{
 "slug": "leuthen",
 "title": "Battle of Leuthen",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1600–1760",
 "date_text": "5 December 1757",
 "start": "1757-12-05",
 "end": "1757-12-05",
 "war": "Seven Years' War",
 "cdb90_war": "THE SEVEN YEAR'S WAR",
 "place": {
  "name": "Leuthen (now Lutynia), west of Breslau (now Wrocław), Silesia; today Poland",
  "lat": 51.1522,
  "lon": 16.7525,
  "wikidata": "Q313435"
 },
 "lede": "On 5 December 1757 Frederick the Great feinted at the Austrian right, marched his army behind low hills and smashed into its left near Leuthen in Silesia. The classic oblique-order attack routed an army nearly twice his size and saved Prussian Silesia.",
 "result": "Decisive Prussian victory",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker win",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Prussian army",
   "commanders": [
    "Frederick II",
    "Hans Joachim von Zieten",
    "Georg Wilhelm von Driesen",
    "Prince Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 33000,
    "low": 33000,
    "high": 43000,
    "source": "s4"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 6344,
    "low": 6000,
    "high": 6344,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "Austrian army, with Reichsarmee contingents",
   "commanders": [
    "Prince Charles of Lorraine",
    "Leopold Joseph von Daun",
    "Franz Leopold von Nádasdy",
    "Joseph Lucchesi d'Averna"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 65000,
    "low": 65000,
    "high": 72000,
    "source": "s4"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 22000,
    "low": 22000,
    "high": 22000,
    "source": "s2"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "Frederick II had seized Silesia from Austria in 1740, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 left it Prussian; Maria Theresa meant to win it back. The Diplomatic Revolution brought Austria and France together, and in 1757 France, Sweden, Russia and many of the smaller German states joined Prussia's enemies, leaving Britain as Frederick's main ally.\n\nThe year swung violently. Frederick beat the Austrians at Prague on 6 May, but his invasion of Bohemia collapsed after defeat at Kolín in June. In the autumn he turned west against the French and on 5 November routed a Franco-imperial army at Rossbach in about 90 minutes. While he was away, Prince Charles of Lorraine took Schweidnitz on 11 November and on 22 November beat the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern outside Breslau. Bevern was captured and Breslau, the Silesian capital, fell to the Austrians.\n\nFrederick force-marched east with about 22,000 men, covering some 274 km in 12 days, and near Liegnitz gathered the survivors of Bevern's army, bringing him to about 33,000. He had already written a testament with instructions for his burial and for peace talks if he fell. On 3 December, by an account published in 1802, he told his officers that he would attack an enemy nearly twice as strong and entrenched: \"I must do it, for if I do not, all is lost.\" Charles and Field Marshal Daun drew their army up facing west across the Breslau road near the village of Leuthen, on open rolling ground that Frederick knew by heart from peacetime manoeuvres.",
  "forces": "The Prussians numbered somewhere between 33,000 and 43,000 depending on the source, with about 167 guns, including heavy twelve-pounders that would be massed against the Austrian line. Perhaps two-thirds of the men came from Bevern's beaten Silesian army, and Frederick mixed his Rossbach veterans in with them to restore their spirits, handing out extra rations and spirits and threatening any regiment that failed: cavalry that did not charge would be dismounted and sent to garrison duty, infantry that faltered would lose its colours. Most of the soldiers were Pomeranians and Brandenburgers. Zieten led the cavalry of the right, Driesen that of the left, and Prince Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau and Retzow the infantry. Ammunition wagons followed the infantry lines so that battalions could refill their pouches without halting.\n\nCharles of Lorraine, with Daun at his side, commanded some 65,000–72,000 men and 210–250 guns. His army was a patchwork: Habsburg regulars, contingents from the Military Frontier, and Reichsarmee troops from Württemberg, Bavaria and Würzburg. It stood in two lines along a front of about 8 km. The right was anchored on Nypern, with eight grenadier companies and cavalry near Guckerwitz; the line ran south through Frobelwitz and Leuthen, where seven battalions held the village, to Sagschütz. There General Nádasdy's left wing, with the Württembergers in its first line, bent back towards Gohlau with cavalry standing at right angles to the infantry. Count Lucchesi commanded the cavalry of the right.",
  "course": "CDB90 records the battle as a single engagement, number 70 (LEUTHEN), from 13:00 to 16:00. That covers the assault itself; the Prussian approach began nine hours earlier. Times are approximate.\n\n**Approach and Borne (from 04:00).** The Prussians broke camp at 4:00 on a Sunday morning and marched east along the Breslau road in four columns, infantry inside and cavalry outside, behind an advance guard of light infantry, Jäger and hussars led by the king. In the morning fog the advance guard ran into Saxon dragoons and Austrian light horse at Borne, brushed them aside and took about 200 prisoners; the Austrian outpost there fell back east. From the Schönberg, a knoll about 1.5 km west of Borne, Frederick surveyed the ground and the Austrian line.\n\n**The feint (late morning).** Around 11:00 the cavalry of the Prussian left, with some infantry, advanced towards the Austrian right as if to attack it. Charles took the bait and sent his reserve north, stretching his line from Leuthen past Frobelwitz to Nypern. Some Austrian commanders seem to have concluded that the Prussians were retreating.\n\n**The oblique march (about 11:00–13:00).** Meanwhile the main Prussian columns turned south, out of sight behind a chain of low hills, the Schleierberg, Sophienberg, Wachberg and Butterberg. They passed across the front of the Austrian left and wheeled north near Lobetinz into line, set at an angle to Nádasdy's flank, with Zieten's cavalry on their right and heavy guns on the reverse slope of the Butterberg. In less than two hours the infantry had formed a line at right angles to the Austrian left, and by about 13:00 they were ready to attack.\n\n**The blow at Sagschütz (from about 13:00).** The Prussian infantry came on in echelon against Nádasdy's wing. Nádasdy asked Charles for support and was ignored. The Württembergers fired briefly, then broke and carried away the Bavarians behind them. Prince Moritz's battalions shot off their ammunition in the first Austrian line and refilled from the wagons behind them. Nádasdy counter-attacked with dragoons and hussars, but Zieten's squadrons drove them off, and more than 2,000 Württembergers and Bavarians were taken prisoner.\n\n**Leuthen village (about 15:00–15:30).** Charles tried to swing his army through 90 degrees to face south, anchored on Leuthen, but units arrived piecemeal from the north and could not deploy properly. Austrian and Würzburg troops held the village, and Prussian grenadiers stormed the walled churchyard while fighting raged through the streets. An Austrian battery pushed forward briefly gained ground, but the Prussians brought up their twelve-pounders on the high ground over Leuthen, about 40 of them by one account, and their fire proved decisive. The attack on the churchyard wall briefly exposed Retzow's infantry on the Prussian left.\n\n**The cavalry decision (about 15:30–16:00).** Lucchesi, arriving from the Austrian right more than two hours after Charles had first called his cavalry back to Leuthen, rode at Retzow's open flank. Driesen's 30 squadrons of the Prussian left charged him, with the Bayreuth Dragoons striking his flank and the Puttkamer Hussars his rear. Lucchesi was killed and his troopers scattered. The Austrian infantry around Leuthen then broke and streamed east towards Breslau over the Schweidnitzer Weistritz. Darkness and falling snow ended the Prussian pursuit.",
  "aftermath": "The Prussians lost about 6,000–6,300 men, nearly a fifth of the army, but no guns. The Austrians lost about 22,000, including some 12,000 prisoners, with 116 guns and 51 standards. That night Frederick is said to have ridden into the castle at Lissa and found it full of startled Austrian officers. On 7 December Zieten took half the cavalry after Charles's retreating army and captured about 2,000 more. The siege of Breslau began the same day, and the city surrendered on 19–20 December with a garrison of about 17,000. Silesia was back in Prussian hands.\n\nLeuthen made Frederick's name as a commander. Napoleon is quoted as calling it \"a masterpiece of movements, manoeuvres and resolution\", and it is still taught at staff colleges as the model of the oblique order. Historians also stress Austrian errors: Charles misread the feint, Nádasdy posted no outposts on his open flank, and the cavalry came too late.\n\nThe best-known story, that the army sang the chorale \"Nun danket alle Gott\" as it camped on the field, is probably legend. Wikipedia allows that a few soldiers may have begun the hymn; historians and musicologists such as Bernhard Kroener and Achim Hofer treat the whole army singing it as a later piece of Prussian propaganda. A 20-metre granite victory column topped by an angel went up in 1854. After the Second World War it was dynamited, and only its pedestal, renovated in 2011, stands in a field at Lutynia.",
  "wargaming": "Leuthen is a rare battle where the decisive move happens before most of the fighting: a march behind a ridge that the defender never sees. That makes it hard to game face to face. A game that starts at 13:00, as CDB90 does, plays out the consequences of the march but not the march itself. Starting at dawn needs hidden movement, an umpire, or rules that limit how fast the Austrian player may react to what Charles could not see.\n\nThe ground is gentle but matters. The low hills from the Schleierberg to the Butterberg screen the march, the Butterberg gives the Prussian heavy guns a platform, and Leuthen village with its walled churchyard is the one strongpoint. A front of about 8 km and some 100,000 men suit a grand-tactical scale with brigades or regiments as units; a battalion-level game is better kept to the fight for Sagschütz and Leuthen.\n\nThe decisions are clear. Does Charles send his reserve north after the feint? Can Nádasdy hold long enough with brittle Reichsarmee troops? Does Lucchesi charge Retzow's flank, and is Driesen's cavalry in place to catch him? Ammunition supply, poor Austrian deployment as the line turns, and failing light all deserve rules. What ifs: Nádasdy with outposts on his flank, Lucchesi arriving an hour sooner, or Charles refusing battle and staying at Breslau."
 },
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   "file": "File:Battle of Leuthen - The fix, 5 December 1757.png",
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   "caption": "Leuthen, morning of 5 December 1757: the Austrian line from Nypern to Sagschütz and the Prussian approach past Borne.",
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   "caption": "The oblique march: the Prussian columns swing south behind the hills to strike the Austrian left.",
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   "caption": "The attack on Nádasdy's wing at Sagschütz and the Austrian attempt to form a new front at Leuthen.",
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   "file": "File:Prussian infantry advance at Leuthen.jpg",
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   "caption": "Prussian infantry advancing at Leuthen.",
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   "artist": "Carl Röchling",
   "credit": "Original publication : \"Die Potsdamer Wachparade bei Leuthen\" Color print by Carl Röchling, c. 1890",
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   "file": "File:Frederick the Great arriving at the Schloss von Lissa after the Battle of Leuthen by Richard Knötel.jpg",
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   "artist": "Richard Knötel",
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   "caption": "The 'Leuthen chorale': the army singing 'Nun danket alle Gott' after the battle, a scene now usually treated as legend.",
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   "artist": "Wilhelm Camphausen",
   "credit": "From the collections of Sanssouci Palace, Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg",
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   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leuthen",
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  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Seven Years' War: The course of the Seven Years' War (Encyclopaedia Britannica)",
   "url": "https://www.britannica.com/event/Seven-Years-War/The-course-of-the-Seven-Years-War",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "Leuthen, 1757: Victory for Quality (WarHistory.org, 2017)",
   "url": "https://warhistory.org/article/leuthen-1757-victory-for-quality",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Hermann H. Beck, 'Battle of Leuthen', EBSCO Research Starters (2019)",
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   "id": "s5",
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   "title": "Frederick II on the eve of the Battle of Leuthen, 28 November and 3 December 1757 (German History in Documents and Images; trans. C. A. Macartney)",
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   "id": "s7",
   "title": "Now Thank We All Our God",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Thank_We_All_Our_God",
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   "id": "s8",
   "title": "Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. (McFarland, 2017)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
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   "id": "s9",
   "title": "Bernhard R. Kroener, '\"Nun danket alle Gott\": Der Choral von Leuthen und Friedrich der Große als protestantischer Held', in Hartmut Lehmann and Gerd Krumeich (eds), \"Gott mit uns\" (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000)",
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