The
Battle of Kay or
Battle of Paltzig was a
battleGenerally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...
fought on July 23, 1759 during the
Seven Years' WarThe Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
. It occurred near
Kay (Kije)Kije is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Sulechów, within Zielona Góra County, Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately west of Sulechów and north of Zielona Góra.-References:...
in the
NeumarkNeumark comprised a region of the Prussian province of Brandenburg, Germany.Neumark may also refer to:* Neumark, Thuringia* Neumark, Saxony* Neumark * Nowe Miasto Lubawskie or Neumark, a town in Poland, situated at river Drwęca...
, now part of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
General
Carl Heinrich von WedelCarl Heinrich von Wedel was a Prussian general in the Seven Years War, who fought at the Battle of Fehrbellin in 1758....
, the commander of the
Prussian armyThe Royal Prussian Army was the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.The Prussian Army had its roots in the meager mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War...
of 28,000 men, unwisely attacked a larger
Russian armyThe Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
of 47,000 men commanded by Count
Pyotr SaltykovCount Pyotr Semyonovich Saltykov was a Russian statesman and a military figure, russian general-fieldmarshal , son of Semyon Saltykov....
, and was defeated. The Prussians lost 8,300 men; the Russians lost less than 5,000 men. After the battle King
Frederick II of PrussiaFrederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
determined to force the Russians into a decisive engagement in order to prevent them joining up with the main Austrian army, but was defeated at
KunersdorfThe Battle of Kunersdorf, fought in the Seven Year's War, was Frederick the Great's most devastating defeat. On August 12, 1759, near Kunersdorf , east of Frankfurt , 50,900 Prussians were defeated by a combined allied army 59,500 strong consisting of 41,000 Russians and 18,500 Austrians under...
by a combined Russian-Austrian army.
Figures are also given of 26,000 Prussians and 70,000 Russians, although that is unlikely, since Saltykov had 41,000 men at Kunersdorf three weeks later.