First division has got clear of Zorndorf, in advancing towards its Russian business;--is striding forward, its left flank safe against the Zaberngrund; steadily by fixed stages, against the fated Russian Corner, which is its point of attack. First division, second division, are clear of Zorndorf, though with a wide gap between them; are steadily striding forward towards the Russian Corner. Two strong batteries, wide apart, have planted themselves ahead; and are playing upon the Russian Quadrilateral, their fires crossing at the due Corner yonder, with terrible effect;Russian artillery, which are multitudinous and all gathered down to this southwestern corner, are responding, though with their fire spread, and far less effectual. The Prussian line steps on, extreme left perhaps in too animated a manner; their cannon batteries enfilade the thick mass of Russians at a frightful rate ("forty-two men of a certain regiment blown away by a single ball," in one instance [Tielcke.]), drive the interior baggage-horses to despair:
a very agitated Quadrilateral, under its grim canopy of cannon smoke, and of straw smoke, heaped on it from the Zorndorf side here. Manteuffel, leader of that first or leftmost division, sees the internal simmering; steps forward still more briskly, to firing distance; begins his platoon thunder, with the due steady fury,--had the second division but got up to support Manteuffel!
The second division is in fire too; but not close to Manteuffel, where it should be.
Fermor notices the gap, the wavering of Manteuffel unsupported;plunges out in immense torrent, horse and foot, into the gap, into Manteuffel's flank and front; hurls Manteuffel back, who has no support at hand: "ARAH, ARAH (Hurrah, Hurrah)! 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!" The hurrahing Russians cannot keep rank at that rate of going. like a buffalo stampede; but fall into heaps and gaps: Seidlitz, with a swiftness, with a dexterity beyond praise, has picked his way across that quaggy Zabern Hollow; falls, with say 5,000 horse, on the flank of this big buffalo stampede;tumbles it into instant ruin;--which proves irretrievable, as the Prussian Infantry come on again, and back Seidlitz.
In fifteen minutes more (I guess it now to be ten o'clock), the Russian Minotaur, this end of it, on to the Gallows Ground, is one wild mass. Seldom was there seen such a charge; issuiug in such deluges of wreck, of chaotic flight, or chaotic refusal to fly.
The Seidlitz cavalry went sabring till, for very fatigue, they gave it up, and could no more. 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! But there is no crossing of the Mutzel, there is only drowning in the quagmires there:--death any way; what can be done but die?
The Russian infantry stand to be sabred, in the above manner, as if they had been dead oxen. More remote from Seidlitz, they break open the sutlers' brandy-casks, and in few minutes get roaring drunk.
Their officers, desperate, split the brandy-casks; soldiers flap down to drink it from the puddles; furiously remonstrate with their officers, and "kill a good many of them" (VIELE, says Tielcke), especially the foreign sort. "A frightful blood-bath," by all the Accounts: blood-bath, brandy-bath, and chief Nucleus of Chaos then extant aboveground. Fermor is swept away: this chaos, the very Prussians drawing back from it, wearied with massacring, lasts till about one o'clock. Up to the Gallows-ground the Minotaur is mere wreck and delirium: but beyond the Gallows-ground, the other half forms a new front to itself; becomes a new Minotaur, though in reduced shape. This is Part First of the Battle of Zorndorf;Friedrich--on the edge of great disaster at one moment, but miraculously saved--has still the other half to do (unlucky that he left no Bridges on the Mutzel), and must again change his program.