Why did Frederick the Great do so much worse against the Russians than against his other enemies in the Seven Years' War?

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Accepted answer

Pure speculation from my side, feel free to downvote:

Frederick relied a lot on fast movements and surprise attacks that sent the enemy into retreat and disarray.

At Zorndorf, the terrain both hindered fast flanking movements, and also stopped the Russians from retreating. So instead the battle became bloody hand-to-hand combat on a long line. In that situation, no-one had the upper hand, and both sides suffered heavy losses.

Frederick is supposed to have said "It's easier to kill the Russians than to win over them" after the battle, indicating that perhaps he didn't understand the terrain at that site. The Russians as a result got the reputation of refusing to retreat.

However, this reputation may have had some base in reality as well, because at Kunersdorf, Frederick let his top cavalry under von Seydlitz do his typical fast "shock and awe" maneuvers, but instead of sending the Russians into disarray, the cavalry ended up having to retreat in disarray, and the Russians quickly used that to turn the table and send all of Frederick army into chaotic retreat. This failure can possibly be ascribed to von Seydlitz cavalry expecting the Russians not to retreat, based on the experiences as at Zorndorf, but perhaps it was because they actually refused to retreat, or perhaps a combination.

So my speculation is that either the Russians were more disciplined and would not fall into panicked retreats, something that Frederick was to a large extent relying on in his tactics, or the Prussian army failed because it expected the Russian army to not retreat, and hence would fall back and retreat themselves when their attacks didn't seem to have the desired effect.

But I'm sure you can find better analyses by reading military tactics books about Frederick, which I have not done.

Upvote:2

The main genius Frederick had was remembering to snitch a province at the start of his wars to pay for the war and fill his army. This is how he got Silesia before the 7 Years war, and Saxony in it. He failed to hold on to Saxony.

Aside from the signature wins at Rossbach, Freddy the G had just as much of an issue beating the Austrians. He was routed at Kolin and had to flee Bohemia, Torgau was a bloody affair, not a decisive one. We could go into more but he got his share of repulses and defeats from all sides but the French, who he only faced once.

Both the Russians and the Austrians used entrenched, defensive positions against him, which he attacked. Both had decent troops. The major difference I think is that the Russians took so long to march to the theatre that the Prussians were weak from previous campaigning, and in a hurry to eject them and thus tended to attack with less caution. There could also be some prejudice there by Frederick himself.

Upvote:5

The closing paragraph of this article on Zorndorf, I believe, exactly captures the essence of the question:

Zorndorf exactly illustrates the components of Frederick’s military character: his gross over confidence, his inability to listen to advice, even from those he claimed to trust, his impetuosity and aggression, his failure to ensure that he had sufficient information on the lay of the land and the nature of his enemy’s position before launching his attack, his assumption that his subordinates understood what they had to do without giving them full instruction, his dependence on key subordinates and his collapse of will at moments of extreme crisis.

We have become so familiar with the strengths of Frederick's military capabilities, we forget that he had weaknesses also, and in some cases (such as his reliance on capable subordinates) the same character trait is both a weakness and a strength, depending on circumstance.

By contrast, though Napoleon inherited a plethora of capable (and better - Davout, Lannes, Massena, Desaix for starters) subordinates, he was incapable of creating any new ones (Eugene the one possible exception.). As they gradually died (or retired) the corps and divisional leadership beneath Napoleon weakened, and the Grande Armee's abilities weakened as well.

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