Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War
Page 75
Laudon was busy making his way back from the area of Glatz. Moving on Schwarswaldau (June 17), the commander pressed forward without hesitation on Friedland, and rendezvoused with the Austrian command already there. This accomplished, the whitecoats in the vicinity paused. General Wolfersdorff held fast at Nimchefskyberg; General Jahnus grimly resolved, from his position at Reich-Hennersdorf, to hold on; and Nauendorf, nothing daunted, stayed put with his command at Förste.
Laudon was resolved to strike and roll over Fouquet’s position, after an initial period of indecision, before the latter could be given any aid from other Prussian forces. To affect this storm, Laudon charged off two bodies of infantry, led by Lt.-Col. Johann Luzzeni and Major-General Nazzelli, to strike at the east and northeast sides of the eastern rises beyond Landshut, specifically the Doktorberg.7 While these forces were so engaged, additional detachments, under Major-General Carl Freiherr von Ellrichshausen, followed by General Campitelli, and finally by General Müffling, were to roll forward from the East directly against the Mummelberg and the Buchberg. In addition to all the infantry units, Laudon detailed units of cavalry, led by Lt.-Gen. Franz Podstadzky, that were to await the developments of the battle, ready to exploit any advantages gained to the full. There were other, auxiliary forces, led by St. Ignon & Company, designed to strike at the Southern heights designed specifically to divert Fouquet’s attention away from the main blows from the northeast and the east.
Helping the whitecoats out, the charge was to be launched under cover of darkness and with the cover of a period of heavy rain just preceding matters. This would be capped off by thick woods which predominated the surrounding area and extended nearly up to the Prussian posts. Just before 0200 hours on the morning of June 23, the attackers stepped off, led off by Major-General Nazzelli’s men, a mantle eagerly taken up by men who had formerly been part of the Prussian system and were resolved to make their former “friends” pay.8 These fired-up men quickly attacked and drove away the Prussian defenders on the Doktorberg.9 Four howitzers opened fire as a prearranged signal to attack, the Austrians creeping across to fall upon both flanks of Fouquet’s force and others towards the center. Fouquet’s men would resist stubbornly, but the lack of numbers really hurt the bluecoats. Fouquet had only 9,542 infantry in 15 battalions,10 and 1,985 cavalry in 15 squadrons, for a total of 11,537 men all told, with 69 guns.11
While the bluecoats reeled back, Colonel Kinsky led some 300 carabineers and assailed the men of the Mellin Free Battalion, deployed just to the west of the rise. That body of men was well-nigh decimated. Although the Prussians on that side continued to resist for a time, with the Doktorberg stormed, this effectively cleared the way for what turned out to be the main effort of the day, directed against the bases on the Mummelberg and the Buchberg. The follow-up blow quickly turned the enemy away from the rises they held, but only reluctantly.12
Meanwhile, Luzzeni was working his way forward, doing his part, courtesy of the rest of Laudon’s right flank, by battering the bluecoats as much as possible. Right in the fray, the vanguard of General Nauendorf’s cavalry, led up by Major Joseph Graffenstein, rode forward triumphantly, leading up the Nádasti Hussars. Ellrichshausen’s foot soldiers advanced eagerly forward, no doubt letting out some of the pent-up frustration for the long struggles and long nights with the Prussians. This whole effort was entirely successful, and Campitelli’s men, coming up behind the whole time, helped finish off any vestiges of the Prussian front,13 releasing the attacking forces to go after the defenders left in the town of Landshut.
As for Fouquet, he was determined to defend his line on the knolls as well as Landshut, thereby keeping open a line-of-communication and retreat. His men at first repelled their numerically superior opponents, battling them to a draw, but at length the weight of numbers had clearly impacted this effort. As the dawn broke, the Austrians were pressing hard against the defenses of Landshut itself. Here they finally summoned the strength to turn the stubborn bluecoats out at the point of the bayonet after a terrific struggle. As soon as Landshut fell, the remainder of the defenses became untenable.
The auxiliary thrusts by St. Ignon, and General Wolfersdorff had much less success (especially in view of their vigilant opponent General Schenckendorff), although with the overthrow of the main Prussian forces, this hardly seemed to matter. The forces on the Blasdorferberg were struck on the left wing by Lt.-Col. Amelunxen and on the right by Lt. Colonel Dimic von Papilla; two forces which had worked to extinguish the bluecoats, primarily the two grenadier battalions present on that side. The Prussians turned back the first of the Austrian attacks. At length, after repeated assaults, Lt. Colonel Papilla’s men struck hard by the position of Reich-Hennersdorf, which, after combining with Amelunxen’s force, pressed hard against Hahnberg. There they took the Koschenbar grenadiers under attack, forcing the bluecoats to relinquish this position temporarily. But the Prussians, as they retreated, were reinforced by additional infantry. Thus emboldened, they counterattacked, regaining the lost ground for the moment and forcing the Austrians to recoil upon Reich-Hennersdorf.
The enemy now surged into Fouquet’s rear and across his escape route at the passes of the Bober itself. The latter commander reacted promptly. He ordered that portion of his infantry that was still cohesive to form square and begin withdrawing towards those passes, while the cavalry, under Major-General Malachovsky, rode ahead to secure the passes and hold them against all comers until Fouquet could extricate the main body. Then the more mobile Prussian cavalry was to do its best to cut its way through the progressing enemy cordon.
An orderly retreat was conducted, but the enemy inexorably were closing in. Austrian gunners lugged 14 pieces of heavy artillery up to the Buchberg about that time. Fouquet’s men, and most particularly the hastily raised Free Battalion of General Below, fought off the inevitable with an admirable stubbornness. They not only repulsed Laudon’s surging troops but shoved them back at the point of the bayonet at times.
The fighting came to a temporary pause while the opponents prepared for the last struggle for the Kirchberg and the Galgenberg—the two rises just to the south of Landshut—where the bluecoats were just holding on. The new artillery posts on the Buchberg were readied to open what promised to be a fierce, and could be decisive, bombardment of the remaining Prussian lines.
About 0600 hours, the encounter resumed, as fiercely as ever. Colonel Botta of the Austrian 29th Infantry was charged off to veer towards the enemy right beyond Landshut, which movement was opposed firmly by the command of the Free Battalion Lüderitz. The latter body put up a stubborn fight, but the better-training of the Austrians had its effect, and, with the momentum clearly swaying against the Prussians, Lüderitz was forced back.
Meanwhile, as Botta’s men pressed onward, they were attacked by Below’s men and compelled to halt in order to fight it out within Landshut. With this effort temporarily stalled, the attention turned to another force of the Austrian fusiliers, these under the command of L.-Colonel Olivier Wallis. The latter body stormed the rises near Zieder, which diverted the Prussians from the workings of Botta’s men and allowed him to finally uncork his advance and resume the forward movement. This new event was the catalyst to get the whitecoats going again in a big way. The 4th Infantry of Deutschmeister now joined the crescendo, and the bigger Austrian force at once put renewed pressure upon Fouquet’s corps. The latter commander, responding to this revitalized Austrian advance, ordered the men of Schenckendorff’s direction to retreat upon the Galgenberg, where the rest of the bluecoats were congregating, for a proverbial last stand.
General Fouquet himself realized there was no way to restore the Prussian position in and about Landshut. He was resolved, in that event, to cut his way through the enclosing Austrian ring and make his tortured way to Schmeideberg. The little cordon of men with the general waded across the Bober, and migrated to Lepersdorf, where they paused to await the rest of the Prussian forces. Austrian overtures for Prussian surrender had been
received twice,14 but Fouquet was determined to hang on.
The Austrians, meanwhile, had penetrated to the rises of Schreibersdorf, which served essentially as an assembly point for the Austrian cavalry of General Nauendorf to close in upon the ever more desperate Prussians. The efforts of his force finally closed off the last route of escape. Major Graffenstein, on approaching the Galgenberg, launched his men on to a little knot of the enemy off in the distance. A short tussle resulted in the capture of this whole group, and the intelligence was learned that General Fouquet and what was left of the main body of his corps was just ahead. Graffenstein rode with the Nádasti Hussars ahead to take up the last phase of the battle, and joined up with Nauendorf’s horsemen.
Fouquet himself was in a square during this retreat formed by the 1st Battalion, 37th Infantry.15 Gradually the bluecoats were able to cross the Bober, but on the far bank they discerned the Austrian horsemen drawn out in thick mass before them. The general’s men attacked and drove back the enemy riders but their retreat exposed long white-uniformed rows of infantry complete with artillery behind. Now the valiant Prussians at last faltered and they were brought to a halt. Fouquet was resolved to hang in there, amidst the fierce struggle that now ensued as the Austrians renewed their attack.16
The vaunted Lichnowski Dragoons were repelled in two strokes delivered now against the weakening defense line, but a third blow was successful in slicing through the Prussian defenses. Fouquet himself was wounded, having already been shot twice (he fell to the ground with his horse shot dead under him by the heavy Austrian fire), and probably would have been killed by the indignant Austrian troopers outright had not Colonel Carl Voith von Salzburg of the Löwenstein Dragoons graciously rode up and stopped the beating of Fouquet’s groom, Trautschke, who was shielding his commander from the riled up horsemen. Voith took Fouquet prisoner; the latter handed over his sword to his captor.17 True to his word, Fouquet never took up the sword again. However, Fouquet’s men had fought admirably and “with three sabre [sic] cuts … [Fouquet himself] had fought like a hero.”18 Then, just for “good” measure, the Austrians attacked the town of Landshut itself. But the bloody slaughter of the Prussians could not be so easily checked. Even now, many of the Prussians distinguished themselves. The 10th Infantry of Major-General Mosel defended itself tenaciously; it marched into captivity “with just 328 men.”19 Schenckendorff’s men alone remained at the Galgenberg. He was unaware for the moment that Fouquet had given up. The Austrians, freed thereby from other distractions, now concentrated on Schenckendorff’s lone force. The general himself was captured by the riled up Austrians before he could do much. While this was taking place, the remaining fragments of bluecoat troops forded the Bober and formed square on the opposite shore when they apprized the unwelcome approach of an enemy body of cavalry. At Reussendorf, the last of the Prussian forces encountered some 450 horsemen under a Major Semsey. While this action served to slow the Prussians down, it was just long enough for the hard-riding horsemen of Laudon to come barreling up to deliver the coup de grâce. The end was not long delayed. The bluecoats, struck on nearly all sides simultaneously, finally flung away their weapons to surrender. The Austrians proceeded to start butchering the defenders, who had no way to defend themselves against such things. These atrocities were not halted until many more men were dead. In the midst of all of this bloodshed, the Battle of Landshut was over by 0800 hours.
Meanwhile, Fouquet’s cavalry, although it did lose one-third of its strength in the process, under conditions that were hardly ideal, managed to make off. Some 500 riders, managed to break through the enclosing Austrian ring and affect their escape, in company with perhaps 500 infantrymen who somehow got away. The 8th Dragoons, on this occasion, lost 255 of its number but still managed to cut its way through the enemy force to rejoin Ziethen.20 The rest of the Prussian force, about 8,000 men, were either killed or wounded. The number of killed and wounded alone exceeded 4,000. Some 27 officers were killed, along with 1,917 dead, and 8,299 P.O.W.s in Austrian hands.21 Austrian losses, according to a letter of Laudon’s addressed to the High Command, amounted to 2,755 men and 99 officers.22 The whitecoats, to the everlasting disgust of the defeated men, proceeded to sack the town of Landshut.
As soon as word was reached Frederick of the defeat (June 27) he knew what had been done, and largely at his own urging. The troubled monarch had been occupied himself. The big question of the moment was, “How to draw Marshal Daun out in the open for a fight?” Suddenly, this new trouble. The blow had to be telling. In fact, “Frederick stood as if paralyzed” when he heard the latest intelligence from Silesia.23 And, one more time he must have been comparing himself to a martyr, and complaining all the while to anyone who would listen.24 He so often did. As for the conduct of Fouquet and his men in battle at Landshut, the king drew far back into military history. Frederick the Great said it may “best be compared to that of Leonidas at the streights [sic] of Thermopylae.”25 What is more, the king was incensed that the enemy had taken to ransacking Landshut.
The army was alerted to prepare for imminent departure, and, under cover of the night of June 14–15, the king began crossing his army over the Elbe between Zehren and Zabel. Only the foot-sore infantry could benefit from the use of the bridge, while the cavalry largely waded. Our old acquaintance General Lacy was near at hand, but remained idle at Moritzburg—barely ten miles distant—as if oblivious to the proceedings, even though a Prussian body under General Bülow remained vulnerable in the vicinity. Before dawn the crossing was punctually affected, and during the daylight hours of June 15, the Prussian king moved his army to Broschwitz where he encamped. The region was notable. The road off Meissen, traversing that region a short distance to the south from Broschwitz, branched off there to the north and northeast, respectively, for Grossenhayn and Radeburg (the latter just about four miles north of Moritzburg).
Lacy, meanwhile, had sent word to Marshal Daun (now entrenched with his usual degree of fanaticism just about two miles south at Reichenberg) that Frederick had stormed across the Elbe, keeping a nervous eye simultaneously on further developments. Lacy had some 30,000 men deployed between Moritzburg and Bernsdorf, nearly as strong by itself as the whole of Frederick’s small army. However, for all of his capabilities, Lacy lacked the drive and the vim to face his formidable opponent without further aid, while Daun with his 30,000 more Austrians lay with his right resting at the Reichenberg Height extending southward ending at the Roder Water. The marshal consented to deploying his right wing over by Boxdorf, so Lacy could prepare to move. The rest of Daun’s men reached camp soon after, and the marshal ordered his men to fortify Boxdorf as soon as possible. Meanwhile, with the enemy in the area becoming too numerous and the course of events heating up, General Bülow moved on from Schlettau to link up with the main Prussian force.
Frederick determined, June 17, to swing the next day against Lacy, hoping to give him a thrashing, thereby forestalling the web of enemies closing in about him. The monarch once again felt the urgency to seize the initiative.26 There was a further difficulty. He did not yet know how the enemy would approach the new campaign.27
The allies had opened the new campaign with another “fresh” idea. Pooling their resources and expertise, they had hit upon a converging action to be implemented at the start of the campaign against Prussia, most especially against Brandenburg. In theory, Laudon, Daun, and Soltikov were to relentlessly press towards that objective, squeezing Frederick into an ever-tightening vise, with their armies providing the jaws of the vise. Should the Prussian king turn against one army, the others were to continue onwards, aiming ultimately for Berlin. The idea was that Frederick would be compelled to fight all three armies, probably somewhere in the vicinity of his capital, and his defeat must then be inevitable. In theory.28
It sounded good and solid, but there were definite problems. All three armies would be moving independently of the others, most of all, as was usual, the distant Russians. We have already observed their
armies were generally slow, methodical, and uncooperative. There were other important considerations. With little to gain, how energetic would Soltikov really be this season? And since heavy detachments would have to be made to guard the line-of-communication, this would weaken the main effort. There was more. The drain on manpower resources would be prodigious for Soltikov’s army in this respect, with a lifeline that spanned across the barren reaches of Poland.29 Another important question was, “Would Daun be any bolder than before?” This could figure prominently in the campaign to come. Finally, there was the matter of their opponents, the Prussians. The latter were led by past masters of warfare, Frederick and his most capable brothers, most of all Prince Henry. True, all of these problems the allies had confronted before, but it was apparent there would be no walkover. One more thing was for sure, Prussian army units, even the new cadres, were tough and not afraid of battle. The allies would have to put forth a supreme effort if they wished to succeed. That, in the final analysis, was to be their nemesis. They lacked the willpower and the stamina for sustained cooperation between and among themselves. The whole enterprise was doomed from the start. Largely from flaws within, not pressure from the Prussians without.
Nonetheless, Frederick’s anxieties about the enclosing cordon of the enemy were well founded. The Imperialists, to the number of 20,000 men, were within three miles of Dresden by then; when they arrived, there would be 80,000 allied troops within effective range confronting the Prussian king and his badly outnumbered force. During the night of June 17–18, the bluecoats were alerted that they were to march at dawn, in three columns, the next morning, heading to strike Lacy at Radeburg.30 The first column of bluecoats rolled through Jessen and Nauendorf on to Barwalde, while the second cluster made its way by Marschau and on to Ober-Ebersbach, and the last by Laubach over towards Ober-Rodern. The moves had been so cloaked that the enemy believed the king were heading to the Roder Water to turn the Austrian position. Prussian reconnaissance probed for, and discovered, Lacy’s camp beyond Bernsdorf, attacked an outpost of Saxon irregulars, drove them back upon Bernsdorf, then later in the evening, to their chagrin, discovered the main post of Lacy.