Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War

by Herbert J. Redman

  This was just too much for Soubise’s men as a whole; they bogged down in their “advance” while the enemy guns continued their merciless pounding. This was largely done to prevent more men from coming forward to the aid of the valiant few. His men wavering, Soubise (who did not lack for personal courage in spite of his shortcomings as a battlefield commander) reformed them and advanced once more. This second stroke ended much like the first, and when the stubborn Frenchman launched his reformed men a third, final time against the bluecoats (who could taste victory) the Allies advanced with bayonets at the ready. Once again, though, the concentrated Prussian fire broke up the attack and some of the discouraged men took to their knees to surrender.

  Soubise gathered more men and kept trying to shift to his rightwards to seal off his flank, but it was the turn of the bluecoats to attack. The latter—now facing due north—surged boldly forward as an inspired mass. At 40 paces (about 100 feet) they poured one crashing volley of musketry after another into the crumbling ranks of the enemy, who were breaking apart at the seam even as Prince Henry’s minions delivered the decisive blow.

  The Allied internal mass was a whirl of confusion. Soubise, still trying in vain to form a fortified line of resistance, was attempting to draw the two main columns forward,34 while Broglie kept busy trying to steady his men. The latter were sandwiched in between the two main columns, just like the artillery pieces already referred to. The French were decimated by now, and their allies were little better off. The crisis of the battle had already been reached. The French attack in columns of attack, which had no counterpart in other armies of the period,35 had proven disastrous for them. The French soldiers lay thick about Markwerben in disturbing piles of dead and wounded.36

  The bluecoat infantry which had been moving in echelon from the left pressed hard against the disordered enemy line. At this crucial moment, Seydlitz launched his reorganized cavalry squadrons out of the post near Tagwerben against the Allied right as soon as he discerned the enemy were clearly wavering. This new stroke effectively ended the battle. By 1630 hours, the second phase of the tussle had lasted but 25 minutes and the grandiose plans of the Combined Army were going up in literal smoke.

  Seydlitz received an arm wound in his first charge, but pressed on, nevertheless. By then, Frederick’s left was in Reichardtswerben, the horsed artillery in the advance, firing a punishing shelling of the enemy units that were still hanging together. The Prussian left was well past Lunstädt. The resistance of the enemy, hit simultaneously as they were in both front and flank, disintegrated and they flew back in complete disorder, pursued by Seydlitz’ swarming cavalry.

  The entire Allied army, save for St. Germain’s lone formation and four squadrons of French cavalry (the La Reine and Bourbon-Boussett Regiments; from Comte de Mailly’ command), fled, scattering all over the countryside. St. Germain himself was attacked by Mayr as he was deploying to cover the retreat of his defeated comrades, he had only the Planta and the Diesbach Swiss in shape to hold the line. As the sun went down, these two regiments and the remaining cavalry checked Mayr at last for a time. Then a concerted effort by the Prussians finally compelled St. Germain to quit the field in his turn.

  By 1700 hours, the brief battle was over. It had been a short, but decisive, action. Only Seydlitz and some seven battalions (some 12,000 men) had been employed on the Prussian side; the bluecoat center and left, which had stood behind the Janus, was never called upon or required. The vaunted Prussian foot soldiers had done very little. Much of the day’s successes were attributed to the artillery and no less so to the cavalry. At Rossbach, the latter more than made up for its relative inefficiency on the battlefield of Kolin.

  As for the Allies, Soubise’s policy of delay would have been the wiser. To quote Durant, “Soubise knew the breakdown of discipline in his [own] ranks” and counted on tiring out the recalcitrant Frederick before closing in for the finish stroke.37 Really, the shortsighted Combined Army had little to gain, and much to lose, from forcing Frederick’s hand. After all, he wanted to be free of the menace in the West so he could go confront the Austrian menace to the east and south. There was no compelling reason for the Allies to force the issue. The only conceivable explanation was a desire for glory on the part of the commanders. The aspiration to get in a good lick upon the enemy before bad winter weather put an end to campaigning for the year. Both of the Allied commanders underestimated the military genius they were opposed by, Soubise probably less so.

  There was more reason, of course. The king had a definite plan in mind for battle from the beginning, well-executed with great skill by his veteran army. There was no question as to what was to be done, and how and when. In sharp contrast, Soubise and Hildburghausen really had no all-encompassing plan of action, beyond a vague understanding and a clumsy effort towards Rossbach. To support this, Soubise acted “like he had no plan at all.”38 The failure to name a viable line-of-retreat, forcing Frederick into a battle without an alternative, utter disdain for the little Prussian army; all of this contributed to the disaster.39

  The Allied retreat soon degenerated into a total rout.40 This should surprise no one, considering the army’s overall poor performance during the campaign. Thousands of panic-stricken survivors made their way to and through Freiburg on the following days, while the Austrians and Imperialists fled largely towards Naumburg. There was to be no long-range pursuit of the Allies. Both because night was falling, but also because the king, even as he reaped the fruitage of the victory at Rossbach, was already planning a march to Silesia to see to the situation thereabouts.41 Rumors from the troubled province put Prussian interests there in a bad way. Frederick’s men encamped for the night following the battle at Obschütz. There the bonfires of victory burned brightly for them. The festivities were all the sweeter to celebrate a victory hardly anyone—even including perhaps the Prussian monarch himself—believed was attainable.

  The aftermath of Rossbach was almost anticlimactic. A vast number of enemy muskets were broken up and their stocks used to feed these same bonfires. This was less reckless than might be imagined, for Prussian supplies of ammunition for the French weapons was quite limited. Early on November 6, the French torched the main bridge at Freiburg to stop, or at least interrupt, a bluecoat pursuit. As for Soubise, he only planned to linger in the area long enough to get his army ready to return to home quarters. Frederick, arriving at Burgwurben, intended to pause for the night at the castle there. However, Soubise’s wounded officers already occupied it. The king simply found other quarters more to his suiting in a nearby location.

  Near daylight, the monarch pushed off with some dragoons to follow after Soubise. He found, on approaching the Unstrut, the bridge there burned and that his follow-up was effectively ended, lacking time to press it and all. Hildburghausen was out of reach, and all the king could do was to drive out a small French party at a chateau on the near bank across in confusion.

  Hildburghausen, in an ad hoc conference with Soubise the evening following the battle, tentatively received agreement from the Frenchman to put up an organized defense of the two rivers, the Saale in the immediate vicinity and the Unstrut. In theory, this helped promise to check the progress of the Prussian king, who would be bound to have other, more pressing problems on his mind; namely, Silesia and the festering Austrian “problem.”

  In more practical terms, there was no way to facilitate the matter. Soubise lacked the drive to try anything to organize any kind of defensive post at that moment. Hildburghausen, for his part, harbored no illusions about being able to confront the victors with his own army, even assuming he could get it in line.

  We must not forget, without trying to make excuses for the awful conduct of the Imperialists, by the time they reached Erfurt, on November 7, the army’s commissariat had completely broken down. “It is eight days since our men have had bread … [they] have lived upon turnips and radishes.”42 Now the Prussian situation overall was hardly much better, but their army had the advantage
of better discipline and more unity of purpose.

  In the end, the actual “pursuit” of the scattering Allied forces was happenstance at best. As the latter retreated with little clear idea of a destination, the same was true of the Prussian pursuit. Lt.-Gen. Robert Scipio Freiherr von Lentulus was charged off with this confusing business. He had at his disposal Mayr’s men, plus ten squadrons of horse (five each of the Meinecke Dragoons and the ever vigilant Szekely Hussars). Hildburghausen retreated first to Eckartsberga, and finally began to reassemble some of his men thereabouts.

  The Imperialists and the Austrians might have been able to use Eckartsberga as a rallying point except, at about 1600 hours on November 6, Mayr’s hard-riding free battalion appeared in the distance. Mayr stayed back, especially when cannon shot indicated he was not exactly a welcome “visitor,” but the panic button was pushed again, just the same. “We took fresh courage, and made faster running,” reported one Franz Rudolph Möllinger.43

  Field Marshal Keith noted there was a high percentage of Swiss among the captives after the battle. He wrote, “they [the Swiss] do not seem to be such good runners as the French.”44 All told, the French retreat was over a range of nearly 40 miles of countryside, some 12,000 men passed through Eichsfeld, plundering the place and committing horrible crimes against the populace. Throughout the campaign that culminated with Rossbach, the behavior of the French troops had been absolutely despicable. In their retreat, though, they were not nearly as bad.

  On November 7, a mere two days after the battle, Soubise was at Langensalza (some 52 miles from the scene). It was observed that the French could certainly retreat much faster than they could advance. The French commander planned to rally his scattered command between Heiligenstädt and Nördhausen (some 80 miles farther on). At the latter, Richelieu was positioned. Hildburghausen reached Bamberg soon after, with a grand total of one regiment intact. As soon as he reached home, he resigned the command of the Imperialist army and left for his own abode; he never again commanded anything of a military nature. He was just 55 years old in November 1757. At Rossbach, he had been wounded, it was true. But it was the pitiful state of his army that had induced Hildburghausen to pack it in. Rossbach had demonstrated, at the very least, the Imperialists needed additional training and preparation. But not on his watch.

  So closed the much trumpeted story of the Battle of Rossbach. The two armies lost the following: the Allies, about 3,000 killed and wounded; 5,000 prisoners, in that number eight generals and 300 officers; total, about 8,000 men, plus 72 guns, 14 battle colors, 15 standards, plus the whole of the Allied baggage. Prussian losses were 165 killed/376 wounded, total—541.45 The wounded included, besides Seydlitz, Prince Henry (who had been struck shortly after his attack), and General Meinecke of the 26th Infantry. Seydlitz, although wounded, received the Order of the Black Eagle and was promoted to Lt.-Gen. on the spot.46

  The Battle of Rossbach was heralded throughout Germany as a great victory (with the very notable exception of Saxony), even in those states which had actually taken the Allied side in the war. Frederick himself was no sworn enemy of the French, and he often appeared to be more French than German. Obviously he preferred the French language over his own.

  More tactically speaking, the column as a means of battlefield deployment had been shown to be inferior to the Prussian battle line. Not to mention the devastation wrought by the artillery in firing against massed columns. The more bunched up the formation of men, the greater the degree of loss of life and limb. Seldom in military history could this last statement be better demonstrated than it was on the battlefield of Rossbach. There can be little doubt the Prussian triumph would have been less complete had there been less inviting targets to fire at. Finally, Rossbach was viewed as a national triumph of the Germans over the French, who had for over a hundred years looked upon Germany as fair game for their various military endeavors.

  Rossbach stopped this, and was to give birth to a new spirit of German nationalism that would have far-reaching consequences. It may be a bit in the future, but this spirit would outlast the brief French resurgence under Napoleon Bonaparte and finally help bring about the unification of the many divided German states into a unified whole, under Prussian leadership, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The shadow of Frederick the Great was still very much in evidence even then. In many respects, then, the Battle of Rossbach would have ripple effects long past the end of the Seven Years’ War. Effects which few of those present at the battle that day would likely have guessed.

  While Frederick’s success at Rossbach was bringing the Western Front under control again, at the Northern Front, the bluecoats were regaining the upper hand as well. After a dubious interval, we might add.47 Sternberg (who had finally arrived at the front on October 10), following his crossing of the Peene, put his headquarters at Prentzlow, and then had lost no time in levying contributions from the local population thereabouts.48 Archenholtz contends this Ukermarck province was a poor one, wherein “we find only six towns and 180 small villages … [from which] the boisterous Swedes drew a bribe.”49 Now the Swedes had little opposition in front of them, for the moment. Stettin’s garrison, for instance, “consisted in ten battalions of militia.”50 General Manteuffel, still hindered at Stettin by a lack of cavalry, did speed off a small force of 50 hussars and 20 Jägers galloping through Wollin and thereabouts (October 17), doing all they could to disrupt the Swedes. The latter had a garrison at Wollin of 300 infantry and 100 cavalry under Lt. von Blixen.51

  Meanwhile, Lehwaldt received instructions from the king, on October 6, to march for Pomerania to oppose the Swedish irruption. October 17, the old marshal moved out from Tilsit with about 25,000 men. Sternberg pulled his headquarters back to Ducherow (October 26). Next day, he marched again to Ferdinandshof. There he encamped, awaiting developments. Sternberg chose a surprisingly lethargic approach, since he could have moved on Berlin. Or at least threatened. Throughout the war, not just in this one campaign, the Swedes often would display a curious lack of energy with many of their military projects. Their commissary was often to blame; poor arrangements to keep the troops fed and supplied no doubt contributed to this. Their field commanders often suffered from lethargy as well, although the soldiers themselves could (and often did) display their willingness to fight. On the other hand, the Swedes would generally be on their own as regarded their military operations.

  By the end of October, the Swedes sent a small detachment (300 men of all arms: 200 grenadiers, and 100 dragoons) to the little village of Zehenick. They moved through a dark roadway on their march. Therein, this force was “ambushed” by half a dozen Prussians. One Swede was wounded, and the whole force withdrew to Prentzlow. Sternberg recrossed the Peene (November 12). Lehwaldt was approaching, and we will look here again. There were no serious implications for the Prussian kingdom beyond a possible descent upon Berlin. There was a greater risk if the Swedes united with the French or the Russians, but the above incident borders on the ridiculous.52

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Austrians Attempt to Reconquer Silesia1

  While Frederick had been occupied in the West, on the Eastern Front, the situation was not so favorable for the Prussian armies. Brunswick-Bevern, who had withdrawn into Silesia, had still to defend that province. And the abandonment of eastern Saxony had not been without cost. Excellent points of defense had been sacrificed, and the removal of the army into Silesia had meant isolating Bevern’s men from the king’s support, and vice versa. This move also uncovered the rear of Frederick’s army to the approach of the main Austrian force, in the process exposing much of Saxony, Silesia, and Brandenburg to the irruptions of the enemy.

  In retrospect, Bevern may have felt he was justified balanced against the risks, but it was the king’s intervention soon after that helped diffuse a potentially dangerous situation. Bevern fell back on Naumburg on September 11, and the same day the Austrians pressed on Schönberg. The prince was being pursued by Prince Charles. Th
e latter shifted elements of his army to cut across Bevern’s intended path over by Liegnitz and Goldberg. This effectively barred the bluecoats from Schweidnitz and the direct path to Breslau.

  On September 12, the Austrians moved on Lauban, while Brunswick-Bevern fell back on Bunzlau. Beck’s advanced guard probed up close to this position. Simultaneously, Nádasti ploughed his way up to Löwenberg, his vanguard to Goldberg. Prince Charles now wisely detached a force under General Ernst Dietrich Freiherr von Marschall. There were some 12,000 infantry, plus six regiments of cavalry with this body. Marschall was to cover Lusatia, while the main Austrian body was to proceed into Silesia. September 14, Nádasti bundled forward to Goldberg, while the main army took the road to Löwenberg. On September 16, Beck again narrowly escaped death or capture. While he went forward to reconnoiter the Prussian positions with an entourage, an enemy force surprised his party. All of the general’s escorts were killed or captured, but Beck escaped by riding his horse literally to death. That same day, the main Austrian army, still aching for a confrontation, marched on Pilgramsdorf. Intelligence had already been received that the king was busy—and would probably be for a while—with Soubise and Hildburghausen in western Saxony. If Charles and Daun wished to act while Frederick was “otherwise occupied,” this would be the time. Then, with the bluecoats still staying put, the Austrians put down posts at Hohendorf. September 18, the main body got to Jauer, while intelligence was received that Bevern was also on the move. The latter hitched into Hainau the next morning, with the light troops of Nádasti nipping at his tail.