{
 "slug": "torgau",
 "title": "Battle of Torgau",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1600–1760",
 "date_text": "3 November 1760",
 "start": "1760-11-03",
 "end": "1760-11-03",
 "war": "Seven Years' War",
 "cdb90_war": "THE SEVEN YEAR'S WAR",
 "place": {
  "name": "Süptitz heights, west of Torgau on the Elbe, Saxony; today Saxony, Germany",
  "lat": 51.567,
  "lon": 12.935,
  "wikidata": "Q688802"
 },
 "lede": "On 3 November 1760 Frederick the Great split his army to attack Daun's Austrians on the Süptitz heights from north and south. His own attacks were shot to pieces by massed guns, but Zieten's attack after dark won a costly victory.",
 "result": "Prussian victory",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker win",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Prussian army",
   "commanders": [
    "Frederick II",
    "Hans Joachim von Zieten",
    "Johann Dietrich von Hülsen",
    "Prince Georg Ludwig of Holstein-Gottorp"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 48500,
    "low": 44000,
    "high": 48500,
    "source": "s3"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 16670,
    "low": 13000,
    "high": 24000,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "Austrian army, with a Saxon contingent",
   "commanders": [
    "Leopold Joseph von Daun",
    "Franz Moritz von Lacy",
    "Karl O'Donnell"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 52000,
    "low": 52000,
    "high": 65000,
    "source": "s3"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 15897,
    "low": 11260,
    "high": 20000,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "By the autumn of 1760, the fifth campaign of the Seven Years' War, Prussia was fighting Austria, Russia, France, Sweden and the Reichsarmee of the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick II had lost a corps at Landeshut on 23 June. On 15 August at Liegnitz he beat Loudon's corps before Daun's main army could join it, and so escaped Daun's attempt to trap him in Silesia. In October Austrian and Russian forces under Lacy and Tottleben raided Berlin, occupied it on 9 October and took about 3,000 Prussian prisoners before pulling back when Frederick approached.\n\nDaun then marched west into Saxony, where Lacy joined him. The Reichsarmee had already taken Torgau on 27 September and Wittenberg on 14 October, after a ten-day siege. Frederick could not leave Saxony in Austrian hands. It was his main source of supplies and money and his winter quarters, and it was a bargaining counter for any peace.\n\nDaun took up a strong position on the Süptitz heights (Süptitzer Höhen), a plateau just west of Torgau that Frederick's brother Prince Henry had occupied in 1759. Its western side was covered by Henry's old abatis, the woods of the Dommitscher Heide stood to the north, and the marshy Röhrgraben and a string of ponds covered the south. Lacy's corps stood nearest Torgau, by the Grosser Teich, guarding the Elbe crossing, with Daun's baggage already across the river on three bridges. Rather than wait to be pushed out of Saxony, Frederick decided to attack: on 3 November his army marched out in two bodies to strike the heights from two sides at once.",
  "forces": "Frederick brought about 48,500 men: 35,000 infantry and 13,500 cavalry, with 309 guns, though German accounts give anything from 44,000 men and 244 guns upwards. He split them. Three columns under his own command (his own column, Hülsen's, and the cavalry under Prince Georg Ludwig of Holstein-Gottorp), some 24,000 infantry and 6,500 cavalry in 41 battalions and 48 squadrons, were to make a long march through the woods and attack from the north. Hans Joachim von Zieten, with 21 battalions and 54 squadrons, about 11,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, was to attack from the south at the same time.\n\nDaun had about 52,000 men, 42,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, with a Saxon contingent. Some 20,000 of them were in Lacy's corps, which spent most of the day watching Zieten and did little fighting. Daun massed his artillery on the heights. Figures for his guns run from 275 to more than 400. Archenholtz, a 15-year-old Prussian officer in the battle, thought the bombardment worse than anything seen before. Even Prussian writers admit that Daun redeployed quickly and well when he learned of the northern march.",
  "course": "CDB90 records the battle as a single engagement, number 81 (TORGAU), from 14:00 to 22:00. That covers the fighting itself; Frederick's march began eight hours earlier. All times are approximate and the sources differ.\n\n**The march through the woods (06:00–13:00).** Frederick's column left at 6:00 on a wet morning, followed by Hülsen's and then Holstein's cavalry, on a march of about 14 miles through the Dommitscher Heide. Near Weidenhayn, around noon, the leading troops ran into Austrian light troops under Ried, who fired and fell back. They also caught the St Ignon dragoons between the first and second columns and took most of them prisoner, along with St Ignon himself. Warned of the threat to his north, Daun turned his army to face that way and moved most of his guns to the new front. Meanwhile a guide sent Frederick's column down the wrong track, and Holstein's cavalry fell hours behind. To the south, Zieten met an Austrian outpost, followed it east and drifted into an artillery duel with Lacy, well away from his proper line of attack.\n\n**The grenadiers' attack (about 14:00).** Frederick heard heavy firing from the south and thought Zieten was being overwhelmed. With only part of his force at hand, he sent ten grenadier battalions across the Striebach against the north-west corner of the heights. The massed Austrian guns cut them down: about 5,000 men were lost in half an hour, and the attackers were driven back.\n\n**Hülsen's attack (about 15:30).** Hülsen's column came up after 15:00, in rain. With the survivors of the first attack it went in again and broke into the Austrian line, but Daun brought up his reserve from Grosswig and drove it back. The cavalry that had arrived, the Bayreuth and Jung-Platen Dragoons and the Schmettau Cuirassiers, broke into the Austrian infantry too and were thrown out. Holstein's cavalry, when it arrived, failed in the same way. Daun was hit in the foot in this phase. Frederick was knocked from his horse by a spent case-shot ball that struck his chest. His fur pelisse took most of the blow. He was stunned for a time.\n\n**Stalemate at dusk (about 16:00–18:00).** By about 17:00 the northern attack had failed. Frederick left Hülsen in charge and rode back to Elsnig, where he spent the night in the village church. Daun went into Torgau to have his wound dressed and sent a courier to Vienna announcing a victory. He left O'Donnell and Lacy in command.\n\n**Zieten and the Süptitz heights (from about 18:00).** In the dark, Zieten's subordinates, Saldern and Möllendorf, pressed him to act. Saldern's men stormed Süptitz village and its battery, setting it on fire. Then the Prussians found an unguarded causeway between two ponds at the south-west corner of the heights, on the road Zieten should have taken that morning. Möllendorf led troops across it and Zieten fed in the rest of his infantry. Hülsen and Lestwitz heard the fighting and attacked from the north, Hülsen riding on a gun because all his horses had been shot. The Prussians took the summit and its great battery and turned the guns on the Austrians, who failed twice to win them back.\n\n**Withdrawal (21:00–01:00).** By about 21:00 the Austrians were falling back towards Torgau. Firing went on until about 22:00. O'Donnell took the army across the Elbe overnight in good order, and the Prussians entered Torgau at about 1:00.",
  "aftermath": "Prussian losses were 16,670 by their own count, in one of the century's bloodiest battles. Other estimates run from about 13,000 up to 24,000. Austrian losses are usually given as 15,000–16,000, including 7,000–8,000 prisoners and 45–49 guns. Prussian accounts put them above 20,000, while Daun admitted to about 11,000. In Vienna, the rejoicing set off by Daun's first dispatch was short-lived.\n\nFrederick could not follow up the victory. Daun kept Dresden and southern Saxony, and Loudon wintered in Silesia. Christopher Duffy concluded that \"even after all this bloodletting the battle of Torgau decided little in strategic terms\". Both armies were worn out. Austria, short of money, cut its army after 1760, and Torgau ended its hopes of a knock-out victory. It was the last major battle of the war, and the last battle for both Daun and Frederick, although the war went on until 1763.\n\nTorgau is remembered for the bloodiness of the guns and for its two-handed plan, which can be read as bold or as reckless. Frederick's split columns lost touch in the woods, and his grenadiers were thrown in early and destroyed. Zieten is usually credited with saving the day, but the accounts differ over whether Möllendorf or another officer found the causeway, and Carlyle has Saldern and Möllendorf pushing a hesitant Zieten to attack at all. A monument on the Süptitz heights was put up for the centenary in 1860. Its eagle was melted down in 1952, then recast and the monument rededicated in 1992.",
  "wargaming": "Torgau is a battle about two plans that fail to mesh. A game has to make the Prussian player commit to Frederick's split, then deny him easy coordination between the wings. Fixed arrival schedules with random delays for each column suit it well: Holstein's cavalry lost on the wrong track, Hülsen late, Zieten drawn off by Lacy. A referee or written orders help.\n\nThe ground does most of the work. The Dommitscher Heide limits where and how fast the northern columns can deploy. The Süptitz plateau is open and dominated by guns. The Röhrgraben and the ponds to the south block Zieten, except at the causeway he should have taken. The Austrian guns need rules that make a frontal attack across open ground into massed artillery a dreadful idea, but not an impossible one. Darkness falls around 18:00, during the Zieten and Hülsen attacks, and should make them hard to coordinate.\n\nWith about 100,000 men on a front a few kilometres deep, a grand-tactical scale with brigades or regiments as units works for the whole battle. The grenadier assault or Zieten's night attack across the causeway also makes a good battalion-level scenario.\n\nThe decisions are sharp. Does Frederick attack at 14:00 or wait for his columns? Does Zieten fight Lacy or head for the causeway? Does Daun use Lacy's 20,000? What ifs: the columns arriving together, Zieten taking the Butterstrasse in the morning as intended, or a fit Daun holding his army together after dark."
 },
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   "file": "File:Plan de la Bataille de Torgau du 3e November 1760 - btv1b84933312.jpg",
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   "caption": "A French plan of the battle of Torgau, 3 November 1760.",
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   "caption": "Overview sketch of the Torgau battlefield.",
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   "artist": "Hugo von Freytag-Loringhoven (1855–1924)",
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   "file": "File:General Hans Joachim von Zieten.jpg",
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   "artist": "Peter Janssen der Ältere",
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   "title": "The Battle of Torgau (BritishBattles.com)",
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   "title": "Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 20, book XX, ch. 5, 'Battle of Torgau' (1865; Project Gutenberg)",
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   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Louis P. Towles, 'Battle of Torgau', EBSCO Research Starters (2019)",
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   "kind": "web"
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   "id": "s7",
   "title": "Christopher Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great (David & Charles, 1974)",
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   "id": "s9",
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   "id": "s10",
   "title": "Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. (McFarland, 2017)",
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   "title": "Battle of Torgau (WarHistory.org, 2015)",
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