The Austrians had meanwhile gained great advantages to the rear of the Prussian army, had beaten the King's favorite, General Winterfeld, at Moys in Silesia, had taken the important fortress at Schweidnitz and the metropolis, Breslau, whose commandant, the Duke of Bevern—a collateral branch of the house of Brunswick—had fallen into their hands while on a reconnoitring expedition. Frederick, immediately after the battle of Rossbach, hastened into Silesia, and, on his march thither, fell in with a body of two thousand young Silesians, who had been captured in Schweidnitz, but, on the news of the victory gained at Rossbach, had found means to regain their liberty, and had set off to his rencounter.
The King, inspired by this reënforcement, hurried onward, and, at Leuthen, near Breslau, gained one of the most brilliant victories over the Austrians during this war. Making a false attack upon the right wing, he suddenly turned upon the left. "Here are the Wurtembergers," said he, "they will be the first to make way for us!" He trusted to the inclination of these troops, who were zealous Protestants, in his favor. They instantly gave way and Daun's line of battle was destroyed. During the night he threw two battalions of grenadiers into Lissa, and, accompanied by some of his staff, entered the castle, where, meeting with a number of Austrian generals and officers, he civilly saluted them and asked, "Can one get a lodging here, too?" The Austrians might have seized the whole party, but were so thunderstruck that they yielded their swords, the King treating them with extreme civility.
Charles of Lorraine, weary of his unvarying ill-luck, resigned the command and was nominated stadtholder of the Netherlands, where he gained great popularity. At Leuthen twenty-one thousand Austrians fell into Frederick's hands; in Breslau, which shortly afterward capitulated, he took seventeen thousand more, so that his prisoners exceeded his army in number.
Fresh storms rose on the horizon and threatened to overwhelm the gallant King, who, unshaken by the approaching peril, firmly stood his ground. The Austrians gained an excellent general in the Livonian, Gideon Laudon, whom Frederick had refused to take into his service on account of his extreme ugliness, and who now exerted his utmost endeavors to avenge the insult. The great Russian army, which had until now remained an idle spectator of the war, also set itself in motion. Frederick advanced in the spring of 1758 against Laudon, invaded Moravia, and besieged Olmuetz, but without success; Laudon ceaselessly harassed his troops and seized a convoy of three hundred wagons. The King was finally compelled to retreat, the Russians, under Fermor, crossing the Oder, murdering and burning on their route, converting Kuestrin, which refused to yield, into a heap of rubbish, and threatening Berlin. They were met by the enraged King at Zorndorf.
Although numerically but half as strong as the Russians, he succeeded in beating them, but with the loss of eleven thousand of his men, the Russians standing like walls. The battle was carried on with the greatest fury on both sides; no quarter was given, and men were seen, when mortally wounded, to seize each other with their teeth as they rolled fighting on the ground. Some of the captured Cossacks were presented by Frederick to some of his friends with the remark, "See with what vagabonds I am reduced to fight!" He had scarcely recovered from this bloody victory when he was again compelled to take the field against the Austrians, who, under Daun and Laudon, had invaded Lusatia. He for some time watched them without hazarding an engagement, under an idea that they were themselves too cautious and timid to venture an attack. He was, however, mistaken. The Austrians surprised his camp at Hochkirch during the night of October 14th. The Prussians—the hussar troop of the faithful Zieten, whose warnings had been neglected by the King, alone excepted—slept, and were only roused by the roaring of their own artillery, which Laudon had already seized and turned upon their camp.
The excellent discipline of the Prussian soldiery, nevertheless, enabled them, half naked as they were, and notwithstanding the darkness of the night, to place themselves under arms, and the King, although with immense loss, to make an orderly retreat. He lost nine thousand men, many of his bravest officers, and upward of a hundred pieces of artillery. The principal object of the Austrians, that of taking the King prisoner or of annihilating his army at a blow, was, however, frustrated. Frederick eluded the pursuit of the enemy and went straight into Silesia, whence he drove the Austrian general, Harsch, who was besieging Neisse, across the mountains into Bohemia. The approach of winter put a stop to hostilities on both sides.
During this year Frederick received powerful aid from Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, brother to Charles, the reigning Duke, who replaced Cumberland in the command of the Hanoverians and Hessians, with great ability covered the right flank of the Prussians, manœuvred the French, under their wretched general, Richelieu, who enriched himself with the plunder of Halberstadt, across the Rhine, and defeated Clermont, Richelieu's successor, at Crefeld. His nephew, the Crown Prince Ferdinand, served under him with distinction.
Toward the conclusion of the campaign an army under Broglio again pushed forward and succeeded in defeating the Prince von Ysenburg, who was to have covered Hesse with seven thousand men at Sangerhausen; another body of troops under Soubise also beat Count Oberg, on the Lutterberg. The troops on both sides then withdrew into winter quarters. The French had, during this campaign, also penetrated as far as East Friesland, whence they were driven by the peasantry until Wurmser of Alsace made terms with them and maintained the severest discipline among his troops.
The campaign of 1759 was opened with great caution by the allies. The French reënforced the army opposed to the Duke of Brunswick, and attacked him on two sides, Broglio from the Main, Contades from the Lower Rhine. The Duke was pushed back upon Bergen, but nevertheless gained a glorious victory over the united French leaders at Minden. His nephew, the Crown Prince Ferdinand, also defeated another French army under Brissac, on the same day, at Herford. The Imperial army, commanded by its newly nominated leader, Charles of Wurtemberg, advanced, but was attacked by the Crown Prince, while its commander was amusing himself at a ball at Fulda, and ignominiously put to flight.
Frederick, although secure against danger from this quarter, was threatened with still greater peril by the attempted junction of the Russians and Austrians, who had at length discovered that the advantages gained by Frederick had been mainly owing to the want of unity in his opponents. The Russians under Soltikoff, accordingly, approached the Oder. Frederick, at that time fully occupied with keeping the main body of the Austrians under Daun at bay in Bohemia, had been unable to hinder Laudon from advancing with twenty thousand men for the purpose of forming a junction with the Russians. In this extremity he commissioned the youthful general, Wedel, to use every exertion to prevent the further advance of the Russians. Wedel was, however, overwhelmed by the Russians near the village of Kay, and the junction with Laudon took place.