143 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63second line, until almost the entire Prussian infantry formed a dog-leg
facing approximately south-west, while the columns of allied infan-
try approached the re-entrant angle. There to meet the enemy were
not only the Prussian foot soldiers, but the heavy battery of Colonel
Moller, which had been brought down from the Janus Hill.
Few details have been transmitted of the ensuing infantry battle,
which lasted a matter of minutes and involved only seven of the
Prussian battalions. The leading French infantry regiments of
Piemont and Mailly braved the fire of the artillery and approached to
within forty paces of the Prussian line before being shredded by the
salvoes of Kleist (9) and Alt-Braunschweig (5). It was then or shortly
afterwards that Frederick strayed in front of the muskets, and the
Magdeburgers of Alt-Braunschweig called out: 'Father, please get out
of the way, we want to shoot!'
Seydlitz brought his troopers out of the Tagewerben hollow in
two lines, fell on the French cavalry which was still streaming past
his front, and carried on against the infantry behind. A Frenchman
reported: 'Everybody sank into a mob, and it was impossible to restore
or stay the flight, whatever the efforts of the entire corps of generals
and officers. The Prussian infantry followed on the heels of ours, and
fired without checking its advance or having a man drop out of rank
or file. The artillery shot us up without respite' (Koser, 1921, II, 542).
The battle ended in scrappy fighting west of Pettstadt, when the
light detachments of Saint-Germain and Loudon came south to cover
the retreat. A French soldier approached the plainly dressed Frederick
and declared:' "Corporal, I want permission to go back to Auvergne.
That's where I come from"... While we were chatting he espied one
of our NCOs gathering all the prisoners and arranging them in three
ranks. "Hey, corporal, look at that bugger over there. He wants to line
us up like Prussians, and we've only been here a couple of minutes!" '
(Frederick, quoted in Catt, 1884, 90-1).
By 5 p.m. the field was shrouded in darkness. Frederick had
intended to lodge for the night in the castle of Burgwerben, but he
found all the rooms full of wounded French officers. Rather than
disturb these gentlemen, he established himself in a servant's room in
a nearby house.
Frederick wrote to Wilhelmine on the evening after the battle: 'I can
now die in peace, because the reputation and honour of my nation
have been saved. We may still be overtaken by misfortune, but we
will never be disgraced' (PC 9489).
The huge disparity in losses between the Prussians and their
enemies was all the more astonishing when we consider that
Frederick was fighting at a disadvantage of almost two to one. The