Another son, PRINCE DIETRICH OF ANHALT-DESSAU (d. 1769), was also a distinguished Prussian general.

But the most famous of the sons was PRINCE MORITZ OF ANHALT-DESSAU (1712-1760), who entered the Prussian army in 1725, saw his first service as a volunteer in the War of the Polish Succession (1734-35), and in the latter years of the reign of Frederick William held important commands.  In the Silesian wars of Frederick II., Moritz, the ablest of the old Leopold’s sons, greatly distinguished himself, especially at the battle of Hohenfriedberg (Striegau), 1745.  At Kesselsdorf it was the wing led by the young Prince Moritz that carried the Austrian lines and won the “Old Dessauer’s” last fight.  In the years of peace preceding the Seven Years’ War, Moritz was employed by Frederick the Great in the colonizing of the waste lands of Pomerania and the Oder Valley.  When the king took the field again in 1756, Moritz was in command of one of the columns which hemmed in the Saxon army in the lines of Pirna, and he received the surrender of Rutowski’s force after the failure of the Austrian attempts at relief.  Next year Moritz underwent changes of fortune.  At the battle of Kolin he led the left wing, which, through a misunderstanding with the king, was prematurely drawn into action and failed hopelessly.  In the disastrous days which followed, Moritz was under the cloud of Frederick’s displeasure.  But the glorious victory of Leuthen (December 5, 1757) put an end to this.  At the close of that day, Frederick rode down the lines and called out to General Prince Moritz, “I congratulate you, Herr Feldmarschall!” At Zorndorf he again distinguished himself, but at the surprise of Hochkirch fell wounded into the hands of the Austrians.  Two years later, soon after his release, his wound proved mortal.

AUTHORITIES.—­Varnhagen von Ense, Preuss. biographische Denkmale, vol. ii. (3rd ed., 1872); Militar Konversations-Lexikon, vol. ii.  (Leipzig, 1833); Anon., Fuerst Leopold I. von Anhalt und seine Sohne (Dessau, 1852); G. Pauli, Leben grosser Helden, vol. vi.; von Orlich, Prinz Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau (Berlin, 1842); Crousatz, Militarische Denkwurdigkeiten des Fuersten Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau (1875); supplements to Militaer Wochenblatt (1878 and 1889); Siebigk, Selbstbiographie des Fuersten Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau (Dessau, 1860 and 1876); Hosaeus, Zur Biographie des Fuersten Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau (Dessau, 1876); Wuerdig, Des Alten Dessauers Leben und Taten (3rd ed., Dessau, 1903); Briefe Konig Friedrich Wilhelms I. an den Fuersten L. (Berlin, 1905).