195 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63king could not bring himself to believe that the corps was in serious
danger, but as a precautionary measure he sent Lieutenant-General
Hiilsen with a detachment in the direction of Dippoldiswalde to lend
support. Hiilsen's march was delayed by the deep snow, and the battle
was fought and lost before he approached any nearer the scene than
Nieder-Colmnitz.
By the 21st it became clear to Frederick that something terrible
had happened to Finck. When the details were finally known, it
emerged that 500 officers and 12,500 NCOs and private soldiers had
survived to enter Austrian captivity. Austrian casualties amounted
to just 934. In round numbers the Prussian losses at Maxen were the
equivalent of a Kolin or a Zorndorf. In some respects, however, the
cost was higher still. The Austrians were no longer interested in
exchanging prisoners, and so Frederick was deprived of the force as
effectively as if the whole body had been struck dead. The captured
leaders amounted to one-tenth of the officer corps, and the loss in
cavalry was so great that Frederick had to recall the ten squadrons of
Prussian dragoons who were doing service with Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick in western Germany. The king wrote to Henry in October
1760: 'Our resources are so depleted and scanty that we will be unable
to oppose the huge numbers of the enemies who are ranged against us.
If we go under, we must date our fall from the disastrous adventure of
Maxen' (PC 12404). The enduring memory of the affair helped to
paralyse Frederick's operations on the upper Elbe in July 1778 (PC
26590).
The shame of this event seemed to Frederick to be without
parallel, for, as he indicated to Finck, 'It is something hitherto
completely unknown for a Prussian corps to lay down its arms to an
enemy. Up to now it did not seem possible that such a thing could
happen' (PC 11620). Frederick held the 'Maxen regiments' in per-
petual aversion, and after the war he instituted a series of courts-
martial which cashiered Finck and the major-generals Gersdorff and
Rebentisch, and sentenced them to fortress arrest.
Was the disgrace justified? Probably not. It was Finck's judgment
that was really at stake, not his courage, for the king maintained that
Finck should have seen the danger in good time and got out of the
way. Finck certainly enjoyed a full theoretical freedom of action, but
there were physical and psychological barriers to his escape. Already
on 19 November the Austrian reserve corps under O'Donnell had
moved to Dippoldiswalde, which cut the most attractive path of
retreat west to Freiberg. Also it was unfair of Frederick to blame Finck
for 'untimely firmness' when the ideal of Contenance-Halten was
part of the code of the Prussian officer. On the larger issue - the
advisability of placing a corps of any kind so close to the Austrian rear