German 69: Nightpiece No. 18 / Tattoo No. 21 / March No. 30

Описание: I do not own the content in this video.

The music comes from Middlesex County Volunteers fifes and drums. And the movie scenes are from the movie "Der choral von Leuthen" and "Der Grosse König", and most of the paintings have been done by Carl Röchling.

This Prussian military music comes from a manuscript by Oswald from 1758. The fife tunes are from the manuscript, while the drum notes are drawn from German and French tradition from that time. It was also used by the Hessian army in the American war for independence. The images depict the battle of Leuthen in 1757, where Prussia under King Frederick the Great managed to inflict a crushing defeat on the Austrian army which was 2 to 3 times larger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...


In the video can you see Frederick the Great's Grenadier Guard regiment and the 10th infantry regiment as they are storming the churchyard at Leuthen. The defenders were taken by surprise during the early morning of December the 5th. The Southern part of the Austrian line was where the Prussians launched their surpise attack. The area was weakly defended by unreliable troops: A regiment from protestant Würtemberg with a low willingness to fight and some Bavarian troops held in reserve.
But they had a strong defensive position behind the walls of the churchyard and manged to halt Frederick's elite troops for a while and inflict some heavy losses before the Prussian cannons brought the church walls down, and allowed the Prussian Grenadiers to punch through and force the enemy to retreat. And after that was the entire Austrian army in chaos. A large counter-attack was launched to try to save the situation. A large force of horsemen was thrown at the Prussian infantry which had just broken through the walls and was now disorganized and chased their retreating foes.
Here did von Ziethen make brave and bold decision to attack the Austrian cavalry as it rode towards the Prussian foot solidiers.
And despite the Austrian horsemen was twice as many as the Prussian riders, did the attack succed in completly wrecking the Austrian troops who were unprepared for this well organized flanking attack. And with that was the battle finally won for Prussia.

The victory was complete. Multiple enemy regiments had been wiped out, and 51 flags and 116 cannons had been captured. Austria had lost 3000 dead, 7000 wounded and 12000 men captured.
Victories as big as this one was extremely rare for the 18th century. After the battle did the Prussian soldiers spontanously start singing "Nun danket alle God" (Now we all thank our Lord). This hymn symbolized God's power over his enemies. And also many of their captured catholic Austrians and Bavarians sang along as a way of showing their skepticism by proving they were still alive.

The victory prevented Prussia from losing the war. Just like the great victory of the French army a month earlier had drastically improved Prussia's disasterously bad situation of being heavily outnumbered and surrounded by enemies in all directions.
The victory at Leuthen prevented Austria from taking the extremely rich and important province of Silesia, which also with its armaments industry had an extremely important role for the Prussian war effort. Even just a short-term loss of the province would have been devestating and likely meant that Prussia would lose the war.

Prussia had made a great demonstration of its military excellence and had greatly impressed
and stunned the world with this victory. But even with two great victories within the span of the month did not change the fact that Prussia was still fighting a war against overwhelming odds with much superior enemies in all directions.
Leuthen was Frederick's finest victory. And it showed how much the Prussian war machine had been improved towards perfection. No other armies could have marched in formation so fast and made so many complex manouvers without ending up in chaos. Frederick know the terrain at Leuthen very well since it had been the training ground for the Prussian army. So he knew how to trick the Austrians into believing that he was attacking them in the north while he made a surprise attack in the South.
Lessons had also been learned from earlier battles. So now did carriages with ammunition following short behind the attacking infantry so they fast and easily could get more ammo when they had runned out. And that helped greatly as some men did fire more than 60 shots under the battle.
The artillery was also following close behind the infantry and it could therefore help it knock down the church walls. And the timing of the Prussian cavalry attack saved the day.
Prussia had given everything it had an won, but even with this great victory against a much stronger enemy, and winning with very small losses compared to the enemy - was this battle costly for Prussia, which lost a third of its men it had sent to battle that day.
Most losses occured during the storming of the fort/churchyard