REY . MEN-AT-ARMS SERIES

MICHAEL YOU ENS

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Text by

ALBER T SEATON•

Colour plates by

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MEN-AT-ARMS SERIES

EDITOR: MARTIN WINDROWALBAN BOOK SERVICES

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Text by ALBERT SEATO

Colour plates by MI CHAEL YOU ENS

OSPREY PUBLISHING LIMITED

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Published in 1973 byOsprey Publishing Ltd, P.O. Box 25,707 Oxford Road, Reading, Berkshire© Copyright t973 Osprey Publishing Ltd

This book is copyrighted under the BerneConvention. All rights reserved. Apart from anyfair dealing for the purpose ofprivatc study,research, criticism or review, as permincd under theCopyright Act, 1956, no part of this publicationmay be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photo­copying, recording or otherwise, without the priorpermission of the copyright owner. Enquiries shouldbe addressed to the Publishers.

In the preparation of the plates, illustrations andtext, acknowledgment is made to Accurate Vorstellungder samtlichen Koniglich Preussischen Armee by vonS.LC.H. (1759), Lange's Die Soldalea Friedrichs desGrossen (1853) and Knotel's Uniformkunde (1890-1909) ;and to Macaulay's Frederick the Great and Carlyle'sLife ifFrederick Ihe Greal. The photographs areproduced by courtesy of the Keeper, the Library ofthe Victoria and Albert Museum (photographerBerkhamsled Photographic, Berkhamsted,Herlfordshire).

ISBN 0 85045 151 5

Printed in Great Britain.Monochrome by BAS Printers Limited,Wallop, Hampshire.Colour by Colour Reproductions Ltd.,Billericay.

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fi"ederick the great:su1i'my

The ise rf'Prussia

and:JiOhenzollernThe history of Prussia had its origin in Branden­burg, the wood- and lake-studded sandy wastesbetween the middle Elbe and the lower Vistula.The country had been occupied by SlavonicWends before being settled by Germans, and from1320 onwards it was ruled by the BavarianElectors and then by the Princes of Luxembourgbefore reverting to Sigismund, the Holy RomanEmperor. Sigismund was in debt to FrederickHohenzollern, the Burggrave of Nuremberg, for'50,000 gulden, and had mortgaged the Elec­torate of Brandenburg as security for the loan;and, since the Emperor saw no possibility ofrepaying the sum, he agreed in '4'5 that on pay­ment of a further 250,000 gulden, Brandenburg,with its land and titles, together with its sovereignelectorship, should pass to the Hohenzollerns forever. Sigismund thought himself well rid of it, forBrandenburg was a poor province; even aroundBerlin, its new capital, the country was almost adesert, the sandy soil yielding the thinnest cropsof rye and oats only in places; and where there wasnot open heath there was primeval forest andswamp.

Farther to the east, in the territory lying betweenthe Vistula and the Memel, against the Balticshore, lived the Prussians, a warlike and heathenpeople, ethnologically related to the Lithuaniansand Latvians but entirely distinct from bothTeuton and Slav. The Prussians had for some timesuccessfully resisted the encroachments of theChristian German and the Pole, but they wereeventually overcome by the crusading Order ofthe Teutonic Knights. The country was thenresettled by German colonizers, the original

Prussian inhabitants having been killed, drivenout or assimilated by the conquerors; by '400 theland between Pomerania and Lithuania con­tinued to be known as Prussia and then, byassociation, the name was applied to the newGerman inhabitants.

The Knights of the Teutonic Order, by thesanction of the Pope and the German Emperor(although Prussia in fact lay outside the territoriesof the Holy Roman Empire) continued to rule thenew colony. In 14'0 the Order was defeated inbattle at Tannenberg by Jagellon of Poland, andin '466 it was forced to cede West Prussia,retaining East Prussia only by admitting allegianceto the Polish king. The Order, corrupt and failing,chose a Hohenzollern to be its Grand Master, buthe, becoming a Protestant, in 1525 followed the

A soldier of I Dragoons and a trumpeter of 12 CuirassierRegil11ent

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advice of Luther and secularized the religiousorder, converting its property, virtually the wholeof East Prussia, into a private estate for himselfand his successors. In 1569 the Hohenzollerns ofthe two family branches of Brandenburg and ofEast Prussia entered into a contract whereby, inthe event of one or other line dying out, theterritories of both branches should be joined undera single ruler. In 1618, on the death ofDuke Albertof Prussia, East Prussia was finally joined to theElectorate ofBrandenburg. Although East Prussiaremained subject to the Polish crown, its accessionmore than doubled Brandenburg territory, and,since East Prussia was much richer than theoriginal Hohenzollern Mark, it brought with ita great increase in wealth.

During the Thirty Years War (1618-48)Brandenburg was laid waste by imperialist andSwede, Protestant and Roman Catholic; theweak Elector deserted Berlin to find refuge in hisEast Prussian capital at Konigsberg, where hedied in 1640. Brandenburg's recovery and itsemergence as Prussia, a European power, reallydates from the rule of his successor GeorgeWilliam, later known as the Great Elector, thegreat-grandfather of Frederick the Great.

When the Great Elector came to power hisexchequer was empty and his country was inruins, for in no part of the empire had the warbeen so disastrous as in Brandenburg. Berlin hadonly 300 citizens left and the population of thewhole state numbered less than a million. TheGreat Elector restored law and order with an ironhand, for he was an unrelenting autocrat, and theabsolute power he wielded over his subjects wasthat of life and death. Tolerant only in matters ofreligion, and doing away with any remainingmunicipal freedoms, he laid the foundations forthe Hohenzollern Prussian State with its manycontradictions and anomalies; its veneration ofthe civic virtues of industry, honesty and duty socuriously linked with the barbarity and brutalityof its rulers and servants of state, which were tomake Prussia so hated and feared throughoutGermany.

In 1640, however, the Great Elector was un­known and Prussia was little regarded. Its rulerwas a supplicant to the kings of Poland, Swedenand England; he bought off the Swedes and

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began the gigantic task of restoring his Electorate,by energy, thrift and good management. At thePeace of Westphalia he was granted the richterritorites of Magdeburg, Halberstadt and Min­den in West Germany. He attracted immigrantsfrom West Germany and Holland and usedDutchmen's skills to reclaim the swamps. Hehelped Sweden against Poland and Poland againstSweden, obtaining Poland's formal relinquishingof its feudal rights over Prussia. And he acquiredCleves, Mark and Ravensberg for Brandenburg.Eventually, before the close of his rule, he becameoutstanding as a soldier, raising an army of27,000 trained and well-equipped troops. In1675, at Fehrbellin near Berlin, acting against theadvice of his generals, he attacked and routed anumerically superior force of Swedes. Thequalities of the Great Elector were much admiredby his great-grandson Frederick the Great for, bythe time of his death in 1688, he had raisedBrandenburg-Prussia to the rank of one of thefirst military powers in Northern Europe, leavingto his son, as Macaulay said, 'a principality asconsiderable as any which was not called akingdom'.

Prussia the~ngdomThe Great Elector's son Frederick (1688-1713)was a ruler or a different stamp, for he was ob­sessed with the pursuit of culture, pomp, ostenta­tious pageants and the outward trappings ofmajesty. After William of Orange became Kingof England, Frederick urged upon the HabsburgEmperor that he, too, should be permitted tobecome a king, not of course of Brandenburg, anelectorate within the empire, but of Prussia(strictly speaking East Prussia) which stoodoutside the imperial frontiers. The Emperoragreed; for Frederick had always taken care tomaintain friendly relations with Vienna, and theEmperor could hardly have regarded Branden­burg-Prussia as a rival to Austria's hegemony inGermany.

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A musketeer and officer of 22 Infantry Regiouot. Formed in1713 it saw no action until 1744 at Prague'

trative expenses to one-fifth of the previous cost.He regarded himself as the foremost soldier andthe first servant of the realm, working and livingunder the eye ofan imaginary master, Prussia. Hewas in his office at day-break and expected hisministers to do the same. At midday his ministersand staff dined with him on soup or boiled beefand each was charged for his meal. While he kepthimselfand his household in squalid poverty, eachday called for endless toil as he struggled to checkevery detail of government, steadily amassingtreasure and the finest standing army of the time.

By nature Frederick William was a bully, attimes so violent and irrational as to give rise todoubts as to his sanity. For him the sceptre was buta cudgel, for he beat his children and his ministersand flung his judges down the stairs. He pridedhimself on being German to the bone and spenthis nights in the Tobacco Parliament with hisdrinking and smoking cronies, among them thePomeranian counsellor Grumbkow, and his Com­mander-in-Chief Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, 'theOld Dessauer'. He loathed the French, hated theEnglish and had a contempt for higher education.

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In '70' the Elector was crowned King ofPrussia in Konigsberg, and to mark the occasionhe inaugurated the Order of the Black Eagle, aprize ofservice to the state. Thereafter, by degrees,the title and designation of Prussia began to beapplied to Brandenburg and the other scatteredGerman territories over which the Elector ruledfrom his Brandenburg capital of Berlin. The newking, except for his frivolous obsessions, was verysane, and, although quick-tempered, was affable.He had done some soldiering in his youth, but hewas not a man of war. Yet even he regarded alarge Prussian Army as being essential to thestate; not only for the defence of the realm butalso for the maintenance of his own dignity andstation. Whereas he had inherited 27,000 menfrom his father, in time he increased this strengthto 5°,000. Some of these troops saw active serviceunder the Austrian Prince Eugene, and many ofFrederick the Great's latter-day generals receivedtheir baptism of fire at Blenheim, HochsUidt,Cassano, Turin and Malplaquet.

Frederick William, who came to the throne in1713 as the second King of Prussia, took his namefrom the Great Elector. His outlook and qualitieswere again different from those ofhis father, for hehad served under Marlborough and he was ob­sessed with military matters, not so much withcampaigning as with the raising and training ofsoldiers; drill and the minutiae of uniform wereamong the chief interests of his life. His mind wasill-regulated and he certainly lacked a sense ofproportion. From his father he inherited a love ofmilitary pomp and ceremonial. He wasted a smallfortune in recruiting from abroad a regiment ofgiants, whereas any stout youth of five feet eightwould, in all probability, have made a much morevaluable soldier. Yet his army of 60,000 troopswere disciplined and drilled to such a standardthat would have shamed the household regimentsof Versailles and 51. James.

Frederick William had many sterling qualities,among them a talent for administration; and heregarded industry and frugality as the highestvirtues. On the day after the late king's funeralhe discharged every court official, cut the pensionlist to one-fourth and reduced the thousandsaddle-horses in the royal stables to thirty. By thismeans he brought down household and adminis-

The sergeant-king's royal power was absolute and,by careful administration, the Prussian populationof two and a half million was obliged and able tosupport a peace-time army of eighty-threethousand.

VIe Grown'Princerederick

The future Frederick the Great was born in 1712,

the son of Sophia of Hanover and grandson ofGeorge I of England. Two older sons had died ininfancy and Frederick himself appears to havebeen an ailing and sickly child. Because hisgoverness was a French Huguenot, Frenchbecame his mother tongue, for he spoke and wroteGerman indifferently; he knew no Latin orEnglish. At seven years of age his schoolingpassed into the hands of a French tutor and twoofficers, and his education was henceforth basedon military subjects, a study of contemporaryhistory (and in particular the history of Branden­burg), economy and administration. At the ageof nine he became the commander of a companyof a hundred cadets.

Frederick soon came to hate his life at Wuster­hausen, his father's residence outside Berlin; hehad no liking for hunting or for the buffoonery ofthe Tobacco Parliament. To his father's disgust,he acquired a taste for French literature andculture, and spent his leisure in learning to playthe flute. The father began to hate the son, whomhe regarded as effeminate, and the king con­sidered making Frederick's younger brothercrown prince in his place. Horrified at his son'sdelight in soft living and dissipation and at hisdistaste for the army, he became convinced thathe had fathered a monster, a traitor to the Hohen­zollerns, who, when he became king, would ruinPrussia. He insulted and struck the crown princein public, adding with a sneer, 'had I been thustreated by my father, I would have blown mybrains out; but this fellow has no honour'. Father

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and son were perpetually at loggerheads, thetyrant finally impounding books and flute andforbidding the crown prince to see his mother.

At fifteen years of age Frederick became amajor of the Potsdam Guards, a regiment of 2,500giants, nearly all the rank and file being wellabove six feet in height. Four years latcr the crownprince attempted to flee from Prussia, but wasarrested and court-martialled. His father over­ruled the findings and sentence of the court, andhad his son's accomplice, a Lieutenant von Katte,executed. The crown prince himself lay impris­oned at Klistrin, apparently in danger of losinghis life, and it was only on the intervention of thecrowned heads of Europe that he was not exe­cuted. His father eventually released and restoredhim to his rank and position, but only after he haddeclared himself penitent and willing to submitto his father's direction. And so the son became aliar, a hypocrite, a cynic and a practised dis­sem bier, always hiding his feelings and histhoughts. Henceforth throughout his long life heopened his hcart to no man. To please his fatherhe pretended to find fault in his mother an~ in his

Frederick the Great

favourite sister. Finally, as a reward, he receivedin 1732 the colonelcy of the von der Goltz Regi­ment of Infantry and in 1733 a wife, ElizabethChristina of Brunswick. He wanted neither, but,in the words of one chronicler, Ihe retired to themarshy solitudes of Brandenburg to make thebest of both'.

For about two years Frederick did little butcommand his regiment, which he did so well thatit gained the approbation of Frederick William.For, after leaving Kiistrin, the son devoted him­self to work, showing even greater application,energy and method than his father.

In 1734 the king allowed the crown prince tovolunteer his services with the Prussian contingentto the imperial army waging war against theFrench on the Rhine. There Frederick served fora few months under the great Eugene, and he waspresumably impressed by him since he took tocopying the Supremo's curt speech and abruptmanners. Frederick then returned to his militaryduties at Ruppin, Reinsberg and Potsdam and,from time to time, undertook duties ofstate on theking's behalf. Towards the end he appeared to be

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much attached to his strange and somewhat un­natural father. He had won his father's fullesttrust, and Frederick William prophesied of him,'Da siehl Einer, der mich rlichen wird.'

On 3 I May 1740, at four in the morning,Frederick William, ailing and sick, rose from hisbed for the last time. He awoke his wife, declaringthat he was going to die that day. He ordered hishorses to be ridden out so that his friends Leopoldof Anhalt-Dessau and Hacke, one of his general­adjutants, should each choose one as the king'slast gift. Early in the afternoon he died, and hisson was immediately proclaimed King FrederickII of Prussia. That evening the Old Dessauervisited the new king, who was sitting in tearfulmeditation. The old field-marshal voiced hishopes 'that he (the Old Dessauer) would have thesame authority as in the late reign'. To whichFrederick, twenty-eight years of age, cuttinglyreplied, 'that he knew of no authority except thatof the sovereign king'. And so the Old Dessauerreturned home with his gift horse and much onhis mind.

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'Theufrmy

THE INFANTRY

Frederick said in his Denkwiirdigkeilen derPrenssischen Geschichle that Frederick Williamhad wanted to make Prussia a force to be reckonedwith in the eyes of its neighbours, for GeorgeWilliam's example had taught him how dangerousit was to be defenceless; from his father, KingFrederick I, whose troops belonged to his allies(who found their pay) rather than to himself,Frederick William had learned that a monarch isrespected in that same measure as his armedmight is to be feared. Drawing his conclusions fromthe humiliations which Frederick I suffered fromboth Sweden and Russia, when their troops usedPrussia's territory much as they pleased, Frederick

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perience gained on the field as to FrederickWilliam's energy and interest, his eye for detailand his capacity for taking infinite pains in thedrilling of his foot soldiers. Nor did his army everlack money, for, of the total of 7,372,000 thalersannual revenue, 4,900,000 were spent directly onarmy upkeep and a total of5,977,000 thalers wereallocated to defence. Even so, Frederick Williammanaged his finances so well throughout histwenty-seven year reign that he accrued a reserveof over eight million thalers.

Frederick William's activities as a militaryadministrator covered a very wide field. In' 713pack horses had been introduced into thePrussian Army to lighten the load of the marchingsoldier and to carry tents, rather than rely onbilletting. The next year a collegium medicumchirurgicum was founded to train army surgeonsand, since these needed practical experience intheir profession, they were affiliated to the newlyfounded Chante Hospital in Berlin. In '715 themonarch inaugurated the annual royal reviewand inspection of his troops, and in the next fewyears established the Berlin cadet school forofficer aspirants, the Spandau and Potsdam armsfactories and the Potsdam school for soldiers'orphans. In 1718 he had set up a regional

• • ••recrU! tIng organiZatIOn.

What distinguished the Prussian Army of theperiod from the armies of the other Europeanpowers was its discipline and its uniformity. Thiswas principally due to a comprehensive anddetailed Dienst-Reglement, a form of armystanding orders which covered both the perfor­mance ofduties and the regulations as to disciplineand dress, for dress regulations were one ofFrederick William's obsessions. Some of thedetail of the regulations was taken to a ridiculousextreme; on the other hand every item of thesoldier's equipment was designed not merely forappearance and use but also for durability andeconomy; each piece had a stipulated life beforeit could be discarded or exchanged. And theseorders on dress and duties were strictly enforced.For, as Frederick II said, 'the king mixed freelywith his officers, treating his field officers ascomrades and his subalterns as though he weretheir father. And he would have put himselfin theguardroom under arrest sooner than appear in a

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15 Infantry Regilllent was raised in 168g from a cadre of 13Regi:ment. Up to 1731 it was commanded by von der Goltzwho was transferred to 5 Regiment so that Frederick theCrown Prince could take command. Its royal colonel l1ladethe regiment's fortune, its first battalion becoJ11.ing I GuardBattalion

William had intended not only to hold Prussia'sfrontiers firm but to press the Pmssian claim toBerg, where the Elector of the Palatine, the lastrepresentative of the House of Neuburg, was al­ready near death. 'For the world rested', saidFrederick the Great, 'notso firmly on the shouldersof Atlas as the Prussian State on the shoulders ofits Army.'

From the beginning of the century the PrussianArmy had gained its experience mainly byfighting foreign causes for other nations. It tookthe field in the Great Northern War (1700-2 I),and in 1733 sent a 10,000 strong detachment underLieutenant-General von Roder, as part of theEmperor's forces, to fight the French. But thesewere only small campaigns compared with thegreat wars which Frederick II was about to enter,and some of the lessons derived from them, par­ticularly by the Old Dessauer, were to be provedfalse. The great improvement in Prussian armsfrom 17 I 3 to '740 was due not so much to ex-

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tunic which was not decently turned out andstrictly in accordance with regulations.'

The Prussian officer corps, too, differed in manyrespects from the officer corps elsewhere. Serviceto the state had been made the compulsory dutyof the nobility and this, taking its lead from themonarch, served with dedication. oblemenfrom other German states and from abroad were,however, accepted into the Prussian service andsome of these foreigners reached the highest ranks.But there was no room for the Prussian middle­class or even the rich merchant in this exclusivelynoble hierarchy and very little for the soldierscommissioned from the ranks. The Prussianofficer corps had become almost a knightly orderor military club, where (until (807) no officer,from Fahnrich to colonel, wore distinguishingbadges of rank. Within the Prussian state underFrederick William, the officer began to enjoyboth prestige and status, no matter what his rankor financial means.

In 1729 Frederick William put in hand severalmeasures to establish a ready reserve of infantry,by creating a Landmiliz consisting ofa number ofinfantry regiments, each of seven companies,called up for fourteen days training in each year,during which time they received army pay. Theregular cadre in cach regiment consisted of"officers, non-commissioned officers and drum mefS,orten convalescents from regular regiments. Thismilitia formed a partly-trained war-time reserveof reinforcements for the regular forces. Fouryears later Prussia, with the exception of parts ofWestphalia, was divided into war-recruiting andreinforcement Regiment-Cantons) 5,000 house­holds being listed as the recruiting source for asingle infantry regiment and ',800 for a cavalryregiment. To save money, the king also sentnumbers of regular infantry regiments on unpaidleave for ten months in the year. It so turned outthat this gave rise to civil and military problemswhich probably outweighed the value of the

•economies.Frederick William and the Old Dessauer made

a number of improvements in infantry tacticsand organization. In 1730 the Old Dessauerinvented the iron ramrod for the musket whichenabled the rate of infantry fire to be much in­creased; for the wooden rods used before this

time needed careful handling or they broke in thebarrels. The infantry march column and firingline was reduced from four to three ranks, thefront rank being trained to fire the musket withthe bayonet fixed. That same year, too, saw theintroduction in the Prussian Army of marchingin step, the rate of step being measured to theminute.

Frederick William kept a close eye on foreignmilitary developments and he usually found aplace in the Prussian Army for any newly intro­duced arm) even though he was somewhat un­certain of its benefits and uses. He copied the newfusiliers (armed with the shorter and lighter fusil)from the French, and had originally intended toconvert 28 Infantry Regiment to light infantry.But the experiment was not pursued and thefusiliers, except that they wore a fusilier headdress(somewhat shorter than that of the grenadiers)were indistinguishable from the infantry of theline. The last tactical reorganization carried outby royal command was in 1735, when a grenadiercompany was raised in each infantry battalion.Previous to this time cach infantry company had

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.Fusiliers of 40 and 48 Infantry Regiments

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Musketeers of 13 Infantry Regiment, originally a Frenchregiment raised in 1687 frOIll refugees

its own grenade-throwers, although these cpuld becentralized to form two grenadier platoons whichmarched at the head of the battalion column.Later, under Frederick II, these grenadier com­panies were amalgamated to form grenadierbattalions.

Frederick William's infantry, at the time of hisdeath, consisted of the foot-guards (Leib-Grena­dier-Regiment Nr 6) of three battalions, thirtyinfantry regiments each of two battalions (exceptRegiment Nr 3 which had three battalions) andtwo independent Lilien and Raders battalions,afterwards reformed as Regiment Nr 32. In allthere were sixty-six battalions, each consisting offive musketeer companies and one grenadiercompany, the company having a strength of120 men.

The value of the troops bequeathed in 1740 byFrederick William to his son varied much by arm.The infantry which formed the bulk of the armywas excellent, qualitatively without equal any­where in the world. And yet, so Frederick II said,even the infantry was already passing its peak for

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lack of use. Ribbons had become obligatory inhorses manes; soldiers were being judged by thepolished stocks of their muskets rather than bythe barrels; pipe-clay was the criterion. 'Anyfurther delay', said Frederick, 'would surely haveled to the introduction of rouge and beauty­patches' (Schminke und Schdnpfliisterchen).

THE CAVALRY

Following the example of the Swedes, the mainphalanx of European armies had become theheavy cavalry cuirassier, the armoured horsemanwho decided the issue of the battle by the shock ofhis charge. The Great Elector had taken greatpride in those cuirassiers who had distinguishedthemselves at Warsaw and Fehrbellin, and thisfaith in their value had continued up to the timeof Frederick William's death when sixty of his114 cavalry squadrons were of cuirassiers. Thecuirassier regiment had five squadrons, thesquadron consisting of two companies each ofsixty horse.

Yet for some time past, even from the time of•

the reign of King Frederick I, although thecuirassier was paramount among the cavalry, theemphasis had changed from cuirassier to infantryas a battle-winning arm, and much money hadbeen spent in reforming and re-equipping infantryand artillery at the expense of the horse. Thispolicy was continued by Frederick William andwas favoured by the Old Dessauer. The king hadbeen unfavourably impressed by the performanceof the imperial cavalry at Malplaquet, where it hadbeen repeatedly driven off; and though he hadbeen present at Menin, Tournai and Stralsund,he had seen no use for cavalry there either.Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau, for his part, couldnever forgive the failure of the Austrian cavalry ofGeneral Styrum, which, in the Old Dessauer'sview, was responsible for much of the loss atHochstadt. And so the prized Prussian infantryassumed its rightful role as the core and phalanxof the army, and it was to prove itself not merelyby holding ground against foot and horse, but bybreaking the enemy in the shock action offrontalassault by musketry and bayonet.

In addition to the cuirassiers, the Prussian horsein 1740 included twelve regiments of dragoons,

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A trooper of von Schorlemmer's Dragoons, Dragoon Regi­ment No.6, raised in 1717 frolI'l cavalry given to FrederickWilliam I by the King of Poland in exchange for a gift ofporcelain

three regiments often and three oftive squadrons,making forty-five squadrons in all. The dragoonregiments, which owed their origin to the GreatElector, had of course a two-fold role, to fight ascavalry or as infantry. They had distinguishedthemselves under Derming, Bomsdorff andGrumbkow at the battles against the Swedes atRathenow and Fehrbellin, mostly fighting onfoot, and in the bloody three-day battle atWarsaw. Under Frederick I and FrederickWilliam, however, they had been neglected incompany with the remainder of the Prussianhorse. One regiment of dragoons (Regiment Nr3) had been designated horse grenadier.

One of the fundamental weaknesses of thePrussian cavalry was in the size of its troopers andmounts. For the soldiers were, in the main, bigmen and, so it was reasoned, they needed bighorses to carry them; and they became, inFrederick the Great's words, 'Kolosse auf Ele­phanten'. Although bone is of some advantage inthe cuirassier charge, it is of course a fallacy toassume that a big horse can travel farther or

faster, clear obstacles better, or necessarily carrymore weight, than a smaller animal; for it isbreeding and blood which tell. A big horse iscertainly less handy, and a light-weight cavalry­man is not necessarily at a disadvantage whenpitted against a heavy rider, since much dependson the training of both rider and horse. But thesetruths were not yet known in Prussia in 1740. Andso, according to the new king's description, thePrussian cuirassiers and dragoons were not horsemasters in any sense of the word. Riders andsteeds lacked agility and were unsuited by size,temperament and training to fighting on horse­back. They had little eye for country. Thedragoons, in particular, could be regarded onlyas mounted infantry, for they were more at homeon the ground than on horseback.

THE HUSSARS

During the eighteenth-century wars in CentralEurope, the hussar was to occupy a special place.Originally an irregular light horseman formingpart of the Hungarian levies used for border

•fighting against the Turk, he was usually a smallman mounted on a pony and armed with carbine,pistols and sabre. Unlike the uhlan, the Polishborder cavalryman, who was more heavilymounted and equipped, very rarely did thehussar carry a lance. Hussars had been introducedinto the regular forces of Western and CentralEurope through Hungary and Austria, where,according to the claims of their unorthodoxleaders, they could be regarded almost as a newmounted arm. For although they could if neces­sary be used as conventional cavalry to provideshock action, they specialized in deep raiding inthe enemy rear, in patrolling and collecting in­formation and, at the same time, in denying theenemy reconnaissance; in addition they providedadvance and rear guards and escorts and couldundertake the essential police duty of roundingup the many deserters. The uses to which hussarscould be put, according to their protagonists,were indeed numerous. The commanders of thesenew forces were often irregulars or officers ofunconventional ideas and background; many ofthem were Hungarian. In the Austro-Prussianwars the skilful use of mounted troops, and in

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significant [unansehnlich] appearance'. Zeithen'sapplication to resign was immediately accepted,and he returned home to his father's estate. Threeyears later, however, he had the fortune to beaccepted as a lieutenant in von Wuthenow's 6Dragoons, which regiment was doubling itsestablishment of squadrons. There he quarrelledwith his squadron commander and was involvedtwice in duelling escapades, suffering a year'sfortress imprisonment for the first and beingcashiered for the second. Field-Marshal vonBuddenbrock interceded for Ziethen and KingFrederick William reluctantly agreed to accepthim back into the service and, as he appeared tobe an unconventional and difficult officer, hadhim posted to his own life guard squadron orhussars where a good eye could be kept on him.

Ziethen prospered in the Berlin Hussars,becoming a captain in '73 I, and he was attachedto the Austro-Hungarian hussars in command ofhalf a squadron of Berlin Hussars and half asquadron of Prussian Hussars in order to gainexperience in the new hussar warfare.

particular of hussars, whether these formed partof the regular forees or not, was to be of thegreatest Importance.

In 172 I Frederick William I had come to theconclusion that as the hussar arm was beingintroduced into other armies in Central andWestern Europe, Prussia should not lag behind.The original Prussian establishment was verymodest, amounting to no morc than thirtyhussars under a Captain Schmidt, forming part ofvon Wuthenow's Dragoner-Regiment Nr 6. Thisdetaehment provided the nucleus of what were tobecome known as the Prussian Hussars, andbetween 1722 and 1737 they expanded to sixsquadrons under a Major (later Colonel) Bruni­kowski, still retaining their affiliation to 6Dragoon Regiment. Eventually, under Frederiekthe Great, these squadrons became " 3 and 5Hussar Regiments. In 1740, however, the trainingof the six squadrons of Prussian Hussars differedlittle from that of the other line cavalry.

In 1729 Frederick William paid a visit to hismarried daughter, Wilhelmina, whose husband,the Markgrave of Bayreuth, furnished his father­in-law with an escort ofhussars. Frederiek Williamwas so impressed by their turn-out and uniformsand by the handiness of their mounts that hedecided on his return to Berlin to raise his ownpersonal escort hussar squadron. This was formedthe next year, not from Brunikowski's PrussianHussars, but as a newly raised squadron mountedon greys and recruited by attracting soldiers fromHungary and Bayreuth and from suitable appli­cants throughout the Prussian cavalry. The newsquadron was under von Beneckendorf and oneof his two officers was a Lieutenant Hans]oachimvon Ziethen (Zieten), a man who was to do muchto shape the military fortunes of Prussia.

Von Ziethen had entered the ranks of 24 In­fantry Regiment as a volunteer on his fifteenthbirthday and from Freicorporal was eventuallyadmitted as a Fahnrich. He was still a Fahnrichat twenty-four years of age, having been passedover repeatedly for promotion to commissionedrank. His colonel, von Schwerin, (the sameSchwerin, a veteran of Blenheim, who wonMollwitz and who as a field-marshal was to becut down on the battlefield ofPrague) disliked him'because of his squeaky voice and mean and in-

12

t ,

Meanwhile the three squadrons of BerlinHussars had been formed into 2 Hussar Regimentunder von Wurm. Ziethen and Wurm were soonat variance, Ziethen challenging his colonel to aduel in which both participants were wounded.Wurm was thought highly of by FrederickWilliam and matters might have gone badly forZiethen had 'not the king already been on hisdeath-bed. Shortly afterwards Prussia was at war.Wurm took his regiment into Silesia. But helacked Ziethen's experience and training in com­manding hussars and shortly afterwards FrederickII, dissatisfied with Wurm, replaced him byZiethen in the command of 2 Hussar Regiment.During the Silesian Wars Ziethen was to wingreat fame as a leader of cavalry and was to riserapidly in rank from lieutenant-colonel to general.Many famous Prussian cavalry generals begantheir service in 2 Hussar Regiment under Ziethen,who held the colonelcy of the regiment from, 74'until '786, when he died in his eighty-seventhyear.

'Prussia G/lallenges

ru1itstriaThe Habsburg Emperor Charles VI was theEmperor of the Holy Roman Empire but this, asVoltaire said, was neither holy nor Roman, noreven an empire, for it was a traditional relic of theold German Empire of Otto the Great. The im­perial title was elective, and although from about1440 onwards it had become customary to electa Habsburg to the throne, the electors were alwaysin a position to extort concessions in exchange fortheir votes; the Habsburgs usually had to grantsubstantial monetary favours to ensure their ownelection. The expenses of the imperial crown,which was essentially a German and not anAustrian institution, steadily rose while its powerdiminished, so that it eventually became only ofa traditional prestige importance. Austria itselfwas an archduchy within the German Empire,

but the Habsburg Emperors were in additionkings of Bohemia and kings of Hungary.

As Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI had amachinery of government entirely separate fromthat in Vienna, Prague, Pressburg and Buda. Forthe imperial government had a diet in Ratisbonrepresenting the members of the three colleges(curiae) of electors, princes and imperial cities,but these were merely debating delegates fromindependent German states. For in spite of the factthat the 1648 settlement recognized only the terri­torial supremacy (Landeshaheit) of the rulers,they still enjoyed undisputed and completesovereignty. The diet concerned itself with littleof importance and its decisions had little realeffect since there was no means of forcing theirimplementation. There was no standing imperialdefence force, since the existence of such an armydepended on contributions from the memberstates. The empire was divided into ten regionsor circles, but across these administrative bordersran a patchwork of more than 300 sovereignGerman States, large and small. The most im­portant of these, in addition to Austria, were

•Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia.

Although Brandenburg and East Prussia formedthe main component of the Prussian kingdom,Cleves, Mark and Ravensburg, East Pomerania,Halberstadt and Minden were also governed fromBerlin. And so it became the ambition of theBrandenburg electors and Prussian kings to unitethese many states scattered throughout Germany.Nor could they forget that West Prussia, theBaltic territory between Pomerania and EastPrussia and now part of Poland, had oncebelonged to the Teutonic Order. FrederickWilliam in particular believed that Prussia mustexpand or stagnate.

The Emperor Charles VI, being without maleissue, was concerned that his daughter MariaTheresa should succeed to the Austrian possessions,and in 1728 he asked Frederick William thatPrussia should adhere to the Pragmatic Sanctionassuring the Austrian female succession. FrederickWilliam's price was the West German Duchy ofBerg for Prussia, on the death of its ruler. Spainand Russia were already signatories and Britainand France became additional guarantors a fewyears later. But having secured signatures from

13

the major European powers, Charles VI had mis­givings about his earlier undertaking to supportthe transfer ofBerg to Prussia. Frederick William,nursing a grievance, came to a secret under­standing with Austria's traditional enemy France.When Frederick came to the throne shortly after­wards he inherited both the understanding withFrance and the Prussian hostility to Austria.

A few months later, in October '740, theEmperor Charles VI died, and his daughterMaria Theresa, a young married woman oftwenty-three years, succeeded him. The popula­tion of the territories of the Austrian Habsburgswas about twenty-five million, ten million withinand fifteen million without the borders of theempire. The young king of Prussia was alreadypreparing to make war on the Habsburgs, a warwhich was eventually to become the strugglebetween Prussia and Austria for the masteryof Germany. The population of Prussia and allits dependencies hardly numbered more thanfour and a half million.

The 'Prussian~ventlirer

When Frederick became king his attitude to hisfamily and the old ministers of state becamecolder, more withdrawn and morc uncivil. Hesnubbed his mother and sisters and publiclyhumiliated von der Schulenburg and the OldDessauer. He began to live behind an impene­trable mask. He was untroubled and uninhibitedby conscience, by a standard of common decency)or by any fellow feeling for his brother Germans,inside or outside of Prussia. He was the completeautocrat, friendless, perfidious, irreligious andcynical, the end always justifying the means,ungrateful, avaricious, mistrustful and untrust­worthy, the monarch with the perpetual sneer.

Many stories are told about him. And as hewas successful and became 'the Great', they wererecounted after his death almost with admiration

14

and affection. He visited the monks of Cleve tofind out what they were doing with the revenuesof the royal forests made over to them throughoutthe centuries to pray for the souls of past dukes.Carlyle tells how Frederick asked the purpose ofthese costly masses. The answer came 'To deliverthe souls out of purgatory.' 'Purgatory? It is acostly thing for the forests all this while! And arethey not au t of purgatory yet, these poor souls,after so many hundred years of praying?' Themonks thought not. 'And when will they be out?'The monks could not say. 'Then send me amessenger when it is complete.' And that endedwhat was to have been a long ceremonial visit, andthe king rode off leaving the monks still singingthe Te Deum with which they had greeted hisarrival. When inspecting a prison at SpandauFrederick found only one prisoner who admittedhis guilt and the fairness of his sentence, the othersmaintaining that they were innocent. IReleasethe scoundrel immediately', cried the king, 'lesthe contaminate all these guiltless people.' On theprompting of the Protestant community atGlogau, he promised the Austrians th":t he wouldnot use the Protestant church outside the walls asa blockhouse, if they, for their part, would spare itfrom demolition. But when he had taken Glogauand viewed the church he is said to have cried out,'What a fearful monstrosity. Ofcourse it must comedown I' On seeing a great placard erected byindignant burghers lampooning and criticizingthe king for the taxes he had imposed, he merelygave orders that it should be hung lower in orderthat the people might see it better. During hislife-time, however, he was regarded with littleaffection and the news of his death was receivedby the Berliners (whom he always disliked) witha sigh of relief.

In the summer of '740, even before the deathof the Emperor Charles VI, the young Frederickwas already playing the bully in the Rhineland.He wanted Berg and would have been happy tohave Russian or French troops lay waste theRhineland to help him get it. Like his father, hewas tolerant in matters of religion, being content'that all his subjects should go to heaven in theirown way'. But because it politically so suited him,he regarded himself as the champion of all Ger­man Protestants. And whereas Frederick William

0 -'

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on the seizure of Austrian Silesia. He wanted itsrich territory as his price for adherence to thePragmatic Sanction. The province was contiguousto Brandenburg and brought him further politicaland strategic advantages in that it cut off theElector of Saxony, who was also King of Poland,from his territories in the east. Silesia outflankedWestern Poland, also coveted by Frederick.Prussia had ofcourse no moral or legal right to theterritory. And when his minister Podewils urgedthat some pretext or claim be furbished up, theking replied, 'That is whatyou are for. The ordershave already been given out to the troops.' On 9

ovember Frederick received news of the deathof the Empress or Russia and, having nothingmore to fear on his eastern flank, this confirmedhim in his intention to occupy Silesia, come whatmay.

The Prussian preparations had been made inthe greatest of secrecy, all activity being cloakedin the guise of a march to be made to the west tosecure the provinces ofJillich-Berg on the Rhine,those provinces already promised to FrederickWilliam. By the end or November, however, the

•British Ambassador was already convinced that

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was prepared, if need be, to oppress PrussianRoman Catholics in retaliation for persecution ofProtestants by German Roman Catholic rulerselsewhere, his son Frederick II more than hintedthat he was ready to go to war on their behalf. Ina territorial dispute between the Catholic Arch­bishop Elector of Mainz and the ProtestantLandgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Archbishopformed a military coalition with the Emperor'ssupport. The Landgrave appealed to Frederick,who wrote to his brother Elector of Mainz saying'In case of need, we' (that is to say Frederick)'should not know how to refrain from affordingthe Landgrave ... protection and help.' Thethreat was sufficient to win the day for the Land­grave. The Bishop of Liege left unanswered aPrussian ultimatum and had to buy off theoccupying Prussian troops at a price of 200,000

thalers. And the young king, revelling in his ownsuccess and jeering at the restraining advice of hisown Prussian ministers, said that 'when theytalked of war they resembled an Iroquois dis­cussing astronomy'.

When, at the end of October, he learned or theEmperor's death, Frederick had already decided

• IS

Silesia was the goal, and Vienna, suddenlyawakening to the danger, sent the Marquis diBotta on a special mission to Berlin to inquire thePrussian intentions. Di Botta en Toute had passedgreat columns of Prussians already moving southand it was no longer possible for Frederick to dis­semble. He openly laid claim to Silesia, in returnfor which he promised support for M,,;ria Theresaand her husband's claim to the imperial throne.Both men threatened, the Austrian envoy leavingwith the reminder that 'though the Prussiantroops make a handsomer show than the Austrian,ours have smelt powder'. In early DecemberPrussian troops crossed into Silesia.

Frederick rightly judged Austro-Hungary, inspite of its size and large population, to be dis­united and militarily weak, and he was correct inbelieving that the political climate in Europe wasauspicious for an unprovoked attack. He waswrong, however, in his assessment of the energy,strength and wisdom of the new Austrian ruler,by far the most distinguished monarch the Habs­burgs ever produced, and in the fervent supportshe was to receive as Queen of Hungary from theHungarian people.

The War of the Austrian Succession, insofar asit concerns operations in Central Europe, em­braces what is usually referred to as the First andSecond Silesian Wars.

Theilesian'J1itr

The command of the main Prussian force, 28,000

strong, which had been under von Schwerin,passed to Frederick as soon as he joined the fieldarmy, while the hereditary Prince of Anhalt­Dessau (the Young Dessauer) was to follow fromBerlin with a reserve of 12,000 men. The Austriantroops in Silesia were unprepared for battle andnumbered only 600 horse and 3,000 fool. Theirmilitary governor, von Wallis, a soldier ofScottishdescent, was soon locked up commanding a siege

16

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A drurnrner of von Krockow's 2 Dragoon Regitnent, origin­ally raised in 1725

,

force of 1,000 Austrians in Glogau. Wallis'sdeputy, von Browne, a German-Irish RomanCatholic, who happened to be in the south ofSilesia at the time, began to draw in detachmentsfrom Moravia, but these he dissipated by allo­cating them to fortresses and strongholds, whilekeeping only 600 dragoons under his own hand.

There was a large Protestant element amongthe German population of Silesia and this wel­comed Frederick in his newly assumed role ofProtestant protector; the Roman Catholics werepassive. And so, in spite of very bad weather, thePrussians advanced steadily through the floodedcountryside in two columns, Frederick with thelarger and Schwerin with the smaller, the town ofLiegnitz being taken by Schwerin by a coup demain. By the end of January most of Silesia hadbeen occupied without serious fighting, althoughGlogau, Brieg and Neisse still held out.

Frederick regarded the war as over since Silesiawas already his, and he returned to Berlin topatch up a peace through diplomatic channels.There he learned to his chagrin that the Austrianswere mobilizing in earnest. France, anxious for ashare in the spoils, was demanding the Austrian

Netherlands and Luxembourg, while the Electorof Bavaria was claiming the imperial throne.Franco-Bavarian troops were preparing to invadeAustriaand Bohemia, while England and Holland,siding against the French, were sending a subsidyto Vienna.

Frederick was obliged to set out again im­mediately for Silesia where the once favourablemilitary situation was rapidly deteriorating. Thetwo Austrian generals, Browne and Lentulus, hadturned Glatz into a military base and were in­filtrating both regular and partisan troops backinto Silesia. About 600 men had forced their waythrough the blockading Prussians and reinforcedthe Austrian garrison at Neisse. The Silesian roadsand backwoods had become infested with irregu­lars, both foot and horse, principally Hungarian

and Croat pandours and Magyar irregularhussars. In Prussian eyes the pandour-hussarswere indisciplined predators, but they gaveendless trouble, cutting off detachments andmurdering the wounded. Indeed they were sobold that they would hang about the Prussianencampments in broad daylight just outsidemusket range, watching and reporting all move­ment and activity. They were no match fordisciplined Prussian infantry, but so great was theself-esteem of the Magyar irregular hussars thatthey were not afraid to attack Prussian cavalry, forthey were better horsemen and their mounts werehandier and more agile. At Baumgarten theyattacked the king's escort of Schulenburg Dra­goons and put it to flight and Frederick himselfbarely escaped capture.

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The Battlefields of the Silesian WarsBrandenburg, Silesia and BohelDia-Moravia

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An officer of3 Dragoon Regintent (originally von der Schulen~burg's Dragoons)

These hussars and pandours, in spite of theirindiscipline, were excellent in tying down garri­sons and in collecting information and denyingthe enemy reconnaissance. Even in those areaswhere the population was Protestant and friendlyto the king it became difficult for the Prussians tolearn what was going on in Silesia. Beyond theborders it was impossible. When a new Austrianarmy under Neipperg (Neuperg) entered Silesiaon its way to relieve the garrison at Neisse, theAustrian field-marshal, in the words of onechronicler, 'walked invisible within clouds ofpandours' .

Frederick, by good fortune, first heard ofNeipperg's approach from Austrian deserters.Glogau had already been taken by the YoungDessauer in a night action. The Brieg blockadewas given up and Frederick prepared to meet theoncoming Austrians.

MOLLWITZ AND CHOTUSITZ

Mollwitz was Frederick's first battle and there thegreatest warrior of his age made a most un­promising beginning. Although the season waslate (it was ncarly mid-April) there were days of

18

raging snowstorms, which at times cut visibilitydown to twenty yards, and nearly two feet ofsnowlay on the ground. Neipperg should have knownof Frederick's whereabouts since mounted pan­dours had captured or shot down all the Prussianmessengers sent by Frederick to bring up re­inforcements. Frederick certainly did not knowwhere the Austrians were, although in fact theylay only seven miles away, until he heard the news,so it issaid, almost by accident from a Silesian farmlabourer at daybreak on the morning of 10 ApriLA quick march brought him to the village ofMollwitz where he surprised the Austrians attheir dinner.

How Neipperg allowed the Prussians to ap­proach unobserved is not known, but no cavalryscreen appeared to have been posted until thefiring of outpost rockets warned Teipperg thatsomething was afoot. A hussar party was thensent out but this came galloping back withPrussian dragoons at their heels. Neipperg calledfor Romer, his Saxon General of Horse, the alarmwas sounded and the troops sent for from theoutlying villages.

•Frederick had allocated six squadrons of

dragoons and three of hussars to the command ofColonel Grafvon Rothenburg, a soldier offortunewith a rcmarkable record. Born in Polnisch­Retkau, he had joined the French Army in 1727

but, five years later, he transferred to the Spanishservice and saw action in Morocco. He returnedto his French regiment, of which he becamecolonel, before entering the Prussian Army in thesame rank in 1740. According to Germanchroniclers it was due to von Rothenburg'sskilful handling of horse that the Prussian infantrywere able to deploy undisturbed. Be that as itmay, Frederick deployed his infantry in two linesabout 300 yards apart, each line being made up ofthree ranks. The first line was commanded by vonSchwerin and the second by the Young Dessauer,with Frederick himself in overall command. Thecavalry were divided on both wings with somegrenadier battalions to give them some stiffening.The Prussians had over 20,000 men on the fieldof which about 4,000 were cavalry, and over sixtyguns. The Austrians totalled somewhat less andhad only eighteen guns, but their cavalry strengthwas double that of the Prussian.

I

At two in the arternoon the Prussian gunsopened a sustained fire on the Austrian lert wingmade up ofRomer's horse and soon inflicted manycasualties. The Austrian cavalry became restlessand then angry, demanding to be led forwardinto the attack. Neipperg was two miles away onthe right still bringing troops on to the field.Romer could get no orders and finally, unable tohold his men back any longer, he gave the orderfor his thirty squadrons to advance and then tocharge. The Prussian cavalry on the right wereswept away and ned between its now lines ofinfantry, hotly pursued by Romer's Austrians.1 ine guns were taken and the two Prussian lineswere soon enveloped in a sea of white-coatedcavalry. It looked as if the Prussians had alreadylost their first battle.

Some say that the fleeing Prussian horse sweptFrederick away with them. But it seems that theking considered the battle irretrievably lost.Schwerin confirmed his fears although he con­sidered that 'there might still be a chance' ofholding. Others say that Schwerin begged the

. king to flee rather than become a prisoner. What­ever the circumstances, flee he certainly did,

An officer or8 Cuirassier Regiment, a Brandenburg regimentwhich, although dating as cuirassiers only from. 1734. o'\Nedits origin to Brandenburg-Bayreuth cavalry of 1690

leaving von Schwerin, a veteran of Blenheim, incommand. Frederick galloped off to Oppeln,thirty-five miles in the rear to cross the Oder bythe bridge there, but when he arrived he foundthat Austrian hussars and pandours had reachedthe bridge before him. Some of his party werekilled or captured as they wheeled about and setoff back again for the doubtful safety ofMollwitz,the Austrian horse being in close pursuit.

Meanwhile at Mollwitz Schwerin had sent amessenger to the Young Dessauer, in command ofthe second line, ordering him to hold, come whatmay. The Young Dessauer, who disliked Schwerin,sent back a tart rejoinder that he knew where hisduty lay and required none save the king toremind him of it. The two lines of Prussianinfantry, extending over a frontage ofabout a mileand a half, separated though they were, still heldtheir ground stoutly, pouring volley after volleyinto the Austrian horse which repeatedly cameback to the charge. On the flanks the grenadierba ttalions, deserted by the Prussian horse, stoodin the enemy midst like little islands. Yet few ofthe Prussians had been in actiOl~ before. Byevening Romer and Goldlein, the Austriancommander of infantry on the left flank, weredead. The Austrian horse, shot through bymusketry, were tired and dispirited at theirfailure to break the enemy line; after the fifthcharge they refused to advance again. Comparedwith the Prussian, the Austrian infantry werepoorly trained in musketry, and without ironramrods could deliver only two rounds to thePrussian five. Within Prussian musket range, the,Austrians could not stand their ground.

At seven in the evening, as the sun was selling,Schwerin sensed that the advantage had passedto him; he ordered a general advance, and theAustrians sullenly trooped off the field. There wasno pursuit. Thus ended the battle of Mollwitz,the Prussian casualties being 4,600 dead,wounded and missing against an Austrian loss of4,400 .

1

Thereafter Frederick was never to allude to hisown flight but was to hold a secret grievanceagainst Schwerin. The king had been surprised atthe steadfastness of the Austrian troops who hadbeen outnumbered by better equipped and bellertrained infantry; he was quick to recognize, too,

19

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The Household Troops in dress unifortn; an ADC, andofficers of the Garde-du-Corps and the Gens d'artnesCuirassiers

and the pandours were everywhere, giving theSaxons in particular a rough handling. Frederickwas unable to take Brunn and the Saxons departedfor home, this causing a permanent breach in thePrusso-Saxon alliance. The discomfited Frederickwas forced to retire to Bohemia where he was metat Chotusitz by a 30,000 strong Austrian Armyunder Charles of Lorraine.

The battle of Chotusitz was fought on 17 May1742. The village of Chotusitz itself was held bythe Young Dessauer while Frederick was to theright with the foot grenadiers, the horse and muchof the artillery. The sequence of the battle was atfirst very much the same as at Mollwitz, with thePrussian artillery playing on the Austrian cavalryflank, with the difference, however, that it was thePrussian horse which first rode into the attack andthe Austrian cavalry which gave way. TheAustrian infantry in the centre, little daunted,marched straight into Chotusitz where the brokenground and ditches made it impossible forFrederick's cavalry to penetrate. The battle wasof the fiercest, the Austrians fighting not withtheir customary obstinacy but with fury. Butthey lost the day and nearly half their men. Thebelief took hold, not only abroad but in Vienna,that the Prussians were invincible. 2

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the inferiority of the Prussian horse. And so hebegan the systematic retraining of Prussiancavalry.

Maria Theresa, anxious to start operationsagainst the Franco-Bavarians, had, much againsther will, begun negotiations with Frederick.Frederick and Neipperg met in secrecy and by theConvention of Klein Schnellcndorf, Frederickplayed false to his allies, agreeing to conductsham skirmishes and sieges in order to deceive theFrench. In reality he was to withdraw Prussiafrom the war, leaving the Austrians free to clearBohemia of the enemy. In return Frederickdemanded that he retain his Silesian spoils. Atfirst, however, the Austrians had no success andthe Franco-Bavarian troops had little difficulty inoverrunning Bohemia, so that Frederick, incensedby jealousy and surprised at what he believed tobe the Austrian weakness, went back on his secretagreement and ordered the occupation of Glatzand Moravia. But once in Moravia, Frederickreceived little help from the French who soonwithdrew. The Slovak inhabitants were hostile

20

•

Maria Theresa sued for peace and the Treaty ofBerlin in July 1742 marked the end of the FirstSilesian War. Saxony went out of the war withPrussia. Austro-Hungarian troops then clearedBohemia of the French and invaded Bavaria,driving the Elector, who had meanwhile beencrowned as Holy Roman Emperor, from his ownMunich capital. France was forced back on thedefensive, having lost the battle ofDettingen, andMaria Theresa prepared to invade Alsace.

None of this was to Frederick's liking, for he hadno wish to see France forced au t of the war, sincethis would, he believed, leave him alone to faceAustria; he suspected that Maria Theresa'scession of Silesia was merely an arrangement ofconvenience until Bavaria, France and Spainwere beaten. Frederick hastened to ally himselfonce more to France, Bavaria, the Palatine andHesse-Cassel. As soon as the Austrian forces hadentered Alsacc, Frederick ordered the invasionof Bohemia.

The

cJecondcJilesianUitrOn August 1744 Frederick set 80,000 Prussianson the march towards Prague and hcld a further20,000 in reserve in Silesia. Prague fell in Sep­tem ber. Frederick, Schwerin and the YoungDessauer continued their triumphant progresstowards Tabor and Austria.

Maria Theresa, however, had been to Press­burg once more to appeal to the Hungariannation for help. Charles of Lorraine had beenordered to quit Alsace and bring his army east­wards. With the arrival in Bohemia of theHungarian horse and pandours, Prussia's fortunesoon changed, for the Magyars insolently en­closed encampments and columns, controlled thehighways and captured all messengers, so that fora whole month Frederick was out of touch withhis kingdom and the rest of Europe, with no newsof friend or foe. On 19 November he was attacked

by Austrians and Saxons and was forced to

retreat out of Bohemia with a heavy loss of equip­ment. The Austrians then invaded Bavaria oncemore and prepared to re-enter Silesia.

HOHENFRIEDBERG AND SOHR

Prince Charles of Lorraine crossed into Silesiawith more than 60,000 men, ofwhich about a thirdwere Saxons. By the clever use of an unsuspectingdouble spy Frederick had led Charles to believethat if Silesia were entered, the Prussians wouldbehave as they had done in 1744, that is to sayretreat to the north to avoid being cut off fromBreslau. To reinforce this idea in Charles's mindFrederick evacuated part of the south-east. Infact, the king intended to take the offensive witha force of 70,000 men as soon as the Austrianenemy could be lured down into the Silesian plain.

The battle took place between Hohenfriedbergand Striegau, beyond which the Prussian forceslay hidden. On the previous night the Prussianshad been brought forward and deployed, andthey attacked the Saxon advance guard at day­break on 4 June 1745· Charles or'Lorraine wasstill in bed and by the time he roused himself theengagement was halfJost. Once more the Prussianinfantry showed itself to be superior to theAustrian in training and musketry, and the

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A tnedical officer tending a wounded hussar of Werner's6 Hussar Regitnent

21

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Cavalry officers (3, I and 8 Hussars) and, background right,of 5 Dragoon Reghnent

Austrian horse was unwilling to close wi th thePrussian new model cavalry. By eight o'clock thatmorning Charles ordered a retreat and thecolumns pulled back covered by rearguards. ThePrussian loss had been 5,000; that of the Austriansand Saxons g,ooo dead and wounded, 7,000

prisoners and 66 cannon. A further 8,000 deserted.Frederick claimed that there had not been so greata victory since Blenheim. 3 The Prussians followedup the Austrian army, now reduced to about4°,000, moving into north-east Bohemia to eatthe country bare.

At the end of September Frederick, so troubledby pandours on his line of communications thatI 1,000 horse and foot had to be detached to guardration convoys, began to fall back towardsSilesia, crossing the Elbe and encamping with18,000 men at the foot of the mountains near thevillage of Sohr (Soor).

Charles of Lorraine, following in the wake ofthe Prussians with an army of 30,000, haddetermined to make a surprise night attack onthe Prussian camp. On tbe night of2g September,after a clever approach march in the dark, theAustrian force arrived on the high ground above

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A chaplain upbraiding drunken looters of the Frei-Corps.Left, a grenadier ofvon Shorny's Corps and, right, two Croathussars of von Kleist's Cavalry

Frederick, while a great force of pandours fell onthe Prussian baggage, the wild Croats murderingall in their path, women as well as men. But thearrival of the Austrian main force was an hourtoo late and its movement was detected at day­break by Prussian outposts. Frederick and his staffwere already up and at work, and the Prussianreactions, as usual, were much quicker than thoseof the Austrian.

On the Austrian left wing were twenty-eightguns and fifty squadrons of horse; the gunsopened fire but the horse and infantry stoodimmobile whereas, as Frederick said later, 'theyshould have thundered down on us'. Turning tothe colonel of I Cuirassiers, Frederick is reportedto have s.aid, 'Here you, Buddenbrock, get intothem wi th your cuirassiers. I The cuirassiersgalloped uphill, but met no counter-charge,'merely the crackle of carbines'. The Austriancavalry wing was swept away. The Prussian footon the right, following up the cuirassiers, climbedthe slope, losing heavily in the case-shot firewhich raked them. The Prussians threw in theirthree reserve regiments of infantry . The ~uns weretaken and the enemy driven off. Frederick then

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returned to Silesia to lay astride the Austrianapproach route. On 23 ovember Prussianforward elements, light horse, cuirassiers andfoot, were in contact with uhlans of Charles ofLorraine's Saxon advance guard. There, atHennersdorf, Ziethen, who was in command,destroyed the 6,000 strong Saxon force of horseand foot under von Buchner. 5 Surprise havingbeen lost, Charles turned in his tracks andreturned to Bohemia. And so the whole enterprisecollapsed.

Frederick now invaded Saxony. The OldDessauer moved from Halle to Leipzig and thenbegan a march towards Dresden, throwing abridge over the Elbe so that Frederick, coming upfrom Silesia, might join him. A Saxon forceunder Rutowski, including an Austrian contin­gent, lay west of the Saxon capital. Charles ofLorraine was marching out of Bohemia with46,000 men, in order to aid his Saxon ally .Frederick goaded on the Old Dessauer to attackthe Saxons before Charles should join them, andnot wait for Frederick's own arrival. When theOld Dessauer did give battle On 15 December,Charles of Lorraine was not five miles away.

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The standard bearer of the Garde-du-Corps, first formed as asquadron in 1740. It formed the heavy cavalry personal escortfor the King and was numbered as 13 Cuirassier Regiment

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transferred the remainder of his cavalry to hisleft wing where the two lines still stood apart.Again the Austrian horse on that wing broke,leaving bare the infantry Rank. The Austrianspoured back into the forest where the Prussiancavalry could no longer pursue. Meanwhile thepandours in the rear, fully engaged in looting,brought no aid to the main battle. The engage­ment cost the Austrians 4,000 dead and woundedand 3,000 prisoners. The Prussian loss was about,4,000.

'-

Because Frederick was certain that the Austriansmust be forced to come to terms he ordered hisarmy to withdraw slowly into Silesia, while hehimself returned to Berlin. His own army was dis­persed into winter quarters and he assumed thatthe Austrian would do the same.

Meanwhile, however, the Austrians and Saxonshad drawn up a plan to invade Brandenburg thatwinter and take Berlin; but the details of thecampaign came to Frederick's ears and he

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A trooper of Frei-Husar, originally raised in 1759 in Saxonyby von Kleist, the Colonel of I Hussar RegilneDt

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On 15 December 1745, at Kesselsdorf, the OldDessauer attacked the entrenched Saxon force,the Prussian infantry marching uphill throughwet snow against the massed fire of 9,000 musketsand thirty guns. The Prussian cavalry hungabout on the outskirts. Time after time the Prus­sians fell back, their ranks shot through, amidfearful casualties. An Austrian battalion, seeingthe Prussian infantry near disintegration, left itsentrenchments in pursuit and was followed by theSaxon foot. There in the open they were cut topieces by the Prussian horse. Rutowski lost thebattle: 3,000 dead and wounded and nearly7,000 prisoners. 6 The Prussians lost 4,600 mcnbut at long last gained the peace. For Charles ofLorraine turned back yet again into Bohemia.

This ended the Second Silesian War and, bythe Treaty of Dresden signed on Christmas Day,Austria was forced to agree to Silcsia remainingin Prussian hands. Frederick, for his part,acknowledged Maria Theresa's husband, FrancisStephen, as Emperor. Prussia, often faced withdisaster, had been saved by Frederick's audacityand military skill.

The war between Austria and France continuedfor yet another three years in the Netherlands andItaly, peace being finally made at Aix-la­Chapelle in 1748. The astute Maria Theresa, dis­trustful of Frederick, resentful at the loss ofSilesiaand disappointed in Britain's effort as Austria'sally during the war, looked about her for newallies against the resumption of the struggle.

Frederick had depended for his early successes onthe magnificent infantry bequeathed to him byhis father, Frederick William. And almost im­mediately after his succession, Frederick II him­selfbegan to reform and expand the Prussian footto almost twice its original establishment.

His first measure, customary after any change

24

A hussar-trumpeter wearing the distinctive trumpeter'sheaddress

•of Prussian sovereign, was the reorganization ofthe foot guards. The giant Potsdam Guard(Infanterie Regiment Nr 6) so beloved by hisfather, was virtually disbanded, being reformedas a single grenadier guard battalion; the re­mainder were paid off or transferred to PrinceHenry of Prussia's newly raised Infanterie Regi­ment r 35 and Garnison-Bataillon Nr 4·Frederick's own Regiment r 15 (formerly Regi­ment von der Goltz) became the new regiment ofroyal foot guards. To this guard Frederick addedanother mounted regiment of guards, the Garde­c1u-Corps, cuirassiers who eventually took prece­dence as 13 Cuirassier Regiment.

From 1740 onwards Frederick raised a series ofnew infantry regiments; in 1740 Musketier­Regiment Nr 34, and Fusilier-Regimenter 33,35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40 ; in 174 I, Fusilier-RegimenterNr 41, 42, 43 and, in 1742 and 1743, Fusilier­Regimenter r 45, 46, 47, 48. No further fieldinfantry regiments were formed (with the excep­tion of 49 which was in reality an engineer regi­ment) until 1772-74 when a single Musketier­Regiment Nr 50 and five Fusilier-Regimenter(Nr 51-55) came into being.

MICHAEL YOUENS

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I Horse Grenadier, von der Schulenburg'sRegiment, SlDDrner field service unifonn., 17~g.41

2 Grenadier, Grenadier Guard Battalion No.6,sutnrner field service uniforID, c. 1745

3 Grenadier, von Arni:rn Regiment(5 Infantry Reghnent), sununer fieldservice unifor:rn, c. 1729

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Trooper, von Ruesch's Death's-Head Hussars (5 Hussar Regiment),sumnter field service uniform, c. 1744

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MICHAEl YOUENS

I Lieutenant, von Dewitz's Hussars(I Hussar Regiment), parade andsunnner field service unifor:rn, c. 1748

2 Musketeer, von Forcade's Reghnent(23 Infantry Regiment), summer field service unifor~ c. 1756

3 Bombardier, Prussian Artillery,field service uniform, c. [750

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J Freijager, De Ie Noble'sches Freicorps,SlUD.mer field service uniform, 1756-63

2 Bosniak Lancer, Bosnian Corps,sununer dress, c. 1760

3 Grenadier, von Schony's Freicorps,sununer unifonn, c. 1761

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Trooper, von Vippach's Hussars (4 Hussar Regiment),sununer field service order, c. ]752

MICHAf.l YOUENSE

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1 Drull'llner, von Below's Regiment(II Infantry Regiment), sUDI.mer fieldservice uniform c. 1757

~ Grenadier, von Canitz Regiment(~ Infantry Regiment), summer fieldservice order, c. 1762

3 Dragoon, von Gschray's Freicorps,summer field service order, c. 1761

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FMICHAEL YOUENS

MICHAEL YOUEN$

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I and 2 Officer and Grenadier,I Battalion of the Guard (No. 15),summer parade uniform, c. 1786

3 Officer, Garde.du~Corps,ceremonialguard dress (Galawachtanzug), c. 1786

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I Non-£omn\issioned officer, Miner Corps,winter field service dress, c••792

2: Infantry Reginlental Quartennaster,winter uniform, c. 1,61

3 Supply Detail, Com.rnissariat(Proviantknecht), winter uniform, c. 1:756

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•••."From a painting of Major-General Paul von Werner, thecolonel in chief of 6 Hussar Regiment from ]75?-1785

In addition there were twelve garrison regi­ments of infantry which, although designed todefend fortresses, were sometimes used as fieldinfantry. Between 1742 and 1753 six independentgrenadier battalions were raised (numberedfrom one to six), these being additional to thetwenty-five grenadier battalions formed by de­taching the two grenadier companies from eachline regiment; these grenadier battalions werenot numbered but were usually designated bythe names of their commanders. 7

Frederick made some use oflight infantry Jageror Scharfschutzen, although he was not the firstto introduce them, for they had been from time totime in the Prussian service since 1656. In 1740,however, he fe-introduced them as a corps ofguides, at first only a half-company strong, re­cruited from hunters and gamekeepers. By 1760the corps had reached a strength of 800. Toooften, however, the Jager were misused as regularinfantry, and the larger part of the corps wasvirtually destroyed near Spandau holding un­favourable open country against Russian Cos­sacks. In 1763 the corps was reformed at a strengthof 300 men, but not till 1787, the year following

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the formation of the firstJagerregiment, was everyJager equipped with a rifled carbine. In all, thedismounted Jager had little military significanceduring the Silesian Wars and his latter-day rolewas undertaken by hussars and the numerousFrei Korps. Side by side with the Jager zu Fusswas the Feldjager-Corps zu Pferde, also recruitedfrom foresters, which was, however, designed notfor fighting but for conducting the courier andfield postal service.

Although Frederick much increased the estab­lishment of his infantry and was later to vary itstactics, he did little to alter its organization. It wasa different story with the Prussian line cavalrywhich had shown itself so unsatisfactory at Moll­witz. Except for the new guard regiment, theGarde-du-Corps, no further cuirassier regimentswere raised, but Frederick did bring into being afurther five dragoon regiments (8-12 Dragoons) .These took their place beside the cuirassiers inproviding the shock action to break the Austrianhorse.

The Silesian Wars, as we have already said,were in some respects revolutionary wars in thatthey introduced new tactics and new types oftroops; very mobile light cavalry and partisansand pandours, Magyar irregular hussars andCroat light horse, the Polish uhlan and the Saxonlancer. At first the Prussian cavalry of the line wasquite unfitted to cope with these enemies andsuccess only came with the expansion of thePrussian hussar arm. When Frederick II ascendedthe throne he possessed only nine squadrons ofhussars, but between 1741 and 1773 he added tothis number a further eighty-one German andnine Bosnian squadrons, eventually formingHusar-Regimenter Nr 3-10. None of Frederick'scavalry, except for the Bosnian hussars, carriedthe lance.

Maria Theresa had made excellent use of thescores of bands of irregulars raised as Frei Korpsby Austrian and Hungarian soldiers of fortune.These relied for payment on booty and loot. Manywere no more than bloodthirsty criminals whoterrorized friend and foe alike. Yet it proved im­possible to combat them by the formal militarymethods of the time. In spite of the obvious ad­vantages which the use of the Frei Korps broughtto their paymasters, for although difficult to con-

25

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Hussars of the Leib-Husaren Korps and the MagdeburgHusaren Korps

tral they were cheap to maintain and they wereparticularly effective in denying access, suppliesand intelligence to the enemy, Frederick at firstrefused to use Prussian raised Frei Korps andplaced his hopes on regular hussars, both to pene­trate the enemy rear and, at the same time,combat the enemy Frei Korps. When the warbroke out again in 1756, however, the king didnot hesitate to commission Prussian and foreignofficers, gentlemen, adventurers and freebootersto raise lfree' regiments, battalions and com­panies of both horse and foot. About forty-fivedifferent formations or units were listed on theralls. Most of them wore their own distinctiveuniform, for they were generally better disci­plined and equi pped than their Austrian counter­parts.

In 1740 the Prussian field artillery had con­sisted of only six companies but the next year theestablishment was almost doubled when Frederickformed the earlier companies into I Field ArtilleryRegiment, at the same time raising a second regi­ment (Nr 2) of five Kanonier companies and oneBombardier company. By 1762 the total order ofbattle had been raised to thirty companies, withfive companies to the battalion and three battalions

26

to the regiment. Field artillerymen, whetherKanoniere or Bombardiere, formed the gun crewsfor the three distinct branches of artillery,Fortress Artillery, Regimental Artillery and Bat­tery Artillery.

Regimental Artillery consisted of those gunsdecentralized to the infantry, usually two three­pounder or four-pounder guns to each infantrybattalion. After 1756 these infantry pieces werereplaced by the heavier six-pounder. The gundetachment of two guns might be commanded bya Feuerwerker, Sergeant, Corporal or Bombar­dier, and each gun crew consisted of two artillerysoldiers reinforced by infantrymen or men fromthe Handlanger service. Battery Artillery (orPositions-Geschiitzen) formed the main bulk ofthe artillery which was fought by centralizedbatteries" At the beginning of the Silesian Wars ittotalled only sixty guns· By 1758 this number hadbeen increased to over 200 pieces, and a year laterthe total count of battalion and battery guns was

580"Frederick the Great had been much impressed

in '757 with the performance of Russian horseartillery, particularly in the close fire support it

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A trooper, nOD-COIDJDissioned officer, trumpeter and officerfrom I Hussar RegiDlent, forDlerly the Prussian Hussars

had given to Russian cavalry. Two years later heintroduced it into the Prussian service. The firstbatteries consisted oftcn six-pounders each drawnby a team of six horses, but these were laterreplaced by the lighter three-pounders and four­horse teams.

Engineers, pontoniers and miners formed avery small auxiliary corps under Frederick Wil­liam. During Frederick's reign the engineer corpswas developed into the main technical corpsresponsible for the direction of pioneers, pon­toniers and miners; its establishment consistedentirely of officers and warrant officers (forty­eight officers and thirteen conductors in (786).Previous to the expansion of Ihis corps the twocompanies of miners, tcn companies of pioneersand the pontoniers had been the general respon­sibility of the artillery.

VIe

rJeven rears UltrFrederick's insulting raillery had made enemiesof the French king and the Russian empress, andhis clumsy attempt to destroy Anglo-Russianaccord had drawn Russia, Austria and France inleague against him. Russia, Austria and Saxonywere openly hostile to Prussia. Frederick fearedthe Russian, so he said, more than he feared Godand, being aware that Elisabeth and her ministerCount Bestuzhin-Ryumin were bitterly anti­Prussian, he had good reason to expect a jointAustro-Russian attack on East Prussia and Silesia.And, since he had a standing army of I 50,000 menand fourteen million thalers put aside for a newwar, he resolved, without consulting his onlyally, Britain, to make an unprovoked and pre­emptive attack on Austria by invading Saxony.The Seven Years War, sometimes known as theThird Silesian War, was a resumption of thestruggle for the retention ofSilesia and the masteryof the German Empire. For Frederick it was a warof survival for, if Prussia failed, it would be dis-

membered by the powerful coalition whichfaced it.

Frederick lay siege to the Saxon army in themountainous region of Pirna, where it put up anunexpectedly tough resistance. Frederick suc­ceeded, however, in repelling the Austrian at­tempts at relief and finally starved the force intosubmission. He then incorporated the whole of theSaxon force into the Prussian Army, replacing theSaxon officers by Prussians. Saxony itselfremainedin Prussian occupation for nearly six years.

Yet Frederick had made a poor beginning tothe war. The German Protestant rulers were, ad­mittedly, generally sympathetic to him but, inthe face of Austrian diplomacy, his position wasrapidly deteriorating. Russia had agreed to enterthe war against Prussia in return for an Austriansubsidy. Maria Theresa offered to trade theAustrian Netherlands to France and Spain inexchange for their active participation in the warand the return of Silesia to Austria. Swedenentered the war against Prussia.

PRAGU E, KOLiNAND GROSS-]AGERNDORF

In the spring or 1757 Frederick invaded Bohemiawith four columns, three from Saxony and afourth, under Schwerin, from Silesia. About60,000 Austrians under Charles of Lorraine wereconcentrated in the neighbourhood of Prague,waiting for the arrival of Daun with a further30,000 troops. Frederick was determined to routCharles before Daun should join him and, againstSchwerin's wishes and advice, he ordered the64,000 tired Prussians to attack on 6 May theentrenched posi tions east of the Bohemian capital.

Frederick made the mistake of ordering anattack across ground which had not been recon­noitred; what Frederick had taken for lush watermeadows were in fact carp ponds, two to threefeet deep, covered with water weed. When thePrussian infantry arrived at the carp ponds theywere met by the tearing fire of artillery case-shotat 400 paces. They stormed the batteries but werethen thrown out by Austrian grenadiers. Schwerin,seventy-three years old, was killed there. ThePrussians were left in possession of the battlefieldbut the Austrians fell back into Prague in good

27

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/A hussar of 7 Hussar Regiment in close cODlbat with a dis­mounted Hungarian hussar or pandour

order. Frederick put his loss at 18,000 men andhe bemoaned 'that this day saw the pillars ofthe Prussian infantry cut down'.9

Frederick spent a month unsuccessfully be­sieging the Bohemian capital and then set out insearch of what he imagined was easier prey, the3o,000-strong army of Field-Marshal von Daunwhich lay astride the Prague-Vienna highwaynear Kolin. In fact Daun was much more power­ful than the Prussians imagined him to be and hehad taken up a strongly entrenched position over­looking the main road, Ziethen's advance guardofhorse and foot ran into a trap and was separatedfrom the main battle; the Hungarian and Croatskirmishers were most troublesome to the un­deployed Prussian columns, and Frederick waseventually forced to attack uphill over ground ofDaun's choosing. The battle, which had raged toand fro for hours, was finally decided by theAustrian horse which scattered the Prussian fool.The total Austrian loss was only 8,000; thePrussian casualties included 8,000 dead, 6,000

prisoners and 45 cannon 10sl.IO Frederick had beendecisively beaten and he had to quit Bohemia.Pomerania and East Prussia had been invaded bySwede and Russian,

28

At the end ofAugust the Russian Field-MarshalApraxin (Apraksin) at the head of 80,000 men,having laid waste to the borderlands of EastPrussia, attacked half that number of Prussiansunder Lehwald, At Gross-Jagerndorf on 30August after a ten hour battle Lehwald wasbeaten, losing nearly 5,000 men and twenty-sevenguns, It was claimed that the Russian casualtieswere about 9,000. 11 Maria Theresa's forcesspilled over into Silesia and an Austrian cavalryand partisan force under General Haddik, 15,000strong, raided Berlin and extracted from thecapital a ransom ofa quarter ofa million thalers.Frederick's fortunes were at a low ebb.

THE PR USSIAN RECOVERY

Frederick survived the summer and autumn of1757 because of the lack of co-ordination betweenhis enemies. The Russians, believing that theEmpress Elisabeth was dead, withdrew out ofEast Prussia behind the iemen. The Frenchforce in Hanover remained inactive. In Lusatia,Daun and Prince Charles had out-manoeuvred a

•

Prussian force under the king's brother, AugustusWilliam, but, in spite of Maria Theresa's urging,they would not come to grips with the enemy.

By November 1757, however, it looked as if theFrench were going over to the offensive when anarmy under Soubise began to march throughThuringia on Saxony, joining up with an Austro­Saxon force. The allies numbered about 50,000men, Frederick made haste to meet them.

Soubisc was contemptuous of Prussian armsand was obsessed with the idea that Frederick wasin retreat and might escape him. He undertook aclumsy manoeuvre to outflank the Prussians andget across their line ofwithdrawal ; in the course ofit he was himself surprised and taken in the flankwhen still in column of march. There at Rossbach,on the afternoon of 5 November 1757, vonSeydlitz's thirty-eight squadrons or horse, withinfantry and guns in support, hit the Franco­Austrian column. By four o'clock the French werein full flight, leaving 3,000 dead and woundedand 5,000 prisoners, of whom eight were generalsand 300 were officers. Less than half the Prussianforce came into action and its losses did not exceed500 men. 12

LEUTHEN, ZORNDORFAND HOCHKIRCH

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An officer of 2 Leib-Husaren-Regirnent, CorDled in 1733 fromthe Berlin Hussal'"s, the King's personal escort. They wereusually DlOunted on greys

Prussia had recovered but was still gravelythreatened, and its subseq uent victories were to beinterspersed with some crushing defeats.

The only Prussian general of outstanding dis­tinction, besides Frederick, was Ferdinand ofBrunswick and he was now in command of theAnglo-German force in Hanover. The AustrianCharles of Lorraine had begun to inflict a seriesof defeats on the Prussian generals. He had takenBreslau. The Prussian general Bevern had beencaptured ·by Croat irregulars and his army hadfled to Glogau. The Saxon and Silesian troops inthe Prussian service were deserting Frederick enmasse. Silesia was about to fall from the Prussiangrasp when, a few weeks after Rossbach, Frederickarrived back in Silesia at the head of only 14,000

weary men. The command ofBevern's remnants,about 18,000, he gave to his hussar-generalZiethen.

Frederick was determined to attack, whateverthe odds, although it is doubtful whether he knewthat Charles, Traun and Nadasti had 80,000 mendrawn up at Leuthen. The Austrian position was,however, a weak one, being extended and withtoo little depth, and the Austrian command wasto make too many irrevocable blunders. On 5

,

A trooper of 5 Hussar Regintent (also known as Totenkopfe),raised in 1741 from a cadre provided by a squadron of IHussar RegiDlent

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December Frederick attacked the Austrian left,moving on it in his tactical oblique order. Fightingwas particularly bitter about the churchyard ofLeuthen but, at the end or the day, the Austrianswere swept from the field. Leuthen, probably thegreatest of Prussian victories, cost the Austrians3,000 dead, 7,000 wounded, '2 I,OOO prisoners and116 guns lost. The total Prussian casualties wereunder 7,000. 13

In the spring of 1758 Frederick moved intoMoravia but lost his heavily escorted wagon-trainof 4,000 loaded supply wagons to Austrian parti­sans. He then withdrew once morc to Silesia.

By that summer the Russians had taken up theoffensive again and, under a new commander-in­chief, Fermor, said to be of English origin(Farmer), had taken Konigsberg, Thorn andElbing before laying siege to Kustrin. Frederickmarched into Brandenburg and gave battle atZorndorf. The engagement lasted two days (26

and 27 August) and the Russians were decisivelydefeated in one of the bloodiest battles of the war,the Prussian loss being nearly 12,000 men and theRussian double that number. 14 Frederick wasallowed no time to follow up his victory over theRussians for the indomitable Austrians werealready back in Saxony and Silesia.

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Lieutenant~Colonel von Watuner, serving in 4 CuirassierRegilllent, was ordered in 1740 to raise a uhlan regilllent ofwhich he becallle chief. In 1742 this was converted t04 HussarRegilllent

Frederick moved first into Silesia, meetingwith Daun at Hochkirch near Bautzen. Frederickhad encamped his 3°,000 men in an untenableposition facing Daun's 60,000, and he met theprotests of his own Prussian generals 'that in sucha situation Daun ought to be hung if he did notattack', with the arrogant retort 'that the Austriansfear us more than the gallows'. Daun did attack,however, before daylight and, although he lost6,000 Austrians, he destroyed a quarter ofFrederick's force 15 This was the third of Daun'svictories over the king in sixteen months, but theAustrian neglect to pursue permitted Frederickto keep his forces intact.

KUNERSDORF, LIEGNITZAND TORGAU

By early 1759 the Prussian field army had beenreduced to 100,000 men, many of them recruits.In August of that year a large Russian force underyet another new commander-in-chief Saltykov,was already in Frankfurt-on-Oder. There Salty­kov was joined by an Austrian force under theScot, Loudon, who had previously spent twelveyears in the Army of the Tsar.

30

Once more Frederick hastened to attack and,during the morning of I 2 August 1759, everythingyielded to the impetuosity and dash of thePrussians. Half the Russian guns were taken andthe king sent a courier off to Berlin announcing acomplete victory. The Russians, however, werestill unbroken and had dug themselves in in theJewish burial-ground at Kunersdorfabove Frank­furt. After six hours of fighting the battle recom­menced, but the Prussian infantry were this timedriven back with fearful slaughter. The finalblow was struck by Loudon's Austrian horsewhich scattered the shaken, already wavering,ranks. The king was saved from capture by ahandful ofhis own hussars as he fled for his life. Ofthe 50,000 men who had marched into the battleunder the black eagles that morning, hardly a fewthousand remained as formed bodies of troops.l6

Frederick was fighting against impossible oddswhich no statesman and few soldiers would readilyhave accepted; he survived yet again because ofthe inactivity and mutual suspicions ofhis enemies.The Russians had refused to pursue the defeatedPrussians since they believed that the Grand Duke

•Peter, an admirer of Frederick the Great, wasabout to ascend the Russian throne. So whileSaltykov spent his time in debauchery, hisRussian troops visited terrible ravages and atroci­ties on the German inhabitants of East Prussiaand Brandenburg. Frederick returned to Saxony,his main recruiting ground. His arrival there wasthe signal for Daun to withdraw. The sneeringmonarch sent Finck and 15,000 Prussians topursue; Frederick lost every single man whenDaun turned on Finck, encircling his army andforcing it to lay down its arms at Maxen on 2 I

November 1759. A few months later Fouque'sPrussian force of 10,000 men was destroyed nearLandshut by Loudon.

When this news reached Frederick he set outonce more for Silesia, with the Austrians, Daunand Lacy, hanging on his flanks. He arrived atLiegnitz with 30,000 men, but since Daun hadbeen joined by Loudon the Prussians were out­numbered by nearly three to one, while across theOder a large Russian force stood awaiting theoutcome of Daun's battle. Hearing from anAustrian deserter that the enemy intended tomake a night approach to attack the Prussians

before first light, the Prussians moved on thenight of 14 August towards the enemy and putthemselves astride the approach route. A fiercenight engagement followed in which Loudon'sright wing lost nearly 10,000 men. I7 Daun on theleft and the Russians across the Oder declined toattack. Yet their numbers were so formidable thatFrederick dared not remain on the field of battleand, at nine o'clock the next morning, he wasalready away, having cleared the field of guns,muskets and wounded, both Prussian andAustrian.

At the beginning of October a Russian raidingforce of 20,000 had failed to take Berlin. A weeklater 15,000 Austrian troops under Lacy joinedthem and the capital was occupied for a few days,the inhabitants paying a ransom of four millionthalers.

In Saxony was fought the last great battle of thewar, where Frederick had returned once more forrecruits and treasure. There Daun followed, to bejoined by Lacy. Daun, the master of defence, hadentrenched himself near the Elbe at Torgau with

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Bosnian lancers in winter and summer uniform. On theright an officer and dismounted trooper

A gun teatn of horse artillery

5°,000 troops; Frederick with 44,000, was deter­mined to attack him. Making over a third of hisforce to Ziethen, who had, however, no experienceofhigher field command, he ordered him to attackfrontally on the Austrian right flank. Frederick,with the main body, made a long circuitous marchof fourteen miles through the forest and attackedDaun from the rear.

Daun had 400 guns, a half of them new, andthese, quickly redeploying, did fearful executionamong Frederick's attacking infantry. The battlehad started at about midday and was of thefiercest, but because of some confusion Ziethen'sfrontal attack did not materialize; by earlyevening the Austrians had the best of it so that thewounded Daun sent a messenger off to Viennaannouncing a victory. This was Frederick's view,too, for he had withdrawn for the night, somemiles away, intending to renew the attack thenext day. At six in the evening in pitch darknessZiethen's force, over five hours late, came intoserious action for the first time at the placeappointed for its attack to the Austrian front.Hillsen, in command of Frederick's bivouackedforces, called them to arms again and went in toattack the rear. In a few hours the battle was lostto Daun. Torgau was his last great battle, as it wasFrederick's. Frederick was later to say it was theseverest and most crucial battle of the war. ThePrussians lost 14,000 men against an Austrianloss of20,000 and 45 guns. Daun's army remained,however, still in being, and still ready for battle18

3I

A trooper of the Regiment of Gens d'armes, the monarch'spersonal bodyguard originally raised in .691. It was alsoknown as 10 Cuirassier Regiment

~-. "'

--.- -

A trooper of 4 Cuirassier Regirnent, fonned in 1733. butowing its existence to two companies of Hofstaats-Dragonerformed in 1671

centred in the Duchy of Oldenburg and in adynastic claim against Denmark for Schleswig­Holstein. Moreover Peter admired Frederick the

•Great and mistrusted Austria. So he withdrewfrom the war and concluded an alliance withPrussia directed at both Austria and Denmark.Sweden also made peace. The murder of Petersome months later did not alter the political situa­tion in that the new monarch in St. Petersburg,Catherine the Great, while having no intention ofintervening on Frederick's behalf, merely con­firmed the peace made by her predecessor. Sheordered all Russian troops from Germany.

Maria Theresa was now isolated and in Julyand October 1762 Frederick won two furthervictories when he began to clear Silesia ofAustrian troops. Realizing that she could nolonger hope unaided to win and keep Silesia shecame to terms with Frederick. Frederick refusedto accept the mediation of Britain and France,stating his own terms of 'not a foot ofland and nocompensation to Saxony, not a village, not apenny'. He agreed to evacuate Saxony but heldSilesia. The Treaty of Hubertusburg of February1763 between Prussia and Austria made no altera­tions to the frontiers of Europe; and so 'a millionmen had perished but not a hamlet had changedits ruler'.

,,'

. .-/ ., M.-...

/

:Finale

••

The strain of the war was telling not only againstPrussia, which with a population of under fivemillion was keeping an army in the field whichrarely fell in strength below 100,000, but alsoagainst the French and Austro-Russian coalition,which with a population of a hundred million hadnearly a quarter of a million troops in Westernand Central Europe. Kaunitz warned MariaTheresa in December 1760 that Austria hadresources left for only one more campaign; in thefollowing spring the Austrian forces were reducedby 20,000 men.

Britain's new monarch, George III, wanted anend to the war and this was a widely shared feelingin Britain and France; overseas, Britain had donewell and France badly and by q62 the Bri tishsubsidy to Prussia was no longer paid. InJanuaryI 762, however, the European situation was entire­ly changed by the death of the Tsarina Elisabeth.Her successor, the Grand Duke Peter, was aGerman whose principal interest appeared to be

32

NOTES

I The following Prussian regiments were present at:~vJollwitz: the grenadier banalions '>\'interfeldt, Kleist,Reibnilz, Buddenbrock, Puttkamer and Saldcrn;Infantry Regiments ., 7. 10, 12, 13, '5, '9,20,23.24,25 (with a loss Of247 men), 26 (with a loss of 700 men),27,29; Cuirassier Regiments 5. 10 and II; DragoonRegiments 1,3 and 4; Hussar Regiment 2. Casualtiesamong general officers were: killed, von del' Schulen­burg; wounded, von Schwerin, von MarwilZ and vonKleist.

2 The Prussian order of battlc at Chotusitz (whichlasted only three hours) was as follO\vs: the grenadiersof Regiments 5, 8, 12, '5 and 16; Infantry Regiments2,4,7,10, II, 13, '4, [5, 16, 17, 19,24,27 (only 400survivors), 29, 30 and 34; Cuirassier Regimenls I, 2,4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 12; Dragoon Regiments 3, 5 and 7(lost 500 men); Hussar Regiment I. Casualties amonggeneral officers: killed, von Werdeek and von Wedell;wounded, von Rothenburg and von \'Valdow. TotalPrussian casualties 146 officers and 4,600 men.

3 The following Prussian troops were engaged atHohenfriedberg: grenadier battalions von Kleist,Luck, Hacke, Blankensee, Lepel, Geist,]eetze, Wedel,Buddenbrock, Sydow, Grumbkow, Sehoning, Kahl­butz, Lange, Trenck and Hertzberg; I nfantry Regi­ments 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, I 1,12 (LOok seven guns), 13,14,15,17,18,19,20,2[,22,23,24,25,28,29,3°,3 1,37 and 38; Cuirassier Regiments I, 2 (destroyed twoSaxon regiments), 4, 5, 7 (destroyed the SaxonRegiment Schonberg), 8, 9, 10, I I, 12 and 13; DragoonRegiments 1,2,3,4,5,6, II and 12; Hussar RegimentsI, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

4 The following Prussian troops were engaged atSohI' (Soor or Tratenau): grenadin battalions vonWedell, Treskow, Fink, Grumbkow, Schoning, Geist,Scheming, Trenck, Kleist, Lindstadt, Stange, Tauent­zien, Hertzberg, Luck, Laubenau, Finkenstein andLepel; Infantry Regiments 2, 3, 4, 6,14, 15, 17, 19,23,25 (with a loss of 244 men); Cuirassier Regiments I

(with great distinction), 2, 4, 8, 9 (claimed LO havetaken three regiments prisoner), 10 (took part inBuddenbrock's attack), 12 and 13; Dragoon Regi­ments 3 and 12; Hussar Regiment 4. Not engagedwcre Infantry Regiments [[, 12, 24, 29, 30 and 38;Dragoon Regiments 5 and [0; Cuirassier Regiment 5;Hussar Regiments I, 2 and 5-

5 At Hennersdorf Generals von Ziethen and vonWinterfeldt were in command. The troops engagedwere the grenadiers of Tnfantry Regiment 19 and thewhole of Infantry Regiment 24; Cuirassier Regiments8 and 9; Hussar Regiments 2 and 5-

6 At Kesselsdorf the following Prussian regimentswere engaged: the grenadier battalions von Kleist,

Schoning, Plotho and Miinchow; Infantry Regiments3,5,9,10,12,13,18,20,21,22,27 (with a loss of529men), 30 (with great distinction, all field officers beingawarded the order POUT Ie merite), 34, 46 (lost 600men) and 47; Cuirassier Regiments 1,3, 5, 6, 7,8, II

and 12; Dragoon Regiments 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10;Hussar Regiments 6 and 7.

7 Frederick reinforced the fighting strength ofinfantry regiments so that they stood at: 50 officers,160 non-commissioned officers, 38 drummers, 4 pipes,14 carpenters, 6 oboists, 12 doctors and medicalattendants, 218 grenadiers, 1,220 musketeers and 7officials (Unterstab)_ An independent grenadier bat­talion totalled [7 officers and 609 rank and file_

8 At about the time of Mollwitz the PrussianBatlery Artjllcry consisted of twenty three-pounders,four twelve-pounders, four fifty-pounder mortars andfour howitzers.

9 At Prague the following Prussian regiments wereengaged: the grenadier battalions of Regiments 6, 7,10,22,28,45,47 and 48; Infantry Regiments 1,3,7,8, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 23 (with a loss of 600 men), 24(losing Schwerin and 450 men), 26, '17, 28, 29, 30, 31,32, 33, 35, 37, 38 , 39, 40, 4 I, 42, 43 and 46; CuirassierRegiments I, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8,9, I I, 12 and 13; DragoonRegiments 1,2,3,4, I I and 12; Hussar Regiments 1,2,3, 4, 6 (took the Austrian treasure chest and 1,200prisoners) and 8.

10 The following Prussian troops were at Kolin: thegrenadiers of Regiments 9, 10, 13, 25, 3 I J 33,·37, 39, 42,44 and 47; Infantry Regiments 3,7, I Battalion of 15(Guard), [7, 20 (lost 800 men), 2 [, 22, 25, 28, 29, 35,36 (only ninety-seven survivors), 40 and 41; CuirassierRegiments 1,2,3,4,6,7,8, II, 1'1 and 13; DragoonRegiments I, 2, 3, 4, II and 12; Hussar Regiments1,2,3,4,6 and 8; general officers wounded were vonTreskow, Ziethcl1, Htilsen, Mannstein, Manteuffeland Ingersleben.

1 I Von Lehwald's Prussian order of battle included:the grenadier battalions von Gohr, Lossow, Polenzand Mannstcin; rnfantry Regiments 2, 4, II, 14 and16; Dragoon Regiments 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10; HussarRegiments 5 and 7 and a Bosnian squadron of 9-

12 At Rossbach the following Prussian regimentscame to battle: the grenadier battalions of Regiments7,17,20,22,25,3° and 4.6; Infantry Regiments 1,5,6,9, 13, [5, 19,21,23,24 and 26; Cuirassier Regiments3,7,8, 10 and 13; Dragoon Regiments 3 and 4; HussarRegiment I.

13 The following Prussian regiments were engagedat Leuthcn: the grenadier battalions of Regiments 3,12, 15,21,22,24,29,31,37,4°,44,45,47 and 48;Infantry Regiments I, 5, 6, 8,10,13,15, '7, 18, 19,20, 23, 25, 26 (twenty-seven officers received the pourie merite), 27, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41 and 46; the

33

, ,'-

,

I,

(Left) a conductor and officer of the(right) an officer of foot artillery

t" -"".. --

-----

engineer corps and,

550 men), 46, 47 (two officers and 600 men survived),49 and Garrison Regiment 2; Cuirassier Regiments I,

2,3,5, 7 and 12; Dragoon Regiments 2, 3, 6,8 and I r ;Hussar Regiments 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 8. According toone account the Russian casualties were 16,ooo; thoseof the Prussians 534 officers and 17,9°0 men and 172guns; twelve general officers were wounded and one(von Puttkamer) killed.

17 The following Prussian troops took part in thenight engagement at Leignitz against Loudon: thegrenadier battalions of Regiments 8, 12, 15,20,29,33,39 and 42; Infantry Regiments 1,3, 5, 6, 10, 13, IS, 18,23, 24, 26, 31, 34, 40 and 41; Cuirassier Regiments2, 3, 5, 8, 10, I rand 13; Dragoon Regiments I, 2, 4, 9and 10; Hussar Regiments 2 and 3.

18 Frederick computed the Austrian loss at about,6,000-20,000 men, but the Prussian casualties couldnot have been much less. Of the 6,000 Prussiangrenadiers who went into battle only 600 escaped deathor serious wounding; two Prussian generals, ninetyofficers and 4,000 men went into Austrian captivity.The Prussian regiments engaged were; the grenadierbattalions of Regiments 1,2,3,9, 10, f I, 14, 15,29,33,38,42,43 and 46; Infantry Regiments 1,5,6,7,8,13,15,16, '7, 18, 19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,3°,31,35,41,45 and 49; Cuirassier Regiments 1,2,3,4,5,8,10,11,12 and 13; Dragoon Regiments I, 2, 4, 5,,6, 7, II

and 12; Hussar Regiments 1,2,3,4 and 6.

Freibataillone Le Noblc, Angenclli and Kalben;Cuirassier Regiments I, 2, 5, 6, 7,8, g, 10, I I and 1'2;

Dragoon Regiments I, 2, 4, 5, I I and 1'2; HussarRegiments], 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8.

14 At Zorndorf the following Prussian regimentswere engaged: the grenadier battalions of Regiments1,8, q, 38 and 43; Infantry Regiments 2, 4, 7, I I, '4,16, r8, 2'2, 23, 25, 27, 37, 40, 41, 46 and 49; CuirassierRegiments 2, 5, 8, 10, r I and 13; Dragoon Regiments1,4,6,7 and 8; Hussar Regiments 2, 5 and 7-

15 The Prussians engaged at Hochkirch were asfollows: grenadier battalions of Regiments 3, 12, 15,21,27,37,39,40,41,44,45 and 48; Infantry Regi­ments 1,5,6,8,10, I 1,13, '4- (lost 1,000 men), IS, 17,18 (almost destroyed), 19,20 (lost 500 men), 23, 26, 29and 30; Freibataillone von Angenelli and du Berger;Cuirassier Regiments I, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, I I, 12 and 13;Dragoon Regiments 1,2,4,5 and 12; Hussar Regi­ments 2, 4, 6 and 8. Among the Prussian dead wereField-Marshal Keith, Prince Franz of Brunswick,Prince Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau and Generals vonKrockow and von Hagen (Geist).

16 At the battle ofKunersdorfthe following Prussianregiments were deployed: the grenadier battalions ofRegiments 5, 8, I I, 13, 20, 22, 25, 26, 30, 32 and 40;Infantry Regiments 2, 7, 9,12,14,16,19,21 (lost 700men), 24, 29, 31 (lost 430 men), 35, 37, 39, 4 1, 43 (lost

34

!,

Gentlemen cadets of the Cadetten.Corps and an old soldierof the Invaliden-Corps

•

VIe'Plates

A 1 Horse Grenadier, von der Schulenburg's Regiment,summer field service uniform, 172f}-41

This regiment was raised in 1705 by Major­General von Derffling (the son of the GreatElector's cavalry general) as 3 Dragoon Regimentand in 1713 it received the honorary title of'Horse Grenadier' and took the grenadier typeheaddress into use. From 1724 onwards the regi­ment was commanded by von der Schulenburg,who became a major-general in 1728 and alieutenant-general and Knight of the Black Eaglein 1740. In the early part of the First Silesian Warthe regiment was unfortunate. It was routed byAustrian horse at Baumgarten when acting as theking's personal escort, Frederick narrowly escap­ing capture; for this it lost its distinctive title anddress and reverted to dragoons. At Mollwitz it wasagain broken by Austrian cavalry, bringing fromFrederick the retort, 'I always said those Schulen­burg dragoons were no use.' Von der Schulenburg.himself received a sabre cut across the face butrode back into battle where a bullet finally broughthim down. Thereafter 3 Dragoon Regimentserved with distinction under successive colonels,Graf von Rothenburg, Freiherr von Schiinaichand Graf von Truchsess.

A 2 Grenadier, Grenadier Guard Battalion No.6,summer field service uniform, c. 1745

6 Infantry Regiment, raised in 1675 in Branden­burg, was known from 170 I as the Crown Prince'sRegiment. In 1711 Frederick William (Frederickthe Great's father) became its colonel and, on hisaccession in 1713, he raised the status of the regi­men t to that of the guard. I ts three battalionshad a total of eighteen com panies, three colonelsand two lieutenant-colonels, and the king re­cruited into this regiment, which was also knownas the Potsdam Guards, all the giants he couldrecruit throughout Europe. For James Kirkland,an Irishman six foot eleven inches tall, FrederickWilliam paid £1,266 sterling. In 1740 Frederickthe Great allowed any who wished to take theirdischarge and reduced the regiment to a grenadier

guard battalion. Non-commissioned officers worethe same uniform as grenadiers except for somedifferences in the facings; they carried a pikeinstead of a musket. The pike was also carried bycompany officers who wore a tricorne and a frockcoat with silver facings and a silver waist sash.

A3 Grenadier, von Arnim Regiment (5 lifantry Regi-ment) , summerfield service uniform, c. 1729

This regiment was raised in 16]2 by Colonel vonSchiining and eventually became a guard or Leib­regiment. I t lost this title in 17 I 3, thereafter beingknown by the name of its colonel, von Arnim(later a lieutenant-general). During the SilesianWars the regiment was commanded by vonWedell, von Bonin and, in 1755, by Ferdinand,Duke of Brunswick; the later remained as titularhead until 1766, when he was obliged to give upthe colonelcy on being promoted field-marshal.There was Ii ttle to distinguish the uniform of thegrenadier from that of the musketeer except forhis headd ress and the com bustion case for the~

used for igniting grenades, was not common to allgrenadiers, however) for later) when grenadiers

• \. ,• -,' I\' . ,

\ -/-" • ,

.-. , ,'. , i·• I,

IL "-,. -

~. ,. ,{.; . ~

• •

-

A non-e::ornrnissioned officer of 8 Garrison Regi.J:nent, afield post rider and an oboe player of foot artillery.

35

~ slow-match attached to the shoulder-belt. This,

were formed into battalions and regiments, theywere used as elite infantry and not as grcnade­throwers.

B Trooper, von Ruesch's Death's-Head Hussars (5Hussar Regiment), summer field service uniform,c. /744

This regiment offive squadrons was raised in 1741in Brandenburg from a cadre squadron of I

Hussar Regiment (originally Prussian Hussars).In 1745 it included in its strength a Bosnian sub­unit which was eventually detached and formedinto an independent regiment (9 Hussar Regi­ment). 5 Hussar Regiment was eventually tobecome the most distinguished and the oldesthussar regiment in the Imperial German Armyfor it survived the 1806 debacle and was reformedas two regiments of Death's-Head Hussars (I and2 Hussar Regiments). Its first colonel vonMackerodt died on service in Silesia and itssecond, von Ruesch, was Hungarian born havingentered the Prossian through the Austrian ser­vice. He became a major-general in 1750 andthree years later was raised by the king to thenobility (Freiherrnstand).

C1 Lieutenant, von Dewitz's Hussars (I Hussar Regi­ment), parade and summer field service uniform,c. /748

I Hussar Regiment was formed in 1737 from vonBrunikowski's six squadrons of Prussian Hussars,von Brunikowski being its first colonel. The regi­ment had to reinforce 2 Hussar Regiment (theLeib-Husaren or Berlin Hussars) and it found thesquadrons which formed both 3 and 5 HussarRegiments. The regiment gave up so many cadresand reinforcements that by 1740 von Brunikowskihad only ten men left in each sq uadron on whichto reform his new I Hussar Regiment. A yearlater, however, the regiment was already fivesquadrons strong and in 1724 a further fivesquadrons were recruited in Silesia. Its secondcolonel, von Dewitz, had been in the Austrianservice until 1735 and its third, von Szekely, wasHungarian born, entering the Prussian throughthe Saxon service. Not all Prussian hussars worethe traditional and ornate Hungarian patterntunic and dolman (Pel;;;) shown in this plate; some,

36

I i

A lancer from the Bosnian uhlan squadron of 9 :tIussarRegiInent in close combat with an Austrian fusilier

like 2 Hussar Regiment, wore a much simplertunic-blouse and mantle.

C2 Musketeer, von Forcade's Regiment (23 InfantryRegiment), summer field service uniform, c. /756

This regiment was famous in that, except for theHochkirch night engagement, it was neverdefeated or involved in an unsuccessful battle.It was formed in 17 I 3 out of cadres from I and 13Regiments, being raised by von Kameke. Itssecond colonel, in 17 I 6, was a von Forcade, andits sixth colonel (from 1748-56) was also a vonForcadc, being the son of the second. When vonForcade was appointed to his father's regimenthe was already a captain on transfer from I WhiteFusilier Guard. By 1743 he was a colonel but hedid not receive ·command of the regiment until1747 when he had already been appointed amajor-general. He and the regiment saw actionat Mollwitz, Hohenfriedberg, Soar, Prague, Ross­bach, Leuthen, Zorndorf, Torgau and Freiberg.At Soar von Forcade had been so severelywounded that he had been left for dead on thebattlefield.

C3 Bombardier, Prussian Artillery, field service unz-form, c. 1750

The artillery Bombardiere originally mannedhowitzers, mortars and rockets, whereas theKanoniere found the crew for the guns. Eventu­ally the Bombardiere became the Ober-Gefreiter.The uniform for both was similar except that theBombardier wore the fusilier type headdress whilethe Kanonier had a lace-trimmed black tricorne.The number one ofgun crew detachments carrieda metal powder flask and sometimes a slow-match.Artillerymen were armed with only the shortsword and relied for close protection on infantryor the musket-armed Handlanger, the artillerylabour force which moved the guns, dug the em­placements, and brought up ammunition. Kanon­iere outnumbered Bombardiere by about nineto onc.

D I Freijiiger, De Ie Noble'sches Freicorps, summerfieldservice uniform, 1756-63

Franz de Ie Noble entered the Prussian service int 756 raising a Freicorps battalion in Naumburg,the battalion taking part in the siege of Breslauand Schweidnitz. In t 760 Noble was madeprisoner but on his release three years later he wasgiven back his old command together with twoother Freicorps battalions (von Luderitz andvon Wunsch), the three forming 8 Garrison Regi­ment with Noble at its head. Freicorps regimentsand even battalions were usually composite forcesof all arms with their own Jager and mounteddetachments in addition to infantry. The Jagershown in this plate wore a distinctive cap, some­what similar to that used in the Austrian service,and was armed with a rifled carbine. The Frei­musketier had a similar uniform except that hewore a tricorne hat and the buttons on the tunicfacings lacked the embroidered button-hole; themusketeer wore cloth gaiters instead ofknee-boots.

D2 Bosniak Lancer, Bosnian Corps, summer dress,c. 1760

The Prussian cavalry was without lancers and itsoon found itselfat a disadvantage when faced byPolish uhlans in the Saxon service and by mountedHungarian pandours. Frederick therefore attrac­ted to his service deserters and prisoners fromHungary, mainly Bosnians, as well as Ukrainian

Cossacks from Galicia and even the remnants ofthe Zaporozhian Cossacks dispersed by Peter theGreat nearly half a century before. The Bosnianlancers were formed in [740 as one squadron of5 Prussian Hussar Regiment and by [760 hadincreased to ten squadrons. In [763 they werereduced to only one squadron again, but in [77 [the Bosnians were back at ten squadrons and wereformed into a separate regiment, known asBosniaken-Corps Tr 9 or Regiment BosniakenN r 9. Although lancers they were classed ashussars, and their commander, Major-Generalvon Lossow, was also the colonel of 5 HussarRegiment. Officers wore a similar uniform to thatshown in this plate except that the light coat waswhite fur trimmed, and bars of lace were wornacross the chest of both the tunic and the coat. By'770 this uniform had been replaced by one ofhussar pattern, except that the baggy trousers (asshown in this plate) were retained.

D3 Grenadier, von Schony's Freicorps, summer uniform,c. 1761

Von Schony was a Hungarian who, as a major,entered the Prussian service from the Wurttem­berg Army in 1761. He raised a hussar Freicorpsin Silesia which had an infantry, grenadier andJager element in addition to the horse. It foughtwi th distinction, mainly against the Russians. Thehussar predominance was reflected in the patternof the uniform of all von Schony's troops. Thegrenadier shown in this plate wears the tallgrenadier headdress trimmed with fur, but it in­cludes a bag. The corps uniform for infantry wassimilar to that shown in this plate, except for thetricorne hat. The mounted hussar wore the tunicwithout the topcoat, knee-boots and off-whitebreeches with the near conical tall headdress wornby trumpeters in the hussar line cavalry.

E Trooper, von Vippach's Hussars (4 Hussar Regi-ment), summerfield service order, c. 1752

The Great Elector had once tried to raise lancerregiments by forming (tovarishchi) Uhlan Regi­ments. These Polish nationals had, however, beenreclaimed by Poland. In 1740 Frederick the Greatcommissioned a Prussian hussar officer, Colonelvon Natzmer, to recruit a lancer regiment fromPoles and Lithuanians, since it was believed in

37

those days that all good lancers came from Polandjust as all good hussars came from Hungary.When, within the year, von Natzmer returnedwith 1,000 well accoutred lancers, Frederick wasmuch impressed by their bearing and turn-out, sohe allotted them a military operation near Grot­kau to see how they would fare; at the same time,however, he took the precaution of sendingZiethen's hussars (2 Hussar Regiment) to observetheir conduct. It was as well he did, for althoughthe Poles attacked with bravery and dash it wassoon obvious both to Ziethen and to the Austriansthat von Natzmer's men had no training orexperience in the use of the lance. Many were thewounds they inflicted on each other, and manythe riders who were unhorsed when the pikesploughed into the ground. Had it not been for thepresence of von Ziethen, who extricated them,the uhlans would have been badly beaten. Theuhlans lost their lances and were then reformed as4 Hussar Regiment, still under von atzmer untilhis death in 1751, and then under von Vippach.Von Vippach had transferred to the Prussianservice in '740 from Saxe-Gotha, and had spentall his former service with hussars (2 and 5Hussar Regiment).

..-( tc ~ •••

-~ ~,,;i;J:'" _T

-- -A trooper of 2 Cuirassier Regiment, originally raised in1666, was firstly the Elector's and then the CrowD Prince'sRegiment. It becaDle a cuirassier regiment in .731

38

I , I

1/I'I

I

1 ,I,.../I' ,-

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...

6 Infantry RegiDlent was CODl.Inanded by Frederick William.when he was Crown Prince. On his accession in .713 he-raisedit to guard status and refortned it with Potsdamer giants.After 1740 it was reduced to a grenadier guard battalion

•F [ Drummer, von Below's Regiment ([ [ Infantry

Regiment), summer field service uniform, c. [757I I Infantry Regiment owed its origin to the Regi­ment Holstein und Spaen from which it was,formed in ,685, Three years later it became theparent regiment for 20 Infantry Regiment. VonBelow lOok over command in '749 from PrinceFrederick ofHolstein-Beck on the latter's death asa field-marshal, von Below himself being a major­general at the time. He gave up the regiment in'758 on being retired as a lieutenant-generaL Theuniform for drummers and bandsmen was thesame as that for musketeers except that bandsmenwore the distinctive shoulder pieces and sleeves.

F2 Grenadier, von Canit::; Regiment (2 Infantry Regi-ment) , summer field service order, c. [762

This regiment was one of the oldest in the PrussianArmy, having its origin in the Elector's Life GuardRegiment (I Infantry Regiment). In 1656 thiswas split, giving off Feld-Regiment Nr 2, underPrince RadziwilL Its subsequent colonels wereField-Marshal von Roeder and Lieutenant­General von Schlichting, and then Lieutenant­General von Canitz. The regiment shared the

distinctive double-button-hole tunic facing (atthe waist) with 5 Infantry Regiment.

F3 Dragoon, von Gschray's Freicorps, summer fieldservice order, c. 1761

Von Gschray, born in Mannheim in 1692, servedfirst in the Bavarian and then in the French Army,entering the Saxon service in J756. Having beencaptured by Prussian hussars when on his way to

Pi rna, he was asked by Frederick to raise 600 ligh thorse for Prussia; at first he was an unwillingassociate. Finally, however, in 1761 he was givena patent as a major-general and raised a corps ofdragoons and infantry, about 1,600 strong, fromthe Nordhausen area of Saxony. His infantry anddragoons had the same uniform except that in­fantry wore gaiters instead of cavalry boots, andcarried the short curved sabre instead of thecuirassier's straight Pallasch.

G / and G2 Officer and Grenadier, / Battalion oj theGuard (No. /5), summer parade uniform, c. /786

This regiment was to become one of the mostfamous of Frederick the Great's foot guards. Firstraised in 1689 it was commanded by Major­General Grafvon Lottum until his death in '718as a field-marshal, and then for two years byColonel Freiherr von Konen. It then becameknown as the von der Goltz Regiment, from thename of its new colonel. Eleven years later Freder­ick William gave the regiment to his son (recentlyreleased from fortress arrest at Kiistrin), von del'Goltz being transferred to the command of 5Infantry Regiment; 15 Infantry Regiment wasredesignated as the Regiment Kronprinz. Thefortunes of the regiment advanced with those ofFrederick. In 1732 it took its precedence at thehead of all regiments commanded by colonels,the crown prince being at that time but a colonel,but in 1735, when Frederick was promoted major­general, it advanced yet further up the lists. In1737 it welcomed Prince Ferdinand of Prussia asa Fahnrich. When Frederick first took over thevon der Goltz Regiment, it wore gold and yellowfacings, bu t since the crown prince preferredsilver and white, he obtained the royal assent tochange. By a court order of 1733 the uniformcolours for the regiment were decreed as darkblue with red (echt rot) facings (in reality some-

what tinged with brown) and yellow (paille)waistcoat and breeches. As with most other regi­ments, summer and winter uniforms were thesame, except that the winter waistcoat had sleevesand was lined. When Frederick ascended thethrone a few years later he reduced his father'sgiant guard (6 Infantry Regiment) to a grenadierguard battalion and converted his own 15 In­fantry Regiment into foot guards, the firstbattalion being known as I Bataillon Garde or theLeib-Garde Bataillon, and the second and thirdbattalions simply as Regiment Garde.

G3 Officer, Garde-du-Corps, ceremonial guard dress(Galawachtanzug), c. 1786

Immediately after his accession Frederick createdhis own cuirassier household troops, the Regi­ment Garde-du-Corps, to guard the royal house­hold and palaces. Originally not more than asquadron strong, it was commanded by Stabs­Rittmeister von Platen, transferred from 9 Drag­oons. When it took to the field it shared its dutieswith the Regiment Gensd'armes (10 CuirassierRegiment). Not until 1756, with the addition oftwo squadrons, mainly from Saxon prisoners-of­war at Pima, was the Garde-du-Corps made intoa regiment, taking precedence as 13 CuirassierRegiment. Since the Saxon squadrons were, notunnaturally, unreliable, they were dispersed the

,

••. ".,- ,;

.'.- "'~'-.,r. ,.'

Infantry officers of 18 RegiInent (originally the WhiteGrenadier Guard), of [ Battalion of the Guard and of theGrenadier Guard Battalion

39

next year and replaced by Prussian cavalrymentransferred from other regiments. Eventually the

rregiment was raised to five squadrons, each of. two .. <

companies. The officer shown in this plate wearS'the star of the guard and the cuirassiers' straightsword, the Pallasch; a sabretache (not visible)hangs on his left side. Other ranks on palace dutywore a similar uniform, but without fringes to thecuirass-tunic and without lace on the cap; theywore dark buttoned-up leggings, and carriedPallasch and carbine.

H I Non-commissioned officer, Miner Corps, winterfield service dress, c. 1792

The pontoniers and miners were originally onecorps responsible to the artillery. In 174' Freder­ick reorganized and strengthened all his technicaltroops, still coupling the miners with the pon­toniers and pioneers and forming 49 FieldEngineer Regiment under Major-General vonWalrave, who was also Chief of the EngineerCorps. But not before 1756 did the miners becomepart of the engineer department, and only in1773 were they rid of their connection with thepontoniers; for in that year it was decreed thatpontoniers were to remain an artillery responsi­bility. Between 1758 and 177' the miners estab­lishment was increased from two to four com­panies, under Colonel von Castilhon, who had

A light infantry Jager in a skirnllsh

40

"- ,

.,>

·f~"·.,:.• ••

An officer, non-coDunissioned officer and miner of thenuner corps

come to the miners as a captain in r742 andremained with them all his service. The minerssaw much action, mainly in siege warfare.

H 2 Infantry Regimental Q.uartermaster; winter uniform,

c. /761The regimental quartermaster was an officialrather than a soldier, but he wore a uniform veryclose to that of the regiment to which he wasaccredited. The same pattern uniform was wornnot only by the quartermaster but also by themedical officer and the auditor. Similarly officialswith the cuirassiers, dragoons and hussars worethe cavalry pattern uniform of their hosts. Theywere collectively known as U nterstab or head­quarters supplementary staff.

H3 Supply Detail, Commissariat (Proviantknecht),winter uniform, c. /756

Frederick the Great took great care in organizinghis magazines, transport and supply services, sothat foraging and requisitioning even on Austrianterritory was an organized and controlled service;the Prussian supply personnel were a uniformedand disciplined body. Commissariat officers hada similar dress to that shown in the plate, exceptthat they wore knee-boots instead of leggings andthe tricorne was silver-laced. As officials theycarried a sword.

Men-at-Arms Series•

TITLES ALREADY PUBLISHED

THE STONEWALL BRIGADE John Selhy THE COSSACKS Albert Seaton

THE BLACK WATCH Charles Grant BLUCHER'S ARMY Peler Young

FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION Martin Windrow THE PANZER DIVISIONS Martin Windrow

FOOT GRENADIERS OF THE IMPERIAL ROYAL ARTILLERY W. Y. CarmanGUARD Clrarle.s Granl

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CHASSEURS OF THE GUARD Peler Young MONTCALM'S ARMY Martin Windrow

WAFFEN-55 Martin Windrow

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U.S. CAVALRY J,hn S</by

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ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGH-LANDERS William Mr.Elwu

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THE BLACK BRUNSWICKERS OUo lion Pivka

AUSTRO·HUNGARIAN ARMY OF THEAPOLEONIC WARS A/bert Sealon

THE AMERICAN PROVINCIAL CORPSPhilip Katcher

WELLINGTON'S PENINSULAR ARMYJames Lawford

THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ARMY OFTHE SEVEN YEARS WAR Albert Sea/on

THE ARMY OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE1870-1888 Albert Seaton

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BRITISH TROOPS IN AMERICA 1775-1 )83Gerald Embleton

THE GURKHA RIFLES ]. B. R. Nicholson

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WOLFE'S ARMY Gerald Embleton

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THE BRITISH ARMY OF THE CRIMEA]. B. R. Nidwlson

NAPOLEON'S POLISH TROOPSauo von Pivka

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ALBERT SEATON (Retd.) is the author ofmany books on Russian military history; his The Russo-German War 1941-45 isprobably the only complete and authiative account published in the freeworld, and has appeared in London,recently published works are The BattMen-at-Arms Series; Stalin as Militaryand he is at present engaged on the w

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