Battle of Torgau In the Battle of Torgau on 3 November 1760 , King Frederick the Great ' s Prussian army fought a larger Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal Leopold Josef Graf Daun . The Prussians won a costly victory in one of the bloodiest battles of the Seven Years ' War . Background . In August , Daun missed an opportunity to destroy the main Prussian army in Silesia . Outnumbered three - to - one , Frederick escaped the Austrian trap by smashing the corps of Feldzeugmeister Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon at the Battle of Liegnitz . When the Prussians lingered in Silesia , their more numerous enemies attacked . Feldzeugmeister Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy ' s 15 , 000 Austrians joined with General Tottleben ' s Russian force near Berlin , making a total of 35 , 000 allies . While 13 , 000 Prussians took refuge in the Spandau fortress , Lacy and Tottleben captured 3 , 000 Prussians in Berlin on 9 October . Plans . In late October , Daun slipped out of Silesia and moved west to Saxony where Lacy joined him with his corps . When his government ordered him to stand and fight the Prussians , Daun selected a position on the Süptitzer Höhen ( Heights ) just west of Torgau . The plateau had been used by Prince Henry of Prussia in 1759 and was protected on the west by abatis and on the south by a small stream . Austrians faced south with Lacy ' s corps nearest Torgau and Daun ' s army further west . Altogether , Daun and Lacy marshalled 42 , 000 infantry , 10 , 000 cavalry , and 275 cannon . Frederick determined to send General Hans Joachim von Zieten to hold Daun ' s attention from the south , while his main effort circled around the western end of the Austrian line to attack from the north . Zieten ' s corps comprised 21 infantry battalion s and 54 cavalry squadron s , while Frederick ' s main army deployed 41 battalions and 48 squadrons . In total , the Prussians had 35 , 000 infantry , 13 , 500 cavalry , and 309 artillery pieces . Battle . Noon found Frederick ' s main army floundering in the woods to the north of Daun ' s position . At this time , Zieten ' s advance guard became embroiled with the Croatian light infantry belonging to Lacy ' s corps . Daun alertly detected the Prussian maneuver and he shifted his first line to the north side of the heights . Soon an artillery duel erupted between Lacy and Zieten . Hearing the cannon fire and fearing that Zieten was being mauled , the Prussian king decided to launch his attack prematurely , with ten battalions of grenadiers . Concentrated Austrian cannon fire and musketry caused the loss of 5 , 000 Prussians in the span of one - half hour . When the main body of infantry arrived on the scene , it was also sent into the uphill assault . Daun was forced to commit his reserves to defeat the second attack . The Prussian cavalry led by General the Duke of Holstein tried to break the Austrian line , but it also failed . A spent canister round hit Frederick in the chest and he withdrew to the village of Elsnig in considerable distress . The king spent the night sitting on the bottom step of the church altar waiting for news from the battlefield . Daun had been wounded in the foot and around sunset went to Torgau to have his wound dressed . The Austrian commander sent General Charles Flynn to deliver a preliminary victory dispatch to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in Vienna . The tide of the battle turned at dusk , when Zieten ' s columns , who had been engaged pointlessly with Lacy , finally launched a major assault . Shifting his corps to the west , he found an unguarded causeway between two ponds and threw five battalions into the gap . Zieten followed up the initial breach with the balance of his infantry and soon his corps gained a foothold on the heights . Hearing Zieten ' s battle , Lieutenant General J . D . von Hülsen led the survivors of the main army in a final attack . Taken from the north and south , the Austrian lines finally began to crumble . Zieten ' s men captured the Austrian gun battery and turned the cannons on their former owners , who twice tried unsuccessfully to regain the lost battery . By 9 : 00 p . m . the battle wound down with the Prussians still in control of the heights . Results . The Prussians won the battle but at a heavy cost . They admitted losses of 16 , 670 , while the Austrian lost 15 , 697 , including 7 , 000 men and 49 guns captured . One authority writes , Even after all this bloodletting the battle of Torgau decided little in strategic terms , for Daun still held Dresden and southern Saxony , while the troublesome Laudon was free to take up winter quarters in Silesia .