Battle of Landeshut, 1760: the destruction of Fouqué's corps

In 1760, the fifth year of the Seven Years' War, Frederick the Great had to defend Silesia with forces spread thin on every front. The Silesian border was entrusted to General Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué, who in 1760 had about 13,000 men for the task.²

An order to hold

Against him stood Feldzeugmeister Ernst Gideon von Loudon, with about 32,000 men on the Moravian border. Loudon advanced into Silesia from the end of May. While Fouqué moved down into the plain, the Austrians occupied Landeshut in his absence. On 11 June Frederick ordered Fouqué to retake it, and Fouqué did so by 17 June, reoccupying the fortified camp that the Prussians had built on the hills around the town.³

It was a strong position but far too large for his troops. Kronoskaf, the Seven Years' War project, describes a line about 6 kilometers long, from the Blasdorferberg on the east bank of the Bober to the heights east of Vogelsdorf, strung with redoubts on the Buchberg, the Mummelberg and the Leuschnerberg, flèches on the Ziederberg, a star fort on the Thiemenberg and a redoubt on the Burgberg above the town. Fouqué had about 11,500 men to hold it, closer to 10,700 after detachments. On 21 and 22 June Loudon reconnoitered the works while his main body came up.⁴

The storm before dawn

Loudon's columns were ready by about 1 a.m. on 23 June. At about 1.45 a.m. the signal was given, and artillery opened on the Leuschnerberg and Buchberg. The overstretched defenders of the Mummelberg were surrounded, and their collapse left the next works exposed. At 2.30 a.m. General Ellrichshausen's column took the Buchberg, and by about 3 a.m. the Burgberg redoubt had fallen and the Austrians were in the town.⁵

On the Prussian right the fight lasted longer. A first Austrian attack on the Blasdorferberg was thrown back, but the Austrians worked round the position from Reichhennersdorf, and the Prussians fell back from hill to hill, to the Hahnberg and then the Galgenberg, where Fouqué gathered what was left of his corps. At around 6 a.m. the Austrians attacked the large entrenchment on the Kirchberg from the front and the flank and took it. Part of the Prussian cavalry broke out; its commander, Malachowski, was captured when his horse was shot, but Major von Owstien rallied about 900 horsemen and got them away.⁶

The last square

Around 9 a.m., with his troops running short of ammunition, Fouqué gave up the Galgenberg. He tried to break out across the Bober near Leppersdorf with his remaining infantry formed in square, but Austrian cavalry already held the crossings. When most of the Prussians had run out of ammunition, Colonel Baron Voit broke into the square with the Jung-Löwenstein chevaulegers. Fouqué was wounded three times and taken prisoner. Kronoskaf records that Voit offered him his own horse, and that the general refused it, saying he would soil the fine saddlery with his blood.⁷

Counting the cost

Kronoskaf puts Prussian losses at 27 officers and 1,900 men killed and 8,315 taken prisoner, among them three generals, with 67 guns, 34 colors and 2 standards lost; only about 1,500 men reached safety. Austrian losses were about 2,900, of whom 19 officers and 755 men were killed. Austria's own national encyclopedia remembers the day simply as the battle in which Loudon beat a Prussian army and took its general prisoner. The town was severely plundered.⁸

After Landeshut

The corps that guarded Silesia had ceased to exist, and, in Kronoskaf's words, the gate of Silesia now stood open: Loudon could think of laying siege to the fortress of Glatz. Frederick had ordered Fouqué to retake and hold the position, and he lost almost the entire corps in a single morning. For the king's first defeat at Austrian hands, see the Battle of Kolín; for another Prussian corps lost the year before, see Maxen.⁹