153 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63paces short of Lissa the party drew a discharge of fifty or sixty musket
shots at short range. The Prussians scampered to right and left
through the willows that bordered the raised road. Frederick was the
first to recover his voice: 'For God's sake, Zieten, this would not have
happened if the hussars had obeyed orders! I told them to keep a strict
thirty paces ahead of us!' (Nicolai. 1788-92, III, 236).
Frederick waited thirty minutes until his grenadiers arrived in
support, and then the little expedition entered the town. There was
an exchange of fire with the enemy on the far bank of the
Schweidnitzer-Wasser, and with further Austrians who were con-
cealed in houses around the town square. This was no business for a
king, and Frederick accordingly turned into the castle of Lissa, which
was a cheerful rococo house perched atop a fortified basement. Baron
Mudrach, the owner, saw the royal party approaching the gate, and
he made Frederick heartily welcome.
Frederick did not share the last spiritual experience of his army in
this extraordinary week of December. Not until later did he hear how
the entire army, still marching through the night, had raised its voice
in the chorale 'Nun danket alle Gott!' The sound breathed fresh life
into men who were almost paralysed with cold and exhaustion, and
some of the veterans were to remember it as their most vivid experi-
ence of the war.
On the day after the battle the dead and wounded formed
countless little snowhills. The Prussian casualties amounted to 6,382
officers and men, of whom the majority were probably lightly wound-
ed. The Austrians lost 22,000 all told, 12,000 of them prisoners,
together amounting to one-third of the effectives of their very con-
siderable army.
It has never been seriously disputed that Leuthen was the
greatest victoiy of the generation, and perhaps of the century, and
that this day alone would have established Frederick's claim to a
place among the most celebrated commanders. Almost every com-
mentator has drawn attention to the high morale of the Prussian
troops, Frederick's knowledge and exploitation of the terrain, the
unhurried speed of the attack, the mobility and destructive fire of the
artillery, the responsiveness of the infantry, the devastating interven-
tion by the cavalry of the left wing, and the initiative shown at every
level from Lieutenant-General Driesen to Captain Mollendorff. The
achievement was of a different order from that of Rossbach, for at
Leuthen the Prussians had overcome a hard-fighting and recently
victorious enemy.
After the battle the British envoy Mitchell found the king
'pleased and happy, but not elated, with the great and almost
incredible success of his arms. He talks of the action of the 5th