The story of this place
On 12 August 1759, east of Frankfurt an der Oder, Frederick the Great attacked a combined Russian and Austrian army and, after early gains, drove his exhausted men into a slaughter. By evening his army of 49,000 had disintegrated, losing over 19,000 killed, wounded or captured; Frederick had two horses shot under him and a bullet stopped by a snuffbox in his pocket. Believing all was lost, he wrote to Berlin: 'I will not survive this cruel turn of fortune... I have no resources left.' Only the enemy's failure to march on the undefended capital — the so-called 'Miracle of the House of Brandenburg' — saved Prussia from destruction.