Brunswick held command, the campaign of 1759 was important,
and prosperous in the end for the allies of Prussia. "Besides
the Hanoverians and Hessians in British pay, he [Prince
Ferdinand] had under his direction 10,000 or 12,000 British
soldiers, amongst whom, since the death of the Duke of
Marlborough, Lord George Sackville was the senior officer. The
French, on their part, were making great exertions, under the
new administration of the Duke de Choiseul; large
reinforcements were sent into Germany, and early in the year
they surprised by stratagem the free city of Frankfort and
made it the place of arms for their southern army. No object
could be of greater moment to Ferdinand than to dislodge them
from this important post." Marching quickly, with 30,000 of
his army, he attacked the French, under the Duke de Broglie,
at Bergen, on the Nidda, in front of Frankfort, April 13, and
was repulsed, after heavy fighting, with a loss of 2,000 men.
"This reverse would, it was supposed, reduce Prince Ferdinand
to the defensive during the remainder of the campaign. Both De
Broglie and Contades eagerly pushed forward, their opponents
giving way before them. Combining their forces, they reduced
Cassel, Munster, and Minden, and they felt assured that the
whole Electorate must soon again be theirs. Already had the
archives and the most valuable property been sent off from
Hanover to Stade. Already did a new Hastenbeck--a new
Closter-Seven--rise in view. But it was under such
difficulties that the genius of Ferdinand shone forth. With a
far inferior army (for thus much is acknowledged, although I
do not find the French numbers clearly or precisely stated),
he still maintained his ground on the left of the Weser, and
supplied every defect by his superiority of tactics. He left a
detachment of 5,000 men exposed, and seemingly unguarded, as a
bait to lure De Contades from his strong position at Minden.
The French Mareschal was deceived by the feint, and directed
the Duke De Broglie to march forward and profit by the
blunder, as he deemed it to be. On the 1st of August,
accordingly, De Broglie advanced into the plain, his force
divided in eight columns." Instead of the small corps
expected, he found the whole army of the allies in front of
him. De Contades hurried to his assistance, and the French,
forced to accept battle in an unfavorable position, were
overcome. At the decisive moment of their retreat, "the Prince
sent his orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the
whole English and some German cavalry on the right wing of the
Allies, and who had hitherto been kept back as a reserve. The
orders were to charge and overwhelm the French in their
retreat, before they could reach any clear ground to rally.
Had these orders been duly fulfilled, it is acknowledged by
French writers that their army must have been utterly
destroyed; but Lord George either could not or would not
understand what was enjoined on him. ... Under such
circumstances the victory of Minden would not have been signal
or complete but for a previous and most high-spirited
precaution of Prince Ferdinand. He had sent round to the rear
of the French a body of 10,000 men, under his nephew--and also
the King of Prussia's--the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick.
... Thus Ferdinand became master of the passes, and the French
were constrained to continue their retreat in disorder. Upon the
whole, their loss was 8,000 men killed, wounded, or taken, 30
pieces of artillery, and 17 standards. ... Great was the
rejoicing in England at the victory of Minden"; but loud the
outcry against Lord George Sackville, who was recalled and
dismissed from all his employments.
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 36 (volume 4)._
ALSO IN:
_Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 2, pages 327-333._
GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (July-November).
The Seven Years War:
Disasters of Frederick.
Kunersdorf.
Dresden.
Maxen.
"Three years of the war were gone and the ardour of
Frederick's' enemies showed no signs of abating. The war was
unpopular in the Russian army, but the Czarina thought no
sacrifice too great for the gratification of her hatred.
France was sick of it too, and tottering on the verge of
national bankruptcy, but Louis was kept true to his
engagements by domestic influences and by the unbending
determination of Maria Theresa never to lay down arms until
Prussia was thoroughly humbled. ... Already Frederick was at
his wits' end for men and money. Of the splendid infantry
which had stormed the heights at Prague, and stemmed the rout
of Kollin, very little now remained. ... Moreover, Austria,
relying on her vastly larger population, had ceased to
exchange prisoners, and after the end of 1759 Russia followed
her example. ... Frederick's pecuniary difficulties were even
greater still. But for the English subsidy he could hardly
have subsisted at all. ... The summer was half gone before
there was any serious fighting. Frederick had got together
125,000 men of some sort, besides garrison troops, but he no
longer felt strong enough to take the initiative, and the
Austrians were equally indisposed to attack without the
co-operation of their allies. Towards the middle of July the
Russians, under Count Soltikoff, issued from Posen, advanced
to the Oder', and, after defeating a weak Prussian corps near
Kay, took possession of Frankfort.
{1500}
It now became necessary for the king to march in person
against them, the more especially as Laudon [or Loudon] with
18,000 Austrians was on his way to join Soltikoff. Before he
could reach Frankfort, Laudon, eluding with much dexterity the
vigilance of his enemies, effected his junction, and
Frederick, with 48,000 men, found himself confronted by an
army 78,000 strong. The Russians were encamped on the heights
of Kunersdorf, east of Frankfort." Frederick attacked them,
August 12, with brilliant success at first, routing their left
wing and taking 70 guns, with several thousand prisoners. "The
Prussian generals then besought the king to rest content with
the advantage he had gained. The day was intensely hot; his
soldiers had been on foot for twelve hours, and were suffering
severely from thirst and exhaustion; moreover, if the Russians
were let alone, they would probably go off quietly in the
night, as they had done after Zorndorf. Unhappily Frederick
refused to take counsel. He wanted to destroy the Russian
army, not merely to defeat it; he had seized the Frankfort
bridge and cut off its retreat." He persisted in his attack
and was beaten off. "The Prussians were in full retreat when
Laudon swept down upon them with eighteen fresh squadrons. The
retreat became a rout more disorderly than in any battle of
the war except Rossbach. The king, stupefied with his
disaster, could hardly be induced to quit the field, and was
heard to mutter, 'Is there then no cursed bullet that can
reach me?' The defeat was overwhelming. Had it been properly
followed up, it must have put an end to the war, and
Kunersdorf would have ranked among the decisive battles of the
world. Berlin lay open to the enemy; the royal family fled to
Magdeburg. For the first (and last) time in his life Frederick
gave way utterly to despair. 'I have no resources left,' he wrote
to the minister Finckenstein the evening after the battle,
'and to tell the truth I hold all for lost. I shall not
survive the ruin of my country. Farewell for ever.' The same
night he resigned the command of the army to General Finck.
Eighteen thousand, five hundred of his soldiers were killed,
wounded, or prisoners, and the rest were so scattered that no
more than 3,000 remained under his command. All the artillery
was lost, and most of his best generals were killed or
wounded. ... By degrees, however, the prospect brightened. The
fugitives kept coming in, and the enemy neglected to give the
finishing stroke. Frederick shook off his despair, and resumed
the command of his army. Artillery was ordered up from Berlin,
and the troops serving against the Swedes were recalled from
Pomerania. Within a week of Kunersdorf he was at the head of
33,000 men, and in a position to send relief to Dresden, which
was besieged by an Austrian and Imperialist army. The relief,
as it happened, arrived just too late." Dresden was
surrendered by its commandant, Schmettau, on the 4th of
September, to the great wrath of Frederick. By a wonderful
march of fifty-eight miles in fifty hours, Prince Henry, the
brother of Frederick, prevented the Austrians from gaining the
whole electorate of Saxony. The Russians and the Austrians
quarrelled, the former complaining that they were left to do
all the fighting, and presently they withdrew into Poland.
"With the departure of the Russians, the campaign would
probably have ended, had not Frederick's desire to close it
with a victory led him into a fresh disaster, hardly less
serious and far more disgraceful than that of Kunersdorf. ...
With the view of hastening the retreat of the Austrians, and
of driving them, if possible, into the difficult Pirna
country, he ordered General Finck to take post with his corps
at Maxen, to bar their direct line of communications with
Bohemia." As the result, Finck, with his whole corps, of
12,000, were overwhelmed and taken prisoners. "The
capitulation of Maxen was no less destructive of Frederick's
plans than galling to his pride. The Austrians now retained
Dresden, a place of great strategical importance, though the
king, in the hope of dislodging them, exposed the wrecks of
his army to the ruinous hardships of a winter campaign, in
weather of unusual severity, and borrowed 12,000 men of
Ferdinand of Brunswick to cover his flank while so engaged.
The new year had commenced before he allowed his harassed
troops to go into winter-quarters."
_F. W. Longman,
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War,
chapter 10, section 2._
ALSO IN:
_T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.;
book 19, chapters 4-7._
_Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapter 10._
GERMANY: A. D. 1760.
The Seven Years War:
Saxony reconquered by Frederick.
Dresden bombarded.
Battles of Liegnitz, Torgau and Warburg.
"The campaign of 1759 had extended far into the winter, and
Frederick conceived the bold idea of renewing it while the
vigilance of his enemies was relaxed in winter quarters, and
of making another effort to drive the Austrians from Saxony.
His head-quarters were at Freyberg. Having received
reinforcements from Prince Ferdinand, and been joined by
12,000 men under the hereditary prince, he left the latter to
keep guard behind the Mulde, and in January 1760, at a time
when the snow lay deep upon the ground, he made a fierce
spring upon the Austrians, who were posted at Dippoldiswalde;
but General Maguire, who commanded there, baffled him by the
vigilance and skill with which he guarded every pass, and
compelled him to retrace his steps to Freyberg. When the
winter had passed and the regular campaign had opened, Laudohn
[Loudon], one of the most active of the Austrian generals--the
same who had borne a great part in the victories of
Hochkirchen and Kunersdorf--entered Silesia, surprised with a
greatly superior force the Prussian General Fouqué, compelled
him, with some thousands of soldiers, to surrender [at
Landshut, June 22], and a few days later reduced the important
fortress of Glatz [July 26]. Frederick, at the first news of
the danger of Fouqué, marched rapidly towards Silesia, Daun
slowly following, while an Austrian corps, under General Lacy,
impeded his march by incessant skirmishes. On learning the
surrender of Fouqué, Frederick at once turned and hastened
towards Dresden. It was July, and the heat was so intense that
on a single day more than a hundred of his soldiers dropped dead
upon the march. He hoped to gain some days upon Daun, who was
still pursuing, and to become master of Dresden before
succours arrived. As he expected, he soon outstripped the
Austrian general, and the materials for the siege were
collected with astonishing rapidity, but General Maguire, who
commanded at Dresden, defended it with complete success till
the approach of the Austrian army obliged Frederick to retire.
{1501}
Baffled in his design, he took a characteristic vengeance by
bombarding that beautiful city with red-hot balls,
slaughtering multitudes of its peaceable inhabitants, and
reducing whole quarters to ashes; and he then darted again
upon Silesia, still followed by the Austrian general. Laudohn
had just met with his first reverse, having failed in the
siege of Breslau [an attempted surprise and a brief
bombardment]; on August 15, when Daun was still far off,
Frederick fell upon him and beat him in the battle of
Liegnitz. [The statement that 'Daun was still far off' appears
to be erroneous. Loudon and Daun had formed a junction four
days before, and had planned a concerted attack on Frederick's
camp; Loudon was struck and defeated while making the movement
agreed upon, and Daun was only a few miles away at the time.]
Soon after, however, this success was counterbalanced by Lacy
and Totleben, who; at the head of some Austrians and Russians,
had marched upon Berlin, which, after a brave resistance, was
once more captured and ruthlessly plundered; but on the
approach of Frederick the enemy speedily retreated. Frederick
then turned again towards Saxony, which was again occupied by
Daun, and on November 3 he attacked his old enemy in his
strong entrenchments at Torgau. Daun, in addition to the
advantage of position, had the advantage of great numerical
superiority, for his army was reckoned at 65,000, while that
of Frederick was not more than 44,000. But the generalship of
Frederick gained the victory. General Ziethen succeeded in
attacking the Austrians in the rear, gaining the height, and
throwing them into confusion. Daun was wounded and disabled,
and General O'Donnell, who was next in command, was unable to
restore the Austrian line. The day was conspicuous for its
carnage, even among the bloody battles of the Seven Years'
War: 20,000 Austrians were killed, wounded, or prisoners,
while 14,000 Prussians were left on the field. The battle
closed the campaign for the year, leaving all Saxony in the
possession of the Prussians, with the exception of Dresden,
which was still held by Maguire. The English and German army,
under Prince Ferdinand, succeeded in the meantime in keeping
at bay a very superior French army, under Marshal Broglio; and
several slight skirmishes took place, with various results.
The battle of Warburg, which was the most important, was won
chiefly by the British cavalry, but Prince Ferdinand failed in
his attempts to take Wesel and Gottingen; and at the close of
the year the French took up their quarters at Cassel."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 8 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 115 (volume 3)._
_G. B. Malleson,
Military Life of Loudon,
chapter 10._
_T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.,
book 20, chapters 1-6._
GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.
The Seven Years War:
The closing campaigns.
"All Frederick's exertions produced him only 96,000 men for
defence of Silesia and Saxony this year [1761]. Prince Henry
had to face Daun in Saxony; the king himself stood in Silesia
against Loudon and the Russians under Butterlin. Loudon opened
the campaign by advancing against Goltz, near Schweidnitz, in
April. Goltz had only 12,000 to his adversary's 30,000, but
posted himself so well that Loudon could not attack him.
Reinforcements came gradually to Loudon, raising his army to
72,000, but orders from Vienna obliged him to remain inactive
till he could be joined near Neisse by the Russians with
60,000. Goltz, manœuvring against the Russians, was taken
prisoner. The king himself delayed the junction of his enemies
for some time, but could not now offer battle. The junction
took place the 18th of August. He then struck at Loudon's
communications, but the thrust was well parried, and on the
20th of August, Frederick, for the first time, was reduced to
an attitude of pure defence. He formed an intrenched camp at
Bunzelwitz, and lay there, blocking the way to Schweidnitz.
Loudon's intreaties could not persuade the Russians to join
him in full force to attack the position, and on the 9th of
September Butterlin's army fell back across the Oder, leaving
20,000 of his men to act under Loudon. Frederick remained a
fortnight longer in the camp of Bunzelwitz, but was then
forced to go, as his army was eating up the magazines of
Schweidnitz. Again he moved against Loudon's magazines, but
the Austrian general boldly marched for Schweidnitz, and
captured the place by assault on the night of the 30th
September--1st October. No fight took place between London and
the king. They both went into winter quarters in
December--Prussians at Strehlen, Austrians at Kunzendorf, and
Russians about Glatz. ... In the western theatre Ferdinand
defeated Broglio and Soubise at Vellinghausen [or
Wellinghausen, or Kirch-Denkern, as the battle, fought July
15, is differently called], the English contingent again
behaving gloriously. ... Prince Henry and Daun manœuvred
skilfully throughout the campaign, but never came to serious
blows. Frederick is described as being very gloomy in mind
this winter. The end of the year left him with but 60,000 men
in Saxony, Silesia, and the north. Eugene of Wurtemburg had
5,000 to hold back the Swedes, Prince Henry 25,000 in Saxony,
the king himself 30,000. But the agony of France was
increasing; Maria Theresa had to discharge 20,000 men from
want of money, and Frederick's bitter enemy, 'cette infame
Catin du Nord' [the czarina Elizabeth], was failing fast in
health. A worse blow to the king than the loss of a battle had
been the fall of Pitt, in October, and with him all hope of
English subsidies. Still, the enemies of Prussia were almost
exhausted. One more year of brave and stubborn resistance, and
Prussia must be left in peace. By extraordinary exertions, and
a power of administrative organisation which was one of his
greatest qualities, Frederick not only kept up his 60, 000,
but doubled their number. In the spring he had 70,000 for his
Silesian army, 40,000 for Prince Henry in Saxony, and 10,000
for the Swedes or other purposes. Best news of all, the
czarina died on the 5th of January, 1762, and Peter, who
succeeded her--only for a short time, poor boy--was an ardent
admirer of the great king. Frederick at once released and sent
home his Russian prisoners, an act which brought back his
Prussians from Russia. On the 23rd February Peter declared his
intention to be at peace and amity with Frederick, concluded
peace on the 5th of May, and a treaty of alliance a month
later. The Swedes, following suit, declared peace on the 22nd
of May, and Frederick could now give his sole attention to the
Austrians." For a few weeks, only, the Prussian king had a
Russian contingent of 20,000 in alliance with him, but could
make no use of it.
{1502}
It was recalled in July, by the revolution at St. Petersburg,
which deposed the young czar, Peter, in favour of his
ambitious consort, Catherine. Frederick succeeded in
concealing the fact long enough to frighten Daun by a show of
preparations for attacking him, with the Russian troops
included in his army, and the Austrian general retired to
Glatz and Bohemia. Frederick then took Schweidnitz, and
marched on Dresden. "Daun followed heavily. Like a
prize-fighter knocked out of time, he had no more fight in
him. Prince Henry had two affairs with the Reich's army and
its Austrian contingent. Forced to retire from Freyburg on the
15th, he afterwards attacked them on the 29th of October and
defeated them by a turning movement. They had 40,000, he 30,
000. The Austrian contingent suffered most. In the western
theatre Ferdinand held his own and had his usual successes.
His part in the war was to defend only, and he never failed to
show high qualities as a general. Thus, nowhere had
Frederick's enemies succeeded in crushing his defences. For
seven years the little kingdom of Prussia had held her ground
against the three great military powers, France, Austria, and
Russia. All were now equally exhausted. The constancy,
courage, and ability of Frederick were rewarded at last; on
the 15th of February, 1763, the treaty of Hubertsburg was
signed, by which Austria once more agreed to the cession of
Silesia. Prussia was now a Great Power like the rest, her
greatness resting on no shams, as she had proved."
_Colonel C. B. Brackenbury,
Frederick the Great,
chapter 18._
ALSO IN:
_Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 3, pages 57-87._
_Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapters 14-16._
GERMANY: A. D. 1763.
The end, results and costs of the Seven Years War.
The Peace of Hubertsburg and Peace of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
GERMANY: A. D. 1763-1790.
A period of peace and progress.
Intellectual cultivation.
Accession of the Emperor Joseph II.
His character and his reforms.
Accession of Leopold II.
"The peace of nearly thirty years which followed the
Seven-Years' War in Germany was a time of rich mental activity
and growth. Court life itself, if its vanities were not
abolished, still acquired a more enlightened and humane tone.
The fierce passions of the princes no longer exclusively
controlled it: there was something of regard for education,
for art and science, and for the public welfare. This is
particularly true of courts which were intimately connected
with Prussia; as that of Brunswick, where Duke Charles,
Frederick II.'s brother-in-law, though personally an
extravagant prince, founded an institution of learning which
brought together many of the best intellects of Germany (1740
to 1760), or that of Anhalt-Dessau, where the famous
'Philanthropinum' was established. Several princes imitated
Frederick's military administration, and that sometimes on a
scale so small as to be ludicrous. Prince William of
Lippe-Schaumburg founded in his little territory a fortress
and a school of war. But this school educated Scharnhorst, and
the prince himself won fame in distant lands. He invited
Herder to his little court at Bückeburg. Weimar, too, imitated
Frederick's example, where the Duchess Amalie, daughter of
Charles of Brunswick, and her intellectual son, Charles
Augustus, made their little cities Weimar and Jena places of
gathering for the greatest men of genius of the time. Among
the petty Thuringian princes of this period, there were others
of noble character. In 1764 the Saxon throne was ascended by
Frederick Augustus, grandson of Augustus III., but, being a
minor, he could not be elected king of Poland. This put an end
to the union of the two titles, which had been the cause of
immeasurable evil to Saxony and to Germany. When the young
elector attained his majority, the government of Saxony was
greatly improved, and a period of prosperity followed. Duke
Charles Eugene of Wirtemberg (1737-1793), during his early
years, rivaled Louis XV. in extravagance and immorality, but
in after-days was greatly changed. He founded the Charles
School, at which Schiller was educated. Baden enjoyed a high
degree of prosperity under Charles Frederick (1746-1811). Even
the spiritual lords, on the whole, threw their influence in
favor of enlightenment and progress. ... The prelates of
Cologne, Trèves, Mayence, and Salzburg, strange to say, agreed
at Ems in 1786 to renounce the supremacy of Rome, and to found
an independent German Catholic Church; but the plan was broken
down by the resistance of the inferior clergy and of the
Emperor Joseph II. Some of the German states were slow to take
part in the general progress. Bavaria was constantly retarded
by the influence of the Jesuits. ... The Palatinate, too, was
under luxurious and idle rulers, mostly in the pay of France.
In some territories the boundless extravagance of the princes
was a terrible burden upon their subjects. ... Men who
professed enlightenment and humanity were often shamefully
tyrannical. The courts of Cassel and Wirtemberg sold their
people by regiments to England, to fight against the
independence of the North American Colonies. ...
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).