127 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63last elements of his flank march in favour of a frontal attack? Hoen
concludes (1911, 380-6) that the king had become belatedly aware of
the clouds of dust which betokened the shift of Austrian reserves to
the east. He therefore decided not to move up behind the advance
guard, but to bring the leading battalions of the main army up to
Hiilsen's right and sweep the Krzeczhorz Hill by a concerted push.
Nine battalions stood under the immediate command of Prince
Moritz, but the Austrians had sixteen heavy cannon waiting for him
and soon the Prussians were climbing over heaps of their own dead
and wounded. Moritz had a horse shot under him, 'whereupon the
soldiers, who were infuriated against him, yelled that it was a pity
that the animal on top had not been killed rather than the animal
beneath' (Lehndorff, 1910-13, I, 115).
The frontal attack received a significant extension to the west
when the five battalions of the division of Major-General Manstein
advanced direct from the Kaiser-Strasse against the commanding
Przerovsky Hill. The first move had come from one of Manstein's
battalions, which moved into the tall grain to clear the Croats who
had been sniping at the motionless troops on the highway. It then
appears that Captain the Marquis de Varenne arrived with an order
from the king to commit the whole force to the attack, whereupon
Manstein swept Colonel Kleefeld's Croats from the village of Cho-
czenitz and pushed on against the Przerovsky Hill behind. Frederick
betook himself to the scene in person, which is an indication of the
importance he attached to the enterprise, and between 3.30 and 4.30
p.m. the energetic Manstein organised three assaults against the
Austrian positions.
Manstein failed to dislodge the enemy, but his persistence had
the effect of fixing the Austrian division of Andlau on the Przerovsky
Hill. This left the Austrians dangerously weak in the direction of
Krzeczhorz, where the Prussian division of Lieutenant-General Tre-
sckow had come up alongside Moritz, and where Hiilsen had finally
accomplished the capture of the Oak Wood. By the middle of the
afternoon, therefore, the battle had become general, and the greater
part of the Prussian army was engaged in a frontal assault on the
ridge.
South of Krzeczhorz the combat became increasingly fluid, for
the Austrian divisions of Starhemberg and Sincere had arrived in
support of Wied, and Lieutenant-General Starhemberg had enough
force in hand to deliver a counter-attack. The Austrians recovered
the Oak Wood, but when they continued on towards Krzeczhorz they
were hit in their right or eastern flank by an astonishingly vigorous
charge of the Prussian cavalry brigade of Krosigk. The powerfully
built Major-General Christian Siegfried von Krosigk led the attack in