Frederick II of Prussia had won a bloody battle against Austria and was now besieging Prague. Austrian Marshal Daun arrived too late to participate in the Battle of Prague, but picked up 16,000 men who escaped from the battle. With this army he slowly moved to relieve Prague, forcing the Prussian forces to split. Frederick took 34,000 of his men to intercept Daun. Daun knew that the Prussian forces were too weak to both besiege Prague and keep him away from Prague for a longer time, so his Austrian forces took defensive positions on hills near Kolín. Frederick was forced to attack the Austrians, who were waiting on the defensive with a force of 35,160 infantry, 18,630 cavalry and 154 guns. The battlefield of Kolín consisted of gently rolling hill slopes. Frederick's plan was to envelop the Austrian right wing with most of his army. Along the Austrian lines he kept only enough troops to hide the concentration on the Prussian left wing. The Prussian main force would turn right toward the Austrians to attack their right flank. The Prussian left wing would locally outnumber the Austrians. After the Austrian right wing was defeated the battle would be decided.
Battle
Frederick's main force turned toward the Austrians too early and attacked their defensive positions frontally instead of outflanking them. Austrian Croatian light infantry played an important role in this; harassing the regular Prussian infantry under Generals Christopher Hermann von Manstein and Joachim Christian von Tresckow, they provoked them into a premature attack. The disunited Prussian columns blundered into a series of uncoordinated attacks, each against superior numbers. By the afternoon, after about five hours of fighting, the Prussians were disoriented and Daun's troops were driving them back. Prussian cuirassiers under Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz finally showed up. There were many charges and counter-charges on the KřečhořHill. The first Guard battalion under General Friedrich Bogislav von Tauentzien saved the Prussian army from a worse fate, covering the Prussian retreat.
Results
The battle was Frederick's first defeat in this war, and forced him to abandon his intended march on Vienna, raise his siege of Prague, and fall back on Litoměřice. The Austrians, reinforced by the 48,000 troops in Prague, followed them, 100,000 strong, and, falling on Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, who was retreating eccentrically at Zittau, inflicted a severe check upon him. The king was compelled to abandon Bohemia.
