260 years ago, on August 30, 1757, the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf took place. This was the first general battle for the Russian army in the Seven Years War. And the "invincible" Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal Lewald could not withstand the onslaught of the "Russian barbarians" under the command of Field Marshal SF Apraksin. The decisive role will be played by the strike of the regiments of Major General P. A. Rumyantsev, which he delivered on his own initiative. The Prussians fled.
However, having won the general battle, Apraksin did not build on his success. He stopped the troops, set up camp and was inactive. This allowed the Prussian command to calmly withdraw the troops and bring their order. Moreover, in September Apraksin suddenly withdraws to the other bank of the Pregel and begins a hasty retreat to the Neman, as if he had been defeated, and not by the Prussians. The recovered Prussians, having learned about the withdrawal of the Russians with a delay of a week, from that moment pursued the Russian army on their heels all the way to the Prussian border. The reasons for such shameful actions of the Russian commander-in-chief are controversial to this day. It is believed that they are connected with the internal political situation in Russia itself - Elizabeth was seriously ill, could die, and the throne was to be inherited by a fan of the Prussian king Frederick, Tsarevich Peter. Therefore, Apraksin, betting on victory at the Petersburg court of the party of Tsarevich Peter, was afraid to develop an offensive so as not to fall into disgrace under the new sovereign. As a result, the success of the general engagement was not used; the next year the campaign had to start from scratch. Apraksin himself was removed from office, put on trial, and, without waiting for the trial, died.
Thus, the Russian army had every opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on Prussia and end the campaign already in 1757. However, due to the indecision and mistakes of the high command, who was more busy with court intrigues than war, this was not done, and the chances for a quick victory were lost.
Background
The Seven Years War (1756-1763) is one of the largest conflicts of modern times. The war was fought both in Europe and overseas: in North America, in the Caribbean, India, in the Philippines. All the European great powers of that time, as well as most of the middle and small states of Western Europe, took part in the war. It is not surprising that W. Churchill even called the war "the first world war."
The main prerequisite for the Seven Years War was the struggle of France and England for hegemony in European civilization (Western project) and, accordingly, world domination, which resulted in the Anglo-French colonial rivalry and a major war in Europe. In North America, border skirmishes took place between English and French colonists, involving Indian tribes on both sides. By the summer of 1755, the clashes had turned into an open armed conflict, in which both the Allied Indians and the regular troops began to participate. In 1756 Great Britain officially declared war on France.
At this time, a new great power appeared in Western Europe - Prussia, which violated the traditional confrontation between Austria and France. Prussia, after King Frederick II came to power in 1740, began to claim a leading role in European politics. Having won the Silesian Wars, the Prussian king Frederick took from Austria Silesia, one of the richest Austrian provinces, significantly increasing the territory of the kingdom and the population more than twice - from 2, 2 to 5, 4 million people. It is clear that the Austrians were eager for revenge, not intending to concede the leadership in the then fragmented Germany to the Prussians and wanting to recapture rich Silesia. On the other hand, London, starting the war with Paris, needed "cannon fodder" on the continent. The British did not have a strong ground army and concentrated their available forces on the colonies. In Europe, for England, where she had her own territory - Hanover, the Prussians were supposed to fight.
Thus, Great Britain in January 1756 entered into an alliance with Prussia, thereby wishing to protect itself from the threat of a French attack on Hanover, the hereditary possession of the English king on the continent. The Prussian king Frederick, considering the war with Austria inevitable and realizing the limited resources of his resources, made a bet on "English gold". He also hoped for the traditional influence of England on Russia, hoping to keep Russia from actively participating in the forthcoming war and thereby avoid a war on two fronts. With this he miscalculated. Russian Chancellor Bestuzhev considered Prussia the worst and most dangerous enemy of Russia. In St. Petersburg, the strengthening of Prussia was perceived as a real threat to its western borders and interests in the Baltic and northern Europe. Moreover, then Austria was a traditional ally of Russia (they fought together with the Turks), an allied treaty with Vienna was signed back in 1746.
It should be noted that, on the whole, this war did not meet the national interests of Russia. In this war, the Russians acted as cannon fodder for Vienna, defending its imperial interests. Prussia, which had strong enemies, did not pose a strong threat to the Russians. Russia had more pressing tasks, in particular, the need to return the Black Sea region with the Crimea and Russian lands within the Commonwealth (Poland)
The conclusion of the Anglo-Prussian alliance pushed Austria, eager for revenge, to move closer to its traditional enemy - France, for which Prussia now also became an enemy. In Paris, they were outraged by the Anglo-Prussian alliance and went to meet Austria. France, which had previously supported Frederick in the first Silesian Wars and saw in Prussia only an obedient instrument for fighting Austria, now saw an enemy in Frederick. A defensive alliance was signed between France and Austria at Versailles, to which Russia joined at the end of 1756. As a result, Prussia, blinded by English gold, had to fight a coalition of the three strongest continental powers, which were joined by Sweden and Saxony. Austria planned to return Silesia. Russia was promised East Prussia (with the right to exchange it from Poland for Courland). Sweden and Saxony were also seduced by other Prussian lands - Pomerania and Luzitsa (Lusatia). Soon almost all German principalities joined this coalition.
The beginning of the war
Frederick decided not to wait for the enemy diplomats to divide his lands among themselves, the commanders prepare the armies and begin the offensive. He attacked first. In August 1756, he suddenly invaded and occupied Saxony, allied with Austria. On September 1 (12), 1756, the Russian empress Elizabeth Petrovna declared war on Prussia. On September 9, the Prussians surrounded the Saxon army camped near Pirna. On October 1, the Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal Brown, which was marching to the rescue of the Saxons, was defeated at Lobozitsa. Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the Saxon army surrendered on October 16. The captured Saxon soldiers were forcibly recruited into the Prussian army. The Saxon king Augustus fled to Poland (he was also the Polish ruler at the same time).
Thus, Frederick II knocked out one of the opponents; received a convenient base of operations for the invasion of Austrian Bohemia and Moravia; transferred the war to the enemy's territory, forcing him to pay for it; used the rich material and human resources of Saxony to strengthen Prussia (he simply plundered Saxony).
In 1757, three main theaters of military operations were defined: in West Germany (here the opponents of the Prussians were the French and the Imperial army - various German contingents), Austrian (Bohemia and Silesia) and East Prussian (Russian). Counting on the fact that France and Russia would not be able to enter the war before the summer of 1757, Frederick planned to defeat Austria before that time. Frederick did not care about the arrival of the Pomeranian Swedes and the possible Russian invasion of East Prussia. “Russian crowd of barbarians; Should they fight the Prussians! - said Friedrich. In early 1757, the Prussian army entered Austrian territory in Bohemia. In May, the Prussian army defeated the Austrian army under the command of Prince Charles of Lorraine near Prague and blockaded the Austrians in Prague. Taking Prague, Frederick was going to go to Vienna and destroy his main enemy. However, the plans of the Prussian blitzkrieg were not destined to come true: the second Austrian army under the command of the talented Field Marshal L. Down came to the aid of the Austrians besieged in Prague. On June 18, 1757, in the vicinity of the town of Colin, the Prussian army was defeated in a decisive battle.
Frederick retreated to Saxony. His position was critical. Prussia was surrounded by numerous enemy armies. In the spring of 1757, France entered the war, whose army was considered one of the strongest in Europe. In the spring and summer, the northern 70 thousand French army under the command of Marshal Louis d'Estré occupied Hesse-Kassel and then Hanover, defeating the 30 thousand Hanoverian army. The Prussian king entrusted the defense against Austria to the Duke of Bevern, and he himself departed for the Western Front. Having from this moment a significant numerical superiority, the Austrians won a series of victories over Frederick's generals and captured the key Silesian fortresses of Schweidnitz and Breslau. The flying Austrian detachment even temporarily captured the Prussian capital Berlin in October.
The northern French army was led by the new commander-in-chief, Louis Francois, the Duke de Richelieu. He belonged to the party of decisive opponents of rapprochement between France and Austria and sympathized with the party of Frederick's supporters at the French court. According to the military historian A. A. Kersnovsky (The History of the Russian Army), Frederick simply bribed Richelieu. As a result, the northern French army, which, after defeating the Hanoverians, opened its way to Magdeburg and Berlin, was in no hurry to continue the offensive. Meanwhile, Frederick, taking advantage of the inaction of the northern French army, on November 5, in the vicinity of the village of Rosbach, with a surprise attack completely defeated the second army of the French and Imperials. After this, Frederick transferred his army to Silesia and on December 5 won a decisive victory over the superior numbers of the Austrian army under the command of the Prince of Lorraine at Leuthen. The Austrians were crushed to smithereens. The Prussians are fighting off Breslau. Almost all of Silesia, with the exception of Schweidnitz, again falls into the hands of Frederick. Thus, the situation that had existed at the beginning of the year was restored, and the result of the 1757 campaign was a "combat draw".
Russian front
The Russian army announced a campaign in October 1756, and during the winter, Russian troops were to concentrate in Livonia. Field Marshal Stepan Fedorovich Apraksin was appointed commander-in-chief. He began military service in 1718 as a soldier in the Preobrazhensky regiment and in the reign of Peter II was already a captain. Thanks to the patronage of his stepfather, the head of the Secret Chancellery A. I. Ushakov (this cunning man was able to lead the Secret Chancellery under five monarchs) and B. Minikha made a quick career, although he did not possess any military talents.
Apraksin loved luxury. He was always richly dressed and studded with diamonds. The Russian historian, Prince MM Shcherbatov wrote about Apraksin: “… he was little knowledgeable in things, he was sneaky, luxurious, ambitious, he always had a great table, his wardrobe consisted of many hundreds of different rich caftans; in the campaign, all the calmness, all the pleasures followed him. His tents were the size of a city, the wagon train weighed more than 500 horses, and for his own use there were 50 groovy, richly dressed horses with him. At the same time, Apraksin knew how to find high patrons. Arrogant and arrogant with his subordinates, Apraksin did everything to maintain his influence at court. So, he became a friend of Chancellor A. Bestuzhev-Ryumin. As a result, Apraksin's movement in the service went even faster: in 1742 he was a lieutenant colonel of the guards and a lieutenant general, in 1746 a general-in-chief, in the absence of management talents, he became president of the Military Collegium. In 1751 he was awarded the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called. When Russia entered into an alliance with Austria against Prussia, the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna granted Apraksin a field marshal and appointed the commander-in-chief of the army in the field.
Field Marshal S. F. Apraksin
Such a mighty outwardly, but inside empty, with a rotten man became the commander of the main Russian army. Apraksin himself tried in every possible way not to take any drastic steps. In addition, he was placed in close dependence on the Conference - a kind of supreme military council that was borrowed from the Austrians - a deteriorated copy of the Hofkrigsrat. The members of the Conference were: Chancellor Bestuzhev, Prince Trubetskoy, Field Marshal Buturlin, the Shuvalov brothers. At the same time, the Conference immediately fell completely under Austrian influence and, "commanding" the army many hundreds of miles from St. Petersburg, was primarily guided by the interests of Vienna.
In the winter and spring of 1757, the Russian army completed its concentration in Livonia. The troops had a significant shortage, especially in the command staff. An unsatisfactory situation was with the supply of the army, its administrative and economic part. In addition, command morale was bad. The Russian army lost its high fighting spirit, which had been since the victories of Peter the Great, but the Russian soldier, fighting the Swedes and Ottomans, more than once showed his high fighting qualities. Russian soldiers needed only commanders with a "Russian spirit." But there were problems with that. There were four field marshals in Russia: Count A. K. Razumovsky, Prince Trubetskoy, Count Buturlin and Count Apraksin. However, all of them were not real generals, they were rather experienced courtiers, not warriors, “field marshals of peace, not war,” as one of them, Razumovsky, said about himself.
They feared the Prussians, considered them almost invincible. From the time of Peter the Great and Anna Ivanovna, German orders were a model for Russia, the Germans were teachers and bosses. In Russia, the Romanovs have developed a nasty habit of belittling themselves in comparison with foreigners (now this disease is again very common in Russia). And the army of Frederick beat the Austrians, the French. After the first skirmish on the border, when three Russian dragoon regiments were overturned by the Prussian hussars, the entire army was seized by "great timidity, cowardice and fear" - noted the war veteran, Russian writer A. Bolotov. Moreover, this fear and cowardice at the top was stronger than among ordinary Russian soldiers. The Russian elite, nobility and officers followed the path of Europeanization (Westernization), that is, they extolled everything Western, European (including military affairs) in comparison with Russian.
Frederick II disdained the Russian army: “the Russian barbarians do not deserve to be mentioned here,” he noted in one of his letters. The Prussian king had some idea of the Russian troops from his officers who had previously been in the Russian service. They did not rate the top commanding staff of the Russian army too highly. Frederick left an army under the command of the old Field Marshal Johann von Lewald to defend East Prussia - 30, 5 thousand soldiers and 10 thousand militias. Lewald began his military career back in 1699, distinguished himself in a number of battles, and in 1748 was appointed Governor General of East Prussia. At the beginning of the Seven Years War, the brave and experienced Prussian commander successfully pushed back the Swedish corps, which was trying to attack Stettin from Stralsund. Frederick had no doubt that in the first general battle the Russian "barbarian army" would be defeated by the valiant Prussians. He even drafted a peace deal with Russia, planning to divide Poland with the help of the Russians.
Prussian Field Marshal Johann von Loewald
In May 1757, Apraksin's army, numbering about 90 thousand people, of which about 20 thousand irregular troops (Cossacks, non-combatants, Kalmyks armed with bows and melee weapons, etc.), set out from Livonia in the direction of the Neman River. The Russian commander-in-chief was himself a mediocrity, and he completely depended on the Conference. He had no right to make important decisions without the consent of Petersburg. For any change in the situation, even for every little detail, the commander-in-chief had to get in touch with Petersburg. At the beginning of the campaign, the Conference ordered him to maneuver so that he could go to Prussia or through Poland to Silesia. The purpose of the campaign was the capture of East Prussia. But Apraksin until June believed that part of his army would be sent to Silesia to help the Austrians.
On June 25 (July 6), 1757, 20 thousand auxiliary corps under the command of General-in-Chief Fermor, with the support of the Russian fleet, took Memel. This served as a signal for a decisive offensive by the Russian army. Apraksin with the main forces headed in the direction of Virballen and Gumbinen. Joining with Fermor's corps, on August 12 (23), Apraksin's army headed for Allenburg. All this time, Lewald was located in a well-defended position at Velau, limiting himself to sending an observation detachment. However, having learned about the movement of Apraksin to Allenburg, deeply bypassing the position of the Prussian army, Lewald went to meet the Russians, intending to engage in a decisive battle.
