THE BOTTLE AND THE BATTLEFIELD: KOLIN, 1757

Schlacht bei Kolin, HGM Poosch, Wikimedia Commons

In this post, dear readers, we take another turn into my e-books for antiquarians in order to share a colorful, if little known, anecdote of the Battle of Kolin, June 1757--Frederick the Great's first defeat.  Although the course of this battle is worthy of study, I won't reprise it here.  You may find several excellent accounts on the Battlefield Anomalies web page and the Project Seven Years War page (among others).   This posting was generated by my perusal of the below book on cavalry, written in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars by Count Von Bismarck (not the Prussian Iron Chancellor of the later century) who was an officer who reformed the Wurtemburg Cavalry.  It was translated into English by an English cavalry officer who adds his own notes and commentary. Anecdotes aside, it is well worth reading for information on the role and use of cavalry in the Napoleonic era and the lessons learned, covering everything from the conceptual and operational to the organizational and sub tactical. I am fortunate enough to have a copy of my own, but it is openly available in digital form on the web (see information below the title page images below). As usual, in this post you may clix on pix for BIG PIX (and will probably need to do so to read the passages):

 

Lectures on the Tactics of Cavalry, 1827, available on the Internet Archive

Like many of the military treatises of its day, this text has much "technical" information on the organization, configuration, and evolutions cavalry, but it is also generously sprinkled with historical anecdotes in support of concepts and principles. This particular tome is most rich in these, with bits pulled from antiquity right up through the (then) latest wars.  So not only is it a rich resource on Napoleonic cavalry, but it is also a dashing good read on military history and attitudes. Some of these anecdotes are well known, and some not so much--which brings me to this post, which relates an entertaining anecdote from the Battle of Kolin.  The battle happened during the Seven Years War between the Austrians and Prussians, and raged all day, with the Austrians under Daun holding off the assaulting Prussians. This was the battle where Frederick is famously said to have grabbed a color to lead a renewed charge ("Dogs, do you want to live forever!") only to find that the was heading up the hill alone.  Later in the day there were several Austrian cavalry charges that decisively turned back the Prussians. Accounts vary about these, which is an interesting topic in itself. Focusing on the book's anecdote, there was a three-regiment Saxon cavalry brigade on the Austrian right wing whose role is sometimes mentioned, sometimes mentioned only in passing, and sometimes not mentioned at all.  Additionally, the sources are contradictory on the crisis of the battle, some accounts mention that Daun had sent an order to withdraw late in the battle (others don't mention this order at all, interestingly enough).  Obviously, the more "Austrian" the narrative, the less is made of any decision to abandon the field or the role of the Saxons.  In the end, it wots not: the Austrian Army did not withdraw.  Instead the right wing cavalry charged and broke the Prussian last effort late in the day, driving them from the field.  This anecdote focuses on the moment that this withdrawal order arrived at the Saxon cavalry brigade, and the response of its commander, Saxon Lt Colonel Benkendorf...

The below is a footnote Found on pages 79 and 80 of the text as an illustration of the phrase, "The winning or losing of a battle depends often on some small, unimportant accident, not taken into the calculation of the General" 

(Clix pix for Big Pix to read)

 If it didn't happen this way, it should have, is all I have to say.

 The note above has it's own footnote that is worth including:

 

Excelsior!