page_title: Battle of Hochkirch
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Hochkirch / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Frederick the Great (1712-1786) after defeat at the Battle of Hochkirch in 1758. Part of the Seven Years' War, the battle took place between Prussian and Austrian troops on 14 October 1758. Illustration from House of Hohenzollern in Pictures and Words by Carl Röchling and Richard Sternfeld. Published by Martin Oldenbourg in Berlin, c 1900.
context_page_description: The Battle of Hochkirch took place on 14 October 1758, during the Third Silesian War. After several weeks of maneuvering for position, an Austrian army of 80,000 commanded by Lieutenant Field Marshal Leopold Josef Graf Daun surprised the Prussian army of 30,000–36,000 commanded by Frederick the Great. The Austrian army overwhelmed the Prussians and forced a general retreat. The battle took place in and around the village of Hochkirch, 9 kilometers east of Bautzen, Saxony.
  Historians generally consider the battle as among Frederick's greatest blunders. Contrary to the advice of his subordinates, he refused to believe that the typically cautious Austrian commander Leopold von Daun would bring his troops into battle. The Austrian force ambushed his army in a pre-dawn attack. Over 30% of Frederick's army was defeated; five generals were killed and he lost his artillery park and a vast quantity of supplies. Although Daun had scored a complete surprise, his attempt to pursue the retreating Prussians was unsuccessful. The escaped force united with another corps in the vicinity, and regained momentum over the winter.
context_section_description: In five hours, Frederick lost 9,400 of the 30,000 men he brought into the battle, more than 30 percent of his army, including five generals, 101 guns, and nearly all the tents. Frederick required his generals to set an example of courage and leadership: they led from the front. The same rate of attrition applied throughout the officer corps, which lost half of its strength in the first three campaigns of the war. In addition to human losses, they lost valuable horses and draft animals, 70 munitions wagons, and, a blow to morale, 28 flags, and two standards. On the positive side, Retzow's corps of about 6,000 men, which had not arrived in time to participate in the fighting, remained intact; Frederick had pulled his troops together for an orderly retreat; and the King retained the confidence of his soldiers.
  The Austrians suffered casualties and losses at about three percent. According to the Austrian historian Gaston Bodart, there were fewer troops participating than most modern sources suggest: he places Austrian participants at 60,000, losses in casualties at 5,400, approximately 8.3 percent, but other losses (to injuries, desertions and capture) at about 2,300, or 3.6 percent. They also lost three standards.  Some modern historians place the overall losses higher, at 7,300.  Notification of the battle arrived in Vienna during the celebration of the Empress's name day, to the delight of Maria Theresa and her court, gathered at Schönbrunn Palace. Daun received a blessed sword and hat from Pope Clement XIII, a reward usually granted for defeating "infidels". The Empress eventually created an endowment of 250,000 gulden for Daun and his heirs.
  For Daun and Lacy, it was a victory of mixed emotions; upon the discovery of Keith's body in the village church, they both broke down in tears of grief. Keith had been the best friend of Lacy's father during his service in Russia.  Similarly, the grief Frederick felt at the loss of one of his greatest friends was intense. His grief was added to when he learned a couple of days later that his beloved elder sister, Wilhelmine, who had shared their father's wrath in 1730 during the Katte affair, had died on the same day. He sulked in his tent for a week. At one point, he showed his librarian a small box of opium capsules, 18 in total, that he could use to "journey to a dark place from which there was no return." Despite having rescued his army from catastrophe, he remained depressed and suicidal.
  Although Frederick demonstrated good leadership by rallying his troops against the surprise attack, Hochkirch is considered one of his worst losses, and it badly shook his equanimity.  Andrew Mitchell, the British envoy who was with them, and normally wrote positively about Frederick, attributed Frederick's loss to the contempt he had for Daun's supposedly cautious nature and his unwillingness to give credit to intelligence that did not agree with what he imagined was true: according to Mitchell, there was no one to blame but himself. That winter, Mitchell described the 46-year-old Frederick as "an old man lacking half of his teeth, with greying hair, without gaiety or spark or imagination." Frederick suffered from gout and influenza, and refused to change his uniform, which was moth-eaten and covered in food and snuff stains.
  However, the situation could have been far worse for Frederick. The fabled discipline of his army held up: once the Prussians were out of the burning village, unit cohesion and discipline returned. Their discipline neutralized any strategic advantage the Austrians could have gained, and Daun's hesitation nullified the rest. Instead of following Frederick, or cutting off Retzow's division, which had not participated in the battle, Daun withdrew to the heights and positions he had occupied before the battle, so that his men might have a good rest under blankets after the fatigue of the day. After staying there for six days, they marched out in stealth to take up a new position between Belgern and Jesewitz, while Frederick remained at Doberschütz.  Ultimately, the costly Au
caption: Frederick the Great and his soldiers retreat after the Battle of Hochkirch in 1758, by Carl Röchling.
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