Ironically, at this stage of the battle, an errant Prussian artillery gunner fired a round which surely should have killed the indomitable old hussar. The aim was purely accidental, and Ziethen escaped serious injury when his horse bucked on the event. Ziethen was incensed; but “was satisfied with a severe reprimand [for the gunner].”40
To the west of the Septitz, went the now familiar Butter-Strasse through the aforementioned pass between the Schäferai Height and the Septitz on its way to the little village of Schäferai. The pass continued on across the Röhrgraben by a solid bridge between two ponds—over which Ziethen should have probably moved that morning on his part of the attack scheme. As for Möllendorf, he had probed ahead with his men, and shortly returned with important intelligence that the bridge not only still existed but that it was crossable. It is likely that intelligence from Frederick, to the effect that a stronger “statement” needed to be made by Ziethen’s men, had reached the scene. Within a few moments, the bluecoats were hurrying along for the pass and its bridge, which had most curiously been neglected by the enemy. Now, however, the Austrians hastened to seal off this gap in their stance and so prevent the Prussians on the southern end of their camp from linking up with the decimated northern half. The 2nd Infantry (Erzerhzog Carl) and the 8th (Hildburghausen), led a hodgepodge of reinforcements that moved up to support the efforts of d’Ayasasa and Sincère.
But Möllendorf got there first, and when the enemy forces did appear, the Prussians were already across the bridge and forming a front on the far side. Now, once more, the firing became regular and quickly became general. The bridge, in question, was apparently very narrow. Blumenthal stated only three men abreast could move through it. The leading company of Major Lehmann had the “honor” of being the first through the passage. Two Austrian cannon were blocking the way and seemed about to dispute passage. Suddenly, a valiant Prussian, named Gulle, took matters into his own hands. He charged the Austrian gunners, killed one man and badly wounded another before he was overcome himself. Thus inspired, however, Lehmann’s men pushed forward, sending the faltering foe backwards. Gulle survived the war, despite being seriously wounded, and, at Blumenthal’s writing (circa 1797), was still among the living.41
In the larger picture, Ziethen hastened to support Möllendorf, and a fierce contest raged for control of the now crucial bridgehead. Finally, the whitecoats, outnumbered and beaten, withdrew their tattered remnants. Meanwhile their comrades, both Austrian and Prussian, heard the sounds of the renewed engagement. This noise reached Hülsen; now that it was pitch-dark. He had been engaged beforehand in his duties of organizing the army for the night camp. He had ordered back the cavalry, some of which had pressed far to the east in their rapid, exciting pursuit of the fleeing Austrian mass, and called up the infantry. The bivouac was facing northeast, with the infantry on the southwest end under General Lestwitz. It was in this posture that the king’s army was deployed when the noise of the engagement announcing Ziethen’s presence reached them. At once Captain Gaudi, familiar to us since the Battle of Rossbach, sped to Hülsen to try to bring to the attention of the ranking officer of the need to prepare a renewed assault upon the enemy before him, this time tending towards the Septitz.
Hülsen’s inborn resistance to independent command has already been alluded to. Most of the regiments that had attacked Daun’s north works that day were shot up and disorganized by that point. But Lestwitz had rounded up roughly 1,000 fighting men; they could be called upon. Dohna’s 16th Infantry and the 9th Infantry (General Schenckendorff) were the least injured. Lestwitz, in a rare burst of enthusiasm by Hülsen, was ordered to march to the sounds of the renewed fight.
General Hülsen’s men, seeing the red conflagration raging on the southern horizon—which was, of course, the works on the Septitz on fire—and hearing loud cannonade and musketry from the same direction, moved out, Lestwitz leading the way with his scattered formations already referred to.
Reaching that rise, the newcomers battered at the enemy on the front of that line, and as they surged forward, they came up with the left wing of Ziethen and in contact with Möllendorf. Off to the left front of Möllendorf, on the overhang opposite to the Septitz, lay the key to the whole battlefield—the southwest corner of that rise. This was the most elevated point on the rise. If the Prussian cannon could be erected there, the Austrians might yet be swept back all the way to the walls of Torgau fortress itself. The height overhang the Röhrgraben on that side, where the struggle had begun for the pass, but on the western side it could be ascended easily enough, while its northern edge protruded into the spine of the Dommitscher; from the east to the west, and was the direction of the final scenes of the battle.
The Austrians were not about to give up without a struggle. Mercy’s 56th and the 12th of Botta-Botta had the unenviable task thrust upon them of confronting bluecoats appearing from two directions; Ziethen from the southeast and Hülsen from the northwest. The commander on the spot, General O’Kelly, continued to fall back to do battle with the force of General Hülsen, which appeared to be the most dangerous. O’Kelly crossed paths with a small Prussian battery, and, through the gathering mist, was having trouble making out a large body of riders. Unsure whether the newcomers were friendly or hostile, General O’Kelly pressed out a detachment which discovered the horsemen were the 14th Cuirassiers of O’Donnell. The Austrians charged forward, but a deafening roar from behind them told this body of men that the enemy was now directly in their rear. O’Donnell’s cuirassiers gradually gave way, allowing the Prussians the opportunity to occupy the greater part of the Septitz.
The Austrian army was certainly worn thin, many of their muskets warped from damage and the ammo about gone. The fire of the Austrian artillery sputtered out, largely for the same reason. It was entirely exhausted; guns and crews alike.
The Prussians themselves were not in much better shape. Their men were drained as well, company identity fuzzy at best, officers separated from their regiments and trying to find them. The Austrian 2nd Infantry, cut off from the remainder of the Austrian forces when Hülsen and Ziethen finally connected, was captured almost to a man, and other Austrian forces were nabbed.
During the course of the renewed action, however late it was, the Austrian chain-of-command had been upset, yet again. Buccow had been wounded early in the struggle (which did not prove fatal, but did end his service in the field, as it turned out), and O’Donnell took charge of the whitecoats. As for Hülsen, he at last arrived on the field. His led horses had all been shot, so the old man was forced to hitch a ride to the scene on the back of one of the horsed-artillery teams. “He planted himself on a cannon … [and was] dragged into the enemy fire.”42 O’Donnell, spurred on by the excited urgings of the wounded Marshal Daun at Torgau, scraped reinforcements together and shook them into motion on the way to the struggle at the Septitz.
But in the prevailing confusion, the much-needed reinforcements halted in the valley below the rise and stood there while the Septitz was irretrievably lost to the advancing Prussians. By then it was about 2000 hours, and the Austrian line had been ruptured beyond repair. For about an hour more, the Austrians were still making a shored up effort on the field. Then, from about 2100 hours, O’Donnell reluctantly began withdrawing the army on the orders of Daun. The latter had ordered the move in view of the deteriorating situation, and the marshal only ordered a halt in Torgau just long enough to prepare to march away across the Elbe as soon as it was feasible. The Battle of Torgau was over by then, although there was still some scattered firing on the field until past 2200 hours.43
The Austrian army, at least that portion of it that was still in some semblance of order, fell out into a semi-circular formation just west of the walls of the Torgau fortress. This while the Prussian pursuers, pressing hard upon their heels, drew out in a similar posture. As the bluecoats positioned themselves, their foes—as quickly as was possible—were preparing to fly off to Dresden.
Daun had sent off Co
lonel Georg Sigmund Rothschütz to Vienna earlier touting the “victory,” and now a second was sent on the way with the news of a victory turned to defeat and a withdrawal upon Dresden. The marshal had left the field with the fortifications at least largely still in the hands of his army. O’Donnell and Lacy appeared bearing the bad news that the Prussians had overcome the position at long last. He had earlier discerned the news of the renewed fighting on the battlefield, so this could not have been a surprise. And, of course, he had given the orders to withdraw.
Chapter Forty-Five
Aftermath of Torgau; End of the Campaign1
The Austrians began pouring across the Elbe at the four bridges as quietly and discreetly as they could, so as not to tip off the enemy to what was going on. Many Austrians, such as survivors from the surrounded pockets of resistance, and left behind on the battlefield, were able to find their way to, and across the Elbe, by the roar of the river, which was discernible by the worn out men even at the western edge of the battlefield.
Once more, General O’Kelly had an unenviable task on his hands. He drew the duty of covering the withdrawal of the main Austrian army. For this chore, O’Kelly had the 12th of Botta Botta, plus Arenberg’s shaken 21st Infantry, joined at length by the 3rd Regiment. As many men, and as much ordnance as could be wrestled from the clutches of the Prussians. The latter were themselves still dazed and put off by the events of the day, which probably gave O’Kelly the leeway he needed to carry out his commission.
O’Kelly arrived in Torgau before the sun rose on November 4, by which time he had already brought off quite a few guns and salvaged much of the lost battle. The 3rd Infantry was the last to cross the main bridge, but the Prussian follow-up was beginning to gather momentum as Daun gave the orders to dismantle the crossings.
As a direct result, Daun’s men were able to extricate themselves with less loss than could have been expected: Austrian P.O.W.’s were some 8,000. Still, there were bound to be losses of this kind.
Austrians, and Prussians alike, who had been torn from their units during the ghastly struggle, wondered over the battlefield, frequently in aimless confusion. The Austrian Major-General Viencent Migazzi, who would be the commandant of the 46th Infantry in 1764, came up to a group of bluecoats that he obviously thought were Austrians. He was looking for shelter; instead they placed him under arrest. Confusion was not confined to the Austrian side, though. Möllendorf tried to give orders to four Austrian hussars who instead promptly took him captive. His captivity was short-lived, though.2
About 0100 hours the next morning, the bluecoats surged forward to occupy Torgau from the retreating Austrian mass. The latter had crossed the Elbe (except for Lacy’s men, who retired up the western side of the river to prevent a Prussian dash upon Dresden), and marched away. The scene left behind was devastating. Archenholtz described the grisly panorama as he had witnessed it as well as heard about in the immediate post-battle period. Scavengers roved about, stealing from both the dead and the soon-to-be dead. The Prussian battalions—many of which had been shot to ribbons in the bloody battle—were disorganized and disoriented. As for the Prussian king, he early settled down at Elsnig (although Torgau soon became his post), discouraged when he arrived, no doubt.
Just like at Kolin, Frederick’s whereabouts are conjectural. One of his biographers has the king leaving the battlefield about dark, repairing to the parsonage of Elsnig. He does not seem to have been motivated by any sense of impending doom with respect to the battle. It is much more likely that he wanted a relatively quiet place to sort out details and cut orders for new movements. With the vicarage full, the king went instead to the church, arriving probably about 2100 hours. An aide lit a candle for the exhausted monarch. A famous description by Bernhard Rode depicts the scenario.3
A bundle of straw decorated the bottom step of the building, and Frederick spent the night dictating dispatches from that spot.4 Being some three and a half to four miles from the battlefield, Frederick personally probably did not hear the sounds of the renewed struggle. By 2100 hours, Torgau would have been a done deal anyhow. In short, just when the king learned that the struggle had ended as a victory, is not certain. One source suggests that Frederick left the battlefield much earlier, likely after the second attack by Hülsen and his men.5
Meanwhile, Berenhorst had been at it again. Morning of November 4, in a desperate attempt to cheer up the royal monarch, he gathered six dragoons and had them each hold a captured Austrian color, from among the 30 that had been captured. But Frederick emerged from Elsnig church, and did not acknowledge the color bearers as he mounted his trusty steed and rode away. Perhaps he was distracted by the carnage he knew he would see. A grim scene, indeed, awaited the king at the battlefield. The locals had already begun to inter the dead (not an easy task with the frozen ground), commanders were still trying to reorganize their decimated commands, and Ziethen was (again, apparently) openly hugged by the king for his role in the twilight of the battle.6
The cold of Torgau must have been severe. Snow covered fields left the wounded men either numb or rather wishing they were. While Frederick was writing dispatches like this one: “We have beaten … the Austrians; night has fallen,”7 the Prussian dead and wounded, along with the Austrian, were being brutalized. Among the dead and dying were the casualties of the grenadier battalions that had been shot to ribbons in front of Daun’s massed lines. “The helpless wounded were not permitted … [their] shirts,” and “many of the wounded were murdered by those monsters [i.e., the pillagers] out of fear of discovery.”8 They desired nothing but a “speedy death.”9 Scarcely anything heroic in that. Archenholtz himself was wounded, but he survived with no permanent scars.
In any case, the cost of the battle was frightful. Even as Frederick shifted his headquarters to Torgau and began rounding up the harvest, he must have been contemplating the next moves: Both his and Daun’s. Daun’s army had not been destroyed or even decisively beaten! But his Austrian army had been driven from one of the strongest posts they had yet held in this long war, and by an adversary inferior in both numbers and equipment, no less. The Prussian army, on the short day of November 5, took up post with Frederick’s badly used forces nestling between Neiden and the Septitz.
Prussian horsemen followed the retreating enemy nearly to the gates of Dresden, wreaking more havoc in the process. The lot largely fell to Lacy to defend the Saxon capital from the grasp of the bluecoats. Lacy reached Strehla on November 4, and pressed on to Riesa. There to await a Prussian effort at pursuit. Hard riding Prussian force of dragoons and the Möhring (3rd) Hussars, all under General Krockow, pressed hard against Lacy near Meissen (November 7). Lacy’s usual flawless timing /planning was upset by the miscalculations of Brentano, and the Austrians had a terrible time keeping Meissen itself from falling into enemy hands.
After a most desperate struggle, the Austrians were able to close the gates of the city, and General Lacy immediately ordered a further withdrawal towards Dresden. The skillfulness of Lacy helped much to salvage what could have been an even worse ordeal and at least partially salve hurt Austrian feelings. Ziethen, by November 9, managed to drive through Kesselsdorf, probing all the while for the still retreating Austrians. The king was still looking to deal a decisive blow to the Austrian main army. Marshal Daun refused to be led into any further major action. November 12, the king, from a line over by Grumbach, pressed General Quiess over to Zscheila with orders to intervene against Beck. At about the same time, Zweibrücken pressed on Rosswein, but, with little fanfare, fell back to winter hibernation behind the Saale River.
So, in the end, the king, dashing forth with his main body, was denied the Saxon capital because Daun had retired into the Plauen-Chasm and was not about to come out. Stubborn and insistent, the king kept the field for several weeks, all the while making vain maneuvers to draw Daun out for a finish fight. To no avail! Finally, accepting the situation, the king settled his army down, on December 11, for winter quarters, deploying the arm
y between Freiberg and Meissen. The tired monarch, denied Dresden, had to look elsewhere for quarters.
Torgau had been an extremely bloody action, although not like Zorndorf. Frederick, who had some 50,000 men (35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry) and 309 guns in the action, suffered approximately between 16,600 and 24,700 losses, including more than 3,000 as P.O.W.’s, along with eight guns.10 This was nearly a third of the whole Prussian strength. With the type of frontal assaults the Prussians had used in this battle, this is hardly surprising. Daun, with a total of about 65,000 men all told, had losses of about 12,000 killed/wounded, more than 8,000 captive and 49 guns. It would not be out of line to say the price Frederick paid for his “victory” was disproportionately high. In sum, Daun had kept the main Austrian army in the field, although some sources shamelessly assign any success the Austrians had achieved to Laudon.11
The Prussian king took up winter quarters at Leipzig, occupying his time with raising more cash (and lines of credit) so that his armies could take the field in the Spring of 1761. To help alleviate his troubles, the monarch resorted to some old fashioned petty revenge. General Saldern was sent for and ordered (January 21, 1761) to go sack the Saxon royal hunting lodge at Hubertsburg, as revenge for the pillaging of Charlottenburg by the Saxons. Not surprisingly, the honorably disposed Saldern refused to be a party to this dastardly deed, so the king merely expedited Guichard to the job. (He accomplished his task with thoroughness and probably not a little pleasure.) Saldern left the army soon after (although he would return later).
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War Page 88