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Updated: July 19, 2025
Yonder, sure enough: drawn out three or four miles long; with his right to the Elbe, his left to that intricate Village of Kesselsdorf; bristling with cannon; deep gullet and swampy brook in front of him: the strongest post a man could have chosen in those parts.
One Austrian battalion, that of grenadiers on the knoll at Kesselsdorf, did actually fight; and did begin that fatal outbreak, and quitting of the post there; "which lost the Battle to us!" say the Saxons. Had those grenadiers stood in their place, there is no Prussian but admits that it would have been a terrible business to take Kesselsdorf and its batteries.
There must be another surprising last attempt by Saxony and Austria; settled by battles of Hennensdorf and Kesselsdorf. So at last Frederick got the Peace of Dresden security, it is to be hoped, in Silesia, the thing for which he had really gone to war; leaving the rest of the European imbroglio to get itself settled in its own fashion after another two years of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Grim Old Dessauer having reconnoitred, and rapidly considered, decides to try it, what else? will range himself on the west side of that Tschonengrund, horse and foot; two lines, wide as Rutowski opposite him; but means to direct his main and prime effort against Kesselsdorf, which is clearly the key of the position, if it can be taken.
At Kesselsdorf it was the wing led by the young Prince Moritz that carried the Austrian lines and won the "Old Dessauer's" last fight. In the years of peace preceding the Seven Years' War, Moritz was employed by Frederick the Great in the colonizing of the waste lands of Pomerania and the Oder Valley.
Maguire too, I observe, takes post on that north or Kesselsdorf side; contiguous for the Head General. Wehla and Brentano post themselves on the south or up-stream side; it is they that hand in the siege-guns: batteries are already everywhere marked out, 13 cannon-batteries and 5 howitzer.
Kesselsdorf itself, as we said, is mainly in a kind of hollow: between Old Leopold and Kesselsdorf the ground rather mounts; and there is perceptibly a flat knoll or rise at the head of it, where the Village begins. Some trees there, and abundance of cannon and grenadiers at this moment.
The Village of Kesselsdorf itself lies rather in a hollow; in the slight beginning, or uppermost extremity, of a little Valley or Dell, called the Tschonengrund, which, with its quaggy brook of a Tschone, wends northeastward into the Elbe, a course of four or five miles: a little Valley very deep for its length, and getting altogether chasmy and precipitous towards the Elbe-ward or lower end.
A post both safe and comfortable; only you must not loiter in making up your mind as to Finck; for Friedrich has followed on the instant. Friedrich's head-quarter is already Wilsdruf, which an hour or two ago was Daun's: at Kesselsdorf vigilant Ziethen is vanguard. So that Friedrich looks over on you from the northern brow of your Chasm; delays are not good near such a neighbor.
Old Papa has the Saxons in flank; sends more and ever more other cavalry in on them; and in fact, the right wing altogether storms violently through Kesselsdorf, and sweeps it clean. Whole regiments of the Saxons are made prisoners; Roel's Light Horse we see there, taking standards; cutting violently in to avenge Roel's death, and the affront they had at Meissen lately.
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