Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War

by Ferdinand Schrader

In carrying out his orders, Zieten had had to contend with almost insuperable obstacles before he could get to the place to which he had been assigned. After almost superhuman exertions he reached, toward evening, the Süptitz heights. His soldiers dragged their cannon by hand and planted them on a hill near the enemy. With drums beating and cannon thundering, Zieten advanced to the attack, and at the very first onset captured a battery, causing great alarm and confusion among the Austrians. Field-Marshal Daun rallied all his forces and tried to drive the Prussians out of his entrenchments, but the effort was fruitless. Zieten, clearly realizing what was at stake, so continuously pressed his assaults that the Austrians could not withstand them. They began to waver, and General Daun was so badly wounded that he had to be carried from the field. This new misfortune increased their panic, and Zieten gave them no chance to get over it. He hurled his entire force upon them, and the victory was won.

The King, meanwhile, knew nothing of Zieten’s successful attack and its important results, as the intervening darkness cut off his view of the field. Fancying the battle was lost, or at least that the victory was doubtful, he rode to the neighboring village of Elsnitz, where he went into a church, as all other places were filled with wounded. It was a very cold night. While tired-out, shivering soldiers sought rest and warmth by the watch-fires, Frederick sat upon the lowest step of the altar and by the dim light of a lamp wrote his orders for attack on the following day, for he was determined to make the battle decisive, whatever the cost. It was hardly daybreak when he mounted his horse and rode out of the village. He had not gone far when he saw a cavalry troop approaching, with Zieten at its head. In the tone of an officer reporting, he said to the King, “The enemy is beaten and has retreated.”

Frederick was much excited by the announcement. With the activity of a boy, he jumped from his horse, Zieten following his example, and embraced his faithful general. Zieten cried like a child. Then the two rode back to the field, by different routes, to acquaint the troops with the joyful news and thank them for the bravery they had shown.

The King rode along the front, from the left to the right wing, and approached the generals who were gathered about the watch-fire. Frederick dismounted and joined the brave officers and men of his division, who were waiting for dawn to renew the attack upon the Austrians if they had not retreated. The King talked much with his soldiers and praised them for their valor. The grenadiers, knowing his amiability and condescension, crowded nearer and nearer about him. One of them, with whom the King had several times conversed and to whom he had often given money, was bold enough to ask him where he had been during the battle. They were accustomed to seeing him at their head, leading them into the thickest of the fight. This time, however, not an eye had seen him, and it was not right for him to forsake them. The King replied most graciously to the grenadier, saying that during most of the battle he had been at the left wing of the army and therefore could not be with his own men. While saying this, he unbuttoned his blue overcoat, as he was getting too warm. As he did so, the grenadier noticed a bullet falling from his clothes and saw the wound on his breast through the rent in his uniform. Excitedly he shouted: “Thou art still the old Fritz! Thou sharest every danger with us. For thee we would die gladly. Long live the King! Three times three!”

There was the greatest enthusiasm as Frederick rode up and down the line, shaking hands with this and that old graybeard and addressing a kindly word to everyone. On this occasion the old grenadiers were smoking wretched tobacco in their stub pipes right under his nose. An officer, who knew his dislike of tobacco, said to them, “Step back a little. His Majesty cannot endure tobacco smoke.”

“No, children, stay where you are,” replied the King, with a kindly smile. “I don’t mind the smell.”

He was thus gracious to his soldiers—for it was well known that he was averse to tobacco all his life—and in this and other ways was constantly manifesting his regard for them.

The loss of life at Torgau was very great on both sides. The Austrians lost twenty thousand men beside fifty-five cannon and twenty-seven standards, and the Prussians suffered almost as severely. Frederick, writing about it to a friend, said:

“We have just defeated the Austrians. They have lost an extraordinary number as well as we. This victory will perhaps allow us a little rest this Winter and that is about all. Next year we must begin anew. I have been hit by a shot, which grazed my breast, but it is only a bruise,—little pain, but no danger,—therefore I shall be as busy as ever.”

Large as was the number killed in this battle, it was compensated for by its important results, for Prussia was saved and Saxony was once more freed from the Austrians. The Russians had retired again into Poland, and the Swedes had sought refuge in the farthest corners of Pomerania. The King decided to make his Winter quarters in Leipsic. On his way there, he reached a Saxon village near Wittenburg and took lodgings with a preacher. Delighted with the honor conferred upon him, he went to the door to meet the King, and said: “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord! Why dost thou stand outside?”