but it did not. There was one singular blow. The gates of Dresden never were opened again to Frederick the Great as conqueror.
As for Schmettau, he was fortunate he was not court-martialed, considering that the king’s mood was not receptive to the news of Dresden.17 He was ordered to Berlin, was under arrest briefly, and never again held an active command in the army.18 The Austrians, meanwhile, were doing their very best to lose the whole campaign. Between November 6 and 8, Daun retired upon the Meissen country, against whom Prince Henry, now joined by Hülsen and his men, pressed cautiously. Daun, as always, was not in a hurry to be off, and promptly divided his main army into separate formations, which prepared to fall back while the getting was good. Daun showed good poise, and refused to budge until he was ready. But the pace had been exhausting for both sides and the long campaign was beginning to wear on the nerves and the energy levels of all concerned.
Only between November 8 and November 12, the former date when he reached his destination, was Daun able to rest his weary soldiers. Finck had been detailed by Prince Henry to move around the enemy’s flank upon Nossen, from where he might be in a position to cut off the enemy from Freiberg. Henry planned to spend the period launching raids against Daun and trying to drive back the stubborn foe. Had he been left to himself, he might have succeeded. Unfortunately, the often heavy hand of Frederick did not allow Prince Henry the flexibility he could have used to hatch his own plans. Frederick’s new scheming would result, this time, in an unnecessary defeat. For, by November 12, the enemy appeared to be on the eve of retreat, granted after much preliminary dawdling.
There was yet another twist. The so-called “liberation” of most of Saxony by the Imperialists and the Austrian detachment meant replacing the rule of thumb of the bluecoats with that of Zweibrücken’s men. The collecting of taxes, which had been carried forth primarily in the past to dispense largely to the Prussians, were now to be performed for the Imperialists. When the Saxons naturally complained they would be unable to keep the Imperials supplied with provisions, especially in view of the overused status of Saxony’s farmland, the reaction was predictable. If the Saxons could not meet the need voluntarily, then the needy men would supply their own from the same depleted sources. All while posing as the benefactors of the occupied state. If for no other reason, the Austrians wanted to occupy Saxony because it “it would deny Saxon resources to the enemy.”19 Really? But which enemy might also be asked.
The Czar of Allied supply, Adjutant-General Johann Wenzel Baron von Widmann, tried to do his best to accomplish the task he was assigned: basically bleeding Saxony even more.
Meanwhile, back on the Eastern Front, following the destruction of Hernnstadt, the allied forces of Laudon and Soltikov went on borrowed time as far as cooperation were concerned. The Russians had hoped to nab Glogau to retain it as a base for use when the campaigning season resumed in the spring of 1760. Glogau fortress owed much of its “charm” to its proximity to the heart of Brandenburg,20 but the indomitable Frederick was trying to make a mockery of Russian attempts to capture the place.
Frederick crossed the Spree at Lübben, and hastened on Vetschau (September 16), by Cottbus, reaching Forst on the Neisse River on September 19. Once arrived at that point, the Prussians were able to solidly cut in between the tardy Marshal Daun and Soltikov. Prussian patrols were pressed on to Muskau. Soltikov was at Sommerfeld, and his spotters picked up immediately on the enemy’s close presence near-by. It is worth mentioning this was an enemy who, in spite of Kunersdorf and its consequences, was still to be feared by the greencoats. As for Daun, he discerned at once that Frederick’s new post hopelessly compromised any attempt to strike at Prince Henry, among other ambitions.21 It is true the enemy did not immediately retire, but was there any further danger for the hard-pressed monarch? We can even enquire, was this a “miracle of the House of Brandenburg?”22 Or, more likely, was it a failure of their opponents to follow up their singular success at Kunersdorf?
Laudon and Soltikov, indeed, were on the Warta, but it was clear the greencoats were about to make for home. Soltikov moved to Friestadt (September 23), but the stubborn Prussian monarch was again on the move, having regained most of his former vitality. His men skirted Suckau and Baunau. The Russian commander felt, with the new post and determination the indefatigable king took up, rendered it impossible to secure winter quarters in Silesia. (This was about all the Russians had on their agenda at this stage, despite any assurances given to the Austrians on the contrary). This left little recourse but to retire to Poland.
The stricken Prussian king, meanwhile, who was suffering from a severe attack of gout, was forced to travel by carriage, and even “sedan chair”23 at times these days—which could not have pleased him.24 As a
consolation, the Russians, on October 26,25 finally marched off,26 leaving the way open for Frederick to make his way back towards Saxony, with his aching back, a “continual” fever, and all the baggage.
Meanwhile, Prince Henry’s detachments against Friedland and Zittau had spoiled Marshal Daun’s scheming, which up until then had included a march upon Berlin with the main Austrian army—this never came off. Never mind the Russian government was not at all happy with Soltikov. The king’s Prussian forces had been in very close proximity with the command duo of Laudon and Soltikov for upwards of a fortnight, and the greencoats, despite the double exhortations of both St. Petersburg and of Laudon, never lifted a finger to take on the still shaken enemy.
Laudon had been still marching with the Russians until November 2, at Kalisch, when the Austrians took leave of their allies, moving instead on Zduny. Soltikov would, for his part, be forever condemned for throwing away a perfect opportunity to probably win the war outright with just a little more effort.27 In retrospect, the king handled the situation in the aftermath of Kunersdorf rather well; he did not try to press matters with his inordinately aggressive tendencies. This could have had untold consequences had he not been successful.28 The Prussian king, for all his bluster and willingness to embrace the offensive mode of warfare, never forgot the fundamental weakness of Prussia. It might very well have been the allies had won the war; but someone forgot to tell them so.
The hordes of Soltikov did gradually make their way back to and across the Vistula. They did not reach their destination until early December.29 Their campaigning season was over, winter quarters once more beyond the Vistula. Laudon made his own way, pausing briefly at Zduny to collect his forces before he tried to return to home. The Austrians had no bases and few benefactors this far to the east, and there was little proviso made for an army moving through the area. The Austrians had to quickly pony up some funds to provide food, shelter and other necessary provisions for the hard-pressed men, and Marshal Daun even sought to forward some money to help out in this respect. Laudon, though, was forced to resort to desperate measures. He was finally forced to go, almost with the proverbial hat in hand, to the Austrian ambassador at Warsaw, Count Graf Sternberg, to try to secure a lone of credit (to the tune of some 30,000 florins) in order to provide for the desperate men. Interestingly, this predicament took place even before Soltikov departed for Poland. The Russians made no effort to help their allies out in any respect. The officers had been reduced in victuals, and had been receiving no pay for quite some time.
The king, in the interval, sought some escape from the realities he was confronted with by retreating into prose. He composed a short treatise upon the military exploits of Charles XII of Sweden (1682–1718), a fellow Great Captain from the heyday of Swedish military power in the early eighteenth century; who himself suffered frequent reverses of fortune. The king must have felt a great affinity for the Swedish “Warrior King.”30
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Preliminaries to and Battle at Maxen1
If the allies missed their chance to finally finish off Frederick’s army after Kunersdorf, when it appeared down for the count, they did an equally poor job of closing out Prince Henry. The window of opportunity to crush Prince Henry was very narrow, and the utter failure of Daun & Company to complete the conquest of Saxony, in the timely absence of the great king, was shocking to many. Even Count Kaunitz—who seemed forever convinced that only by crushing Frederick’s own aggressive character and his own army, could the Austrians finally win the war—was left scratching his head and wondering.2
Austrian headquarters, at Schildau on October 31, received disturbing reports coming in that the bluecoats were tailing after Arenberg and O’Donnell, who were in the process of withdrawing on Eilenburg. This now that Frederick’s rumored arrival back in Saxony was imminent. Even Brentano, ensconced at Doberschütz, was encroached upon by Prussian patrols. About this same time, the weather was taking on a decidedly winter atmosphere, with infrequent snows and much cooler weather patterns. The king was positively known to be en route from Silesia and, on November 2, Marshal Daun called a council-of-war to decide on a future course of action. It was accepted now that any decisive action against Prince Henry alone was a done deal, and, to add further fuel to the burning fire, Finck was slowly beginning to bring pressure to bear on the Austrian left.
Based upon this new revelation, the whitecoats did an about-face and pulled back to a new post hard-by Naundorf and Lonnewitz fronting on Oschatz (November 4). In their wake, they left the land virtually stripped of any useable resources, to a far greater degree than the Prussians had ever done. The following day, Daun fell back on Lommatzsch. Vecsey, under mounting pressure from Prussian patrols, fell back from Strehla on Riesa, while Sincère was deployed over by Seilitz until November 7. By then, there was no longer even the pretense of trying to turn Prince Henry out of the Torgau post. The best the Austrians could hope for at this late stage was to retain Dresden (which they had already commenced to rebuild the hitherto neglected defenses of). The final post was at Heynitz, which was close to the Triebisch. Here Marshal Daun finally paused, and, we might add, none too soon.
Meanwhile, Brentano, cognizant of his dangerously exposed position, withdrew on Rosswein; where he was at least less accessible to Prussian raiders. Prince Henry, characteristically, was not slow to march deftly into the vacuum left by the withdrawing enemy. He unbuckled General Aschersleben on to Belgern (November 3), moving with his main body up to Oschütz, while Finck, on November 3, was already on the scene at Mützschen.
Not surprisingly, Daun had reverted almost completely back to the defensive, after a brief flirtation with the offensive mode of war so often practiced with such precision by the Prussian monarch. As for Henry, his goal in the short term here was to intrude upon the Austrian communications extending back into Bohemia. He was trying, on the outside, to drive the whitecoats from Saxony altogether.
Henry wanted to slowly apply pressure to force the marshal into no choice other than retreat into Bohemia. But his way would be the slow, subtle style of war, not the all-out flair favored by the king.3
The Prussians were clearly engaged on the more energetic missions as the campaign of 1759 wound down. Prussian outposts started to press against Sincère, who had to then sacrifice a post on the Eckartsberga, to fall back upon Seebschütz. Prussian patrols overlapped what was still an exposed forward position. Sincère would likely have been forced back still further except the Prince de Ligne led an opportune attack that brought the surging enemy host to a halt finally (November 7). A Prussian breakthrough was achieved at Lommatzsch, but enjoyed limited success.
On the left side of the Austrian throng, the indomitable Wunsch rolled forward aiming on Döbeln, the Austrian positions in front of which caved in to the pressure. This threw consternation into the worried Brentano, leading the whitecoats on that end. The latter immediately galloped to go see the marshal personally about securing reinforcements. Brentano voiced concerns that Rebentisch’s men had come up to join Wunsch.
Marshal Daun must have assumed the foe would approach their mission with the same degree of slow, careful plodding he often employed. But he was wrong on that count completely. November 8, some 700 Prussians under General von Gersdorf struck with renewed determination upon the Austrian posts hard-by Rosswein again. Nevertheless, the intruders failed to make appreciable headway, and the assault was promptly called off.
As for Daun, he was busy strengthening his camp at Heynitz as much as possible and busy penning correspondence to Maria Theresa back in Vienna. The marshal did not hesitate to shift any blame away from himself for the problems incidental to the Austrian ambitions in Saxony and placing the onus on the backs of his troubled subordinates. Laudon, having spent a number of weeks away on the Eastern Front, was among the few to escape this censure, but for almost everyone else there was at least some indictment. At the same time, it was looking increasingly likely that the Austrians would ultimate
ly be forced to withdraw closer upon Bohemia as winter threatened.
General Finck continued to encroach upon Daun’s left side. November 9, reinvigorated Prussian columns commenced forging the Mülde River. This new move stunned the Austrian high command. Daun immediately ordered Colonel Bosfort to move to Freiberg to protect the Imperialist communications post there. Bosfort made it to the place, only to discover the Imperial command there, about 350 cavalry under Colonel von Raszler, had already absconded upon word reaching them of the Prussian march. Hitching hastily on to Naundorf, Bosfort paused only a moment before galloping on to Nossen (November 11), and, finally, on the next day, to Grossvoigtsberg. There were reports of bluecoat movements circulating about, but, significantly, no major operations seemed to be underway.
Prince Henry, in no mood at this stage to hurry matters, paused. His force extended from Dorschnitz to Nieder-Lommatzsch. With General Hülsen arrived in the locale, Henry had a greatly enlarged force at his disposal. Finck was accordingly strengthened up to 19 battalions and 35 squadrons. The on-going correspondence continued apace between the royal brothers. Frederick wrote to Prince Henry, using some foresight over possible developments, about the course to follow should Daun pull back into Bohemia. Henry, for his part, interpreted recent developments as a sure sign that the marshal was preparing to pull back into Bohemia, and soon. Further, if the marshal did move out for “home,” Prince Henry would send forces to do all they could to hound the Austrian main army while other forces sought to regain the Saxon capital.4 Through all of this, Finck’s departure for Freiberg was imminent. Daun, on November 12, ordered General Sincère to fall back to Batzdorf-Pölenz in order to clear him out of harm’s way with the king’s arrival.
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War Page 68