Although his invasion and annexation of Silesia during the War of the Austrian Succession had been formally recognized by the Peace of Dresden in 1745, Frederick the Great he knew it was just an armistice. In a confidential "testament" drawn up in 1752, he stated that since Austria was the country Prussia had "most grievously injured," the peace was a mere truce. As early as 1749 he had predicted that a war would break out in 1754 or 1755 – a conflict that would determine who should rise as the dominant power in Germany:Austria or Prussia. He also could not help but conclude that when the conflict renewed, Prussia would be in an excellent position to continue its expansionist policy and admitted:“I would very much like to wrest Bohemia from [Empress Maria Theresa]”, he planned to exchange it for the coveted Electorate of Saxony. As a result, Frederick started preparing for war from the day the previous conflict had ended.
The preparations
By the summer of 1756, the Prussian war chest amounted to around sixteen and a half million thalers, which according to the king's calculations would cover three campaigns; to this it was necessary to add that an additional uniform had been stored for each infantryman and artillery ammunition for two campaigns, and that a reserve of weapons sufficient to double the strength of the cavalry and increase the infantry by 50% had been accumulated. . From 1752, supply depots had been set up to supply an army of 100,000 men for eighteen months, but Frederick realized that even if he reinforced his army to full capacity and provisioned it adequately, he would not be able to match the strength of his enemies. they would be able to deploy. Immediately after the Second Silesian War he wrote a manuscript entitled "General Principles of War," which was circulated, in the strictest secrecy, among his generals during 1753. Prussia could not afford a long war, he pointed out, so its wars "must be short and energetic." , had to seek quick answers through decisive battles, in which everything depended "on the speed of movement and the need for the offensive".
Although Frederick started the war in 1756 with this idea in mind, he calculated that the final blow to end the conflict could not be struck until the campaign of 1757; during the first year he intended only to "place the pieces on the chessboard" to ensure success the following year. From his perspective, such a favorable board required the occupation of the Electorate of Saxony and that of North Bohemia , to establish winter quarters in enemy territory and also serve as a starting point for the decisive operation.
The first part of the plan met with considerable success, but then, during the 1756 invasion of Bohemia, Frederick found himself outmaneuvered tactically by the Habsburg field marshal, Maximilian Ulysses von Browne , who brought him to a standstill at Lobositz (present-day Lovosice), for which he fell back towards Saxony at the end of October. However, Frederick's strategic goal remained a decisive war-ending engagement in the 1757 campaign – he had in mind the Battle of Pharsalia between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Meanwhile, in Vienna, despite the enormous advantages that the Prussian king had secured by taking Saxony, the Austrian War Cabinet - set up at the beginning of the war under the auspices of Count Kaunitz, Chancellor of State (or Minister of Foreign Affairs) – remained convinced that the prospects after the Lobositz campaign were excellent. Although there was consensus about conserving military strength in order to strike more effectively at the start of the next operation, there was little hope that the war could end in 1757. Over the winter Kaunitz cemented offensive alliances with both France and Russia - the the very coalition Frederick had sought to avoid by going to war – and secured a declaration of war against Prussia by the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire. The Austrians were convinced that these political advantages would eventually bring the enemy to its knees, so their goal for the 1757 campaign was to secure a strong foothold in the Prussian-controlled territories—Saxony, Lusatia, and above all Silesia—from where to launch new offensives in successive campaigns.
Another issue facing Austria throughout the winter was that of the supreme military command. Kaunitz was an enthusiastic supporter of Browne despite the fact that he was increasingly debilitated by tuberculosis, Count Haugwitz, leader of the Directorium - the central domestic administration - favored Field Marshal Leopold Daun and, on the other hand, the imperial couple –Francisco and María Teresa– He favored his brother, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, despite his disastrous performance in the last war.
The Austrian army had been cantoned throughout northern Bohemia and Moravia and, while the War Cabinet had to deal with problems stemming from the mobilization process, provisioning seemed to be under control. At a council of war, convened at the end of February, the plan designed by Browne to assemble the troops in four large camps was approved and the possible advantages of launching eventual offensives in Saxony or Silesia were discussed, although for the moment a position was adopted. defense on the northern border. However, the proposed rallies were postponed because the French military attaché persuaded everyone that the Prussian would be unable to carry out any major military action before early May, and therefore troop movements would only serve to tire the army unnecessarily. For his part, Federico seemed indecisive about the strategy to follow since his "chessboard" had not been arranged as he had expected. He seems to have entertained the possibility of fighting as Allied offensives threatened him, but the two senior Prussian generals closest to him – Lieutenant General Hans Karl von Winterfeldt and Field Marshal Kurt Christoph von Schwerin – dissuaded him from pursuing that strategy. defensively while being pressed for pre-emptive action against Austria, and by early April Frederick had not only approved the plan, but scaled it up.
The king decided to commit all his troops, around 116,000 men, in a large-scale offensive that it would go in four columns towards the interior of Bohemia. An army would advance from western Saxony along the valley of the Eger (Ohře) river and join with another descending from Dresden along the western bank of the Elbe; while in the east, a third would cross from Silesia to Trautenau (Trutnov) to join another that was to cross from Lusatia to Jung-Bunzlau (Mladá Boleslav). Frederick anticipated that he would be able to merge these two large contingents around Leitmeritz (Litoměřice) and deal a decisive blow against the Austrian forces that would decide the final outcome of the war. 
Accordingly, on April 18, 1757 began the invasion of Bohemia, which was to be "the big blow" that would end up destabilizing the balance towards the Prussian side. Charles of Lorraine , who was finally chosen for the supreme command, was caught completely off guard, and within ten days the four invading Prussian armies had been transformed into a great pincer pushing the Habsburg forces towards Prague. Browne urged attacking one of his sides before they could unite, but Charles preferred to dig in near Prague and wait for the enemy until a second army, commanded by Field Marshal Daun , could arrive from southeastern Bohemia, which would give the Austrian forces numerical superiority. As a consequence, the great Prussian pincer closed on May 6 and, numerically superior, attacked.
The Battle of Prague
The Austrians had been deployed in two lines along high ground east of Prague. Assessing the situation, Frederick quickly repulsed a frontal attack from the north, instead opting for a flanking move around the Austrian right, a tactic that worked well on the training ground but could be suicidal if the enemy were able to attack. to predict it. Browne, who commanded the second Austrian line, sensed the maneuver and rotated his forces to carry out a counterattack, so the Prussian advance was broken, some regiments fled in disarray and the Saxon units that were forced to serve in their ranks changed. side quickly. Field Marshal Schwerin's attempt to regroup the troops met with little success, as the old general was killed trying to convince them to follow him into the fight; while, on the other side, Browne could have turned the fight around, but he was mortally wounded by cannon fire and evacuated from the battlefield.
As the fighting raged, Federico was nowhere to be seen; later the king would explain that he had left the ground because he was suffering from stomach cramps. Apparently at the initiative of the regimental commanders alone, and certainly without any orders from the king, the Prussians attacked through a gap just south of Kyje, between the extreme right of the Austrian front line, still arrayed in a position east -west, and to the left of the line carrying out Browne's counterattack. Charles, who was in an almost catatonic state, failed to plug the gap with reinforcements while, at the same time, the right of Browne's line, bounded by cavalry, was outflanked by General Hans's Prussian hussars. Joachim von Zieten . Just then Carlos fainted from chest pains and was also removed from the field. Devoid of a leader, the Austrian counterattack weakened and had to fall back while putting up a hard fight. By mid-afternoon, the main Austrian line was facing a Prussian army that had successfully encircled their flank so, threatened with total defeat, the regimental commanders ordered a retreat to Prague.
The Prussians won the day having been protected by suicidal counter-attacks by his cavalry, but the bulk of the Austrian army had managed to avoid breaking down to successfully fall back behind the city walls. The Habsburg forces had fought stubbornly and effectively, and again, as at Lobositz the year before, the Prussians suffered the heaviest losses (some 14,400 to Austria's 13,400, 4,500 of whom, however, were prisoners of war). The failure of the Habsburgs took place at the level of command because the army as a whole had been defeated, even if it had escaped annihilation, at least for the moment, and Frederick was confident that it would not be for long since, according to the news received , only a few remnants of the Austrian force had retreated south, the bulk was locked inside the city, so he foresaw an imminent capitulation, at which point Vienna would be ready for peace talks and the war would be over. /P>
The site of Prague
Although the Prussians lacked the necessary siege equipment to take Prague, they assumed that supplies within the city would be limited and that starvation would force the defenders into early surrender. However, by the time the siege guns arrived in late May, there was little sign that the Austrians were giving up. After five days of shelling it seemed that not enough damage had been inflicted to hasten submission, and so Frederick began to worry about the possibility of an Austrian relief army could intervene before the siege was successfully completed. Although he knew little of Daun as commander-in-chief, he sent, as a precaution, a force of 24,600 men under the command of the Duke of Bevern to hold off the relief army. In Vienna, Kaunitz, who had realized how endangered the monarchy had been by slow troop movements in the fall of 1756 and careless massing of troops in April 1757, pressed for action. If Daun's reinforcement didn't arrive soon enough, he would be summoning disaster. 
On June 8, Kaunitz ordered Daun to begin the offensive to liberate Prague. The marshal began advancing on him on June 12, the same day Federico decided it was time to eliminate him before he received further reinforcements. The first skirmish took place on the 13th, when an advanced Prussian corps was forced back at Kuttenberg (Kutná Hora). That same day, Frederick arrived at the Bevern camp with additional reinforcements, thus concentrating a substantial portion of the Prussian army (about 40,000 men) for a major offensive; on the 15th, this Prussian contingent was marching east from Prague, towards the city of Kolín.
The Battle of Kolín
Error estimates of enemy strength by both sides determined the shape of the battle. Daun had reports that Frederick was approaching with 60,000 men, while according to him the Austrian contingent was substantially smaller than his 53,000 strong. In any case, the naturally cautious Austrian entrenched himself in a vantage point in the hills south of the road from Prague to Vienna – the so-called Kaiser-Straße – west of Kolín, near the towns of Planian (Plaňany) and Chocenitz (Chocenice) to wait for the Prussians. On June 17, Frederick received reconnaissance reports that Daun was lodged in such a strong north-south position that a frontal attack was impossible, so he resolved to surround the Austrian right flank by marching his army north, to Kaiser-Straße, and from there to the east towards Kolín. On the morning of the 18th, the entire Prussian contingent held position along the road just east of Planian. Frederick, climbing a church steeple, was disconcerted to find that Daun had anticipated his move:he had also moved his forces during the night, so the Austrian line now ran east-west, along the hills overlooking the Kaiser-Straße, with its center in the town of Chocenitz.
Even so, the Prussian was not discouraged and remained focused on encircling the Austrian right and marching his army down the aforementioned road – the vanguard was commanded by General Johann Dietrich von Hülsen and the cavalry to Zieten's – to turn south of the road at the village of Krzeczhorz (Křečhoř), which marked the new Austrian right. At first all seemed to be going well, but once Hülsen reached the top of the hill, it became clear that Daun had again reacted effectively by advancing a division of his reserve, under the command of Lieutenant General Heinrich Karl von Wied, into that sector. Runkel, although the fierce fighting that ensued forced Daun to move even more reserves to his right. The dust raised by the movement of these troops seems to have persuaded Frederick that the main Austrian line along the crest of the hill had been sufficiently weakened to launch a frontal assault, but once again he underestimated his rival and repeated Prussian attacks were repulsed by Austrian artillery and infantry fire. In the late afternoon, at the height of the battle, the Prussians seemed about to make some progress east of Chocenitz, but a successful counterattack by the opposing cavalry managed to break the infantry and turn the battle into a rout. It was Federico's first big defeat , which took a heavy toll on his best troops:Prussian losses (about 14,000 men) were again higher than those of the Austrians (about 9,000).
Tables
The Kolín episode caused widespread euphoria on the Austrian side, but also little desire for another major confrontation. Both Emperor and Empress suggested expelling Frederick from Bohemia without risking another major battle, a strategy that would prove unnecessary as Frederick had no intention of remaining in the province. On the other hand, the Prussian side was, as the British envoy reported, full of "discouragement, discontent and apprehension". The immediate strategic effect of the Battle of Kolín was to force Frederick to withdraw from Bohemia with unprecedented speed. The withdrawal was made in two columns of approximately 35,000 men each, the king himself leading one of them, along with his brother Prince Henry and Field Marshal James Keith, and went up the Elbe Valley, while the other , led by his other brother, Prince William, made it along the right bank towards Lusatia.
The withdrawal had a number of significant side effects for both sides. On the Austrian side, as soon as the besieging forces began to fall back, Charles of Lorraine made a sortie and briefly pursued the retreating enemy. This insignificant action had, however, important consequences since, when the news of the departure reached Vienna, Maria Theresa decided not only to consider it as a momentous military action, but as a test of Carlos's ability as a general, in such a way that when Daun arrived with his forces in Prague on June 23, Daun regained supreme command, which would have disastrous effects later. On the Prussian side, the withdrawal would give Frederick the occasion to recriminate his role not only to his generals but especially to his brother Augustus Wilhelm. The king failed to appreciate the difficulties he suffered as more and more elements of the Austrian army pursued him. Just a contingent of 12,500 men (most of them Hungarian hussars and cavalry and infantry from the feared Serbian and Croatian border regiments) under General Ferenc Lípot Nádasdy harassed and harassed Henry and the king, while the main Austrian contingent of 73,000 men, as well as 8,000 light troops, were hot on William's heels. The town of Gabel (Jablonné), the last Prussian outpost in Bohemia, was captured by Generals Johann Sigismund Macquire and Carl Raimund von Arenberg on July 15, clearing the way for the Austrian main army to follow the enemy in the opposite direction. to Lusatia. Harassed by light troops, the last Prussians crossed the border on July 20 with heavy losses of supplies, food, pontoons, and artillery. Several thousand more Saxons who had been forced to serve in the Prussian army also deserted.
Frederick's failure to achieve his strategic goal in the Bohemian campaign of 1757 effectively doomed him to the kind of protracted war he had wanted avoid at all costs. Towards the end of July the initiative passed to Austria and her allies, who shifted operations to Saxony, Lusatia, Silesia, and eastern Prussia. Despite this, the king was able to prevent the collapse of his war effort with two decisive victories later that year:at Rossbach over the Imperials and French and at Leuthen over the Austrians, but despite the scale of these triumphs , were not the “coups” capable of ending the war that he had counted on. The contest continued for another five years and brought him to the brink of defeat, only saved by a historical anomaly so strange that it defies logic:the untimely death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia and the change of side of his successor. It could be argued that launching a preventive war in 1756 was a miscalculation from the start, but it is clear that the failure of the Bohemian campaign revealed weaknesses not only in Frederick's strategic thinking but also in his tactical handling of what was, however, undoubtedly the most disciplined and motivated military machine in Europe. Among these faults, the most important was the contempt of the enemy, as the British envoy to the Prussian court, Sir Andrew Michaels, expressed, “the cause of our misfortunes owes much to the great success that the arms of the King of Prussia have had […] against the Austrians [in the past]…which made His Prussian Majesty imagine that he could expel them from the most advantageous positions.”
Bibliography
- Broucek, P. (1982):Der Geburtstag der Monarchie:Die Schlacht bei Kolin 1757 . Vienna:Osterreichischer Bundesverlag.
- Duffy, C. (1985):Frederick the Great:A Military Life. London:Routledge.
- Duffy, C. (2000):The Austrian Army in the Seven Years War, Volume 1:Instrument of War. Illinois:Emperor's Press.
- Showalter, D.E. (1995):The Wars of Frederick the Great. London:Longman.
- Szabo, F.A.J. (2008):The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756-1763. Harlow:Pearson.