Querengässer, Alexander Kesselsdorf 1745. Eine Entscheidungsschlacht in der Frühen Neuzeit

Volume 4 of the series "Contributions to the History of the Military in Saxony". When one thinks of the wars of the 18th century, the significant clashes of great military powers come to mind: the War of the Spanish Succession and the battles of Blenheim and Malplaquet, the Great Northern War and the battles of Narva and Poltava, the War of the Austrian Succession and Fontenoy, the Seven Years' War with Roßbach, Leuthen and Zorndorf or the American War of Independence with Saratoga and Yorktown. All of these battles appear again and again in the lists of the great battles of world history, and there are reasons why they deserve a place there. But none of them ended the war in which they were fought. Not so the Battle of Kesselsdorf, which is largely forgotten today and will probably never find its way into an anthology of battles of world historical significance, but which certainly deserves such a place. The immediate consequence of the victory of the Prussian army under Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau over a Saxon army on the heights near Kesselsdorf was the peace treaty of Dresden. In it, Austria once again renounced its claims to the province of Silesia, which had been lost to Prussia in the First Silesian War. In addition, Prussia rose to the rank of the major European powers and became the regional hegemon in northern Germany, while the emerging Electorate of Saxony lost considerable political importance in the empire and in Europe.