Battle of Zorndorf
Prussians and Russians fought at Zorndorf in August 1758 with a savagery that shocked both armies and settled nothing. Frederick had marched east to relieve a siege and found a Russian army under Fermor of about 43,000 men in a position among ponds and marshes. He crossed the Oder, came round behind them, and attacked from an unexpected direction, which forced the Russians to fight facing the wrong way. Almost everything then went wrong. The oblique attack that had won Leuthen came in piecemeal, the Prussian left drifted into the fire of its own guns, smoke and burning villages made it impossible to see, and both lines fragmented into a mass of separate fights. Seydlitz's cavalry charged three times without orders and saved the army twice. The Russian infantry did the thing that made the battle notorious: it did not break, it did not run when broken, and it did not surrender. Units fought where they stood until killed, and those that broke into the baggage and found the spirits kept fighting drunk. Frederick's own comment was that it was easier to kill Russians than to beat them. The two armies lay on the field overnight, each too damaged to move, and drew up again in the morning without attacking. Losses were about 12,000 Prussian and 18,000 Russian, some forty per cent on each side. Frederick claimed a victory, the Russians claimed one, and both withdrew. Both commanders sent despatches claiming victory and both were believed at home. The Russian performance changed the standing calculation in Berlin, Vienna and Versailles about what a Russian army could absorb, which mattered more over the following five years than the ground either side held.
- Year: 1758 CE
- Category: Military
