Frederick II, one of the few generals in Europe to win the title of "The Great", led the Prussian army in battle for more than twenty-five years, and was essentially at a military disadvantage in many of his duels with enemies. The military operations commanded by Frederick were bold, brave and fearless, and the operational characteristics were pre-emptive. This "old German" established a great military power that allowed the Prussian Empire to rule the Continent for half a century.
It was not until the advent of Napoleon I that anyone could surpass him in military attainments. At the height of his military career, Napoleon traveled to Potsdam to visit frederick II's tomb and praised the late Prussian leader, exclaiming: "If he were alive, we would not be able to stand here." ”
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, the young king who succeeded to the throne</h1>
Frederick was born in Berlin on 24 January 1712, and during his childhood there was no indication of what military capabilities he would have in the future. He loved philosophy and art, and his father, Frederick William I, regarded him as a cowardly child, and frederick jr. was tempered by his father both mentally and physically. Under pressure from his father, Frederick accepted military service in his father's elite corps of private convoys, where his view of the military did not change much.
When Frederick was twenty years old, he tried to flee to France with an officer friend, but was caught. Frederick was forced to witness his friend being sentenced to death and himself imprisoned. During his imprisonment, Frederick finally bowed his head to fate, and after eighteen months of prison life, Frederick reconciled with his father.
In 1732 he was appointed commander of the Rubin Infantry Regiment, and in 1734 he joined the Prussian army in the War of the Polish Succession, commanded by Prince Savoy Eugen. The young Frederick learned many principles of warfare from Prince Eugen and became the basis for future operations. While studying the art of warfare, he also insisted on the study of music and art, and began a long-term correspondence with Voltaire.
On 28 May 1740, three days after the death of his father, William I, Frederick succeeded to the throne and the rule of the army. He immediately launched a campaign to improve the quality of the population, carried out military reforms, abolished judicial institutions, established institutions of individual rights, guaranteed freedom of the press, and abolished the system of torture of civilian prisoners.
Within the army, Frederick soon established a "solipsistic" military leadership. He gathered the high generals of the time of William I and declared: "In this kingdom I am the only one who can exercise power." ”
Frederick inherited an army of 80,000 strong troops and sufficient military expenditures, most of whom came from the lowest levels of society and received brutal military training from professional officers. However, regardless of its strength, the Prussian army still faced a formidable enemy. Surrounded by France, Austria, and Russia on all sides, Frederick's Prussian Empire lacked natural barriers such as mountains and rivers for fortification.
Frederick, who had been in power for several months, developed a strategy of warfare that he persisted in applying for the rest of his military career: Frederick would launch a surprise attack in three situations in which a military threat was created by the enemy in a neighboring country and the deployment of combat operations was not determined and the weakness of the enemy was already determined.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Second and Seventh Years' War</h1>
Whatever the numerical and numerical superiority of the enemy forces, Frederick adopted the military method of military operations in which he was best at launching surprise attacks. However, Frederick would not blindly attack without the enemy's position, and he had become a master of terrain, strategy and surprise attack.
In 1747, Frederick published The Military Instructions of Frederick the Great: Dedicated to My Generals, which not only provided an operational guide for the army, but also described in detail the role of strategies and tactics in his combat system in modern warfare.
Frederick's first combat experience influenced the formation of many of his military strategies. In October 1740, the Austrian monarch Charles VI died before he could determine his heir to the throne, and Frederick took advantage of the chaos in the Austrian state and army to launch an attack.
At the beginning of the war, the Prussian army was victorious when Austria was defenseless. On 10 April 1741, the Austrian army regrouped at the Battle of Morwitz, and their cavalry disrupted the March of the Prussian Horse Brigade, forcing the Prussian army to withdraw from the battlefield, and the Prussian cavalry commander persuaded Frederick to withdraw from the battlefield with him.
Although Frederick led the cavalry out of the battlefield, the Prussian infantry won the battle, and frederick returned to the front line in extreme embarrassment. He was determined never again to leave a battlefield where victory or defeat was undecided, and vowed to improve his cavalry. Over the next two decades, Frederick was a fierce warrior, and his boldness reached an almost stubborn level. Frederick also trained the world's most powerful cavalry during this period.
In 1742, the Silesian War ended, and the victorious Prussian army was immersed in the joy of eternal invincibility. In 1744, Frederick again invaded Austria and soon won the Second Silesian War. By this time, Prussia had become the main military force throughout Europe.
In the decade from 1744 to 1754, Frederick published his books on war and expanded his army. He incorporated the Horse-Drawn Artillery Regiment directly into the Cavalry Regiment and conducted extensive military training and field exercises. He built roads, facilitated commerce, contributed to military defense, and invested heavily in supporting future wars.
In 1756, Frederick, still restless with the many enemy nations around him, joined forces with England to launch the "Seven Years' War" against Austria and France. Using his usual offensive tactics, Frederick preemptively launched a surprise attack on Saxony. Although Frederick had a military purpose in attacking the ill-prepared Saxons, it was clear that he had always been hostile to Saxony because Frederick had contracted a venereal disease at the Saxon court in his youth.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" > the end of the Three and Seven Years' War</h1>
Despite his early victories, Frederick soon realized that these hostile forces from Austria, France, and Russia were far superior in strength. So he shortened the battle line and concentrated his combat strength on breaking through one by one. On November 5, 1757, at the Battle of Rothbard, Frederick's army used the terrain as a cover to concentrate its forces to crush the Franco-Austrian army and win more with less.
On 5 December, at the Battle of Leutten, Frederick's army created a false main offensive direction and moved the rest of its forces to Leutten under the cover of hills, attacking and annihilating the weak points of the Austrian army. On August 25, 1758, at the Battle of Cao-endorf, the Prussian army defeated the Russian army using essentially the same combat strategy.
Although Prussia defeated all three countries, the war was more than a victory for Frederick. Even if Frederick's tactics proved to be clever, even a victorious war brought frederick irreparable losses, and the combat effectiveness of the army was weakened. From 1759 to 1761, Frederick led an exhausted army across the Continent without a decisive victory. For the survival of the country, he saved troops on the battlefield, but this was all he could do.
At the end of the situation, Frederick proved to the world that "luck" was also an important factor for a great military commander. By 1762, Frederick's army was too weak to attack anymore, and they would soon be wiped out by the Russian army.
However, at this time, the Russian Tsarina Elizabeth died, and Peter III, who was very admired by Frederick, succeeded to the throne. He withdrew the Russian army from the previous coalition forces and signed a separate armistice with Frederick. After several not-so-decisive battles, on 16 January 1763, Austria and France agreed to sign the Armistice of Hubertusburg, ending the Seven Years' War.
After returning to his homeland, Frederick rebuilt his homeland, and he devoted himself to the improvement of the quality of life of the people with the same enthusiasm as in the war. Frederick continued his study of music and art until his death on 17 August 1786 at the age of seventy-four in his Sanssouci Palace. Even without Frederick's direct leadership, the Prussian army maintained its military superiority and was not defeated until the advent of Napoleon in the next century.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
Although the Prussian army declined in the later years of the Seven Years' War, it consolidated Frederick's lifelong prestige as a great military commander. It was his leadership that kept the country strong and became a European military power for the next half century. Frederick was a true "Great", the most influential military commander between the Marlborough era and the Napoleonic era.
References: History of the Wars in Europe, Chronicles of the Kingdom of Prussia, New Edition of the General History of Germany