Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular WarAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular War
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
This was a blow which for a time completely prostrated the Prussian
monarch. Nothing but the most indomitable spirit and the highest
military talent could have saved any man under such circumstances. But
Frederick had disciplined both his generals and soldiers to despise
reverses, and he relied on their keeping at bay the host of enemies
with which he was surrounded till he had tried a last blow. On the
field of Rosbach, near the plain of Lützen, where Gustavus Adolphus
fell, after having relieved Marshal Keith at Leipsic, Frederick gave
battle to the united French and Austrians. The French numbered forty
thousand men, the Austrians twenty thousand; yet, with his twenty
thousand against sixty thousand, Frederick, on the 5th of November,
took the field. His inferior numbers favoured the stratagem which he
had planned. After fighting fiercely for awhile, his troops gave way,
and appeared to commence a hasty retreat. This, however, was continued
only till the French and Austrians were thrown off their guard, when
the Prussians suddenly turned, and received the headlong squadrons
with a murderous coolness and composure. The Austrians, confounded,
fled at once; and Soubise, a general of the princely House of Rohan,
who owed his appointment to Madame Pompadour, was totally incapable of
coping with the Prussian veterans. He saw his troops flying in wild
rout, and galloped off with them, leaving a vast number of slain, seven
thousand prisoners, and the greater part of his baggage, artillery, and
standards in the hands of the enemy.
The Battle of Rosbach raised the fame of Frederick wonderfully all
over Europe. He soon roused himself, however, for fresh efforts.
Whilst he had been thus engaged on the Saale, the Austrians had again
overrun Silesia, defeating the Prussians under the Duke of Bevern,
storming the great fortress of Schweidnitz, and making themselves
masters of Breslau, the capital. In spite of his reduced numbers and
the advancing winter, Frederick immediately directed his march towards
Silesia, gathering reinforcements as he went, so that by the 5th of
December, just one month from the Battle of Rosbach, he came up with
Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Daun at Lissa, a small village
near Breslau, and with forty thousand men encountered and defeated
nearly seventy thousand Austrians, killing and wounding twenty-seven
thousand of them, taking above fifty standards, one hundred cannon,
four thousand waggons, and much other spoil. This battle at once freed
Silesia from the Austrians, who trooped over the mountains in all
haste, and left the victorious king to close this unexampled campaign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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