Battle of Leuthen
Reportedly, after the King dismounted, he addressed them politely, "Good evening, Gentlemen, I dare say you did not expect me here. Can one get a night's lodging along with you?"
After a day of rest, on 7 December, Frederick sent half his cavalry with Zieten, chasing Charles's retreating army, now heading toward Königgrätz by Schweidnitz and captured another 2,000 men and their baggage. With the rest of his army, Frederick marched on Breslau. By chasing Charles's army into Bohemia, the Prussians guaranteed the isolation of the Allied garrison holding Breslau. The Austrian general left in command of the city, Lieutenant Field Marshal Salman Sprecher von Bernegg, had a combined force of French and Austrian of 17,000 men. Breslau was a well-fortified city of walls and moats. The Austrians were determined to hold Breslau not only because losing it would cost them control of Silesia and considerable diminution of prestige but also because of the immense quantities of stores that the city held. The Austrian commander, recognizing his grim plight, posted placards on gallows and poles throughout the city and warned that anyone who spoke of surrender would be hanged immediately. On 7 December, Frederick laid siege to the city, and the future of Austrian control of Breslau and the region looked grim. Indeed, Breslau surrendered on 19–20 December.

Casualties: Out of an army of approximately 66,000 men, the Austrians lost 22,000, including 3,000 dead, 7,000 wounded and an astonishing 12,000 captured. Of the dead and wounded, the Austrian demographer and historian Gaston Bodart estimated that almost 5% were officers. He also placed such other losses as capture and desertion at 17,000, almost 26%. Charles lost entire regiments, which scattered in the first attacks or overrun at the end; they simply dissolved in the waves of Prussian blue coats. The Prussians also captured 51 standards and 116 of the 250 Austrian cannons. Of the Prussian army of 36,000, Frederick lost 6,344, including 1,141 dead, 5,118 wounded and 85 captured. He lost none of his artillery.
Despite the victory, its cost was high: Frederick lost one fifth of the men he had taken into battle, including two of his major generals.
The battle presented a severe blow to Austrian morale. The army had been soundly beaten by another half its size with fewer guns and tired after a long march over twelve days. Charles and his second-in-command, Count Leopold Joseph von Daun, sank "in the depths of despondency", and the prince could not fathom what had happened. Charles had a mixed-to-poor record against Frederick in past encounters, but he had never fared so badly as at Leuthen. After the crushing defeat, Maria Theresa replaced him with Daun. Charles retired from military service and later served as the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands.
The Austrians also learned some lessons, such as not to fight the Prussians in open fields and to choose their own ground for battle. They later used those lessons.

Assessments: Frederick had benefited from an obliging enemy. Firstly, Charles saw what he wanted to see regarding the principal attack, instead of using his efficient light cavalry to scout the Prussian movements. Frederick commented later that a lone patrol could have uncovered his plan. The cavalry that Frederick had left demonstrating in front of the northernmost position of the Austrian line was simply a diversion to hide his real movements. Secondly, the Austrians obliged him by their failure to post pickets on their unprotected flank south of Leuthen. Nádasdy's omission of outposts on his open flank south of Leuthen was a surprising oversight for an officer with his long years of experience against the Prussians. He should have considered the possibility of an attack from an unexpected place because that was Frederick's modus operandi. Thirdly, even when confronted with the attack on his left, the diversion on the right flank near Frobelwitz continued to mesmerize Charles. When he ordered cavalry to move from the north to support the faltering troops in and around Leuthen in the south, they had too far to travel in too little time.
The battle was Frederick's greatest victory so far, perhaps the greatest use of tactics in his career, and showed the superiority of Prussian infantry. In one day, Frederick had regained every advantage the Austrians had won earlier that year at Breslau and Schweidnitz and ended the Austrian attempt to reclaim Silesia. The battle became an exemplar on the use of 18th-century linear tactics. Frederick had learned valuable lessons at  Battles of Prague and Kolin in which his infantry had run out of ammunition and lost the initiative. At Leuthen, ammunition wagons moved with the advancing lines of grenadiers and infantry battalions, which allowed the troops to be resupplied quickly without losing momentum. Although some infantrymen fired as many as 180 rounds, the advance never halted for lack of ammunition. The Prussian cavalry successfully protected the infantry's flanks, most notably during Nádasdy's assault on the Prussian grenadiers at Leuthen's church. The cavalry also provided tactically important charges, disrupting Austrian attempts to reform, which eventually turned the defeat into a rout. Frederick's horse artillery, which was sometimes called the flying artillery for its ability to move rapidly, maintained its fire and kept pace with the army and deployed and redeployed its guns as needed. In addition to the physical damage they wrought, the distinctive sound of the horse artillery's 12-pounder cannon, sometimes called Brummers, heightened Prussian morale and reduced that of the Austrians.
The victory changed the attitude of Frederick's enemies. Before the battle, he was often referred to in an unflattering, even demeaning, manner, but after Leuthen, he was widely called the King of Prussia in both polite and popular conversation. The victories at Leuthen and Rossbach earned Frederick respect and fear, which even his bitter enemies held for the rest of the war and the subsequent peace. Both battles probably saved Prussia from conquest by Austria. Half-a-century later, Napoleon called Leuthen "a masterpiece of movements, maneuvers and resolution".

Memorials: A memorial erected in 1854 honoured the Prussian army at Leuthen. Frederick's great-great nephew, King Frederick William IV, ordered a victory column with a gilded goddess of victory at Heidau 5 km (3 mi) north-west of Leuthen. The Berlin architect Friedrich August Stüler provided the design for the monument, and Christian Daniel Rauch created the goddess of victory. The sculptor Heinrich Menzel from Neisse constructed the column in his workshop, in local white-gray stone. Moritz Geiss executed the plinth and the goddess in zinc casting and gilded the statue Victoria for a better effect. Befitting its importance in the establishment of the Prussian state and the mythos of Frederick the Great, the monument reached 20 meters (66 ft). During or after the Second World War, soldiers or partisans dynamited the monument, and only ruins of its pedestal remain, renovated in 2011.

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Bibliography: 
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