Raid on Berlin (1760)

In October 1757, the Austrian general Andrash Hadik showed the vulnerability of Berlin to all of Europe, seizing the Prussian capital with his flying squad for one day.

After a series of successes in the campaign of 1759, the campaign of 1760 disappointed the Allies. Despite the overwhelming numerical superiority, they could not achieve decisive success, and on August 15 they were defeated at Lignitz . The capital of Prussia, Berlin, while remaining unprotected, in connection with which the French offered the Russian army to make a new raid on Berlin.

To induce the Russian commander Saltykov to this, his Austrian counterpart Down offered to support the outing with an auxiliary corps.

20,000 Russian soldiers, under the authority of Chernyshev , and 15,000 Austrians, under the authority of Lassi and Brentano, marched into the Brandenburg Region ; from a distance Saltykov covered them with his entire army. The prospect of robbing the royal residence was so attractive that the Austrians headed there without a single day of rest forced marches: in 10 days they traveled 400 miles. Russian General Totleben , born German, who lived in Berlin for a long time, led the avant-garde of the Russian corps, and since everything depended on the activities of the first arrival, he was in such a hurry that on October 3, on the sixth day after a speech from Beiten in Silesia , from 3,000 the man was already under the walls of Berlin.

Prussian capital did not have shafts and walls. She was protected only by a garrison of 1,200 people and therefore could not resist for a long time. Tottleben led the vanguard of 5,600 Russians who crossed the Oder River and attempted to seize the city on October 5th. This attempt to take the city on the move failed in the face of unexpected resistance. The governor of the city, General Hans Friedrich von Rokhov, wanted to retreat in the face of the Russian threat, but the commander of the Prussian cavalry, Seidlitz , recovered from his wounds in the city, rallied about 2000 defenders and managed to drive the Russians away from the city gates.

Upon learning of the danger to Berlin, Prince Eugene from Württemberg withdrew his troops from the fight against the Swedes in Pomerania, while the contingent from Saxony also arrived, increasing the number of defenders to about 18,000 thousand. However, the arrival of the Austrians of General Lassi changed the balance in favor of the Allies. The Austrians occupied Potsdam and Charlottenburg, and in the face of superior forces, the defenders were forced to leave the city and retreat to nearby Spandau.

Occupation

On October 9, the city council decided to officially hand over the city to the Russians, not the Austrians, since Austria was the worst enemy of Prussia. The Russians immediately demanded 4 million thalers in exchange for the protection of private property. Renowned merchant Johann Ernst Gotskovsky took over negotiations on behalf of Berlin and was able to convince Tottleben to reduce the collection to 1.5 million thalers. Meanwhile, the Austrians broke into the city and occupied most of it.

The Austrians were more interested in taking revenge on the city because of Prussian behavior in occupied Saxony and on Austrian territory. The Russians, concerned about improving their international reputation, generally acted with more restraint and emphasized respect for the residents. Several areas of the city were looted by the occupiers, and several royal palaces were burned. About 18,000 muskets and 143 cannons were captured by the allies. The Austrian and Russian military flags captured by the Prussian army during the hostilities were returned, and about 1,200 prisoners of war were released. The troops managed to destroy parts of the foundry.

The rumor that Frederick came to the aid of Berlin with his superior forces prompted the Allied commanders to leave the city, since they had fulfilled their main tasks. Russian-Austrian troops left the city on October 12, and moved in different directions. The Austrians, under the command of Lassi, went to Saxony, and the Russians reunited with their main army in the vicinity of Frankfurt an der Oder.

For the Berlin expedition, Count Totleben presented himself to the Order of Alexander Nevsky and the rank of lieutenant-general , however, for unclear reasons, he received neither one nor the other, but only a diploma with thanks for his duty (generals Chernyshev and Panin were awarded with the orders and elevated in rank). Unbeknownst to the command of the Russian army, Totleben published the “Relation” he composed in Warsaw about the capture of Berlin, where, along with exaggerating his own merits, unflatteringly speaks of his rivals Chernyshev and Lassi. Buturinu, he said that he would rather die than abandon his "Relation", because "everything is true there." In response to the demand from St. Petersburg to apologize to Chernyshev, he resigned, but the deserved general’s resignation was not accepted, and Totleben was appointed commander of all Russian light forces.

There is a legend connected with the Berlin expedition, mentioned by A. S. Pushkin in the “History of the Pugachev Rebellion”, that Totleben, having noticed the similarity of Pugachev , who participated in the expedition as a simple Cossack , with the heir to the Russian throne, the future Emperor Peter III , filed Pugachev thus thought of becoming an impostor.

• I. von Arhengol'ts - The History of the Seven Years War. Moscow 2001

• Oda Cannon - The capture of Berlin by Russian troops in 1760 V. Kuznetsov
• Text of Relation by Major General Totleben on the occupation of Berlin in October 1760
• Memories of Field Marshal Prince Alexander Aleksandrovich Prozorovsky about the Berlin expedition in October 1760
• The report of General Chernyshev to General-in-Chief Fermor about the occupation of Berlin by Russian troops and the further pursuit of the Prussian army. September 28, 1760