The Prussian corps of 14,000 men, commanded by Friedrich August von Finck (one of Frederick the Great's generals), was sent to threaten lines of communication between the Austrian army at Dresden and Bohemia.

Due to the wear and tear of his forces, King Frederick II of Prussia had had to renounce the strategy, by now becoming habitual, of anticipating the movements of his opponents by launching offensives in the direction of the territories occupied by the enemy to instead take a more defensive conduct, aimed at in particular to prevent the gathering into a single mass of the Austrian and Russian armies; the monarch's action had not had a positive outcome: defeat of the Prussian army of General Carl Heinrich von Wedel in the Battle of Kay on 23 July 1759, the Russian forces of General Pyotr Saltykov had reunited with the Austrian units of Marshal Ernst Gideon von Laudon in Silesia and the following 12 August had inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Frederick II himself in the Battle of Kunersdorf.

The defeat at Kunersdorf left the Prussian army half-destroyed and the way to Berlin open, but the allies did not know how to take advantage of it: the Russians had suffered heavy losses and, after a series of unsuccessful maneuvers, Saltykov brought his forces back to the quarters set up in Poland leaving the Austrians of Laudon alone, who eventually also withdrew from Silesia.

Finck's entire Prussian force was lost in the battle, leaving 3,000 dead and wounded on the ground as well as 11,000 prisoners of war; the booty fallen into the hands of the Austrians also included 71 artillery pieces, 96 flags and 44 ammunition wagons.

The defeat at Maxen was another blow to the decimated ranks of the Prussian army, and infuriated Frederick to such an extent that General Finck was court-martialed and sentenced to two years in prison after the war.