Seven Years War
December 5, 1757, a Monday
Prussians under Frederick II, approximately 28,600 and 165 guns
Austro-Imperial Forces under Prince Charles of Lorraine, approximately 52,000 and 214 guns
Weather: Very cold and clear after a morning fog. Clouding over late in the afternoon as a new front of snow moved in. Fresh dusting of snow already covered frozen ground.Though not yet officially winter (Dec 21st), this was during what has been named the "Little Ice Age", a period from the early 1300s to the mid 1800s when global temperatures were as much as -3.6° F (-2° C) lower than the average over the past 11,000 years.
First Light: 07:06 Sunrise: 07:45 Sunset: 15:50 End of Twilight: 16:29
(Calculated from U.S.Naval Observatory from date and location)
Author's Note: I have decided to update this particular article (originally written eleven years ago), particularly the Orders of Battle at the end and the maps. I've also attached the previous comments from the original post for continuity.
And, yes, I know what many of you are thinking, here is another one of those battles which is not so obscure, at least to aficionadi of 18th century European history--my impression is that Gettysburg is obscure to most people, and many have trouble telling you how long the Seven Years War was. However, I have a take on this otherwise well-known battle that may give some a second look--even if the event itself is not obscure to them.
What Is So Obscure About Leuthen, Anyway?
So what is my
take on this? Well, for one thing, Leuthen is, for German historians,
one of those great battles that became symbolic to the evolution of
the German national myth in the latter part of the 19th century and WWI, and therefore its explanation has been, shall
we say, a tad hyped. It probably stands in Germany as Gettysburg or
the Battle of the Bulge does for Americans. Leuthen was supposed to be
that apotheosis of Frederickan warfare; the perfect example of the
superiority of Prussian military prowess and the paradigm of the oblique
attack that was Frederick's "secret weapon." And yet that was all just
propaganda used by two centuries of German nationalists. Here, in the middle of the 18th century, was tiny
Prussia, overwhelmingly outnumbered by the papist mongrels of the south,
Austria-Hungary, and yet able to defeat those hordes with discipline and simple
Protestant virtue. Leuthen was Frederick's (and, by extension, Prussian)
military genius at work.
And yet, as I hope to show, it was no such thing. That's the obscure part. Frederick's forces were not as outnumbered as has been
represented, at least not in the sector of the battlefield where they fought. And they had far more firepower in the form of heavy artillery. Leuthen was more of an even match. Also Fredericks's simple brilliance of
the oblique attack was, in reality, an old idea, even by 1757. Marlborough had done it at Oudenarde, 49 years earlier, and that was a well-known lesson. In fact,
within that very year the same tactic had been attempted by both
Frederick (at Prague and then Kolin) and the Franco-German Allies (at Rossbach) and all failed miserably.
At Leuthen Frederick's oblique attack had a lot of luck to give it
wings.
More and bigger cannons didn't hurt either.
Finally, the strategic outcome of Leuthen was not nearly as
geopolitically momentous as later historians would have us believe. The
Austrians weren't annihilated (they rebounded quite energetically the
next spring, in fact). The strategic situation wasn't altered. And the
end of 1757 saw Frederick, while still on his throne and barely hanging
on to his recently acquired Duchy of Silesia, pretty much bankrupt. Leuthen was kind of a Pyrrhic
victory.
In this retelling, I hope to add that "obscure" perspective on a well-known battle.
The critical head-fake of the battle around 11:00, where Frederick finally pulls off his favorite, oblique attack maneuver, something he had tried in two previous battles this year with embarrassing results. A larger version of this map posted farther down so you can examine details. Map copyrighted © 2025 by Jeffery P.Berry Trust. Embedded with Digimarc watermark.
Not Fred's Best Year.
1757, the second year of the war, had had some significant ups and downs for Frederick. In May, he had attempted his favorite ploy, the oblique attack at Prague, but it didn't work. That battle proved indecisive inasmuch as he didn't end up with his primary goal of capturing that capital of Bohemia, forcing Frederick to settle in for along, costly siege of the city.
.jpg) | |
| Frederick at fifty-one painted by Johann Zeisenis just six years after the battle, when the King was still relatively young. I like this image of him vs the popular ones painted in the 19th century by people like Knötel,\, showing him as a decrepit old man. As a decrepit old man myself, I find those images ageist. |
Then, in June, attempting to achieve his signature flank attack again against the Austrians at Kolin, Frederick's army was defeated outright for the first time when his highly trained troops
could not get their act together. The immediate
consequence of that battle was the huge boost in confidence it gave the the Austrians and their Holy Roman allies; that
the unbeatable Prussians could be beaten. It also forced Frederick to
abandon his siege of Prague.
This was made worse at the end of August for Frederick when one of his
armies, under Lehwaldt, was also mauled by the Russians at Gross-Jagersdorf,
in East Prussia. Then in October, an audacious raid by Austrian Croats
and hussars ran through the streets of Berlin itself, stealing linens
and gloves (this isn't one of my sarcastic jokes; it's true). And in mid-November, just three weeks before Leuthen, the Austrians under Nádasdy, hero of Kolin, captured a critical fortress at Schweidnitz in
Silesia (along with 6,000 Prussians and 180 guns). This town was the gateway from Silesia into the mountains of northeast Bohemia and was considered critical to the logistics of the Imperial forces in Silesdia but also to the Prussians as a future back door into invading the Imperial heartland.
And in early October, to add insult to injury, an audacious Hungarian hussar general, András Hadik, led a raid of 3,400 into Frederick's capital, Berlin, and succeeded in not only wrecking its main munitions factory, but a textile factory, several bakeries, and extorting 200,000 thaler in cash (I have no idea how much that would be worth today, but it sounds like a lot) before making his way back to Vienna. He was also strict with his soldiers, forbidding them on pain of death from molesting, plundering, or otherwise insulting the innocent civilian population. As a final slight to Frederick, he absconded with a box full of embroidered gloves with the Brandenburg logo to present to his empress. I see that they even made a movie about him, Hadik, which I should make time to download.
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| Count András Hadik de Futak Pointing the way to the men's room. Doesn't he look like a guy you'd love to go on a road trip with? |
It got worse. On the western front, later that October, the French piled in and, hooking up with the Imperial Reichsarmee, invaded from the west with a combined army of 41,000. It looked like the Prussian beast was finally going to be dispatched.
Frederick, meanwhile, was chasing all over central Europe trying to shore up his defenses. His only ally, Britain, was not helping much yet (except in subsidies) and was making noises of an early, separate peace with France. All the rest of Europe was against him; Austria, Hungary, Russia, France, Sweden, Spain, Bavaria, Saxony, and nearly all of the Holy Roman Empire. To someone with a clinical history of manic-depression, the situation sparked several bouts of despair in Frederick. But 1757 showed the 45-year-old king to be at his best. He demonstrated true leadership, forgiving failures where honest effort had been made, shaming subordinates (mostly his own brothers) when effort wasn't made, and inspiring his troops with frequent personal contact, much as Napoleon would do in the next generation, or Henry V did in my favorite Shakespeare play. But the impression he made the most on was himself. By sheer will-power (this before the age of Xanax) the king made himself snap out of depression.
In spite of all of its setbacks in this unfortunate year, too, the Prussian Army was itself at its peak in 1757. Undaunted by defeats, their training and esprit de corps saw them bounce back again and again. They were then still a national army, a purely Prussian force. Unlike the troops of the Allies, which were made up of mercenaries and draftees from all over Europe and from both Protestant and Catholic states, the Prussian Army at this early stage of the war was still almost entirely Prussian, almost entirely veteran, and almost entirely Lutheran. Not only were they still the best trained, best led, best equipped army on the Continent, they were animated by a zeal for God. Even at the stealthy approach to Leuthen (as we'll see later), when Frederick was trying to keep everybody quiet, he could not begrudge them their urge to belt out pious, Protestant hymns as they marched. They were insufferable.
Finally, a Good Month for Frederick.
Then on one day, 5 November, everything changed. Frederick, having
hustled what few troops he could muster westward to stop the Franco-Imperial
invasion, decisively defeated a force twice his army's size at Rossbach.
The poetic-justice thing about Rossbach (particularly in light of
Leuthen exactly one month later), was that the Allies were trying to
pull Frederick's own favorite maneuver on him, the flank attack..
Having studied his methods, they started off right enough, pinning what they
thought was his front with a diversionary force and rolling around his
left flank with the bulk of their army. It was a good plan. But it
required a level of professionalism and coordination that the Allies just didn't have.
Frederick's troops handily pivoted when he saw what was happening and
hit the French and German troops hard in their own flank while they were still in route
formation. Studying both Rossbach and Leuthen, you can't help but see
how they mirror each other, but how the exact same maneuver failed in
the one case and succeeded in the other.
Anyway, an analysis of Rossbach is for a later post (if I think it's
that interesting). Its immediate outcome was to knock both the French
and the Reichsarmee out of the ring for the rest of the year and allow
Frederick to swing back and concentrate on Charles and the main Austrian
army in Silesia. It was also the shot in the arm that the Prussian
troops themselves needed. For all of their Lutheran stoicism, Rossbach was
welcome medicine.
After smacking back the French at Rossbach, Frederick's bad year wasn't over. He had a bigger threat in the east in the form of a huge army (some 83,000) under Prince Charles of Lorraine (or Lothringen, in German), that was in the process of taking back the Duchy of Silesia that Frederick had won fair-and-square in the last war.
With just 12,000 men Frederick began a month-long march from the vicinity of Rossbach, stopping in Leipzig for a few days to replenish and rest his army, and then marching them 207 miles (334 km) in a little over three weeks, averaging about 9 miles a day. Okay, not a grueling, force march, but loaded down with equipment, still pretty impressive.
In order to pull a strategic head-fake, he also dispatched something like 8,000 other veterans of Rossbach under his favorite Scottish "Wild Goose"*, Field Marshal James Keith, to march south into western Bohemia and make as if to try to retake Prague again. This Keith proceeded to do with theatrical flourish, causing the Imperials to withdraw their army up in Saxony under their general Marschall (not, ironically a marshal) and his own 12,000 men from Frederick's path (see campaign map) and hustle south to defend the Bohemian (or Czech today) capital. This allowed Frederick to proceed unhindered to Silesia.
*Okay, so techincally, he was a Scot and not Irish, but he was still an exiled Jacobite who fought for the Stuarts.
Strategic Movements from November through December. My main source for this was from Die Krieg Friedrichs des Grosse,
Deutsche Kriegsarchive, volume T3 B6 dealing with Leuthen.. For the more anal of you, you can follow, day-by-day, the relative positions of all of the major contenders. And you'll also notice that one of the Austrian Marschall's subcommanders (down near Prague) was the same hero of the Berlin raid in October, András Hadik. I've got to see that movie about him. It got terrible IMDB reviews.
How Much More Good News Can Frederick Take?
As the king began his 207 mile march, he began to get more bad news from the east. He had left his venerable and trusted general, the Duke of Braunschweig-Bevern, in Silesia, defending the strategic fortress city of Breslau (modern day Wroclaw, Poland) to occupy Charles until Frederick could get back to relieve him. But Charles, still feeling his oats after Kolin (for which he had no part; that was Daun's victory) and the capture of Schweidnitz (Nádasdy's accomplishment), didn't wait. He had some 83,000 men facing only 28,000 Prussians in Breslau.
Charles launched a massive attack against Bevern's outnumbered defenders in their trenches, and after a day of heroic effort, the Prussians finally gave way. They had lost about 7,000 men KWM, and a further 3,000 deserted to the enemy. This left about 17,000 to make their escape back through the town and over to right bank of the Oder River, and then 73 miles (117 km) up to the crossing of the river at Glogau six days later. Duke Bevern himself, though, seems to have allowed himself to be easily captured by enemy on the 24th (which seemed suspicious to Frederick, but who forgave him when he was returned on parole the following year). Once over on the west side of the Oder, the survivors dutifully started south to join up with Frederick at Parchwitz, and get on with their payback against the #$&@* Austrians.
Though most of the Prussian defenders had made their escape over the Oder, Charles evidently considered them hors de combat and effectively out of the war. The handful of Prussians left to man the citadel in the town surrendered on the 24th. He was elated with his strategic prize of Breslau with all all of its guns, its cash, its coffee shops, its stores. It was his first real personal victory in his career--at least one in which he had been actually in direct command. Not only that, as the cherry on top, he had managed to capture the enemy commander, Bevern himself. He was now in the driver's seat in Silesia. Or so he thought.
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| Richard Knötel's cartoon of Frederick delivering his Parchwitz Address to the gang. |
Charles Calls the Game Prematurely.
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| Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine by Johann Millitz In spite of his constantly losing battles, his support from his brother, the Emperor kept him in command. |
Charles, meanwhile, was feeling pretty cocky. He looked back on
very successful year for his side, with strategic victories at Prague Kolin,
Gross-Jagersdorff, Schweidnitz, that in-your-face raid into Frederick's home town. and now the great prize of Breslau, and
he thought the game was over. All he had to do was keep possession of
the ball and run down the clock (yes, another tiresome American football metaphor,
for you non-Americans, or non-football fans). There had been only one
big hiccup, the Allied defeat at Rossbach. But that had happened to the
French and was not too much for the Empress's brother-in-law to worry about. It was time
to rest his battered and depleted army and put it into winter quarters.
That's what good commanders did in the 18th century. In the spring he
would still be in a strong position to finish off what was left of Frederick's little army if the tiny Prussian still wanted to fight.
So at the start of December, with that object in mind Charles left a
garrison in Breslau and started to march his army back west toward Bohemia
and winter quarters.
Even though a few contemporary memoirists have insisted that Charles marched west to deal Frederick a final,
stunning blow, Christopher Duffy gives a persuasive argument that
Charles had no such intention. The prince's intelligence indicated that Frederick
had with him only 12-13,000 troops at most. It hadn't occurred to him,
apparently, that the defeated 17,000 under Bevern from Breslau would rejoin
Frederick in a few days. He must have concluded that Frederick wouldn't think of attacking his own overwhelming army. Not only that, but when last he heard, Frederick was still back in Leipzig, some 207 miles (334 km) west, if you took the A4. He wasn't going to march his army that far this late in the year. Winter was starting and he assumed the Prussian would also settle in to rebuild his strength for the spring. The campaigning season, after all, was over.
For another argument against Charles's intention of marching out to attack Frederick, Duffy points out that Charles left most of his heavy
artillery back in Breslau. Had he intended to attack Frederick, he would
surely have brought as much firepower with him as possible. Then more
evidence: All of the detached grenadier companies (which, during a
campaign, were brigaded as independent, elite striking units) were ordered to rejoin
their parent regiments, something that every 18th century army did as a matter
of administrative procedure at the end of a campaign. And
finally, Duffy's evidence points to the fact that Charles had sent his
army's mobile bakeries, tents, and quartermasters to Neumarkt (Środa Śląska
today about 22 miles, or 36 km, west of Breslau) to start cooking and
laying out his winter camp there. Duffy asserts that Charles' intention on
leaving Breslau was to protect his line of communications during the
winter. If he had had any idea that Frederick, with his puny force of
previously beaten men, was intending on attacking him directly he would
surely have stayed behind his strong defenses at Breslau.
Charles army had shrunk. He had started off the year with some 83,000 men. But after
dropping off garrisons in captured towns, as well as the year-long
attrition from eight months of hard campaigning and fighting, his actual
force on the field of Leuthen was probably much less. Parade states on
the eve of the march reported 14,778 men sick in the hospitals back in
Breslau. Though most military historians give Charles his full, original
strength at Leuthen, Duffy calculated that, at most, Charles had with
him not much over 50,000, possibly 55,000 at most. It was a force still
larger than Frederick's eventual 28,600, but not the overwhelming two-to-one that later German propagandists would have it. As I've mentioned above, Charles
also had left most of his big guns back in Breslau, bringing with him
only about 50 medium tubes (twelve- and six-pounders), some howitzers, and 164 three-pounders as battalion support guns, which many don't even think
should count as artillery.
Just a day's march out of Breslau, on the way to Neumarkt, the Austrian
army downed knapsacks and started building fires, bivouacking in the fields
behind the villages of Leuthen, Frobelwitz, and Nippern (see map below). Following up much later that night, the combined Allied force of Austrians, Bavarians, and Württembergers under Nádasdy finally got to a position south of Leuthen and started cutting down trees to make firewood themselves. It had been drizzzling all day but by late afternoon that had turned into snow and the ground froze. No one had any shelter (but the officers in villages, of course) and clapped their hands to warm themselves around the bivouac fires. There'd be formal camp at Neumarkt (another 10 miles or 17 km on)
the next day.
They were all on their way to winter quarters at last, the year's fighting was over. And Christmas was coming!
The Battlefield
Leuthen and its surrounding terrain is in the middle of the great, flat, North German Plain, or today, the Great North Polish Plain. The ground is relatively even, with only slight undulations and patchy, deciduous woods. I have inserted below a panorama of the ground taken from a Googlecam along the highway between Wroclaw (Breslau) and Legnica (Legnitz) to give some idea of the flatness of the ground. This view would be from the approximate center of the Austrian line looking south-southwest toward the Prussian flank march. Though the map features so called "bergs" or hills, two of these (Schmiedeberg and Schonberg) are right in the middle of the frame. Clearly they weren't very prominent. But they were just high enough to have concealed marching troops and to have given the Prussians slightly elevated firing positions for their artillery.View from Austrian Center toward the southwest, the direction of Frederick's outflanking maneuver.
The convenient thing for Frederick and his men was that the area around
Leuthen just happened to be the site of the Prussian Army's historic
training grounds. Everyone, from the lowest private to Frederick
himself, knew every inch, fold, and subtlety of this terrain. It was as
if Charles had picked Camp Pendleton to fight the United States Marines
(to you those of you not familiar with California's geography, Camp Pendleton
is the Marines' big training base north of San Diego..., recenty featured in the news when they closed I-5 to fire howitzers over it to commemorate their 250th...oh, never mind). To the
Austrians it was a foreign land, deceptively flat (Leuthen, not Camp Pendleton). They did little to
examine the ground because they didn't expect to be there long, or to have to fight.They were heading west toward Neumarkt the next day, where their mobile bakeries were evidently preparing stollen and quatermasters were laying out campsites and the Yule crèche.
But on their side, Frederick's officers knew just where the defiles and low places were. This was their backyard.
To the north, the battlefield is bisected by the Zettelbusch, a forest
of hardwood much bigger in expanse today than it evidently was
two-and-a-half centuries ago. By December it would have been pretty much leafless.
It was also not a dense wood and fairly accessible to all troop; horse, foot, and guns. To the west of it was a large marshy area, which,
on the day of battle, was probably frozen hard and would not have posed
as significant an obstacle as on a warmer day.
To the south of Leuthen, the area from which Frederick would launch his
flanking attack, the ground was more broken up by copses, ditches,
streams, and yet more marshy ground. But, as I said, the frozen ground made even the marshes negotiable for guns, horses, and men. The forested sections in this
area, too, were lightly wooded and probably posed no obstacle to infantry,
cavalry, or artillery.
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| Leuthen Church today, with it's wall still intact. Google Street View image |
The
many villages in the area were very small, mostly of single-story,
masonry buildings and barns. Leuthen was the largest local village, but even its
buildings were widely spaced but separated by walls and hedges. The largest structure on the whole
battlefield was the great church of Leuthen with its tall steeple (a
good observation platform) and surrounded by a high stone wall like a fort,
complete with round corner bastions.
The battlefield was vast by 18th century battle standards. Charles'
front extended almost five miles (almost eight km)--by comparison, the entire
battle of Blenheim spanned just four miles flank to flank,
Gettysburg about three miles, Waterloo barely two. To move troops from
one flank to another would take an hour-and-a-half. It was not great
ground to fight a defensive battle.
It had snowed lightly the night before and though December
5th was clear (when the morning fog eventually lifted), the ground was
hard; perfect for fast marching and moving guns. And the shallow snow, not deep enough to hinder movment, muffled
the sound of artillery wheels and tramping feet. .
As I've noted in previous articles of this period (Mollwitz, Malplaquet, Wertingen, Gunzberg) the 18th century was at the height of what would eventually be known by paleometeorologists (is that a profession or did I just make that word up?) as the "Little Ice Age", when average global temperatures would be -3.6° F (-2° C) below normal and winters usually came early and receded late. This may not seem like a big drop, but as we've noted during out own age when global temperatures are, on average, up to 2° C higher, the local effect on weather patterns can be dramatic. Or melodramatic if you're fighting a battle. Or live in Florida.
Christopher Duffy's excellent book on the battle, Prussia's Glory: Rossbach & Leuthen 1757 has many good views (albeit black and white) of the ground around the battlefield.
A little after dawn, as the Austrians stirred from their cold night on the ground and started poking their fires, alarming news came galloping in from the west. Prussians had attacked the bakeries (and, we have to assume, coffee shops) at Neumarkt, just eight miles to the west. This was alarming because the last Charles had heard about Frederick, he was still over a hundred miles away, and with only a token force of 12,000. But in the meantime, not only had Frederick managed to force march his little "Rossbach" army to Neumarkt, he had also collected along the way another 17,000 from the survivors of Breslau.
About four miles east of Neumarkt there was posted small advance guard of cavalry and light infantry, Saxon cheveaulegers, Hungarian hussars, and irregular (grenzer) infantry under Graf von Nostitz, about 3,000, watching the highway west of the little town of Borne About 08:00, emerging out of the fog, these saw the specters of thousands of cavalry coming right toward them from the west. This would turn out to be Frederick's advance guard of some 4,000 hussars and dragoons, and about 1,300 freicorps and jagers under the twenty-five-year-old Friedrich von . Frederick himself rode with the jagers. He had directed that Maj. Gen. Prince Karl von Bevern (no relation to the August Wilhelm Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern who had been captured after the loss of Breslau...at least as far as I could reserach), leading some nine battalions of infantry, and a battery of ten heavy twelve-pounder guns, the infamous "Brummers", move to the right to eject the Croatian grenzers from the woods there.
Nostitz had the Saxon and Austrian hussars charge the looming enemy, but they were overwhelmed by numbers and by a flank attack (the theme of today's battle) from the Szekely Hussars (the "Greens") on their right. So they fell back through Borne in a damn hurry, and just kept going, right through Leuthen to rally behind Nádasdy's wing on the left of the army. In the little skirmish they had lost about 551, or 30% of their force. The number of grenzer lost was not recorded, but many found their way back and up to the Zettelbusch to join their brothers there. Kronoskaf claims that Nostitiz himself was mortally wounded here, but Duffy and Millar don't mention that in their narratives. He would be mortally wounded later in the battle, though.
As soon as word of this attack reached Imperial headquarters at Lissa (about 3 miles, or 5 km, east of the main bivouac of the Austrian army) Feldmarshall Leopold Daun,
Charles' chief of staff, began riding all over, ordering sleepy, stiff
troops into hasty line and trying to get a sense of the battlefield. He
was so unready to fight here that he had to ask local peasants what the
place names were. There is an anecdote (undoubtedly apocryphal) that
Daun asked one peasant what one of the low hills was called and the
peasant, thinking he meant the whole area in general, said, "That's
where the Prussians beat the Austrians every year," referring, of course
to the fact that this was a training ground. Daun then reportedly mumbled to his
staff, "Hm, that doesn't sound good."
While Daun was busy waking people up, Charles himself, back in Lissa, powdered his wig, donned his sash, buckled his sword belt, and galloped west to join his army to the west. He felt, for some reason, that he had to cover the extent of
the whole distance all the way from Nippern (now Mrozów, Poland if you want to see it today), six miles south to Sagschütz (see big map below). To make the army reach that far, Daun had sent out a general deployment order that the infantry
battalions thin their ranks from the traditional four to three. Though
this was the standard three-rank formation the Prussians (and several European armies) had
long been comfortable with, it was brand new for the Austrians. But
even doing this, with such a long front, Charles had gaps in his line. And, other than the tiny three-pounder guns supporting each infantry battalion, he didn't have nearly
enough field artillery to cover this wide a front.The prudent thing to have
done, in hindsight (we all love hindsight),
would have been to consolidate the army in a tighter formation, ready to
take an attack from any direction.
It took the Austrians and their allies several hours to all get into position from their haphazard camps on the
unfamiliar ground. There was a lot of confusion. One smart thing that
Daun did, though, was retain a reserve striking force (Alpern's eight
infantry battalions and Serbelloni's cavalry division). Alpern's force was placed in the rear toward the right wing and Serbelloni's division on the left, below Leuthen. But the main line probably wasn't in place until late in the morning, perhaps until 11:00.
The Prussians started showing up on the east side of the village of Borne shortly after 08:30, as the morning fog began to lift. Frederick had pushed his aggressive hussars forward, some reaching almost all the way to the Austrian line at Frobelwitz. Three battalions of Freicorps, a couple of companies of Füssjager, Württemberg's cavalry division (not to be confused with the Württemberg division on the Allied side), and a battery of 12-pounders made as if Frederick's main attack was going to be on the Austrian right, against Nippern. General Lucchesi, who commanded the Austrian cavalry on Charles' north flank, was convinced of this and begged for reinforcements. Daun had already dispatched eight companies of grenadiers from Alpern's reserve division, two regiments of hussars (Szechényi H32 and Paul Esterhazy H24) and some grenzers up to cover that approach.
"Now, we got 'em!"
When news came to Frederick from his scouts that Charles' entire army
had left Breslau and was only a few miles ahead of them, camped all over
the Prussian Army's old stomping grounds, the word rippled back through
the column quickly. The marching pace increased and the men started
shouting to each other, "Now we got 'em." (In German, of course. Jetzt haben wir sie!?) They had been game enough
to attack the Austrians in the entrenched positions at Breslau, but they
all knew that the Austrians had made a tactical blunder by coming out
to meet them in the open. The odds had narrowed considerably. And these
men, especially the recently defeated troops from Breslau, were
salivating for revenge.
Frederick had ordered the drummers not to beat in order to conceal his
approach in the fog. But the men started, irrepressibly, to sing their Lutheran hymns again. His adjutant asked him if he wanted them to stop, but
Frederick (who wasn't religious himself, being a cynical agnostic of the
Enlightenment and friend of Voltaire), said, "No. Let them sing." And
then to Zieten (who was religious), "With men like these, how can I fail to win?"
I think he was mostly trying to reassure himself. In spite of the
incredible victory at Rossbach the month before, Frederick was acutely
aware that he was outnumbered and surrounded on all sides by most of
Europe. His unnerving defeat at Kolin
the summmer before was still raw in his mind. His men may have been
confident, but he wasn't. This might be his last battle. He had confided
in one of his hussar commanders ( Friedrich Wilhelm Kleist) that he wanted him to keep a squadron
ready to act as a bodyguard in case he had to flee for his life. This was something he had done at his first battle at Mollwitz when he thought (prematurely) he had lost that battle. So he was in the same pessimistic mood now, sixteen years later. And it was a confession that he held Kleist in suspicion over for years to come.
Nevertheless, the king had a plan. He was not going to march south to escape
battle (as Charles thought he was doing), but to outflank the enemy and
attack his weakest end. His scouts had reported that the southern flank
was held by the most unreliable troops in the Allied army, the Bavarians
and Württembergers, and, except for a few light battalion guns, was
unsupported by artillery.
Spending most of the morning getting his troops deployed in battle order in front of Borne (or Źródła today in Poland, if you want to look it up), in full view of Charles just 3,000 yards away, and making feints to the north with his hussars and jagers, Frederick worked on the deception he wanted. He had ridden forward to a slight eminence called the Schönberg just south of Gross Heidau, about a mile from the Austrian line to observe their reaction.
At about
11:00, from this forward post, Frederick saw what he was
waiting for. He noticed the rapid movement of lots of cavalry from the Austrian left up to their right, towards Nippern. These would've been from Serbelloni's division.. He also got reports from his hussars' probes up near Nippern that Charles had moved his reserve (Alpern's division) from the rear into and behind that town.
Frederick's view from the Schönberg toward Leuthen (those two tiny little points its steeples on the horizon.) It would be covered in snow, of course. Image from Google Streetview.
On the northern flank of the Austrian front at Nippern, General Lucchesi, in charge of that wing, convinced himself that the Prussians were going to attack him from there. He kept sending urgent message after message to Charles to please, please, please send him reinforcements. Charles, listening for a time to his chief of staff, Marshal Daun, who was not so sure that that was Frederick's intention, ignored these pleas. But as they observed all the activity of the Prussian cavalry and jagers toward the north, and as the main Prussian infantry started to deploy in front of Borne, both of them began to heed Lucchesi's warnings. About 11:00 Charles finally gave in and, this time with Daun's consent, dispatched the reserve division of Alpern (4,200) to move from the rear toward Nippern. Daun himself rode up in that direction to check out the threat. While he was gone, Charles ordered two brigades of Serbelloni's cavalry (Hohenzollern's and Starhemberg's, about 2,400 cuirassiers) from below Leuthen to ride up to Nippern as well. This really started to weaken the Austrian left.
Frederick was like a soccer player lining up for a penalty kick, waiting to see the telltale sign of which way the goalie was going to lunge so he could kick to the opposite side. Charles was the goalie. And he lunged first. (I know, I'm conflating sports metaphors! Sue me!)
The king now kicked the other way.After hearing the reports from his scouts and seeing the movement of Serbelloni's cavalry toward the north, he snapped his spyglass shut. At 11:30 he ordered his army south, leaving just enough light troops to continue the ruse of a northern attack.
The critical point before the battle started, when Frederick seemed to deploy his smaller army in front of Borne, opposite the center of the Austrians, just before he did his head-fake, convincing Charles and Daun that he was about to attack them on the right (via Nippern). Map copyrighted © 2025 by Jeffery P.Berry Trust. Embedded with Digimarc watermark.
"Retreat Hell!"
As Frederick's troops, now all seemingly deployed in line-of-battle, made a right face and started marching south, the Austrian staff, from their vantage on top of the windmill hill north of Leuthen, concluded with a sigh of relief that Frederick was probably doing one of what Paddy Griffith would call one of his "non-battles" and had decided to retreat. They reasoned that the Prussian had seen that that the Austrian army was overwhelming and in much too strong a position to attempt a battle. So he was slinking off to his own winter quarters.
This is exactly what Frederick wanted them to think. He wasn't retreating. In the later words of that famous Korean War Marine General O.P.Smith, "Retreat, Hell! We're just attacking in a different direction!"
He was going to try his beloved oblique attack plan again.
The
Prussian units, having assembled in front of Borne, made a hard
right turn, and for a couple of hours disappeared behind the low hills to the south.
Now these "hills"--Schönberg, Schmeideberg, Schelerberg,
Sohpienberg, Butterberg (by far the cutist name)--would never have been called that except by locals who
had never seen real hills. They were probably
no more than a ten or so feet in height (see image below; they are all
in the center of that apparently flat plain in the picture). But ten feet was enough to
conceal
marching men, even cavalry.
In 1904, wondering about this in writing an official history of the
battle,
officers of the Imperial German General Staff ran an experiment.
They stood approximately where they thought Charles and his staff would
have
and had a cavalryman, carrying a large flag, gallop the length of
Frederick's
route from Borne. Even using modern field glasses, the General Staff officers could
not see any of him or his big white flag for the entire three miles. So
it was
probable that Frederick was able to conceal the true target of his southward
march
in 1757, keeping the Austrians thinking he was merely withdrawing, until
he showed up on their southern flank.
View from roughly the location of the Leuthen windmill hill toward the SW. You can see how relatively flat it was (there are at least four "bergs" in this view!). But it was undulating enough that Frederick was able to conceal his whole army moving south. And there wouldn't have been any dust, obviously, in the snow. Image from Google Streetview.
But Frederick didn't share his plan with his men, either. As they marched southward, masked by the hills, they were under the impression that they were running away from the battle. The happy Lutheran hymns stopped. That suited Frederick fine. The better to conceal their destination. And make the ruse more convincing. A lie works better when the liar believes it himself.
When the head of the column reached the vicinity of the little hamlet of Wüstung, a staff officer was there to direct them to make a hard left. Say what? Spirits lifted again. Everybody now knew what was going on now. They weren't running away. They were going to do to the Allies what the Allies had tried to do to them at Rossbach; an outflanking attack. But this time they were going to show them how real soldiers did it. Excitement was electric. However, Frederick now instructed the officers to keep the men from breaking out in song again. He didn't want another Kolin.
An Aside About Formations
Much has been made of how Frederick's army was able to deftly execute
the complicated maneuver of shuttling 28,000 troops, cavalry and infantry, for three miles over
undulating, often broken terrain and having them all line up perfectly
at their jumping off positions to the south of Leuthen.
Most of the narratives of the battle that I have read, including Brent
Nosworthy's highly detailed description of 18th century formations and
tactics, describe the maneuver of the Prussian Army as if it were on
review at the Potsdam parade ground. While marching military formations
are relatively rare today, anyone who has seen the marching bands in the
Rose Parade or a half-time show at one of the Bowl Games (or who lives in a military dictatorship which love to put on big military parades--don't get me started!) knows what this
looks like.
On a battlefield of the 18th century, veteran company officers were supposed to keep perfect
distance between the platoons in column so that, when they got to the
designated launch point, all the stacked platoons had to do was wheel
left in unison, like a gigantic set of louvered blinds, and, TA DA! they
were instantly in line of battle. No adjustments necessary. This
evolution was called "Processional Deployment." See the animation below
for how this was supposed to have worked. And it probably did work perfectly at Potsdam. It better well have! The King was watching!
The Processional Deployment procedure
from a column at full distance. The entire evolution would take about
45 seconds, assuming the column distances had been maintained throughout
the approach march, and not counting for dressing ranks.
I have a theory that another, simpler, tactical evolution was in play:
Flank Marching from Close Columns
More years ago than I will admit, when I was in Naval Officer Candidate School at Newport, one of the many "useless" skills we had to master was close order marching. Everywhere we went— to class, to the gym, to the mess hall, to the exchange, to the docks, back to the barracks— we were required to march in formation. If there were two or more of us going anywhere, we'd have to form up and move in close order. We practiced for hours, getting ready for the big parade at the end of every week when the whole battalion would assemble for inspection and a march around the quad.
I'm not sure what all this had to do with working on a modern warship, but the experience— and I'm sure many of you reading this who have been through boot camp, OCS, ROTC, military school, or even band, share it— made me appreciate the problem of getting a whole lot of people from point A to point B in a perfectly aligned formation— oh, and doing it while walking in cadence. (Actually walking in cadence makes it easier; something the Prussians discovered a quite a few years before Leuthen.) Well, one of the most useful and basic commands we learned was "By the right flank, march!" (or "left flank" etc). This command would have everyone in the formation instantly turn in place (right, left, about face, oblique--45 degrees) and march in that direction. Flank marching would allow the company to march up right behind another company in the battalion, and without even halting, move right (or left) and then left (or right) again to move up to place itself in line. No need for the officers to preserve full distance between the platoons in column so they could hopefully wheel precisely into column. Flank marching took the guess-work out of moving men into position.
I have studied so many 18th and 19th century tactical diagrams in which platoons and companies perform these cumbersome wheeling maneuvers to get from column to line, and I wondered if, when in the field, they just didn't do it the way it's done now, with the flank march. It would obviate the need to keep perfect distance between following platoons, and make deployment much simpler, even in the roughest terrain. And it was certainly far more intuitive than the processional method.
Another supposition: In his book on the battle of Leuthen, Duffy cites eyewitness testimony by a Württemberg officer on the Allied flank that the Prussians moved into position in closed-up columns and "fanned" out into deployment when the columns were in position. Marching across all those miles of uneven terrain in close columns would have allowed them to cover the ground much more quickly, and at the same time, continue to deceive the observing Austrians as to their intentions. And the only way they could have done that would be by executing the flank march I described above ("By the right flank march!") when they arrived at their deployment point and needed to get into line. In his earlier book, The Army of Frederick the Great, Duffy also describes this technique in detail, which Frederick describes as "Deployiren en tiroir" (a medley of German and French military language), a metaphor for pulling out the drawers of a cabinet.
Deployiren en tiroir: (literally, "pulling out the drawers") A Prussian infantry battalion moving from close column of divisions to line using the flank march method. Total time to change formation is approximately 1:20 minutes (not counting dressing ranks), assuming the troops are hustling at double time (120 yds/min). Slightly longer than the time it took from the processional method, but marching to the front in close columns made it easier to move the whole army faster.
There is a misconception that these kinds of close columns were not used as combat formations until the Napoleonic Wars; the well-known "columns of attack." or, in the Austrian Army, the "battalionesmasse. But there is ample evidence that the Prussians at least were using them regularly for half-a-century prior.
I would also venture the speculation that once they lined up in line of battle in front of Borne, rather than reforming close columns, it would've been more efficient for the whole line to simply "by the right flank march!" and head down to their destination in a long, route column by threes. Then, all they'd have to do when they reached their final jump off place would be to "Halt! Left face!" and then dress their ranks. That's how we used to do it at the OCS parade ground on Friday afternoons.
Everything Is Falling into Place
However they got there, by about 13:00, after an hour-and-a-half of marching and getting all ready, the entire Prussian army was in position at right angles to the Austrian line, about 1,200 yards from the nearest Allied positions at Sagschütz (see map below). They formed the traditional two lines of 18th century battle formation: infantry in the center, cavalry on the wings, heavy artillery to the front and flanks.
Today, Frederick had assigned his new right wing commander, Zieten, in 53 cavalry squadrons, six infantry battalions (three musketeer and three grenadier) to provide a strong mixed force on his vulnerable right. This was a deployment reminiscent of the mixed force he had first experimented with at his first battle, Mollwitz, 16 years before, with somewhat less success with the cavalry on the wings back then. But this was a new generation of cavalry, and now some of the best in Europe. In front of this whole array, he also assembled an assault force of three battalions under General Wedell, supported by a battery of 10 heavy guns called Brummers, an onomatopoetic nickname from the deep boom they made. These would play a crucial role in punching a hole in the Allied left.
Meanwhile, his chief of artillery, Col. von Moller, was moving the rest of his heavy guns (some 61 tubes in four batteries, see my OOB below for caliber details) up toward the high ground to the west of the Allied left flank known as the Judenberg.
The situation at about 13:00. This
is a general map showing the ultimate dispositions of the Prussian and
Allied armies at the cusp of the battle, when
Frederick was about to launch his coup on the left flank of Charles'
position. In this map you can see that Charles has moved his reserves (Alpern's division) up to Nippern, and half of Serbelloni's cavalry from the left all the way north to defend from the imaginary threat from that direction. This all happened an hour or more before the Prussians showed up on their left. Map copyrighted © 2025 by Jeffery P.Berry Trust. Embedded with Digimarc watermark.
All this time, while Charles and his staff were still convinced that Frederick was on his way south, away from a confrontation, Nádasdy, commanding the Austrian left, including the shaky Allied troops, saw with horror what was really happening. At first the Prussians seemed like only a few companies assembling near the little village of Schriegwitz — perhaps a rear guard. But as they started unpacking their dense columns he soon realized, with hair standing on the back of his neck, that this was the entire Prussian army, not a few isolated companies of rear guard. They weren't retreating anywhere!
He sent frantic messages to Charles to recall the reserve (Arenberg and Serbelloni) from the north, or to send him any reinforcements (it was disputed by some of the German troops that he actually sent for any help). Charles, too, now realized his mistake and sent recall orders to Arenberg and Serbelloni's detached brigades. But the Arenberg's reserve corps was now over an hour-and-a-half away, up defending Nippern from grazing cows. Nádasdy did manage to get one battery of field artillery sent down, but just eight 6-pounders and two howitzers, but this wasn't going to hack it against the 71 Prussian big guns. The only other artillery he had were the 58 puny 3-pounders assigned to the infantry battalions, no match for the 94 heavier 6-pounders of close support the Prussian battalions had.
Nádasdy was in trouble. He knew it before a shot was fired.
View
north from the final Prussian jump-off positions. The Leuthen church
steeple can be see in the left distance. I am not sure where exactly
this photo was taken. Could that be Sagschütz and the Kieferberg in the middle distance? With the slight rise in front of them the Glanzberg? Photograph: Krzysztof Dusza, 2004
Now, Coach?
Frederick's officers were chomping at the bit. It was now around 13:45 and Prinz Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau tapped his watch and pointed out to his majesty that they had little less than two more hours of daylight (sunset was at 15:55 at this latitude
and date). But Frederick wanted to make sure everybody was ready. The
last thing he needed was another Kolin, where his enveloping maneuver
was not properly coordinated and was defeated in detail. But by 14:00,
after giving some personal "do or die" pep talks to the assault troops of Wedell's
command, he gave the order to attack.
Now here is where I have found some confusion in my sources about the nature of what
happened next. Leuthen is supposed to be an example of what Frederick
called his "oblique" or echelon method of attack. There seems to be some confusion about what constitutes "oblique" and "flank". Some definitions describe "oblique" as merely a flank attack. Others say it is an attack in echelon. What this latter involved was
a staggered line in which each battalion was about fifty yards ahead of
the one on its left. From above, the whole army looks like a staircase. The purpose of this was to allow a series of
trip-hammer blows on the enemy. The refused battalions (the ones not yet
engaged) would therefore be in a flexible position to either sustain a
check to the right-hand battalions or capitalize on their success. So in this definition, the oblique order of attack always had a succession of fresh reserves, not necessarily a flank attack. It's a semantic thing, I know.
But my confusion arises in how Frederick initially deployed his two lines.
Several battle maps I have found show the staggered line (the echelon
formation) from the beginning. Some show the line
starting off straight and then becoming staggered as each succeeding
battalion from the right started marching a little before the next. I
have read other accounts that have the infantry marching obliquely, left
foot crossing over the right in a kind of dance step in order to get to
the enemy positions — a peculiar way to charge. It's hard to imagine the 12,000 of Prince Moritz's and Forcade's divisions doing this in unison without a misstep, regardless of how
well trained they were. And you try walking like this for more than a few yards without tripping.
I have a different, simpler theory (a more "obscure" one, perhaps?). If
you look at the initial deployment, the Prussian line is facing in the
wrong direction to its first intended target, Sagschütz (see deployment
map above). It is way to the left of it and facing north, not northeast. If, however, each individual battalion in line
were to wheel 30 degrees right, this would aim them in the direction of
the target and automatically stagger the line in echelon. It seems
logical to me that Frederick's staff officers, in setting the end point for the line as Shriegwitz (on the
right), anticipated the echelon and sped up the deployment. It is easier
to line up dozens of battalions in a straight line than in echelon.
When the order was given to march, each battalion simultaneously would have wheeled
30 degrees right on its right flank and headed straight toward the enemy up on the Kiefernberg. The effect would
be an automatic echelon— or, okay, oblique— attack. See my map illustrating this formation below.
About 14:00
The oblique attack. Frederick's line all wheel as individual battalions
30 degrees and march straight ahead in echelon at the Allied salient.
Few of them had to engage before the entire lot of Allied troops fled. Map copyrighted © 2025 by Jeffery P.Berry Trust. Embedded with Digimarc watermark.
Captain Holtzendorff,, commander of the Prussian heavy Brummer battery, ten super-heavy 12-pounders, moved his guns onto the high ground opposite Sagschütz (another one of those low "bergs," the Glanzberg) and started to blast the Württembergers from close range, about 450 yards. All the latter had to answer them with were their sixteen little three-pounder battalion guns, which were soon demolished by the heavy Prussian ordnance. That single field field battery at Nádasdy's disposal (mentioned above) was not available down here This was in the process of unlimbering in front of the Bavarians farther west, and masked from the Brummers by the trees on top of the Kiefernberg. It was busy confronting the 61 other big guns (12 pdrs, 24 pdrs and howitzers) that Moller was in the act of setting up on the Judenberg. So the hooked Allied line was being enfiladed from two sides by 71 heavy guns.
View looking south from approximate position occupied by the Württembergers, looking toward the direction of the Prussian attack. Google Street View image by Jan Czjkowsjum, May 2021. see panorama here.
Leuthen Falls.
Moller's handling of the Prussian artillery at Leuthen is
noteworthy. Traditionally, big guns were unlimbered into battery at the
beginning of typical 18th century battle and not moved. The drivers and
their teams were civilian contractors and once they had brought the guns
into position, their contract was fulfilled and they withdrew to a safe
spot. But Frederick had several hundred dragoons without mounts. Rather
than letting them miss all the fun, he assigned them as grunt labor to take the place of the the civilian contractors. This allowed Col. von Moller to
move his guns with the infantry in close support, laying down fire
immediately where it was needed. Indeed, he moved these heavy guns ahead
of the infantry to engage the enemy line from close range, anticipating
Senarmont's famous "artillery charge" at the Battle of Friedland
50 years later (another "obscure battle" I cover). The Austrians,
having left most of their heavy ordnance back in Breslau, had little to
counter it. This innovation of Frederick's, assigning the dismounted dragoons to the artillery teams, quickly evolved into the "militarization" of the artillery transport, which not just the Prussians but all European armies adopted as they reformed their artillery arms toward the second half of the century.
Soon Nádasdy's remaining infantry were themselves thrown back, retreating past the east of Leuthen and creating a traffic jam ahead of it. Frederick's infantry
moved inexorably on.
It was now about 15:00, less than an hour of daylight left. Ever since two hours before, when they realized Frederick was not retreating to the south but going to attack them from down there, the Austrian
command had been frantically trying to reface its army ninety degrees, using
the village of Leuthen as its new strong point. Battalions were left-facing marching and hurrying southward, struggling against the tide of fleeing
men from Nádasdy's collapsed wing . One unit, the Rot (Red) Regiment of Würzburg,
the only other Reichsarmee infantry in Charles' army (and, apparently, the
only one worth anything...at least to the Austrians), double-timed it
into Leuthen and garrisoned its churchyard, frantically throwing up
firing steps behind the rough stone wall.
 |
| Satellite view of Leuthen Church today with the wall still there. Google Maps satellite view |
Other Austrian battalions quickly worked to fortify the masonry buildings, barns, and a convenient drainage ditch on the north side of the town. By about 15:00 the men of Arenberg's reserve command, who had been exhausted by long marches and counter-marches all day, were now lining up in the gardens of Leuthen village behind Serbelloni's remaining cavalry, (now under the command of Col. Freiherr Buccow, since General Serbelloni had taken himself out of what he saw was a suicide mission and retreated into Leuthen). Buccow's two bridades*, just 22 squadrons, attempted a frontal charge on the Prinz Moritz's division moving up toward the town. But courageous as that gesture was, it proved to be foolhardy; the bluecoats were not intimidated and brought down scores of men and horses with disciplined volleys.
Frankly, rarely did a frontal cavalry charge work on massed infantry, regardless of what they like to show in so many war movies (I confess, even I love that scene in the third LOTR movie where the Rohirim cavalry crash into the Orc army...but that rarely happened outside of Middle Earth). That old Bondarchuk movie, Waterloo, shows what usually happened when that was attempted. Horses have more sense than to throw themselves onto a fence of bayonets or pikes. They'd usually just instinctively swerve or come to a sudden stop, throwing their riders right over their necks.
So Buccow, brave as he was, the last remnant of Nádasdy's right wing force, was forced to follow his fleeing troopers. Through his gallant self-sacrifice, though, he did buy enough time for Arenberg's five battalions to get into position in the gardens of Leuthen. And for the rest of the army to form up behind Leuthen, facing south.
*As a side note, both Duffy and Millar in their detailed accounts of the battle list the regiments of Kalckreuth (C22) and Erzherzog Ferdinand Cuirassiers(C4), the Batthyányi Dragoons (D7), and some unnamed carabiniers constituting this force of Buccow's. Nafiziger and the German Generalstaff's Kriegsarchiv also list the Kalckreuth regiment as part of Buccow's but the Batthyányi as part of Nádasdy's force. But these differ from the OOB I got from Kronoskaf, which lists the Ferdinand and Birkenfeld Cuirassiers (C23), and the Kolowrat (D37) and Hesse-Darmstadt (D19) Dragoons as in these brigades, which list I've chosen, in this narrative, to go with that in my map. Not to admit the possibility of my being in error and dishonoring the heroism of those other regiments. Duffy himself points out this discrepancy between the official OOB and Buccow's memoirs. Okay, back to the action...
Arenberg's reserve force had just barely and breathlessly arrived in Leuthen
when the main Prussian assault hit them. They had only got the urgent order to retrace their steps about 13:30, not long after they had arrived at their position up behind Nippern. So they sighed, turned, and began the long march back down to Leuthen just in time to defend it from the Prussian onslaught by 15:00. As the crow flies this would've been a 3.5 mile hike, and with full gear. But they weren't crows. So they would've just got to Leuthen as the Prussians started their attack on the town. And it was only five of the battalions of the original eight in the reserve division (west to east, Harrach IR47, Haller IR31, Mercy IR56, Andlau IR57, Alberg IR55, and Ligne IR38 ), the remaining three, way up on the northwestern outskirts of Nippen, hadn't got the urgent order to move (or if it was passed forward, they didn't get down to Leuthen in time). Some of the battalions didn't
have room inside the walls and houses in the village to deploy and so lined up behind their
fellows in the narrow streets and gardens. The Andlau (IR 57) battalion, for instance, at first crowded in behind the Ligne (IR38) troops and, in their panic, started to fire volleys into their backs, which I'm sure was not appreciated.
Carl Röchling's famous rendering of the Prussian Garde #6 storming the walls around the Leuthen Church. This painting bothers me a little. From the contemporary maps I used (on which I based my own battle maps), it looks as if the church was on the main street of the town and that there were several buildings to the south of it, like there are today, right where these grenadiers are depicted running across the open field. Of course, I wasn't there. But neither was Röchling, who painted this over a century after the event.
The Red Würzburgers held their ground inside the churchyard, blasting away at the Prussian Garde Grenadiers (#6) swarming around them. Their defense, and that of Arenberg's brigade, was enough to grind the Prussian blitzkrieg to
a halt for some time, giving the main army time to reform a
right-angle defensive position north of the town. It was mostly the
Prussian regiments on the right of the line that engaged in close
fighting in the village (right to left: Markgraf Carl #19, Munchow #36, the Garde #6, and Pannewitz #10). And it was these, too, who would sustain the greatest number of Prussian casualties in the entire battle.
Finally, after having bogged down exchanging fire with the Austrians
in the barns and houses and behind the walls and hedges, an enterprising junior officer of the Prussian Garde Regiment, Capt. Mollendorf, stormed
the eastern gate of the churchyard, broke through, and swarmed into
the enclosure, bayoneting right and left (inspiring several 19th and early 20th century
salon paintings commemorating the battle). At the same time, Prussian
artillery brought up close blasted a breach in the south wall allowing
more companies of the Garde to rush in. But defending the position and making time for Charles to bring up the reserve brigade of Arenburg and to shore up the defensive line behind Leuthen, the Red regiment sacrificed all but 38 men, who finally retreated over the north wall, carrying their four colors with them in honor. On their side the Prussian assaulting regiments lost some 1,898, more than half their strength. It was the bloodiest combat of the whole battle.
Another of the many famous paintings of the storming of Leuthen by one of the 19th century's celebrated "salon" painters,Carl Röchling. This one is of Capt. Mollendorf leading the Third Battalion of the Garde in a charge on the eastern gate of the church. Looks like there's an elementary school there today.
It was now getting close to 16:00 and the sun had just set (15:50) At this late date and under now cloudy skies, there would not be much twilight (official twilight, according to the U.S.Naval Observatory, ended at 16:39 for this location and date), so the light was going to be fading fast. If Frederick didn't quickly push forward his attack and destroy the rest of Charles' army, the battle would be a draw. This was something he wasn't prepared to live with.
Lucchesi Strikes. Then Driesen.
While the right-hand battalions of Frederick's line were busy fighting for Leuthen village, the left wing were maneuvering around the west side of the town to envelop the Austrian line forming beyond it. They were taking punishing fire from the massed Austrian batteries around the windmills, which were, in turn, also taking rounds from von Moller's own massed guns on top of the adorably named Butterberg. Von Moller had also brought up his big Brummers to add to this formidable fire base. His other field batteries were south of the town, bringing the total Prussian tubes to 71 vs 24 Austrian 12-pounders and howitzers. The Prussians were just about ready to overwhelm the new Austrian flank.Then something bad almost happened.
Seeking to save the day for his country, General Lucchesi, commander of Charles' right wing cavalry, saw in the dimming light a shining opportunity. The left wing of the Prussian infantry, in wheeling inward toward Leuthen, had seemed to have left its left flank completely unprotected. At about 16:30, with the light fading fast, he seized the moment and began to move his regiments south, first at a walk, then at a trot. Over 3,000 heavy cavalry thundering down on the exposed flank of the Prussian infantry. It was almost too good to be true.
Almost isn't good enough.
Lucchesi failed to notice one teeny-tiny detail; a group of officers silhouetted by the setting sun on the crest of one of the knolls to the southwest (the Sophienberg to be precise). One of them was the fat Lt.Gen. Driesen, the others were the brigade commanders of his corps, 4,200 of some of the finest heavy cavalry in Europe, hidden from view behind those damned little "bergs".
Driesen saw what was unfolding in slow motion, and without waiting for orders from his king (whose standing order was for cavalry to attack anything in front of them anyway), he waited until Lucchesi's cavalry had come just opposite him, making their turn to attack the batteries on the Butterberg and the Prussian infantry beyond. Then he ordered his own surprise counter-attack. And it was a nasty surprise indeed.
When they saw all these Prussian cavalry swarming at them from the southwest, the distance was still such that some of the Austrian right-hand squadrons were able to turn to meet the Prussian charge on their flank and rear. And when the first line of Prussians hit, the Austrians held their own for a time. But then, after the Austrians momentarily pushed back the first enemy line, Driesen's second line ran into them. Then the homicidally maniacal "White" Hussars came in, swinging their razor-sharp scimitars. And finally, seeing his own opportunity to join the fun, the Prussian General Württemberg's own hussar division galloped up from the south, adding another 2,400 sabers to the fight.
Lucchesi himself had been decapitated by a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) cannon ball early in the charge, so he was not able to lend his legendary charisma to rallying his squadrons. He was now really legendary. More and more furious Prussians joined in, from regiments that had been humiliated at Breslau weeks before and were here for payback, The Austrians started to give way, first one at a time, then in small groups, and soon in one massive tide. They galloped for their lives straight back through their own infantry on the windmill hill, starting a chain reaction. The Prussian cavalry was in hot pursuit.
Now the entire Austrian army started to run back toward Breslau in the dark, leaving most of their guns. Nádasdy had rallied what was left of his command, his trusty Hungarian and Netherlandish infantry, to line the woods and guard the exit roads east of Leuthen, allowing thousands of Austrians to escape and holding off the pursuing Prussian cavalry. In the dark, the Prussians didn't know what force this was or how strong, so they stopped.
By this time it had really become too dark to see. And snow had started to fall again, further restricting visibility.
Game Called on Account of Darkness
It was about 17:00 and now dark as pitch. It was also and starting to snow again. The victorious Prussians made themselves comfortable around all of the campfires the Austrians had abandoned, helping themselves to the generous provisions and singing more evangelical hymns of the "Nearer Mein Gott to Thee" variety. As I said, they must have been an insufferable lot.Frederick, for his part, wasn't done. And wasn't in the mood for a sing-along. He realized he had an incomplete victory with the bulk of Charles' army making its escape back to to Breslau. But he was also aware that his army had performed wonders that day. He was a king, but not a "tyrant. So, letting his army celebrate their incredible vitory, he called out for volunteers to go with him to chase the Austrians in the night. Three grenadier battalions (Manteuffel, Wedell, and Ramin), the Seydlitz Cuirassiers (C8), and a couple of gun detachments mounted up.
 |
| Frederick surprises a lot of wounded (and not wounded) Austrians at Schloss Mudrach in Lissa. from Hutchinson's History of Nations, 1915 |
Frederick and his small body of volunteers got as far as the crossing of the Schweidnitzer river at Lissa, a 200 yard long wooden bridge (okay, 182.88 meters, you do have conversion apps, right?). The opposite side was covered by an indeterminate number of Austrian guns and troops. His own guns and grenadiers kept up a fire fight for an hour or so.
So he went into the nearby schloss belonging to a loyal local Baron Mudrach, for the night, and was surprised to find it filled with wounded Austrian officers, who, after they got over their own surprise, thronged around him like a bunch of Taylor Swift fans. Frederick was a rock star, even to his enemies, apparently. And he was reportedly gracious to them. This was the middle of the Enlightenment, after all. And they weren't a bunch of savages. Or Nazis...yet.
Was Leuthen the Greatest Victory of German Arms?
Not if you were a German on the Allied side. But not even if you were a Prussian, necessarily. Frederick himself, not known for self-aggrandizement, assessed Leuthen as his masterpiece and often referred to it later as the battle that best demonstrated all of his principles of war. It was certainly a clever maneuver (very much like Stonewall Jackson's outflanking maneuver at Chancellorsville a century later) and the battle was indisputably a victory on the tactical level. The Austrians suffered a loss of 23,190 men (KWM), 42% of their committed force as well as 131 guns. The Prussians paid a high price, too, with 6,382 KWM, or about 16% of their much smaller army.. And the Prussians did get to eat the Austrians' dinner that night.On the retreat out of Silesia, Charles' army paid even more dearly. The freezing weather increased with a vengeance, turning the retreat into something comparable to the retreat from Moscow by Napoleon's army 55 years later. Charles had left some 17,000 men in Breslau to hold it, but by 21 December, these surrendered to the besieging Prussians. The town of Schweidnitz on the Bohemian border, taken the month before by the Austrians, still held out with its well-stocked garrison of 5,000. But this strategic gateway to Bohemia also eventually fell to the Prussians the following spring.
But strategically, while Leuthen allowed Frederick to end the campaign season with a win— like going into half-time with a touchdown (again, sorry for all the bad sports similes; it's because I'm an American and we like sports metaphors in our military history) it didn't stop the war. It did give him a small diplomatic win, at least. For much of 1757 it looked as though Prussia was about to lose the war, with one defeat after another and enemies closing in from all quadrants. But victory in the last two battles (Rossbach and Leuthen) at least kept Frederick in the game. And convinced his biggest ally (financial, and naval anyway), Britain, to stay in it with him.
As for the Austrians, they ultimately took the defeat philosophically. Charles abandoned Breslau and fell back south to Bohemia for the winter. But in the spring they were reformed, wiser, and back in the fight. Maria Theresa herself was forgiving and gracious with her troops, thanking them for their heroic stand. They had fought bravely and hard. She did finally fire her brother-in-law, Charles, (graciously) and made Leopold Daun boss again. And we should also remember that the Austrian soldiers were dogged fighters. Historically they may have lost a lot of battles, but that made them stronger and tougher. The war went on for another five years, with Austria doing most of the heavy lifting on the Allied side and it left Prussia and Austria pretty much in the same place they had started (if broke).
To the German nation, however, Leuthen has ranked up there with Gettysburg (for the U.S.), Waterloo (for the U.K.) and Austerlitz (for France). For almost two hundred years, until Germany at last abandoned militarism as the source of its success, it was the symbol of the genius of the Prussian (and eventually the German) spirit.. This is why so many scenes of it have been painted, and the spectacle of pious Prussian soldiers singing hymns on the field of battle have persisted. They used it as propaganda during the Napoleonic Wars, during the rise of Bismarck and the unification of the Reich, and during WWI. The Nazis wantonly pimped the spirit of Leuthen in their own propaganda (even though Hitler himself was an Austrian). In his own lifetime Frederick milked it as propaganda for all it was worth, mostly to keep his only ally, Britain, in the war with him (and subsidizing him).
Leuthen was also used to perpetuate the myth of the invincible Prussian soldier, which ran into a brick wall in the form of the new French Army (the same he had humiliated at Rossbach) a generation later at Jena-Auerstedt. But, ironically, it was the zenith of the Frederickan soldier. The battles of 1757 had so sapped Prussia's native manpower, its treasury, and its moral strength that the caliber of its army saw a steady decline in subsequent years of the war. More and more foreigners were impressed into its ranks. Shortcuts in equipment were forced by shrinking budgets. And, like the demise of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, the military stars that had led it earlier were being killed off, to be replaced by lesser talents.
Tactical Lessons of Leuthen
Intelligence
By "Inteligence" I hope you know I don't mean how smart the two commanders were. I am referring (as a former intelligence officer myself) to information gathering, processing, and analysis by a military.
The Prussians were fortunate in that Charles happened to fight them on
ground they knew intimately. Ironically, at the earlier victory of Marshal Daun (Charles' chief-of-staff at Leuthen) at Kolin that same year, it was the Prussians who attacked the Austrians on their own training grounds in Bohemia.
But beyond this, Frederick's collection and use of tactical intelligence
was superior to Charles'. The Prussian King dispatched scores of young
officers all over the area to observe and report back. This was how he
found out the Austrians had come out of Breslau (he had expected to
attack them in their trenches there). It was how he learned about their
extended deployment. It was how he was able to discover their weak
flank; his officers recognized the Bavarian and Württemberg regimental
flags and knew about those troops' disaffection with their Habsburg
overlords. Using this intelligence, Frederick was able to precisely find
just where to hit Charles where it would hurt most.
By contrast, Charles was criticized even by his own staff for not
sending out scouts. Apparently he didn't trust what he couldn't see with
his own eyes, which wasn't much on the rolling topography of Leuthen.
He convinced himself (and most of his staff agreed) that the southward
movement of Frederick's army at 11:30 was evidence of Frederick avoiding
battle and not moving to attack his weak, southern flank. But he didn't
send any scouts down there to follow up and see for themselves. It
wasn't until the overwhelming din of the attack on his left that he
reversed his convictions.
United Command
Command structure was another area where the Austrians were fighting at a
disadvantage. Charles, brother-in-law to Maria-Theresa,
brother to the Holy Roman Emperor (by marriage), Francis I, had been appointed
nepotistically, not for any military talent. His resumé was long with experience, but mostly from a list of spectacular defeats (Chotusitz, Hohenfriedberg, Rocoux, Prague ). To make up for this, he was assigned Marshal Daun, the victor of Kolin,
as his chief-of-staff. The idea was that Daun would be able to keep
Prince Charles out of trouble. But the two men didn't like or listen to
each other. Charles, being an aristocrat of the worst sort, was prone to
listening to toadying staff officers and dismissing the reports of
lesser nobles (he was a Prince of Lorraine, after all, and Daun a mere
count...pffft).
This divisiveness at headquarters was compounded by the two wing
commanders, Nádasdy and Lucchesi, who, though ferocious and able
soldiers themselves, tended to fight their own battles on their separate
wings. Officers in Nádasdy's command later complained that he saw the
growing threat to the south without thinking to send off any messages to
HQ.
Frederick, however, being head of state and a strong-willed commander, kept a
tight rein on his subordinates. He was affable, frank, but stubborn.
And his commanders evidently worshiped him, feeling totally at ease in
his presence. He encouraged his officers to express their opinions and
was definitely not a snob when those opinions came from commoners. Even
Driesen and Prince Württemberg, acting on
their own at the end, were still obeying Frederick's standing orders for
cavalry; never hesitate to attack the enemy in front of you.
This unity of command and a shared vision of the goal from his
subordinates was probably the single most decisive factor in Frederick's
victory.
Dispersal vs Concentration
The disorganization of all of the Austrian staffs was not helped by
Charles' decision to disperse his already diminished force over so large
a front (5 miles, 8 km). Even thinning his infantry ranks from four to
three did not help his troops cover the ground, and there were large
gaps in the line (particularly around Leuthen itself). Even his
contemporaries criticized the wisdom of spreading out your force in the
presence of an enemy of unknown strength or intention. It meant that, if
attacked on a flank (which he was), he would not be able to quickly
reinforce the threatened sector. Daun, at least, had seen the wisdom of
creating a centralized reserve (Arenberg and Serbelloni)—this is what
saved the day at Kolin.
But even this was squandered when Charles, reacting to Lucchesi's
nervousness on the right, sent them all up to that wing—in precisely
the wrong direction.
The Prussians, again by contrast, concentrated their entire army in a
compact striking force. Even in maneuvering they condensed their columns
to make them easier to manage and deploy. Frederick only kept the bare
minimum (four battalions and some artillery) up by Borne to act as a
fixing force.
The Oblique Attack
Frederick's favorite tactic, the oblique attack, is the lesson most
people draw from Leuthen. All it meant was to attack a weak flank of the
enemy with overwhelming, local force, fixing the rest of the enemy's
army with a smaller force (in Frederick's case, the three-an-a-half
battalions of light infantry in front of Borne). Frederick, a student of Alexander the Great, had noted that that legendary model had made oblique attacks at two of his famous battles (which I cover, Granicus in 334 BC and The Jhelum in 326 BC), and he sought to perfect it in his career.
But the real lesson from this strategem was planning, control, and proper timing. In this war, Frederick had first attempted his oblique attack at Prague in the spring of his year, but that was flubbed when his subordinate commander, Schwerin, ordered a premature attack before the rest of the army was ready, thus alerting Charles to the danger in time to thwart it. He next tried it at Kolin later that summer, but with disastrous consequences. And the Franco-Imperial army tried it at Rossbach—equally disastrous. Napoleon used the same oblique attack at Austerlitz in 1805. Stonewall Jackson had used an almost identical ploy at Chancellorsville 106 years after Leuthen (being a professor at Virginia Military Institute, he was undoubtedly a student of Frederick, Napoleon, and Alexander). And, of course, .both were only successful because they were done in secret, executed with flawless timing, and made on a clueless enemy that had left his flank in the air.
And you can't help but wonder if Frederick's gamble could've also ended in disaster, like Rossbach did for the French, had Charles and Daun chosen to hit him in the flank while he was in route formation heading south.
Echelon Order
The real success of Frederick's (and later Jackson's) use of the oblique
attack was the simultaneous use of the echelon formation. Each
attacking unit was backed up on the flank and rear by fresh, supporting
troops.This allowed greater flexibility in the assault, withholding
successive units to either follow up a successful breakthrough (as
happened against the Imperial troops around Sagschütz) or provide an
intact fallback in case of a check. Frederick was certainly not the
first commander to use such tactics. He had, apparently, been inspired
by the same tactic used by Epaminondas at the Battle of Leuctra over 2,100 years before. He was, after all, very well read.
The Importance of Strong Points
The biggest thing that stopped Leuthen from being an overwhelming
victory for Frederick was the village of Leuthen itself. Having swept
away all opposition on the southern wing of Charles' army, the assaulting Prussian line stopped cold at
Leuthen, which, with its mile-long east-west orientation and its stone
buildings and walls, acted like a strong breakwater against the Prussian
wave. Granted, the village was eventually taken, but it was costly (the
majority of Prussian casualties in the entire battle occurred in the
assault of the village of Leuthen itself). But its defense by Arenberg's
men and the Rot Würzburg Regiment also provided vital time for the bulk
of the Austrian army to re-orient itself and assemble a grand battery
of heavy guns on the windmill hill behind it.
Ammunition
Frederick's army enjoyed an enviable supply system. While Austrian
troops deployed with the cartridges they had on them (usually around
40), the Prussian army went into the battle with enough ammunition to
supply its troops with up to 180 rounds per man. If your army is trained
for fast firing and movement, it's important to make sure they're fed
with cartridges frequently. Ammunition carts followed the advancing
lines and musicians would make frequent runs back to the wagons to bring
fresh rounds to their platoons.
One of the main reasons for a regular unit to bolt and run is not that
it's scared and has had enough (though this may be true), it's that it
has run out of ammunition. To the defending Allied infantry, it must
have seemed like the Prussians had unlimited supplies. This was not the reason that the Württembergers and Bavarians bolted from the first attack, though. They just didn't want to be there in the first place.
Wargame Considerations
To me, the main purpose of a wargame is as a laboratory experiment to
test certain theories; a "what-if" exercise. Wargames whose rules are
stacked in favor of the historic winner are not interesting, especially
to the side who draws the historic loser. But that's just my cranky
opinion.
For Leuthen there are a few theories that might be worth a test in different scenarios.
Concentration
In light of the observations above about dispersal, one variant of a
battle of Leuthen would be to allow the Imperial (Austrian) player to
concentrate his army in a tighter area. There is no tactical or
strategic need to cover all the ground between Nippern and Sagschütz.
So it would be interesting to see if the Prussians would have been so
successful.
Artillery
Thanks to all the collateral-duty cavalry without horses, the Prussians were adept at moving and redeploying their superior
artillery without relying on civilian contrctors. A similar mobility might also be allowed the Austrians. It
would also be interesting to see what the outcome would have been had
Charles brought all of his heavy artillery with him out of Breslau, and had employed dismounted cavalry to drive the limbers as the Prussians had.
Concealed Movement
The key feature of Leuthen was that Frederick was able to move his
entire force in concealment. Unfortunately there is no concealment on a
game board or sand table. So a rule that would allow the Prussian player
to move pieces in secrecy (off board) beyond a certain range of
Austrian units could simulate this. Another variant of this game
technique is to provide the Prussian player with decoy markers, so that
the Austrian player doesn't know which force is real, or how big it is.
Using a variant like this would allow the Prussian player to keep the
Austrian player guessing which flank (or even the center) he will
attack. Both sides should be able to use "scout" markers or figures to
reveal the presence of actual troops. This is similar to the old AH Midway game model. (I know, I'm really dating myself.)
Austrian Aggressiveness
Finally, it would be interesting to play a game in which the Austrian player, taking advantage of his superior strength, would attack Frederick, either in the morning as his forces begin to move through Borne, or at noon, when he has begun to move his army south, exposing his flank like the French did at Rossbach, or he himself did at Kolin.
Varied Deployment of Allied Troops
Instead of deploying the unreliable Bavarian and Württemberger troops on the extreme southern end of the Austrian line. It might be interesting to see how the battle might have played out if the Austrian player deploys those troops in the center, behind the center, or, in a slighter variation, deployed Nádasdy's more reliable Austrian, Hungarian, and Netherlander battalions on the extreme left instead.
Orders of Battle
The following Orders of Battle were reconstructed using primarily Kronoskaf, Duffy, and Millar. In small details, where the OOB differs from Duffy or Millar and I have deferred to Kronoskaf.
Column Key:
Command is the name of the command or regiment, colored in the primary uniform coat color for each regiment. I've also noted the eventual regimental number of the Austrian regiments, which would not be assigned until 1769, and the Prussian regiments ( not until 1784).
Facing” The command level and type, using standard military symbology (corps, division, brigade, regiment, etc.) This column is also color-coded in the “facing” color of the regiment, e.g the colors, cuffs, lapels, and tail linings.
Flag A miniature of the regimental flags, if known. If unknown or not carried, this cell is left blank.
Strength” The strength numbers for each unit were derived from Kronoskaf's overall averages for the Prussians and Duffy's analytic averages for the Austrians, which are cited from original archives. Of course, individual units would have variables, but you can apply those to your wargame if you want variation.
“Guns” The numbers of pieces assigned to each unit, including the lighter, close-support battalion guns, of which there were an average of two per battalion. Calibers of the ordnance listed under "Notes".
“Bns/Sdns” The reported number of subunits (battalions for Infantry, and squadrons for Cavalry).
References
Physical Books
I have relied on the following references in building this
article on Leuthen, but the most detailed and revealing have been the
books and links marked with a *. For paper books, I have, where they have it in stock, linked to Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, the largest bookstore in the world, and my absolute favorite. Or, if they don't seem to have it at Powell's, I've linked to the publisher. And if I can't find it for sale anywhere, as a last resort, I've linked it to Amazon. Or you can just search by the ISBN.
Asprey, Robert, "Frederick the Great: A Magnificent Enigma", Ticknor & Fields, ISBN 0-89919-352-8
*Duffy, Christopher, "Prussia's Glory: Rossbach and Leuthen 1757", Emperor's Press, ISBN 1-883476-29-1
Duffy, Christopher, "The Army of Frederick the Great", Emperor Press, ISBN 1-883476-02-X
Duffy, Christopher, "Frederick the Great: A Military Life", Routledge, ISBN 0-415-00276-1
Duffy, Christopher, "The Army of Maria Theresa", Terence Wise, ISBN 0-7153-7387-0
Duffy, Christopher, "Instrument of War: The Austrian Army in the Seven Years War", Emperor's Press, ISBN 1-883476-19-4
Duffy, Christopher, "Military Experience in the Age of Reason," Atheneum, 1987, ISBN 0-689-11993-3
Frederick the Great, "The Art of War", edited and translated by Jay Luvaas, Da Capo Press, 1999, ISBN 0-306-80908-7
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "Frederick the Great's Army 1 Cavalry", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-134-3
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "Frederick the Great's Army 2 Infantry", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-160-2
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "Frederick the Great's Army 3 Specialist Troops", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-225-0
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "The Austrian Army 1740-80: 1 Cavalry", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-415-6
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "The Austrian Army 1740-80: 2 Infantry", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-418-0
Haythornethwaite, Philip, "The Austrian Army 1740-80: 3 Specialist Troops", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-4180
*Millar, Simon "Rossbach and Leuthen 1757: Prussia's Eagle resurgent", Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-84176-509-0
*Nosworthy, Brent, "The Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics 1689-1763" Hippocrene, ISBN0-87052-785-1
Online
*Kronoskaf: http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Main_Page Kronoskaf is, in my experience, and hands down, the best source online for information about the Seven Years War. Virtually every regiment of every country, every battle, every major personality is covered.
*Die Krieg Friedrichs des Grosse, Deutsche Kriegsarchive, volume T3 B6 dealing with Leuthen. Hi-res maps from the German Generalstaff in this 1904 edition were used in building my maps for this article. https://archive.org/details/diekriegefriedrit3b6prus/page/n3/mode/2up
Nafizeger, George, Collection. Battle of Leuthen Austrian Orders of Battle https://www.generalstaff.org/NAF/Pt_I_1600-1783/757lcj.pdf
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leuthen
Battlefield Travels, Mick Prictor's virtual tours of battlefields, including this one of Leuthen https://battlefieldtravels.com/battle-of-leuthen-1757/
©
Copyright 2025, Jeffery
P. Berry Trust, all rights reserved. No part of this post may be used
for re-publication or re-posting without documented permission of the
Jeffery P. Berry Trust. However, feel free to link to this site as a
resource from related sites.
Thank you so much, Conrad, for your nomination. I visited your own blog and laughed a lot, in all the right places, I hope. Your enthusiastic endorsement made my day.
ReplyDeleteI do think history would be a lot more accessible if it were funnier, or at least less reverent.
Jeff
The best one yet! I really enjoyed the new animations showing how units moved from one formation to another. Now only if you made computer games like those animations with real time movements I would love that. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Michael. I did enjoy doing this one, though it took me a few months. Though I did it to please myself, I can't tell you how much it means that it pleased others, as well.
DeleteI'm stunned at the level of detail, and I will have to start rooting through older posts. I appreciate the hard work that went into it. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Glad you noticed. It was several months of work and research, but it doesn't seem hard when you are loving doing it.
DeleteFantastic!
ReplyDeleteThe maps are excellent! Did you make them? Would you mind sharing what tools you used?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Hadik. Your compliments are so generous.
DeleteYes, I did make the maps. I've been making maps, in fact, since I was a kid. Tools I used were mostly Photoshop and InDesign (both Adobe CS5). For reference I relied on a combination of mosaics I pulled down from Google Maps satellite view, contemporary maps, and OOB deployment maps from sources like Christopher Duffy and Scott Bowden.
Hello, just saw the info about your mapping on the "About" page. Excellent info. I really enjoy looking at the maps.
ReplyDeleteAwesome maps!
ReplyDeleteDear Sir,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated your fantastic blog, very detailed and with spectacular maps. The description of the battle is really breath-taking.
I would like to ask you your "tactical" aid. I am actually recreating this battle at one to one ratio (i.e. 1 papersoldier = 1 real man) and this puts me in some troubles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpfy_e16zOE); in particular: if the main attack was led by about 6.000 men (osprey) on the village of Leuthen, which units didn't participate to it ? (for instance Rgt 30 did it or not?) The Prussian battalions of grenadiers on the very right of the Prussian array did not participate to the assault, or they were busy with Nádasdy's troops ? The Wurtemburges and Bavarians totally fled and towards which direction? did some Prussian units follow them (and therefore the Prussian right wing didn't participate to the Battle for Leuthen?
As I am trying to solve this topics through suppositions, I consider that the attack on the village of Leuthen was led by also by the 30th Rgt that was arrayed in the middle between the Garde and Pannewitz regiments. Do you agree? The 46 Rgt Fusiliers Wuttemberg - according to your opinion - participated as well? this are some issues I cannot solve and that can make your battle "less obscure" going on a path no one before did. Sorry for the long text. Big Big congratulations and please keep doing this super fantastic blog . Ciao from Michele (paperbattles)
Thanks for your compliments, Iris. Love the images of your paper regiments. Very inspiring.
DeleteRe: your question about which Prussian regiments actually participated in the battle, they all did. As you can see from the final map above, the Prussian line, inclined to the right and attacking in oblique echelon, did overlap the end of Prince Charles line. Some battalions on the extreme left may not have collided directly with any Austrian units, but their support in echelon to the more forward and righthand Prussian regiments was tactically vital to the integrity of the line.
According to regimental legend (and numerous paintings in the following century) the Garde #15 and Grenadier Garde #6 regiments were the units that actually hit the village of Leuthen head on. However, as the echeloned line was still intact one can only assume that the flanking regiments to those (Kannacher #30 on the left and Carl #19 on the right) were also engaged in the village.
As to where the Bavarian and Wurttemburgers fled to in response to the initial assault, one can only surmise. Probably up northeast in the direction of their base at Breslau. These would have been chased, if at all, by Zieten's cavalry (probably the hussars). Discipline in the infantry line would have been such that those units would not have broken off to chase down the Bavarians.
Also, bear in mind that the Austrians during this time were not passive but were frantically scrambling to realign their front to the south. And Lucchesi's cavalry were also moving south to take the left of the advancing Prussian infantry in flank, so the withheld wing of that line was important to resist that charge. Though, as we've see above, the charge never struck home, intercepted in the flank as it was by Driesen's cuirassiers.
I have to admit that I don't know if the second line in the Prussian array (including the mentioned Wurrtemberg #46) would have been engaged in combat. It was in support role and served as a rallying base for the first line to retire behind in the event of a check (which was not needed). Frederick was careful in husbanding his forces and is not likely to have committed his reserve line if they weren't needed.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff for your prompt and very specific replay. It helped actually a lot. And a discussion about this specific topic is quite rare, if not unique. So I started to draw my 30# regiment (actually very beautiful colors) and I will add to the attacking force. Considering my final goal to wargame this battle, I think I need to prepare the maximum number of battalions as possible.
ReplyDeleteI will ask other helps, if you don't mind, in case of doubts. For the moment a big thank you and I do renovate my sincere compliments for your work.. please keep on writing your blog. ciao
Hi. I come back to this battle because I am reproducing it, starting from the map of Clash of Arms; I was reprinting counters by my own and I was checking the units present at that battles. The OSPREY booklet Rossbach & Leuthen 1757 at pag 38-40 represents the order of battle of Leuthen. I noticed that the Author didn't mention the Bevern Corp, and even not the Norman Dragoons and the Czetertritz Dragoons, while on the map on page62 they are represented. Is it a mistake? I say you reported them in your order of battle. Thanks Miki
ReplyDeleteHi, Miki. In my compilation of these OOBs for these articles, I try not to use Osprey as a first source, unless there is no other reference. For whatever reasons, the editors of that otherwise estimable series don't think it's important to always cite sources (though in this particular edition, they did cite older Duffy works in the bibliography). So I tend to rely first on those that do cite primary sources. For this OOB I primarily used Duffy's more recently published "Prussia's Glory", which does cite primary sources for OOBs. I must admit, that when it comes to mid-18th century military history, I have an academic bias toward Duffy.
DeleteAll that being said, I realize that for wargaming purposes, the accuracy of OOBs is not that important. And for many of my posts, those OOBs older than 200 years are often based on best estimates and may often vary depending on the source. But I hope this criterion of my own research and editing helps.
And thanks so much for being a fan. Good gaming.
Hi I just discovered your site today from a wargaming website. I have to say, these are some of the most beautiful maps of these familiar battles I have ever seen. And the narrative is engaging and fun and humorous. I cannot find a flaw. Good work sir! I really do wish to express my admiration.
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you so much, D.Z. It is always uplifting to hear praise of my work. Even though I do these to please myself, it also gratifies that they please other military history nerds like myself.
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