Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had signed the treaty to gain time to rebuild her military forces and forge new alliances; she was intent upon regaining ascendancy in the Holy Roman Empire.

[4] By 1754, escalating tensions between Britain and France in North America offered the Empress the opportunity to regain her lost Central European territories and to limit Prussia's growing power.

[8] The Russians then used Memel as a base to invade East Prussia and defeated a smaller Prussian force in the fiercely contested Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf on 30 August 1757.

[9] Although previous experiences in wars with the Ottoman Empire had exposed these problems, the Russians had not solved the challenge of supplying their army at a distance from Moscow.

[10] Even so, the Imperial Russian Army offered a new threat to Prussia, forcing Frederick to abandon his invasion of Bohemia and to withdraw further into Prussian territory.

Initial activity focused on the village of Weissenfels, where the middle Saale emerges from the Buntsandstein of the Thuringian Basin in the Leipzig highlands, not far from the modern-day A9 highway.

[14] The scene of the battle at Rossbach, lay 14 km (9 mi) southwest of Merseburg, on a wide plateau dotted by hillocks with elevations up to 120–245 m (394–804 ft).

The ground was sandy in some areas, and marshy in others; a small stream ran between Rossbach and Merseburg, south of which rose two low hills, the Janus and the Pölzen.

Prince Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau arrived by 28 October; although his men had marched up to 43 km (27 mi) in a day, they were still eager to face the Allied forces, who had established a post close to Markranstädt, and maintained some line of control along the Saale river.

[19] While the artilleries kept up their noisy exchange, holding the Duke's attention, Frederick sent scouts to find a decent crossing of the Saale, since the one at Weissenfels was unusable.

Marshal Keith reached Merseburg and found the bridge there destroyed, with the Reichsarmee and French prepared to hold the other side of the river.

In the morning of 5 November, some of the Allied troops went out to forage, and Soubise received a notice from Saxe-Hildburghausen, something to the effect of not a moment to be lost, we should advance, gain the heights and attack from the side.

[20] The Allies possessed a numerical superiority of two to one, and their advanced post, commanded by Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, overlooked all parts of Frederick's camp.

The French and Habsburg Imperial (Reichsarmee) troops consisted of 62 battalions (31,000 infantry), 84 squadrons (10,000) of cavalry, and 109 artillery, totaling some 41,110 men, under Soubise's and Saxe-Hildburghausen's command.

Saxe-Hildburghausen's proposed battle and the more limited aim of Soubise appeared equally likely to succeed by taking this position, which threatened to cut Frederick off from a retreat to the towns on the Saale.

When Frederick saw for himself that hostile cavalry and infantry were already approaching Pettstädt, he realized his enemy's intentions: to attack him in the flank and rear, and break his communications line, if not crush him completely.

He was followed by Colonel Karl Friedrich von Moller's battery of 18 guns, which positioned themselves temporarily on the reverse of the Janus between the infantry's left and the cavalry's right.

[20] When the Prussians broke camp, they left a handful of light troops to demonstrate before the French advance post commanded by the Comte de Saint-Germain.

Noting some Prussian movement, Soubise ordered a wheeling pivot to the east,[23] a complicated maneuver under parade-ground conditions, and difficult in the field, with troops unfamiliar with each other, on uneven terrain.

[22] Unseen by the Allies, Seydlitz assembled his cavalry into two lines, one of 20 squadrons and the second of 18, and reduced the speed of his approach until they reached the screening ridge of the Pölzen hill.

Seydlitz led his rallied force toward the flank and rear of the Allied army, about 2 km (1 mi) out of the fighting and into a copse of trees between Reichardtswerben and Obschutz.

The French and Imperial troops lost six generals, an unusually high count in eighteenth century warfare, although not surprising given the emphasis on cavalry action in this battle.

In an assessment of surviving regimental records, modern sources place Prussian losses at even fewer than Bodart did: one colonel was killed, plus two other officers, and 67 soldiers.

Frederick had discovered the use of operational maneuvers and with a fraction of his entire force—3,500 horsemen, 18 artillery pieces, and three battalions of infantry—had defeated an army of two of the strongest European powers.

[36] Frederick himself called this "[T]he perfection of that art to learn at one just and determined view the benefits and disadvantages of a country where posts are to be placed and how to act upon the annoyance of the enemy.

For example, not content with the single attack and recall, the coup de main, Seydlitz withdrew his squadrons into a copse, where they regrouped under cover of the trees.

[38] French interest in the so-called Prussian war declined sharply after the Rossbach debacle and, with the signing of the Third Treaty of Versailles in March 1759, France reduced its financial and military contributions to the Coalition, leaving Austria on its own to deal with Prussia in Central Europe.

[39] The French continued their campaign against Hanover and Prussia's Rhineland territories, but the Army of Hanover—commanded by one of Frederick's finest officers, Ferdinand of Brunswick—kept them tied down in western Germany for the rest of the war.

After the Battle of Rossbach on 5 November 1757, at six o'clock in the evening, the King of Prussia Frederick II, the Great, with only a small entourage, arrived at the castle.

His Majesty would not allow any of the [wounded] officers to be disturbed, and set up his field bed in an alcove and, after giving the orders for the day, spent the night there.