- Part one -
V
Lieuten is a prime example of Frederick's use of oblique battle formation and his victory. The Prussians lost 6 thousand people, while the Austrians lost 10 thousand killed and wounded, not counting 21 thousand prisoners. Two weeks later, Breslavl surrendered, giving another 17,000 prisoners. The battle had a deafening effect, but had temporary consequences, determining the master of Silesia until the next military campaign.
Austria until the end of the summer could not bring a new army into the field, but the Russians, until then trying to gain a foothold in East Prussia, made a column in the internal regions of the country, right up to Frankfurt an der Oder. Frederick had to meet halfway, and in August he defeated the Russian troops in the fierce battle of Zorndorf. But in October, the Austrians rallied themselves and, under the leadership of Marshal Down, defeated the king's troops at Hochkirchen.
The Austrians won the victory with a trick that a shrewd man like Frederick should not have fallen for. They kindled campfires without extinguishing them, made a night march, and at dawn came upon him, taking him by surprise. The following summer of 1759, the combined Austro-Russian army inflicted a crushing defeat on Frederick at Kunersdorf, in which he lost more than 20 thousand people. And again through his own fault, for he threw the troops into battle on a steep hillside under the scorching sun after they spent two days without sleep. "Isn't there a single bullet for me?" - he exclaimed during the battle. “I think it's all gone,” he later wrote.
But things were not as bad as he thought. His enemies, neither after Gochkirchen, nor after Kunersdorf, sought to build on their success. They could not, since they were too disorganized: many officers died, regiments were mixed, supplies were disrupted. The allied armies did not have such a solid foundation as the Prussian army; if one of them lost the battle, the campaign ended; if it won, it continued, and nothing more.
In 1761, the Allies finally realized that their only real advantage was numerical superiority, and developed a campaign plan with this in mind. It was planned to divide the troops into three columns: one to send to Saxony under the command of Down, the other to Silesia, led by the Austrian General Laudon, and a Russian column to Poland. Each of them was supposed to deprive Frederick of resources by occupying cities. He only had enough strength to maintain one army, large enough to withstand any of the three columns; whichever he chose, the other two had to keep moving towards Berlin.
The further course of events made adjustments to the plan. Russian troops slowly advanced through northern Silesia. Down, too, walked sluggishly, and when Frederick went to meet Laudon, the Austrian marshal decided that he had a chance to repeat the Hochkirchen trick. He turned in the direction of Frederick's positions, being in the north-west of the king, and Loudon moved from the north-east to take Frederick into a vise, the Russians attacked from the rear under the leadership of General Chernyshev.
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Down decided to carry out a thorough reconnaissance from the heights of Lignitz, which not only slowed down his movement, but also attracted Frederick's attention. On the night of August 14, 1761, the king played their own joke with the Austrians, leaving several campfires burning and making a lightning dash along the road that Loudon was supposed to take. In the morning, he reached her, was met with musket fire and was forced to take battle, since he could no longer retreat. This battle cost him 10 thousand men and 81 guns. Down came to the abandoned Prussian camp just in time to see the plumes of smoke in the north over the scene of the rout; the pursuit of Frederick was unsuccessful.
As for the Russians, Frederick handed a message to a peasant to his brother, Prince Heinrich, who was to meet with them: “Today we have defeated the Austrians, now it is up to the Russians. Do as we agreed. The peasant had to allow Chernyshev's soldiers to catch him and hand over the letter under threat of death. Something about these tricks of King Frederick evokes sympathy; they testify to a deep understanding of the human nature with which he had to deal. The ploy fully met the king's expectations. Chernyshev, seized with horror, immediately withdrew from his seat, and soon it became known that the Russians had laid siege to Kolberg on the Baltic coast, which could benefit them more than a new victory over Frederick.
Thus, Frederick got rid of two of the three enemy columns, for Laudon was completely defeated and had to leave the game. Frederick spent several weeks maneuvering in Silesia, which he left after receiving the news of the capture of Berlin. He hurried north with the army; it turned out that they were talking about a handful of Cossacks and cavalrymen of the Austrian light cavalry, who hastened to carry off their feet [14]. Then it became obvious that it was necessary to take measures against Down's column, which occupied almost all of Saxony and occupied Torgau with a force of 64 thousand people. Having devastated the garrisons, Frederick managed to collect 45 thousand people, and at the end of October he approached Torgau.
Down did not intend to engage in battle, except for the case when King Frederick would be forced to attack at a disadvantage. The Austrian marshal has chosen a very good position for this purpose. On the one hand, it was protected by the Ziptits Upland, stretching approximately to the west from Torgau. On its southern slope ran a deep and wide muddy stream, the Rergraben, which was an excellent barrier; around on the sandy soil are sparse pine forests. The position was so successful that Prince Heinrich had previously managed to hold it against Down with less force, and now the Austrians had at least 400 guns.
Frederick went to the fortified camp from the south. He immediately thought that this place was too cramped for such a number of Austrians and inconvenient for a counterattack, and decided to strike at them simultaneously from the front and rear. Almost half of the army, under the command of Zieten, Frederick moved across the stream to the south; Frederick himself had to go through the forest in three columns, placing the cavalry in the last column.
The king set out early; it was almost two o'clock in the afternoon when Frederick, who was leading the first column, reached the edge of the forest and heard the roar of cannons from the south. This meant to him that Tsiten had already entered the battle; the other two columns had not yet appeared, but he immediately threw 6,000 grenadiers into the Austrian positions.
The disadvantage of converging columns is that the commander of one unit has no idea what is happening to others. In fact, Zieten was fighting the outposts of the light troops, which had several cannons south of Rergraben. They slowly retreated east towards Torgau, forcing the Prussians to stray from the intended line of attack in a few hours. Later, Frederick, not hesitating in expressions, gave Cyten a headwash for stupidity. But at that moment this could not help 6 thousand grenadiers, who were met by fire from almost all 400 Austrian cannons. Frederick said that he had never seen anything like it; the Prussian batteries were destroyed before they had even one shot, the grenadiers were routed. But many of them survived and made it to the Austrian lines to engage in deadly hand-to-hand combat,but Down led the infantry against them, pushed them back, and even tried to counterattack under the streams of the pouring rain. Of the 6 thousand, six hundred were not left alive; it was three o'clock in the afternoon, the offensive had failed.
Frederick's second column arrived shortly thereafter; while the troops were rebuilding, there was a lull. At half past four the newly arrived units and the remnants of the first column went on the offensive again. On the northwest side of the Austrian lines, the fiercest battle of the day erupted; The Prussian infantry broke into Ziptitz and took possession of the batteries in hot hand-to-hand combat, but Down called in all his reserves and after a long battle again forced the Prussians to retreat, while the king himself was wounded.
Not earlier than half-past four, at sunset, the cavalry, lost in the forest, approached. Under cover of thickening darkness and smoke, Frederick fearlessly rushed into the third attack of the infantry and cavalry. The new assault was a partial success: as many as four Austrian regiments with many guns were captured; Down's entire left flank turned into a jelly-like mass, confusion reigned in his lines, but it was impossible to continue the battle. Frederick gave the order to bivouack right on the field, intending to resume the battle the next morning. Down, also wounded, sent a messenger with the message of victory, and Vienna was filled with joy.
At six o'clock on a dank morning, a red glow suddenly burst into the southern sky. It was Zieten who finally freed himself from the Austrian light troops, occupied the village of Ziptitz in the south of Rergraben and set it on fire. Zieten's soldiers could not cross the stream through the fire, but one quick-witted officer named Mellendorff discovered a bridge beyond the village, and Zieten walked over the bridge, then up the saddle in the southwestern part of the hill and fell on the Austrians to a drum roll that knocked out the Prussian march. Muskets flashed in the darkness.
There is a famous portrait of Frederick, where he sits, wrapped in a cloak, his chin tilted to his chest and holding a cane on his knees, in deep despondency, awaiting dawn at Torgau. Dawn came in the person of Zieten, who informed the king that the Austrians had been expelled from Torgau, having lost 10 thousand people and most of their weapons. Down's army was defeated, and with it the Allied campaign.
VI
The next year was not without minor skirmishes and maneuvers, Friedrich was on the defensive, but the Austrians and Russians did not launch an offensive. At the beginning of 1762, Queen Elizabeth died, and Tsar Peter III, her successor, concluded peace with Frederick and sent the Russian army to his aid, while France could no longer finance Austria, and Maria Theresa had to reduce the army to 20 thousand people.
We can say that this happened because of Torgau. He did not decide the outcome of the war (the battle of Rosbach did the most in this direction), but its consequence was that Austria could not bring the war to a successful conclusion. Thus, a new state arose in northern Germany - a state of a new type with a regular army, centralized government, officials who took care of the construction of dams, canals, roads, bridges, communication routes, contributed to the development of agriculture and the development of inland territories. During his life, Frederick the Great resettled 200 thousand people to vacant lands; his governance was so effective that other European countries were forced to imitate him in order to maintain parity in a complex balance of power. “It seems,” he once said, “God created me, working horses,Doric columns and in general us, kings, so that we carry the burden of the world, and others can enjoy its fruits. He considered the ideal world to be one in which the government helps every citizen; He considered an ideal war to be one in which the civilian population did not know that there was a war going on. Of course, the capture of Silesia was anything but moral; but when Frederick established him on the battlefield, he instilled in the rest of Europe a new sense of government responsibility.but when Frederick established him on the battlefield, he instilled in the rest of Europe a new sense of government responsibility.but when Frederick established him on the battlefield, he instilled in the rest of Europe a new sense of government responsibility.
Fletcher Pratt
- Part one -