His troops in that battle were of untypically high quality for
that stage in his campaigns, for the previous marches through the
wooded hills of Upper Lusatia had afforded ample opportunity for the
unreliable elements to desert. Perhaps Frederick had forgotten that
his success at Liegnitz was a defensive one, determined by the effect of
the 12-pounder cannon that were scattered among his infantry. It is
significant that the regiments of Bernburg and Prinz Ferdinand,
which took the initiative in the Prussian counter-attack, were
mauled very heavily.
Frederick adhered with more consistency to another of the
identifiable inspirations which struck him at Leitmeritz, namely that
of using ordnance as a key to open the deadlocked battlefront. In
earlier times no great importance had been attached to artillery in
the general scheme of things, but this arm assumed an altogether
greater significance in the Seven Years War, thanks to the labours of
Piotr Ivanovich Shuvalov in Russia, and of Frederick's old friend and
correspondent Prince Joseph Wenzel Liechtenstein in Austria.
Frederick was no great lover of artilleiy, but the weight of the enemy
firepower, and the strength of the Austrian and Russian positions
(and those of the French confronting Ferdinand of Brunswick in
western Germany), left him with no alternative but to strive to keep
pace: 'If this war goes on a few years more, I believe that we shall
eventually have detachments of 2,000 men marching with 6,000
cannon. This is ridiculous, I know, but we have to go along with
fashion willy-nilly, otherwise we are lost' (to Ferdinand, 21 April
1759, PC 10888; see also 'Castram6trie', 1770, Oeuvres, XXIX, 4, 38;
Testament Politique', 1768, in Frederick, 1920, 141-2; PC 10265;
Warnery, 1788, 357; Catt, 1884, 37).
As a defensive measure Frederick distributed 12-pounder cannon
among the battalions of infantiy in 1759 and 1760 (PC 11299. He
probably used the light 12-pounders made superfluous by his new
'Austrian' medium 12-pounders). This arrangement, as we have seen,
stood the Prussians in good stead when they were attacked by Loudon
at Liegnitz. For offensive purposes Frederick was much taken with
the potentialities of the howitzer, with its high, arching trajectoiy,
and its explosive shells: 'When we attack high ground, we must em-
ploy howitzers rather than cannon. When a cannon shot is fired at
such a target, it seldom hits. When, however, a shell bursts on a hill,
it causes immediate damage and considerable confusion' (Aphoris-
men', 1757, Oeuvres, XXX, 240; see also 'Instruction fur die Artil-
lerie,' 1768, Oeuvres, XXX, 310-11; 'Testament Politique', 1768, in
Frederick, 1920, 144, 163; PC 9838, 26433; Mirabeau-Mauvillon, 1788,
156; Guibert, 1803, I, 189).
As a preparation for the artillery bombardments and infantry
