Oblique order

Once the critical flank was secure, the commander would wheel the troops 90 degrees to roll up the enemy line, and the angled formation would continue to advance.

[3]: 110  Lastly, for the oblique order to be successful the leaders of the opposing forces had to be unaware of the Frederician technique, which could be countered by a quick response from them; the attack required a confused enemy army incapable of a rapid change in their deployment.

[3]: 109  Frederick's oblique order was born of the desire to overwhelm a weak point in the enemy line, thus allowing a smaller Prussian force superiority on the battlefield.

[3]: 108  Moreover, the Frederician oblique order called for a long march, either through the night, or in the early hours of the morning of the assault, which meant that the advancing Prussian forces were almost always fatigued by the time they engaged their enemy.

[4]: 311 The first recorded use of a tactic similar to the oblique order was in 371 BC at the Battle of Leuctra, when the Thebans under Epaminondas defeated the Spartans by reinforcing their left flank to fifty rows deep, rather than spreading their troops evenly across the front.

[5] This move might have had its origin in the previous Battle of Tegyra, where the Thebans under Pelopidas, a political ally to Epaminondas, placed their best troops in close array on the left flank.

[11][12] In the Battle of Breitenfeld, fellow Imperial general Johann Tserclaes von Tilly also made an oblique advance against the Swedish and Saxon forces of Gustavus Adolphus and was repulsed only due to the Swedes' superior combined arms tactics.

The large marginally trained and poorly disciplined Allied army attempted an ill-conceived and badly executed oblique attack on the Prussian left.

The far smaller but highly trained and superbly disciplined Prussian army countered with a well-conceived and perfectly executed oblique attack of their own on the advancing Allied right.

Using intense musket and cannon fire from the front and a charge from hidden cavalry in the flank and rear, the Prussians quickly destroyed the Allied right and routed their Army.

[4]: 309 Since the Austrians had been taught valuable lessons in the Wars for Silesia, Frederician tactics were, as Frederick knew from his informants, a subject of discussion in the Viennese cabinet, where Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, remarked that 'Old Fritz' preferred a one-winged-attack style of warfare that burdened his troops heavily.