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By Root 3847 0

Eugen wrote that the Guards Jaegers skirmished very skilfully and held up the French pursuit long enough for him to take up position, reorganize his corps and send the two Guards regiments and most of his own units back to Ermolov. Eugen then stood at Nollendorf for roughly ninety minutes with two of Shakhovskoy’s regiments and the Tatar Lancers as a rearguard. He himself then retreated past the small town of Kulm which gave its name to the two-day battle that followed. By midday Eugen and his rearguard had reached Ermolov’s position at the village of Priesten, 2 kilometres beyond Kulm. Here he found Ostermann-Tolstoy, Ermolov and the entire force deployed for a major battle against Vandamme.73

Ostermann-Tolstoy had not initially intended to make a stand. Late in the evening of 28 August he had written warning Francis II to leave Teplitz since the enemy was heading in that direction in very superior numbers and Ostermann was unable to stop him. The Austrian monarch decamped but before doing so he warned Frederick William, who had just arrived in the town, about Ostermann’s message. The Prussian king immediately understood the potentially catastrophic consequences if Vandamme was allowed to take control of the crucial passes out of the Erzgebirge near Teplitz, towards which both his own forces and the Russians were heading. Even Alexander himself was at risk, since he was still stuck in the mountains somewhere on the road from Altenberg. The king immediately sent first his aide-de-camp, Colonel von Natzmer, and then his chief military adviser, General von dem Knesebeck, to warn Ostermann that he must block the French advance on Teplitz at all costs. With their own emperor’s safety at stake, there could be no question of refusing Frederick William’s plea to make a stand. Ostermann and Ermolov therefore chose the next possible defensive position at Priesten, roughly 7 kilometres from Teplitz. The Guards were already deploying in this position by eight o’clock. Roughly two hours later Frederick William arrived for a long discussion with Ostermann and Ermolov. By then the sun was out and the Russian troops were enjoying their first clear, warm day for a week.

The Russian position was anchored in three villages: Straden in the north, Priesten in the centre, and Karwitz in the south. Had these been Saxon villages, with their stone farmhouses and churches, their massive barns and their stout boundary walls, the three villages would have been of great assistance to their defenders. In Bohemia at that time, however, almost all buildings were of wood with thatch or shingle roofs. Far from offering shelter to defenders the buildings burned quickly and could easily become death traps. The Eggenmühle, a sawmill behind the Russian left, and a nearby chapel – the so-called Leather Chapel – were the only buildings of even marginal use to the defenders. Even the sawmill burned down in the course of the battle, however, killing the wounded who had taken shelter there.

As to the ground on which Ostermann had more or less been forced to fight, it too was not of great use. Its main advantage was that the Russian left flank was firmly anchored in the steep foothills of the Erzgebirge and could not easily be turned. On the Russian right, the meadow stretching southwards from Priesten to Karwitz was bordered to the east by a stream, which helped the Russian cavalry keep the French at bay. But all the serious fighting on 29 August was confined to the centre and north of the Russian line, which stretched from Priesten to Straden. This was open ground, dotted with bushes, shrubbery, and the ditches which were the normal boundary-markers between the villagers’ small gardens. The Teplitz highway, which ran just south of Priesten, was slightly raised above the surrounding land and offered some cover from French artillery to the east for men in or just behind the village.74

On the far left of the allied line, Straden was held by the Guards Jaegers and the Murom Regiment. In the centre Priesten was occupied by the skirmishers of the Reval regiment and