What happened at the Battle of Maxen?
In November 1759 Frederick the Great sent General Finck's corps around the Austrian army to Maxen, south of Dresden, to cut its communications with Bohemia. Instead of retreating, Field Marshal Daun surrounded Finck with three converging forces, stormed Maxen on 20 November, and on 21 November Finck surrendered with his whole corps.1
Prussian armies of the Seven Years' War were beaten many times, but they rarely gave up. At Maxen, on 21 November 1759, a whole Prussian corps laid down its arms. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org calls it a crushing victory for the Austrians. Thomas Carlyle, Frederick's Victorian biographer, saw in it the consequence of an order the king gave with his blood up.2
The order at Krogis
In the autumn of 1759 the Austrian army of Field Marshal Daun was slowly falling back from Saxony toward Bohemia, with Prince Henry of Prussia pressing it from behind. Frederick arrived in his brother's camp on 13 November in high spirits and ordered a sharper pursuit; Henry, Carlyle writes, urged him to leave well alone.3 › Battle of Freiberg, 1762
On 14 November, at the village of Krogis, Frederick gave the order: General Finck was to march at once around the Austrians' western flank, by Freiberg and Dippoldiswalde, and plant himself at Maxen, south of Dresden among the rocky hills, astride Daun's communications with Bohemia. Frederick expected Daun to retreat once his supply lines were threatened. When Finck rode back that afternoon to raise objections, the king told him he could not bear difficulties and should get it done.4
Into the hills
Finck marched on 15 November, drove Imperial troops out of Freiberg, and by 17 November had his whole corps at Maxen. HistoryOfWar.org puts it at 14,000 men; Carlyle thought about 12,000. The country was a tangle of gullies, dells and winding brooks, and the November weather brought snow, sleet and frost. The same day a Prussian hussar raid under Kleist burned Daun's first large magazine at Aussig in Bohemia, and Frederick, writing to Voltaire, expected to be quartered in Dresden within a week. Daun had every reason to deal with Finck at once.5
Daun did not retreat. He fell back to the Plauen gorge outside Dresden and decided to attack Finck instead. Carlyle counts three converging forces: Daun himself with 27,000 men from the west, 3,000 light troops under Sincere from the north, and 12,000 of the Reichsarmee from the south and east, some 42,000 in all. Frederick had ordered Finck to call in the four battalions he had left at Dippoldiswalde, and Finck, obeying too literally in Carlyle's view, drew in his outposts. His messages to the king were intercepted by Austrian light troops; only a short report from General Zieten, telling him enemy columns were coming, got through.6
20 November
Daun's attack began on the morning of 20 November. His columns had to climb from Dippoldiswalde through a narrow pass at Reinhardtsgrimma, on roads glazed with sleet, where horses slid and artillery stuck; Carlyle believes that a few Prussian guns there could have stopped them, but Finck had none in it. By about 11 a.m. Daun's troops were on the heights, and some thirty heavy guns opened on Maxen.7
After an hour and a half of cannonade the Austrian infantry attacked, and the fighting went on for five hours. By 3 p.m. the Austrians had stormed Maxen, which burned. Finck fell back toward Schmorsdorf and sent his cavalry against Brentano's column, but on the frozen ground the horsemen achieved nothing, and by nightfall he was driven onto Schmorsdorf hill. Only General Wunsch, at Dohna, had held off the Reichsarmee all day.8
The surrender
That night Finck planned to cut his way out, and Wunsch tried to lead the cavalry away under cover of darkness. But the infantry were nearly out of cartridges, and so many had been killed, wounded or had deserted that a count found only 2,836 rank and file. At daylight on 21 November, with Daun's guns opening again, Finck asked for terms. Daun demanded unconditional surrender, with the officers keeping their private baggage, and insisted that Wunsch and the cavalry come back and surrender too. Finck and eight other generals went into captivity.9
The Austrians claimed 15,000 prisoners; Carlyle doubted it and judged that Frederick lost about 12,000 men in all to death, wounds, capture and desertion. HistoryOfWar.org notes that Daun failed to follow up his success. For Finck, Carlyle writes, 21 November was his last day in the Prussian service.10
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”; Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”; Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”; Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”; John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”. ↩
- John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”; Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”. ↩
- Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”; John Rickard, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”. ↩
Sources
- John Rickard, HistoryOfWar.org, “Battle of Maxen, 20 November 1759”
- Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XIX (1865), Project Gutenberg, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 19”
