On 23 July 1759 a Prussian corps under General Carl Heinrich von Wedel attacked the Russian army of Count Pyotr Saltykov between the villages of Kay and Paltzig, near Züllichau in Brandenburg. Today the places are Kije, Pałck and Sulechów in western Poland. Frederick the Great had ordered Wedel to stop the Russians from joining the Austrians, but the outnumbered Prussians attacked in pieces across marshy ground and were cut down by Russian guns. Wedel retreated across the Oder, and three weeks later the combined Russian and Austrian armies met Frederick himself at Kunersdorf.
Stopping the Russians
In the summer of 1759 Russia, allied with Austria against Prussia in the Seven Years' War, sent its army west under Saltykov, its new commander, with orders to link up with the Austrians. Frederick II's main army was tied down facing the Austrians farther south, so he gave Wedel the task of attacking the Russians before they could join the Austrian corps of General Ernst Gideon von Laudon.1
The sources agree that Wedel was badly outnumbered but not on how badly. The Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia gives Saltykov about 40,000 men against at most 27,500 Prussians. The Polish history portal dzieje.pl, citing historians, puts the Russians at about 50,000 and the Prussians at 28,000 to 30,000, and adds that the Russians also had more and better artillery. WarHistory.org gives 41,000 Russians against 26,000 Prussians and notes that some estimates of the Russian army run as high as 70,000.2
A march around the Prussian flank
Saltykov did not wait to be attacked. According to his entry in the Russian Biographical Dictionary, the Russian army marched through the night around the Prussian left and on the day of the battle took up a strong position in front of Paltzig, astride the road to Crossen and its link with the Austrians, behind a marshy stream. The same account says that Wedel, who had only just taken command, did not discover the move until it was almost complete. Russian dates in these sources follow the Julian calendar, eleven days behind, so they place the battle on 12 July.3
Wedel decided to attack the Russians where they stood. His columns had to cross the stream and the woods under fire, and they went in one after another instead of together. The Russian Biographical Dictionary describes two assaults on the Russian right in the afternoon, both thrown back by artillery and musket fire without coming to hand-to-hand fighting, and a flanking column that arrived too late to matter. Around seven in the evening General Wobersnow led a last attack, opening with a cavalry charge that broke into the Russian line before Russian cavalry under Pyotr Panin threw it back; Wobersnow was killed and the Prussian left fell back in disorder. Dzieje.pl notes that historians blame the defeat partly on Wedel's tactical errors.4
Losses and the road to Kunersdorf
The losses are given very differently. The Russian Biographical Dictionary counts 900 Russians killed and 3,904 wounded, against 4,269 Prussians killed, 1,394 wounded and 1,495 missing. Brockhaus and Efron gives more than 7,000 Prussian and about 5,000 Russian casualties, and WarHistory.org 6,000 to 8,300 Prussian against fewer than 5,000 Russian. Dzieje.pl reports one set of figures of 4,269 Prussian and 894 Russian dead, and another of 1,500 to 2,500 Prussian and 800 to 900 Russian dead.5
The day after the battle Wedel withdrew across the Oder. Saltykov moved on to Frankfurt an der Oder and joined Laudon there. Frederick hurried north to deal with the Russians himself, and on 12 August 1759, 1 August in the Russian calendar, he attacked the combined Russian and Austrian armies at Kunersdorf, the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War.6
The battlefield, now in the Polish municipalities of Sulechów and Skąpe, is little visited. Dzieje.pl reported that the Lubusz regional conservator of monuments wanted to enter it in the register of historic monuments, once its extent had been established and archaeological surveys carried out.7
