His next active service, still under Trenck, was in the
Silesian mountains in 1745 (during the
Second Silesian War against Prussia), in which campaign he greatly distinguished himself as a leader of light troops. He was present also at the
Battle of Soor. He retired shortly afterwards, owing to his distaste for the lawless habits of his comrades in the irregulars, and after long waiting in poverty for a regular commission he was at last made a captain in one of the frontier regiments, spending the next ten years in half-military, half-administrative work in the
Karlovac district on the
Military Frontier. At
Bunić, where he was stationed, he built a church and planted an oak forest now called by his name. He had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel when the outbreak of the
Seven Years' War called him again into the field. From this point began his fame as a soldier. At first rejected by General
Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg, he soon was promoted colonel at the behest of Chancellor
Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg and distinguished himself repeatedly. He drew attention at the small but much reported night raid on
Ostritz on 1 January 1757 and during that year fought in
Bohemia and
Saxony under Feldmarschall
Maximilian Ulysses Browne and became a
Generalfeldwachtmeister (equivalent to major-general) of cavalry as well as a knight of the newly founded
Maria Theresa Military Order. In the
Third Silesian War campaign of 1758 came his first opportunity for fighting an action as a commander-in-chief, and he used it so well that Frederick the Great was obliged to give up the siege of
Olomouc and retire into Bohemia (
Battle of Domstadtl, 30 June). He was rewarded with the grade of lieutenant-field-marshal and having again shown himself an active and daring commander in the campaign of
Hochkirch, he was created a
Freiherr in the Austrian nobility by Maria Theresa and in the peerage of the Holy Roman Empire by her husband the emperor Francis. Maria Theresa gave him, further, the grand cross of the order she had founded and an estate near
Kutná Hora in Bohemia. He was placed in command of the Austrian contingent sent to join the Russians on the Oder, and participated in
Kunersdorf alongside
Pyotr Saltykov where a joint Russo-Austrian contingent won a great victory. As a result, Laudon was promoted
Feldzeugmeister and made commander-in-chief in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. In 1760 he destroyed a whole corps of Frederick's army under
Fouqué at the
Battle of Landeshut and
stormed the important fortress of
Glatz. In 1760 he sustained a severe reverse at Frederick's hands in the
Battle of Liegnitz (15 August 1760), which action led to bitter controversy with Daun and Lacy, the commanders of the main army, who, Laudon claimed, had left his corps unsupported. In 1761 he operated, as usual, in Silesia, but he found his Russian allies as timid as they had been after Kunersdorf, and all attempts against Frederick's entrenched camp of
Bunzelwitz failed. He brilliantly seized his one fleeting opportunity, however, and stormed
Schweidnitz on the night of September 30/October 1, 1761. His tireless activity continued to the end of the war, in conspicuous contrast with the temporizing strategy of Counts
Leopold Josef von Daun and
Franz Moritz von Lacy. The student of the later campaigns of the
Seven Years' War will probably admit that there was need of more aggressiveness than Daun displayed, and of more caution than suited Laudon's genius. But neither recognized this, and the last three years of the war are marked by an ever-increasing friction between the "Fabius" and the "Marcellus," as they were called, of the Austrian army. == Later career ==