The Battle of Torgau was a major battle of the Seven Years' War that was fought in 1760 between King Frederick the Great's Prussian army and Field Marshal Leopold Joseph von Daun's Austrian army in Saxony.
Following their victory at the Battle of Liegnitz, Frederick the Great's Prussian army lingered in Silesia, enabling a Russo-Austrian army to briefly occupy Berlin. In October, Leopold Joseph von Daun's Austrian army marched north from Silesia into Saxony, and Frederick marched north to meet them as Hans Joachim von Zieten held the south. In the ensuing battle at Torgau, a Prussian surprise attack by von Zieten was detected by the Austrians' Croatian light infantry, and Frederick moved prematurely to support Von Zieten's command, resulting in Austrian cannon fire and musketry mauling the Prussians and costing them 5,000 troops within a half-hour. Daun was forced to commit his reserves to fight off a second Prussian attack, and, while a Prussian cavalry attack failed and Frederick was wounded by a spent canister round to the chest, Daun was also wounded in the foot, and the tide of battle soon turned in Prussia's favor. Zieten's columns launched a major counterattack against Franz Moritz von Lacy's corps and threw five battalions over an unguarded causeway, spearheading a Prussian counterattack which caused the Austrian lines to crumble. The Prussians won a decisive, if costly victory which depleted Austria's offensive power, forcing Austria to reduce the size of its army and gradually back out of the war.