Battle of Rossbach
Frederick the Great destroyed a combined French and imperial army at Rossbach in about ninety minutes on 5 November 1757, having been outnumbered two to one. Prussia was at that point close to collapse. Frederick had invaded Saxony in 1756 and had brought France, Austria, Russia and Sweden into the field against him; his army had been beaten at Kolín in June, the Russians had beaten him in East Prussia, and the French were in Hanover. The allied army in Saxony under the Prince de Soubise and the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen numbered about 41,000 against his 22,000. They tried to march round his southern flank to cut him off, in column, in the open, in full view. Frederick struck the column while it was still marching. Seydlitz took the Prussian cavalry round a low ridge, appeared on the allied flank without warning and charged the head of the column before it could deploy, and the Prussian infantry came over the crest into the confusion behind it. The imperial contingents broke almost at once. Prussian losses were about 550; allied losses were some 10,000 including 5,000 prisoners. Frederick then marched to Silesia and beat an Austrian army twice his size at Leuthen a month later, which is the more impressive battle of the two. Rossbach mattered politically. It humiliated France, made Frederick a hero across Protestant Germany, and secured the British subsidy that funded the rest of his war. Some German nationalists a century later dated their movement from it.
- Year: 1757 CE
- Category: Military
