Being a believer in the pre-emptive strike, on 29 August 1756 Frederick invaded Saxony with the bulk of the Prussian army, against the advice of his British allies.

Meanwhile, realizing that the siege would take some time, he was compelled to leave a covering force around Pirna and head south through the rough Mittel-Gebirge of northern Bohemia to establish a winter base in the rich Bohemian plain.

[3] An Austrian army under Field Marshal von Browne had prepared a fortified base at Budin to block any Prussian moves out of the Mittel-Gebirge.

Browne's intelligence told him that the Prussians would exit from the mountains at Lobositz, modern day Lovosice in the Czech Republic a few miles northwest of his fortified base at Budin.

He recalled his small relief force up the Elbe and raced with 33,000 men up to Lobositz on the 28th to lay an ambush for Frederick as he debouched from the narrow passes of the mountains.

The Austrian army took up defensive positions on an extinct volcano above Lobositz, the Lobosch, deploying their battalions from Croatia among the walled vineyards that covered the lower flanks of that hill.

As the mist lifted, a heretofore hidden battery of Austrian heavy guns in front of Lobositz (12 pounders and howitzers) began to fire on the exposed Prussian infantry.

Frederick's artillery commander, Karl Friedrich von Moller, brought up the rest of his own heavy guns and howitzers on the Prussian left to answer this new threat.

[5] Anxious to end this and brush away what he thought was an annoying rear guard, Frederick took his staff's advice and ordered a limited cavalry charge down the hill to chase the few Austrians away.

Continuing on, however, the Prussian squadrons came upon the unexpected sunken road between Lobositz and the Morellenbach, in which were hidden several hundred irregulars and Austrian grenadiers.

As the surviving Prussian cavalry made their way forward in disorder across the sunken road, assailed on the right and left by the ambush laid for them, they were finally counterattacked by a hidden brigade of 1,300 fresh Austrian cuirassiers (the Cordua and Stampach Regiments under Karel Adam Felix von Lobkowitz) and thrown back.

[6] It was suddenly apparent from this surprising setback that Frederick was not facing any mere rear guard but the entire Austrian army, deployed in a strong, flanking position.

This time he withdrew to the village of Wchinitz behind his front line and left command of the battle to Bevern and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick.

The Prussians, themselves having lost about the same number, had fully expected to have to resume fighting the next day, this time attacking across the formidable marsh of the Morellen.

But during the night Browne, having accomplished his immediate objective of stopping Frederick's momentum, ordered his army to fall back to the prepared lines of Budin.

"[9] Both sides lost about the same number of men each, about 2,900, which was more severe for the initially smaller Prussian army[10] Frederick, still shaken in the following days, decided his only political option was to proclaim Lobositz as a victory by 18th century rules of combat (since Browne had left the field of battle).

However, Browne had done exactly what he had set out to do: stop Frederick at Lobositz and cover his own crossing of the Elbe further upstream to go and rescue the Saxon army at Pirna.

Though suffering from tuberculosis himself and coughing up blood, Browne drove himself and his men through rain and mountain passes to arrive at his rendezvous point, Königstein, at precisely the date he promised the Saxons, October 11.