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5 chapter one Frederick the Great at Kunersdorf, August 12, 1759 Will not some accursed bullet strike me? ven after twentieth-century events have demonstrated for all to see the follies and horrors attendant upon modern war, Frederick II of Prussia (1740–1786) remains a fascinating individual for many people, mostly because of his military adventures. The thought of a possibly epicene lover of French language and culture leading a collection of rough-hewn—and, for the most part, ferociously Protestant—peasants, journeymen and, increasingly, mercenaries , from victory to victory against enormous odds is indeed a tantalizing one. That such victories—and, in the usual masochistic fashion, heroic defeats—contributed to the substructure that later would support German nationalism strikes one as deliciously ironic. This is most particularly the case in view of Frederick’s detestation of Germans and the German language. It is certain that Frederick endured rather than enjoyed hearing his ragamuf¤n representatives of north German Lutheranism sing “Now thank we all our God” after the slaughter of Leuthen on December 5, 1757.1 And when a soldier, after being praised by the king himself for his courage at the battle of Liegnitz (August 15, 1760), replied, “We ¤ght for religion, for you, for the fatherland,” it must have made a strong appeal to his intensely cynical sense of humor.2 Yet, if one ignores the fact that the overall effects of Frederick’s wars and the social ossi¤cation that allowed him to conduct them helped to pave the way for the disasters Napoleon would visit upon Prussia at Jena and Auerstädt, his accomplishments must seem extraordinary indeed. When Frederick II came to power in 1740, he inherited a country with a population of 2.5 million, that E 6 command failure in war is, in sum, slightly less than that of the city of San Diego, California. The army totaled 83,000 men and was in part supported by revenues of 7 million thalers. Utilizing this rather slim resource base, Frederick fought the War of the Austrian Succession, winning every major engagement, the most famous of these being the Battle of Hohenfriedberg on June 4, 1745, where 58,000 Prussians demolished an 85,000-man Austro-Saxon army.3 Due to territorial gains, the most prominent of them being, of course, Silesia, Frederick succeeded in almost doubling Prussia’s population. Yet, this country was still rather undersized to take on—even with British monetary support and increasing numbers of mercenaries—the powerful combination of France, Austria, Russia, and Sweden that confronted it in the Seven Years’ War. Somehow, however, Frederick and Prussia endured and, by the year of his death, 1786, his country’s population totaled 5 million, while the army consisted of 200,000 men supported by annual revenues of 19 million thalers.4 Of greater importance, though, was the power of the Frederican legend, something that would greatly in¶uence, among others, Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, the power of this legend must not be allowed to obscure the fact that once opposing generals became somewhat more accustomed to the Frederican style of warfare, he frequently found it tough going. During the Seven Years’ War, Frederick lost almost as many battles as he won and, insofar as such supposed innovations as the oblique battle order are concerned, close scrutiny of his campaigns would suggest that their roles were relatively minor. For example, it is probable that between 1756 and 1762 the oblique battle order was utilized with any marked degree of success only once: at the Battle of Leuthen (December 5, 1757).5 The really important tools of victory—the iron ramrod and the Prussian infantryman’s ability to get off three shots to his enemy ’s one—as well as the rigid discipline that was responsible for the Prussian ranks’ ability to switch fronts with remarkable speed, an especially crucial talent in an age of linear warfare, had been provided gratis by Frederick William I, Frederick’s enduringly unlovable father. Outside of his mostly hypothetical utilization of the oblique battle order and his emphasis upon the development of horse artillery and improvements in the state of the Prussian cavalry, it is obvious that Frederick relied primarily upon four factors to provide him with victory : (1) the above-mentioned mobility and superb ¤re control of his soldiers; (2) the element of surprise; (3) an extraordinary degree of aggressiveness in the face of all odds—“The Prussian army always attacks,” he once stated; and (4...

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