All Frederick would say “[b]y throwing the plans of the enemy into general confusion … I would establish an ascendency and superiority of the Prussians [over the enemy].”14 The king was ultimately looking for vindication and even justification as well as victory.
Certainly, this circumstance demonstrates the differences between Frederick and his contemporary method of strategy, one of limited means at best, and those of later Great Captains/generals, like Napoleon or Adolf Hitler, whose aims were most often all-encompassing.15 But the king was wily enough to know he needed his military arm more than ever before.
During the winter of 1756–1757, Frederick managed to increase the size of the Prussian army to 175,000 men. Of this number, 50,000 were stationed with the Prussian king himself near Pirna; another 10,000 under Schwerin in Southeastern Silesia, Bevern with 10,000 in lower Saxony, Lehwaldt’s group in East Prussia, and 40,000 more in Hanover, where they were joined by approximately 10,000 Hanoverian troops to act as counter to the French.16 The commander of this composite army was Duke William Augustus of Cumberland.17 The rest of the troops were given the duties of guarding the frontiers with Swedish Pomerania as well as providing garrisons for important points throughout the kingdom.
From January 4 to 13, Frederick was back in Berlin, the only time during the war he would be in his capital. While he was there, the embattled monarch composed a depressing note (January 10) to his “new” chief Home Minister, Count Graf Finck von Finckenstein, about the course to take should he be no longer around to call the shots. Should the allies, either separately or together, make their various conquests of Prussian territory, there were specific instructions to be followed. Especially in times of great peril and distress.
That Frederick would be carrying this political communication on at all with Finckenstein provides a microcosm of the treatment generally meted out to those who had the temerity to oppose his opinion. On the eve of the invasion of Saxony, the ever faithful Chief Minister, Count Otto von Podewils,18 broached the unpopular idea that rumors of an impending allied strike against Prussia might just be, well, rumors, and that a preemptive strike should be delayed approximately ten months to allow for better preparation and to sort out things. The result? Podewils was abruptly snubbed and sent on his way with a sharp rebuke that he was cowardly.19
In Frederick’s view, crises like a French occupation of Hanover and the western territories or a Russian march into the heart of Brandenburg, would demand specific responses. Finckenstein was to see to it that the royal family and archives were removed to a safer place. If Saxony were the threatened point, refuge could be sought at Cüstrin; if the Russians were moving into the very heart of the country, the papers and the royal family could be put up at the great fortress at Magdeburg, or, if that option were not open, at Stettin. If the need arose, silver and gold plate from the palaces must be “at once coined into money.”
The most remarkable point about the document was the gist of the instructions regarding the person of the king himself. Were he to be killed, the nation’s “public affairs” were to be carried on with as little change as possible. If, on the other hand, Frederick were to be taken prisoner alive, there was to be no attention paid to any communication from him while he were in captivity. No ransom was to be paid for his release. The country and the army were to swear fealty to Prince Augustus Wilhelm without delay and the war was to be prosecuted as “if I [Frederick] never had existed.”20 He added, laconically, he hoped the instructions were never needed.
With these necessary unpleasantries over with, the king briefly visited his mother. Military necessity left the troubled monarch little time for social niceties. So Frederick shortly returned to Saxony to prepare for the coming campaign. It was clear as never before in his long military career that much was riding on this new campaign. On a more personal note: the troubled monarch had no way of knowing then he would never see his mother again.
Meanwhile, the civilian arm had been set up to exploit Saxony’s resources. The civilian apparatus that made this rape of Saxony’s assets possible followed almost in the shadow of the conquering armies. Frederick’s finance minister, Friedrich Wilhelm Borcke, was in charge of this business. Borcke set up the system where local tax collections were to be earmarked to Prussian interests. But this gentleman suffered from a serious shortcoming that had the potential to interfere with his “duty”: he had scruples. When his callous master ordered Borcke to collect the incredible sum of eight million thalers (or talers) within a four-month period from Saxon sources, he reported such a feat was beyond his ability to accomplish.21 This is not to say that such measures were without parallel. Even the French and Russians, who would occupy the peripheral provinces of Prussia later in the war, behaved similarly. To his credit, Borcke tried to strike a balance. He knew at least some of the tax money collected would be needed to be used in Saxony itself. Even the king could not be so unreasonable as to assume he could keep all of the tax money from the Saxons to help fortify his position.
Borcke ended up being recalled to Berlin, where he drafted some new ideas on how to manipulate the financial situation in Saxony as much as possible to Prussian advantage. This while exercising some restraint. The king had no such shackles. Once it was clear to the Prussian monarch he would not be allowed to “keep” Saxony at the peace, the rules relaxed. Therefore, “Saxony could be milked of her resources without scruple.”22
By now, this onerous task was already underway, and surely Frederick believed his invasion of Austria, provided of course it succeeded, might be decisive. Most especially if it could be accomplished before Prussia’s other enemies had time to get their armies on the move. The aim was to march quickly upon Vienna and upset any Austrian countermeasures. The test awaited the coming of spring.
On the other hand, Frederick had to be concerned about the activities of those powerful enemies, the French and the Russians. He did not wish to commit himself too deeply in Austria before he knew for certain whether he would have to worry about French or Russian armies marching while his main effort was engaged against Maria Theresa. By early March 1757, after scanning current events, the king had already discerned the French effort would be very slow. As the Russians were even further from Prussia’s vitals, their effort would be slower still.23
The Prussians were quite vigorous in their preparations, although the Austrians were lethargic on their end. Maria Theresa had recalled Prince Charles of Lorraine from the Netherlands to help Marshal Browne. Her original objective was to set up a dual command in which the two men would share authority, but Browne stated he did not believe such a clumsy arrangement was wise. He volunteered to serve under Prince Charles as the second-in-command.24 Until Prince Charles could arrive at the front, though, Marshal Browne stayed in field command.
There was another, still more pressing problem for the Austrians: finances. We have already observed the general unpreparedness of the Austrian forces in 1756. The monies which Vienna could put forth were inadequate for the most part. In contrast with Frederick’s kingdom, Austria had a very frail financial system set up. Secure finances would be required not only to field the armies in the first place, but to maintain them on a war footing. The Austrian monarchy before the war already had an outstanding deficit of 118 million gulden. To answer this shortfall, Count Kaunitz had instituted a series of tax reform measures, as well as streamlining the administration of the state in the interim.
But the real contributor to strengthening Austria’s finances came from Friedrich Wilhelm Count Haugwitz. Haugwitz had fled his native home of Silesia and bore much animosity towards the Prussians. He managed to convert that negative energy into working wholeheartedly to promote Austrian interests. Before the outbreak of hostilities, the Austrian administration was wholly expecting total war expenditures for a single campaign would approach 28 million gulden. In order to keep a field army of about 120,000 active, it was estimated then that an additional amount of 12 million gulden, more or less, per annum
would be required. The Austrian state was very reluctant to float any new loans, which would only add to the national debt. There remained the hope of foreign subsidies, but Haugwitz’s attempt to raise funds from the estates of the realm met with a lukewarm reception. The short campaign of 1756 had cost about 5 million gulden. But that of 1757 was supposed to be met by a combination of ready cash on hand and minor loans.25 That was the hope. On January 30, 1757, Haugwitz stated for the record that the army was quiet in its bivouacs and had the supplies required until spring. Even better, the magazines were well stocked, awaiting only the opening of the new campaign.
Back in the field, Browne nullified himself into thinking there was little likelihood of a Prussian invasion of Bohemia with the new campaign26 and believed the Austrian army should be left in winter quarters until “normal” campaigning season so the field supplies would not be diminished too soon. Of course, Browne’s general ill-health was the probable explanation. As a result, the Austrians simply were not prepared when the Prussians erupted across the border when spring came.
The Austrian leaders, in their turn, were hatching plans of their own. No less an authority than Field Marshal Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg, the president of the Hofkriegsrath, requested an invasion plan whereby a holding force could be left in Moravia while the main Austrian forces stormed into either Saxony or Silesia. Prince Charles, who assumed the supreme field command in February, recommended an Austrian occupation of Lusatia followed by an invasion of either Silesia or Brandenburg. All the while, he suggested, the Prussians could probably be contained on the Elbe by a strong detachment. He was by no means alone in this belief. Count Kaunitz and Emperor Francis stated, in general terms, an offensive should be mounted as soon as it was possible. Browne’s opinion has already been alluded to.
All of these various plans and proposals, of course, were contingent upon Frederick’s Prussians remaining solely on the defensive. In other words, doing generally what the Austrians thought he would. If the king did not cooperate, all of these various offensive schemes would be for naught.27
Just as with the Prussian plans, the Austrian preparations were very much contingent on the reaction of her allies. First, a glance at France revealed a power that was grossly unprepared for war. King Louis XV had indeed signed a treaty of alliance with Austria, but there was the usual difficulty accompanying French military adventures of the mid-eighteenth century—lack of substantial finances to raise and then equip the needed armies. Moreover, there was a great deal of trouble at the French court. One Robert François Damiens attacked the French king on a Versailles street on January 5, 1757, with a knife. Although the monarch escaped without serious harm, events like this helped slow the war effort to a crawl.28
Suffice it to say that when France and Austria signed a second Treaty at Versailles on May 1, 1757 (by which the French guaranteed a subsidy of twelve million florins to help raise German formations), not one soldier of the previously guaranteed 24,000 had yet to take the field.
There was one important twist. Unlike the first treaty, which was basically an “alliance” between France and Austria, the new arrangement guaranteed French participation in active military efforts against Prussia. The forces the French were willing to commit amounted to 115,000 men, of which all but 10,000 would be French. Six thousand of the rest would hail from Württemberg and 4,000 from Bavaria. The princes of the German Reich, fearing a fate like Saxony’s, had already hastily concluded a ban on the Prussian monarch, branding him an outlaw. Just like the French, the army the Imperialists could raise for use against Frederick was bound to be slow in coming. The divergent members of this loose confederation, each of which had its own organization, protocol procedures, etc., necessitated this. It would be months before the Reich would really be a factor.
The Swedes promised to be equally ineffective for months. Although Sweden’s fortunes might seem more dependent upon the Russians for entering the war, it was by the French that Sweden became motivated. This was accomplished by dangling the proverbial carrot in front of Sweden’s rulers. That part of Pomerania that belonged to Prussia was offered to Sweden on the successful termination of the war. The French were also willing to provide a subsidy to keep 25,000 men in the field.29 With these tantalizing offers on the table, Sweden officially declared war on its southern neighbor on March 21, 1757, in spite of the fact that Queen Ulrike happened to be Frederick’s sister. Time would still be required, though, to get the Swedish army underway.30
There was one other result springing from these political developments. The entrance of Sweden and the states of the German Reich into the war on the allied side, both of them diehard Protestant entities, made a mockery of Frederick’s efforts to portray himself as a beleaguered Protestant prince arraying himself against the might of Catholic Austria and France.
As for the Russians and their vengeful Czarina Elizabeth, there was much to recommend an alliance against Prussia with Maria Theresa. Prussia was the chief power blocking further Russian expansion into northern Europe, and Frederick despised the Russian state and its ruler. Elizabeth was disgusted with the Prussian ruler, but the heir to the throne, Piotr Feodorovich,31 was a feeble-minded imbecile whose one significant fault lay with his candidate for hero worship: none other than Frederick the Great, the monarch who was referred to in some circles as the Napoleon of the eighteenth century.32 Certainly, men like Peter Feodorovich thought so. This fact, of little significance in 1757, would later have profound effects upon the allied war effort. For the moment, Elizabeth was very much alive and she required little convincing to go to war.
PART II. 1757: INVASION OF AUSTRIA
Chapter Five
Early Operations
There were a couple of notable goings-on between the armies while they were in winter quarters.1 Browne saw himself the equal in military prowess to the Prussian king; he kept the light forces active during the winter, harassing the enemy in the process. This was particularly true in the region around Zittau. The latter, which had hostile Austrian territory in every direction but one, was already a hotbed of military importance and activity.
Throughout this long war, Zittau would be of vital importance to the Prussians as both a vehicle to communicate and pass supplies and reinforcements between the Prussian forces in Saxony and those in Silesia. There were a number of passes thereabouts through the mountains that the Prussians and Austrians were both very interested in controlling at the start of Campaign 1757.2
Lacy did his best to make life miserable for the bluecoats in supply convoys traversing the area and especially the passes.3 On the very first night of 1757, he sent a force (six companies of Croats and two Hussar squadrons) under Lt.-Col. Laudon to break in against the post of Ostritz, inflicting fatalities including the commander of the post, George von Blumenthal, as well as Marienthal, Radmeritz, and Laiba, capturing 34 men. Laudon’s own loss was two killed.4
An Austrian force of some 6,000 strong (under MacGuire and the up-and-coming Laudon) attacked Hirschfeld about 0400 hours on February 20, 1757.5 The whitecoat contingent included one grenadier company, 200 Croats and 300 men from two Austrian regiments, Giulay and Forgacs, enough to guarantee Prussian inferiority in the mounted arm.6 The few Prussians present thereabouts7 made a strong resistance, repulsing energetic attacks. There were two redoubts there, and the Austrians stormed one of them. To show for a total of two cannon captured in the work, they lost some 500 men all told, then endured a vigorous counterattack. Prussian losses were approximately 185 men.8 As a result, Laudon was promoted to full colonel.9
One by-product of the vigorous activity of the Austrian light troops was to convince Frederick of his pronounced inferiority of this military arm in front of Browne’s men, especially the Austrian “Croat” formations, inherently superior to the light forces of the bluecoats.10 This forced the king to shift light forces from Pomerania to cover Prussian posts in the south from encroachment. The king’s men were thus not idle during the winter layover.11
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br /> The next “big” effort of the winter was initiated by the Prussians. The Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, using Zittau as a base, moved off on March 9 with a contingent of 9,000 men, trying to break up some Austrian posts before him. But he also aimed to destroy or seize supplies the enemy might be amassing for a spring offensive. The bluecoats moved through Bohemia on to Friedland. Here Bevern burst up a huge quantity of ammunition which had been painfully, and carefully, hoarded there by Browne, along with some “9000 sacks of meal.”12 At Gröttau, the ever vigilant Laudon (with some 700 Croats) encountered the protecting bluecoat screen, under its commander Mitrowski.13
But the highlight of this expedition were the antics of Colonel Georg Ludwig von Puttkammer14 on March 12 when, with 150 hussars under his command, he royally whipped a formidable body of twice his number of heavy Austrian dragoons under Major-General Adam Graf Batthiany-Strattmann (hereafter Batthiany).15 The latter even boasted the support of 600 Croats at their backs. Puttkammer still managed to make short work of the business. With two men lightly wounded, his Prussian force inflicted losses of 50 dead and ten captured.16
This was nearly the reach of the effectiveness of Bevern’s mission, but the bluecoats did push to Reichenberg. Although that place yielded quickly enough, with a few prisoners, Bevern realized it was time to retire on Zittau. The duke had no way to gauge what kind of response, if any, he would get from the enemy’s quarters.17
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War Page 7
