Enlightenment · Europe · War

1757

Frederick's Victory at Rossbach

November 5, 1757

A combined Franco-Imperial army twice Prussia's size blundered at Rossbach. Frederick struck their flank with cavalry at a trot and routed them in ninety minutes, losing 548 men. The French suffered 10,000 casualties and a prestige wound that took decades to heal. Prussia had found its myth. A month later Frederick won again at Leuthen, cementing his reputation as the century's supreme battlefield commander.