Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

Frederick realised the importance of the crisis. For two days, it is said, he could neither eat nor sleep. On April 8th he wrote to his brother and heir, Prince Augustus William, bidding him farewell if the next day should be his last. In that event he commended to his care four of his friends, “those whom in life I have loved the most,” as well as two of his servants. The next day, however, proved tempestuous and the Prussian attack was postponed till April 10th. Then the morning sun shone out upon a plain hardened by frost and covered to a depth of two feet with snow. The Prussian baggage was packed at five o’clock, and by nine the whole force had silently taken rank. An hour later, the march northward began, the army pressing slowly through the snow towards Ohlau, and feeling for the enemy who lay across their path. At last the vanguard surprised an Austrian outpost, captured twenty men, and learned that Neipperg lay encamped in and about Mollwitz, a village less than two miles ahead.

How twenty-two thousand men could have approached so close to the enemy unperceived, it is hard to understand. Neipperg, it is true, did not expect to be attacked. There was some screen of woods between the Prussians and Mollwitz, and the country-folk were Protestants who volunteered information only to the Prussians. But the day was clear and the scene as flat as the parade-ground at Potsdam; the Austrians were particularly well supplied with scouts and their general’s avowed plan was to shape his course according to the movements of his opponents. None the less it was in fact not till after ten o’clock that he received the alarm, and by that time the Prussians were methodically ranking themselves for battle. Had the same opportunity come to Frederick later in life, he would, as he himself declares, have flung troops upon Mollwitz and the neighbouring villages and put the Austrians to flight before they could form. But in this first fight every traditional precaution was carefully observed, “the faithful apprentice-hand,” says Carlyle, “still rigorous to the rules of the old shop.”

While Neipperg was bustling and hurrying to collect his army from three villages and to draw it up in front of Mollwitz, the Prussians were manœuvring into place as though they were on parade. Two long lines were formed across the plain. These were three hundred paces apart, so that if the front were pierced, which was hardly supposed possible, the rear could fire their flintlocks without massacring their comrades. Heavy guns to the front, cavalry on the wings, were the orders, and, as the enemy were superior in cavalry, Frederick copied an expedient of the great Gustavus by placing two regiments of grenadiers between the squadrons of horse on either wing. At length all was ready, and at midday the Prussian cannonade began, galling the Austrian cavalry and as yet unanswerable by the Austrian guns.

Neipperg had ordered the cavalry to wait till a general advance could be made. But the left wing, refusing to be shot down like dogs, suddenly defied their officers and dashed at the Prussian right. They lost all formation, but they found a foe unschooled in their tactics. First pistol-shot, then a stroke with a sabre as sharp as a razor right at the head of the enemy’s horse, finally, as horse and man went down, a thrust from the rear at the rider—such an attack was beyond the experience of the Prussian cavalry, and they could not stand against it. As often as Austrian horse met Prussian on the day of Mollwitz they gained an easy victory. They captured some of the guns, plundered the baggage, tore several gaps in the line, and drove the King himself in headlong flight from his first battle.

PLAN OF MOLWITZ, APRIL 10, 1741.

For some time Frederick was driven helplessly here and there amid his ruined cavalry in a fight which was unlike anything that he had ever seen and which he was impotent to control. His generals begged him to quit the field. To his inexperienced eye all seemed lost, and at last Schwerin confirmed his fears. “There is still hope,” said this tried captain to his sovereign, “but in case of the worst it would be well if your Majesty in person would bring troops from Ohlau and Strehlen.” Bewildered and despairing, the King turned his back on the wreck of all his hopes and fled far to the south-east. Distancing many of his attendants in a swift ride of more than thirty miles, he arrived at Oppeln on the Oder, only to be repulsed by the unexpected fire of a party of Austrian hussars who had seized the town and who captured some of his worse-mounted companions. To this check, for he then doubled back towards his army, he owed the fact that at the close of a ride of nearly fifty miles he received the news of victory without delay.

When Frederick left the field it was about four o’clock. The havoc in the Prussian ranks had been wrought by unsupported charges of horse. Schwerin could still count upon his infantry, which in the midst of the whirlwind had stood firm as a rock and by sheer steadiness and speed of firing had tumbled masses of cavalry into ruin. His first act was to send to the Young Dessauer, who commanded the second line, an exhortation to do his duty and to keep his men from firing volleys into the backs of their comrades. The Young Dessauer, who hated Schwerin, replied that he needed no judge save the King and that he would do his duty without any reminders.

After this exchange of courtesies, Schwerin braced himself to the task of retrieving the day. He assured his infantry that the King was well, that no battle could be won or lost by cavalry alone, and that he placed his trust in them. He then ordered his right wing forward against the Austrian infantry. These were raw levies and gave signs of unsteadiness before the Prussians came within range. Range, in days of weak powder and clumsy muskets, was some forty-five paces, and the sight of the enemy bearing down upon them, shoulder to shoulder, was too much for undisciplined men to face. Neipperg drew supports from his right, but even his victorious cavalry soon refused to face the fire which was poured in by men perfectly trained and furnished with the iron ramrods invented by the Old Dessauer. The Austrian infantry, which was able at the best to fire less than half as fast as the enemy, hid trembling one behind another and tried to endure a torment to which they could not reply. As the sun was sinking Schwerin pressed his advantage home. With sounding music and waving banners, in irresistible advance, the Prussian left swept down upon the weakened Austrian right. Neipperg saw that the battle was lost. He retreated first behind Mollwitz then, seeing that his men would not stand, round the Prussian left and eventually to Neisse.

Except that his magazine was saved and that he was soon able to capture Brieg, Frederick derived little immediate military advantage from what he describes as “one of the rudest battles fought within the memory of man.” The chief profit of Neipperg’s march had evaporated before the battle, at the moment when Frederick and Schwerin became superior in numbers. In spite of Mollwitz the Austrian army remained on Silesian soil, and it was better placed near Neisse than near Brieg. In killed and wounded each side had lost about 4500 men, nearly one-fourth of the combatants engaged. And in spite of Frederick’s hoarded millions and well-filled regiments, it was clear that, if the contest were to remain a duel between himself and Maria Theresa alone, the size and natural wealth of Austria must tell in the long run. After Mollwitz, Frederick would still have been glad to accept Lower Silesia as the price of his alliance with Austria and a contribution to her exchequer.