Battle of Mollwitz, 1741: Frederick the Great's first battle

Frederick the Great spent most of his reign at war, and his reputation rests on battles such as Rossbach and Leuthen. His first battle was very different. At Mollwitz he deployed slowly, saw his cavalry routed, and left the field believing the day lost. He learned that night that his infantry had won it for him.²

A war over Silesia

Emperor Charles VI died on 20 October 1740, leaving the Habsburg lands to his daughter Maria Theresa. Two months later Frederick, who had succeeded his father in Prussia that year, used the dispute over a female succession to demand Silesia, a rich province on Prussia's southern border, and invaded it on 16 December 1740. Breslau, the Silesian capital, opened its gates on 3 January 1741, and by March the Prussians held most of the province except fortresses such as Neisse.³

Maria Theresa, then 23 and new to power, refused to give up the province. In the HistoryNet account by Jon Guttman, she dismissed Frederick as "that evil man" and sent an army of about 20,000 under Field Marshal Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg to drive him out. Neipperg slipped past the dispersed Prussians to relieve Neisse, and when Frederick gathered his army and turned to meet him, he found the Austrians at Mollwitz, a village west of Brieg, placed across his line of supply and communication.⁴

A slow deployment in the snow

Snow had fallen heavily on 9 April. The Royal Collection describes the field as covered with two feet of it. Frederick, who had made his headquarters at the village of Pogarell, learned where the Austrians were from captured soldiers and advanced on the morning of 10 April in five columns, hoping to catch them by surprise.⁵

He did not. Instead of attacking at once, the king spent about an hour and a half forming his roughly 22,000 men into two lines between Grüningen and Pampitz. He misjudged the space available, so some units ended up behind a bend in the river on his right and took no part, and on the right wing cavalry and infantry were mixed together. Frederick later listed his own errors: a frontal attack, deployment too far from the enemy, and a long, slow advance in line. The delay gave Neipperg, surprised at first, time to turn his army to face the Prussians. Guttman puts both sides ready by about 1 p.m.; the account on a French map of the period says the battle began at 2 p.m. and ended at 7 p.m.⁶

The cavalry breaks and the king leaves

The Austrians struck first. Lieutenant General Carl von Römer led six cavalry regiments, upward of 4,500 troopers, against the Prussian right. The Prussian horse was weaker than the veteran Austrian cuirassiers and dragoons and, according to BritishBattles.com, received the charge standing still, against every rule of cavalry fighting. It was overthrown. Frederick led a cuirassier regiment forward to stop the rout and was carried away with it.⁷

Field Marshal Kurt Christoph von Schwerin, the most experienced general present, told the king that the battle was lost and advised him to leave. Frederick changed horses and rode off with his escort. Near Oppeln he was almost captured by Hungarian hussars. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org notes that it was the only time he left a battlefield before the battle was actually lost.⁸

The infantry holds

The Prussian foot did what the cavalry could not. It stood against the Austrian horse, and Römer was killed by a shot to the head. Both Prussian infantry wing commanders were also dead, and when an officer asked which way to retreat, Schwerin is said to have answered that they would retreat over the bodies of the enemy. He restored order, beat off a second Austrian cavalry attack on his left and ordered a general advance.⁹

The drilled Prussian battalions moved forward in line and fired steadily. A captured Austrian officer compared their advance to an advancing wall. Neipperg's infantry gave way, the Prussians occupied Mollwitz and the Austrians withdrew. Frederick heard of his victory from a messenger sent by Schwerin when he had already reached the town of Löwen.¹⁰

The cost and the lessons

Figures differ. BritishBattles.com gives 4,850 Prussian and 4,250 Austrian dead and wounded. The French map of the battle published by Georges-Louis Le Rouge from the memoirs of an officer in Austrian service, now in the Royal Collection, gives 3,000 Prussians and 4,000 Austrians killed or wounded. One Prussian regiment, von Meyerinck's, lost 25 officers and 667 men.¹¹

Frederick was too relieved to pursue. He spent the following months in camp at Mollwitz rebuilding his cavalry, and no major operation followed in Silesia until August. The horse that carried him to safety, the "Mollwitz Grey", was retired to grass at Potsdam. Frederick is said never to have forgiven Schwerin for sending him away, and he never again left his army in battle. "Mollwitz was my school," he admitted later, and his standing order became that the Prussian army always attacks. Sixteen years later the same army won at Rossbach and Leuthen.¹² › Battle of Kesselsdorf, 1745