At seven in the morning, and during a dense fog, the battle began between the Prussian left and the Croats on the Loboschberg, who continued firing till noon, when Frederick, seeing that Brown's right was his weakest point, marched from the summit of the mountain and drove down the Croats and Hungarians from the vineyards into the plain and ravine below. The marshal, believing that the fortune of the day depended on the retention of Lowositz, threw his retiring right wing into the village, where it soon gave way. He then led forward his left, but the infantry fell into confusion at the village of Sulowitz, being exposed to a dreadful fire of shot and shell from redoubts and field-pieces, grape, canister, hand-grenades, and musketry, which mowed them down like grass, and drove them back in disorder; the marshal then ordered a retreat, which he conducted in so masterly a manner, that no effort was made to harass him. He fell back at three in the afternoon to a new position, so well chosen that Frederick dared not follow, but contented himself with keeping his line behind the ravine of Lowositz, though by sending forward a body of cavalry under the Prince of Bavern, he turned the marshal's left flank, a manoeuvre which compelled him to repass the Egra, and again occupy his old camp at Budyn. Such was the battle of Lowositz, where the marshal left 4000 of his men dead on the field, and in his retreat had to blow up his magazine, while the Prussians had only 653 killed and 800 wounded. Having failed to relieve the Saxons, he marched to Lichtendorf, near Schandau, to join the King of Poland, and made an attempt to force back the Prussians at the head of 8000 chosen soldiers; but the effort proved ineffectual, and Augustus III. was compelled to capitulate, and deliver 17,000 men and eighty pieces of cannon into the hands of Frederick--a mortification as bitter to the marshal as it was to the Polish monarch. On the 14th he retired towards Bohemia. The Prussian hussars followed his rear-guard, and put 300 Croats to the sword. For his services he now received the Collar of the Golden Fleece--one of the first of European knightly orders.