He commanded one of the first Hussar squadrons of Frederick the Great's army and is credited with the development of the Prussian cavalry to its efficient level of performance in the Seven Years' War.

During the Seven Years' War, he came into his own as a cavalry general, known for his coup d'œil, his ability to assess at a glance the entire battlefield situation and to understand intuitively what needed to be done: he excelled at converting the King's directives into flexible tactics.

His cavalry subsequently played an important role in crushing the Habsburg and Imperial left flank at the Battle of Leuthen.

[3] In 1726, his father left military service and moved the family to Schwedt, where he became a forestry master in East Prussia; the senior Seydlitz died in 1728, leaving a widow and children in restricted financial circumstances.

[Note 2] Limited schooling was available to young Seydlitz; sources differ whether he knew how to speak and write in French, the lingua franca of Frederick the Great's Court.

[4] By Seydlitz's seventh year, he could ride a horse well, raced with older boys, and he was, by most accounts, a wild and high-spirited child.

Himself a reckless man,[7] the "Mad" Margrave inspired in young Seydlitz a passion for feats of daredevil horsemanship.

[7] Seydlitz became a skilled horseman, and many stories tell of his feats, the best known of which involved riding between the sails of a windmill in full swing.

The Margrave's regiment played an important role in the ensuing war, during which Seydlitz came to the notice of the King several times.

Realizing what had happened, the brigade's general took three squadrons of heavy cavalry to relieve Seydlitz, but these were turned back by fire from the Austrian line.

Upon his return from captivity, Seydlitz had a choice to wait for the first lieutenancy that became available in a cuirassier regiment, or take the immediate command of a troop of hussars, as a captain.

Hussars were the newest form of service in the Prussian army, and not as prestigious an assignment as cuirassiers, but Seydlitz chose the immediate promotion to a lesser unit.

Based largely on his conduct at Hohenfriedberg and Winterfeldt's recommendation, Frederick promoted Seydlitz to major on 28 July at the unusually young age of twenty-four.

He was also present in the engagement at Katholisch-Hennersdorf on 23 November, which proved convincingly to Frederick the benefit of close support during a cavalry charge.

[14] Under Seydlitz's direction, possibly influenced by the ideas of Frederik Sirtema van Grovestins,[15] Prussian cavalry learned to use only their swords, as pistols or carbines could not be fired with accuracy and had to be reloaded.

[14] Generally, cavalry horses were the sturdy warm-blood Trakehners, from Frederick's stud farm in Trakehnen, East Prussia.

[14][3] In May 1757, in defiance of the custom of holding the heavy cavalry in reserve, Seydlitz brought his regiment forward to join the advance guard at the Battle of Prague.

At the Prussian loss at Kolin in June 1757, he and a cavalry brigade checked the Austrian pursuit by a brilliant charge.

After positioning the cavalry in two ranked lines, he watched the French army move for several minutes, while puffing on his pipe; his troopers never took their eyes off him.

When he threw his pipe away, this was the signal they had waited for: the first line of massed squadrons surged forward, smashing the unprepared French in the flank.

[Note 4] Without waiting for new orders from the King, Seydlitz deployed the Prussian cavalry a third time; this proved a critical factor in the battle.

By the end of the battle, only seven infantry battalions of Frederick's army had fired a shot; the rest of the victory had been the work of Seydlitz's 38 squadrons and Karl Friedrich von Moller's artillery.

[21] The same night, on the field, the King awarded Seydlitz the Order of the Black Eagle, and promoted him to lieutenant general.

[3] After the Seven Years' War concluded with the Treaty of Hubertusburg (1763), Seydlitz became inspector general of the cavalry in Silesia, where eleven regiments were permanently stationed and where Frederick sent all his most promising officers to be trained.

Seydlitz's health had been declining for years and he suffered from recurrent bouts of syphilis; in 1772, after an attack of apoplexy, he completed a couple of stays at the spa at Carlsbad to take the mineral waters.

Seydlitz holds a position of honor as one of the four full-sized mounted figures, sharing the first tier of the plinth with the King's brother, his cousin, and Hans Joachim von Zieten.

[27] SMS Seydlitz, representing the first generation of battlecruisers, was ordered in 1910 and commissioned in May 1913, the fourth such vessel built for the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet.