Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

But however great the profit to be gained by the fall of Prague, Frederick realised that he could not hope to carry by storm a city which Browne had previously undertaken to hold with 8000 men and which now contained a garrison of 44,000. He therefore detached the Duke of Bevern with a force of 17,500 to observe Daun in the south, while he himself set to work to reduce Prague by starvation. In the hope of destroying the magazines he maintained a severe bombardment, which put the inhabitants to great suffering but brought little military advantage. He even brought a notorious burglar out of gaol to break into the city and procure information. Prince Charles, who had plenty of meal though little meat, did not risk his army in a sally en masse, but with the approval of his Government simply waited for Daun to set him free. This was an afflicting policy for the impatient King. On May 24th, Frederick hoped “at present more than ever that all this race of Austrian princes and beggars will be obliged to lay down their arms.” On May 29th, he informed Wilhelmina that a week ought to see the end, but before the week was over he began to admit the possibility of failure. On June 11th he wrote to Lehwaldt that it might be three or four weeks before he would be free to move. Next day, after hearing from Bevern that Daun could no longer be kept at bay, he sounded the knell of the whole enterprise:

“Who loses time in war,” runs Frederick’s broken German, “cannot make it good again. Had you pressed forward at once towards Czaslau, Daun would have retreated further ... and I wager that if one flies at his throat he will do it. To get together 10 battalions now is impossible, but perhaps I will come myself to make an end of the matter, so that what has been gained by bravery be not lost by hesitation.... Daun must be driven into Moravia be he weak or strong, else we do not win Prague and cannot resist the other enemies who come on, and the whole campaign, however well begun, is lost.”

The cause of this note to Bevern was that with less than 10,000 men he had at last fallen back before the enemy. Daun, whose caution was to earn him the nickname “Fabius Cunctator,” had assembled an army some 54,000 strong and was advancing under strict orders to venture a battle for the relief of Prague. Frederick felt that the crisis called for his own presence. For the issue he had no fear. In order to risk nothing during his absence, he took with him only some 14,000 men, so that by strict count of heads he would attack against odds of more than five to three. But if Schwerin were worth 10,000 men, the King may well have believed that his own value was far greater. On June 16th he wrote to his representative in London that he had joined Bevern,

“in order to march straight on Field-Marshal Daun, to fight him, and to drive him altogether out of Bohemia into Moravia. I flatter myself that in a few days I shall be able to give you good news of our success; and when this expedition is happily over, I believe that the town of Prague will fall of its own accord, and that then with hands more free, I shall be able to send a detachment against the French.”

The King’s confidence was in great part warranted by what he had already seen in the present war. It seemed that only a Browne would dare to attack Prussian troops led by their King. Had not Prince Charles been overruled by his generals, he would have abandoned Prague to avoid a battle. Daun had retreated before Bevern till he became overwhelmingly superior in force, and he advanced only when his Queen promised him gratitude for a victory and her continued favour if he were beaten. The most that could be expected from such commanders as these was that they would stand on the defensive in a strong position.

This very fact made the tactics of the Prussians doubly formidable. Drilled to the last degree of perfection, they could change their formation with a speed which their enemies admired but could not rival. Frederick could therefore veil his movement till the last moment. Having chosen the enemy’s most vulnerable wing, he could strengthen the wing opposed to it without fear that the enemy would either accomplish the countermove in time or attack the section which he had weakened. It was therefore of little consequence that the Austrians greatly outnumbered the Prussians in the part of the field where no fighting was likely to take place. The battle was gained because the Prussians swiftly overcame all that nature and art could oppose to them at the spot selected by the King for contact. The doomed wing would be broken, the centre laid bare, and then the cautious Austrian would make off, rejoicing that it was not dishonourable to be beaten by the King of Prussia, and that the attack demanded so much preliminary marching that the weary victors were not often terrible in pursuit.

Such were the tactics attempted in the battle of June 18, 1757, when Frederick attacked Daun in his camp overlooking the highroad between Vienna and Prague, within sight of the town of Kolin. The country undulates sufficiently to make it impossible for the King to have ascertained every detail of the problem with which he was confronted. But from many points, and with especial clearness from an isolated height across the highway, he could see that the Austrian right wing held the crest of a gentle slope south of the road and parallel with it, and that it was at the further extremity of this wing that the ground seemed most favourable to the attack.

PLAN OF KOLIN, JUNE 18, 1757.

The morning of the stifling summer’s day was spent in marching along the line of the highroad towards Kolin, and it was after midday that the Prussian left turned upon the enemy. Zieten, the terrible hussar, put to flight the Austrian horse, but an oak-wood gave them shelter behind which to rally, and meanwhile Daun made all haste to move up supports to his right. But though the Austrians fought doggedly and poured in a deadly artillery fire, the matchless Prussian infantry pressed on. They captured point after point of Daun’s position until the moment came at which, although their cavalry had turned tail, they needed only reinforcements to crush his right. It was the duty of Prince Maurice, the son of the Old Dessauer, to bring help from the centre. The moment was critical. The Austrian musketeers, seven times charged by the Prussians, had shot away their last cartridge. “Four fresh battalions,” wrote the King four days after, “and the battle was won.” Daun had already begun to withdraw his heavy guns and to issue orders for retreat. But by a fatal misunderstanding, due, it is hinted, to the impatience of the King in giving orders, Maurice was attacking the enemy more than half a mile further down the line. Still nearer to the Prussian right General Manstein defied orders and dashed at the enemy.