When and where was the Battle of Domstadtl?

On 30 June 1758, in the wooded pass at Domstadtl, today Domašov nad Bystřicí, north of Olomouc in Moravia, after a first clash at Gundersdorf on 28 June.

Who fought at Domstadtl?

Austrian detachments under Ernst Gideon von Loudon and Josef Siskovics against the escort of a Prussian supply convoy under Colonel Mosel, reinforced by Lieutenant General Hans Joachim von Zieten.

How big was the Prussian convoy?

Some 3,000 to 4,000 wagons, 818 of them with artillery supplies by the count of the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, with an escort put by different sources at 7,000 to 12,000 men.

How many wagons got through?

Only about 250, which slipped through the pass with the vanguard under General Krockow before the Austrians closed it. They included the wagons carrying money.

Why was Domstadtl important?

Without the ammunition Frederick the Great could not finish the siege of Olomouc. He lifted it on 1 July 1758 and retreated into Bohemia, ending his invasion of Moravia.

Who was Ernst Gideon von Loudon?

A Baltic-born officer whom Frederick had once refused a Prussian commission. He became one of Austria's best generals, the victor of Landeshut and a key figure at Kunersdorf, and late in life took Belgrade from the Ottomans.

What can be seen of the battle today?

The cannonball memorial on Olomouc's Holy Trinity Column recalls the siege, and the Loudon museum in Nový Jičín shows the battle in a diorama of five hundred tin soldiers.

Battle of Domstadtl 1758: How Loudon's Ambush Saved Olomouc

After August Querfurt, Defeat of the Prussian convoy near Olmütz, 30 June 1758 (about 1760), engraving, Wien Museum, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Domstadtl?

On 30 June 1758 Austrian troops under Ernst Gideon von Loudon and Josef Siskovics ambushed a huge Prussian supply convoy in the wooded pass at Domstadtl, today Domašov nad Bystřicí in the Czech Republic. The convoy, some 3,000 to 4,000 wagons, was carrying ammunition and supplies to Frederick the Great's army besieging Olomouc. Its escort under General Zieten was broken and only about 250 wagons got through. Without them Frederick had to lift the siege and leave Moravia.¹

Wagons stretched for miles along a muddy mountain road, their drivers peasants pressed into service, their escort spread thin on either side. On the morning of 30 June 1758, as the head of this column entered a wooded defile near the village of Domstadtl, Austrian cannon opened fire from the trees. By evening the convoy that was to win Frederick the Great the fortress of Olomouc had been destroyed, and with it his last hope of taking the town.²

Background: the siege of Olomouc

In the spring of 1758, in the third year of the Seven Years' War, Frederick the Great carried the war into Austria's own lands. Misleading the Austrians about his intentions, he marched into Moravia and laid siege to Olomouc (Olmütz), its great fortress city, with Field Marshal James Keith directing the siege.³ › Battle of Kolín, 1757

Hand-colored eighteenth-century map of the siege of Olomouc: the fortified town in the middle of a river plain, ringed by red and green blocks marking the Prussian and Austrian camps and siege works, with a lettered key on the left — Plan of the Prussian siege of Olomouc (Olmütz) in May and June 1758, with the fortress in the center and the besieging camps around it, from the Neues Kriegs-Theater, a collection of war plans engraved in 1763. Unknown engraver, *Plan der Belagerung von Olmütz*, *Neues Kriegs-Theater*, 1763 (cropped). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The siege went slowly. Frederick's engineer, Balbi, opened the first trench line too far from the walls, and the guns wasted their ammunition at long range. The Austrian commander, Field Marshal Leopold von Daun, avoided a battle but slipped a reinforcement into the town and sent light troops to harass the roads. Every shot and every loaf of bread for the besiegers had to come by wagon from Silesia, over a hundred miles of hill roads by way of Troppau (Opava).⁴

By late June the siege was making progress, but the army was short of ammunition. Everything now depended on one great convoy. Archenholz, the historian of the war, put it simply: all depended on the safe arrival of the wagons, and Daun's main aim was to stop them.⁵

Armies and commanders

The convoy. The train was put under Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von der Mosel, an experienced officer. The Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie and Kronoskaf give about 4,000 wagons, 818 of them carrying artillery supplies, escorted by eight battalions, 3,000 to 4,000 recruits and convalescents formed into four more, and 1,100 horsemen, 11,000 to 12,000 men in all by the ADB's count. Carlyle, following the Prussian officer Tempelhof, gives 3,000 to 4,000 wagons and perhaps 7,000 foot and horse; Archenholz 3,000 wagons and an escort of 9,000. The escort marched in three bodies, vanguard, center and rearguard, with thin pickets between them, and on the narrow hill roads the train stretched for some twenty miles, too long for any part of it to help another quickly.⁶

Engraved portrait of an old Prussian general in a tall fur hussar cap and fur-trimmed coat, inside an oval frame above a nameplate — Hans Joachim von Zieten, the hussar general Frederick sent to bring the convoy in, in an engraving by Christian Friedrich Traugott Uhlemann, about 1775. Christian Friedrich Traugott Uhlemann, *Portrait of Hans Joachim von Zieten*, about 1775, Rijksmuseum RP-P-1915-385. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Frederick did not leave it there. He sent Lieutenant General Hans Joachim von Zieten, his veteran hussar general, with grenadiers, cuirassiers and hussars to meet the convoy and bring it in.⁷

The Austrians. Daun learned of the convoy through his spies and sent two strong detachments to catch it on the road: Major General Ernst Gideon von Loudon on the west and Major General Josef Siskovics on the east, with grenadiers, Croatian border infantry, hussars and dragoons. How many they were is uncertain: Carlyle credits Loudon alone with some 10,000 men, as does Kronoskaf's order of battle, while Archenholz wrote of 25,000 picked troops in the woods at Domstadtl. Carlyle called Loudon the best partisan soldier then living.⁸

Engraved portrait of an eighteenth-century general in a powdered wig and armor, with a sash, inside an oval frame — Ernst Gideon von Loudon, the Austrian raider who planned the ambush, in an engraving by Franz Gabriel Fiessinger published in 1773. Franz Gabriel Fiessinger, *Gideon Ernst von Laudon*, 1773, Polona. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The battle in phases

The road from Troppau. Mosel left Troppau on 26 June. The roads, worn by traffic and soaked by rain, were dreadful, wagons stuck, and the train fell apart into a jumble; Mosel halted for a day to collect his stragglers, and even so a part of the train had to be left behind.⁹

Gundersdorf, 28 June. Near Gundersdorf (Guntramovice) Mosel found Loudon waiting for him in the defiles. After a hard fight the Prussians stormed into the woods and drove the Austrians off, but the long train was left in disorder.¹⁰

A fatal day's delay. That evening Mosel reached Neudörfl and met Zieten. The next morning barely half the wagons had come up, and the Prussians spent the whole of 29 June gathering them in. The Austrians used the day to bring their two detachments together on the wooded heights above the next defile, at Domstadtl.¹¹

Hand-colored eighteenth-century map of the attack on the convoy: a road winds through wooded hills past villages, with green and blue blocks for the Austrian and Prussian troops and a circle of wagons, and a lettered key at top left — Plan of the Austrian attack on the Prussian convoy on 28 and 30 June 1758, showing the road through the wooded hills, the villages of Altliebe and Domstadtl and the wagon fortress, from the Neues Kriegs-Theater, 1763. Unknown engraver, *Plan der Attaque zweier Oesterreichischen Corps auf den Transport*, *Neues Kriegs-Theater*, 1763 (cropped). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The ambush, 30 June. The vanguard under General Krockow passed Domstadtl without seeing the enemy. As the first wagons entered the defile, Austrian cannon, musketry and cavalry struck from the woods, shooting the horses and throwing the column into chaos. Krockow's infantry drove the first attack back long enough for about 250 wagons, among them the wagons carrying money, to get through; they halted beyond the pass to wait for the rest.¹²

Turning point: the wagon fortress

Behind them the column could not move. Zieten drew the remaining wagons together into a wagon fortress, a Wagenburg, ranged his men and guns around it, and attacked the Austrians on both flanks, taking hills and losing them again. Then the rest of Loudon's troops came up. Attacked from several sides by an enemy that could strike in strength wherever it chose, while the Prussians were strung out in small detachments to guard the wagons, the defense began to give way. Powder wagons blew up, the drivers cut their traces and rode off, and the wagon fortress broke.¹³

Zieten, cut off from the army at Olomouc, had to fall back toward Troppau with what he could save, and the convoy was lost. A battalion of young recruits, barely trained, fought where it stood until it was destroyed: of some 700 recruits by Carlyle's count, or 900 by Archenholz's, only about 65 were taken prisoner, most of the rest lying dead on the field.¹⁴

Aftermath

The Austrians took most of the wagons and burned or blew up what they could not carry off; most of the escort was scattered or captured. Of the whole train only the 250 wagons that had passed Domstadtl ever reached the Prussian camp.¹⁵

Without the ammunition there was no taking Olomouc. The news reached Frederick on 1 July, and he gave up the siege. He called his generals together and spoke to them of his confidence in the army, and in the early hours of 2 July the army marched away, not back to Silesia, as Daun expected, but into Bohemia, with Keith bringing off the siege train and some 4,000 wagons in a retreat that won wide praise. Archenholz thought the siege should never have been undertaken at all.¹⁶ › Battle of Hochkirch, 1758

For Loudon, Domstadtl was the start of a rapid rise. The Nový Jičín museum records his promotion that July; Archenholz lists the convoy among the deeds that made him, by 1761, the great support of Maria Theresa's throne, together with Hochkirch later that year, Kunersdorf in 1759 and the destruction of Fouqué's corps at Landeshut in 1760. Three decades later he took Belgrade from the Ottomans.¹⁷ › Battle of Landeshut, 1760

Legacy and memory

There was an irony in Loudon's victory that his contemporaries noticed. Before the war the young Baltic officer had gone to Berlin hoping for a commission in the Prussian army, and Frederick had turned him away; he went on to Vienna instead. Archenholz reflected that without Loudon in Maria Theresa's army the war might not have lasted seven campaigns.¹⁸

In the Czech lands Loudon became a folk figure. The cry “Himmel, Laudon!”, heaven, Loudon is here, survived as a curse, and a popular song still tells of General Laudon riding through the village. Czech writers have called the ambush at Domašov a model of what could almost be called guerrilla warfare, and they remember it as the day Olomouc was saved.¹⁹

Visiting the area today

The ambush was fought around the village of Domašov nad Bystřicí, the old Domstadtl, on the road from Opava to Olomouc. In Olomouc itself the Holy Trinity Column on the Upper Square, consecrated only a few years before the siege, was struck by Prussian cannonballs, and the column still keeps a reminder of them. In Nový Jičín, where Loudon died, a museum devoted to him shows the battle in a diorama of five hundred tin soldiers.²⁰ › 30 June in military history

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany. ↩
J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”. ↩
J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII. ↩
J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”. ↩
Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany. ↩
Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Zieten, Hans Joachim von”; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”. ↩
Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Zieten, Hans Joachim von”. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Zieten, Hans Joachim von”. ↩
Bernhard von Poten, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII. ↩
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, book XVIII; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”. ↩
Tourist Information Center Nový Jičín, “Seven Years' War”; J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Seznam Zprávy, “Slyšeli o něm všichni a téměř nikdo o něm nic neví. Kdo byl generál Laudon”; Echo24, “Himllaudon, je tu Laudon. 300 let od narození polního maršálka”. ↩
J. W. von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany; Seznam Zprávy, “Slyšeli o něm všichni a téměř nikdo o něm nic neví. Kdo byl generál Laudon”; Echo24, “Himllaudon, je tu Laudon. 300 let od narození polního maršálka”. ↩
Echo24, “Himllaudon, je tu Laudon. 300 let od narození polního maršálka”; Seznam Zprávy, “Slyšeli o něm všichni a téměř nikdo o něm nic neví. Kdo byl generál Laudon”. ↩
Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”; Echo24, “Himllaudon, je tu Laudon. 300 let od narození polního maršálka”; Olomouc tourist office, “Holy Trinity Column”; Tourist Information Center Nový Jičín, “Seven Years' War”. ↩

Sources

Kronoskaf, Project Seven Years War, “1758-06-30: Combat of Domstadl”
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called Frederick the Great, book XVIII, chapter XII, “Siege of Olmutz”, 1864, via Project Gutenberg, “History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 18”
Bernhard von Poten, “Mosel, Friedrich Wilhelm von der”, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 22 (1885), via Deutsche Biographie (in German)
Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, The History of the Seven Years War in Germany, translated by F. A. Catty, Frankfurt, 1843, book IV, via Internet Archive, “The history of the Seven Years War in Germany”
Bernhard von Poten, “Zieten, Hans Joachim von”, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 45 (1900), via Deutsche Biographie (in German)
Tourist Information Center Nový Jičín, “Seven Years' War”
Seznam Zprávy (in Czech), “Slyšeli o něm všichni a téměř nikdo o něm nic neví. Kdo byl generál Laudon”
Echo24 (in Czech), “Himllaudon, je tu Laudon. 300 let od narození polního maršálka”
Statutory City of Olomouc, tourism department, “Holy Trinity Column”