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The battle of Okalona was fought on an open plain, and Forrest had no advantage of position to compensate for great inferiority of numbers; but it is remarkable that he employed the tactics of Frederick at Leuthen and Zorndorf, though he had never heard these names. Indeed, his tactics deserve the closest study of military men.
Fermor's Cossacks brought him in news of Frederick's movements, which were hidden from him by the forests; and seeing that he was to be attacked on the Zorndorf side, instead of from that on which he had expected it to come, he changed his front, and swung round the line containing his best troops to meet it.
Here Ferdinand of Brunswick, reinforced with twenty thousand English soldiers, held them at bay during the summer of 1758; while Frederick, foiled in an attack on Moravia, drove the Russians back on Poland in the battle of Zorndorf.
The Russian horse fled to Kutzdorf, Fermor with them, who saw no more of this Fight, and did not get back till dark; had not the Bridges been burnt, and no crossing of the Mutzel possible, Fermor never would have come back, and here had been the end of Zorndorf. Luckier if it had!
Victory, Victory!" shout the Russians, plunging wildly forward, sweeping all before them, capturing twenty-six pieces of cannon, for one item. What a moment for Friedrich; looking on it from some knoll somewhere near Zorndorf, I suppose; hastily bidding Seidlitz strike in: "Seidlitz, now!"
Friedrich pours steadily along, horse and foot, by the rear cf Wilkersdorf, of Zorndorf, Russian Minotaur scrutinizing him in that manner with dull bloodshot eyes, uncertain what he will do. It is eight in the morning, hot August; wind a mere lull, but southernly if any.
The youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old soldier of Liegnitz and Zorndorf. Some of Frederick's best generals were old men. Schwerin, who was killed in the terrible Battle of Prague, was then seventy-three, and a soldier of great reputation.
From Custrin, Kamin lies northeast about eight or ten miles: Zorndorf, the most considerable Village in this tract, lies little dreaming of the sad glory coming to it pretty much in the centre between big Warta and smaller Mutzel. The Drewitz Heath, the Massin or Zither Heath, and others about Zorndorf, will become notable to us.
At Zorndorf, among the Russian Prisoners were certain Generals, Soltikof, Czernichef, Sulkowski the Pole, proud people in their own eyes: no lodging for them but the cellars of Custrin. Russian Generals complained, "Is this a lodging for Field-Officers of rank!"
The first division of the Prussian Infantry, or extreme Left, marches forward by the west end of flaming Zorndorf; next division, which should stand close to right of it, or even behind it in action, and follow it close into the Russian fire, has to march by the east end of Zorndorf; this is a farther road, owing to the flames; and not a lucky one.
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