n fire!" calls out the entire left wing, foot
and horse: these are to emerge from their meshwork of Lakes about
Kunersdorf, and bear a hand along with us on the Russian front
here,--especially to sweep away that raging Battery they have on the Big
Spitzberg, and make us clear of it. The Big Spitzberg lies to south and
ahead of the Russian right as now ranked; fatally covers their right
flank, and half ruins the attack in front. Big Spitzberg is blown
irrecognizable in our time; but it was then an all-important thing.

The left-wing Infantry thread their lake-labyrinth, the soonest
possible; have to rank again on the hither side, under a tearing fire
from that Spitzberg; can then at last, and do, storm onwards, upwards;
but cannot, with their best efforts, take the Spitzberg: and have to
fall back under its floods of tearing case-shot, and retire out of
range. To Friedrich's blank disappointment: "Try it you, then, Seidlitz;
you saved us at Zorndorf!" Seidlitz, though it is an impossible problem
to storm batteries with horse, does charge in for the Russian flank,
in spite of its covering battery: but the torrents of grape-shot are
insufferable; the Seidlitz people, torn in gaps, recoil, whirl round,
and do not rank again till beyond the Lakes of Kunersdorf. Seidlitz
himself has got wounded, and has had to be carried away.

And, in brief, from this point onwards all goes aback with the Prussians
more and more. Repeated attempts on that Spitzberg battery prove
vain; to advance without it is impossible. Friedrich's exertions
are passionate, almost desperate; rallying, animating, new-ordering;
everywhere in the hottest of the fire. "Thrice he personally led on
the main attack." He has had two horses shot down under him; mounting
a third, this too gets a bullet in an artery of the neck, and is about
falling, when two Adjutants save the King. In his waistcoat-pocket some
small gold case (ETUI) has got smitten flat by a bullet, which would
otherwise have ended matters. The people about him remonstrate on such
exposure of a life beyond value; he answers curtly, "We must all of
us try every method here, to win the Battle: I, like every other, must
stand to my duty here!" These, and a second brief word or two farther
on, are all of articulate that we hear from him this day.

Friedrich's wearied battalions here on the Heights, while the Spitzberg
to left goes so ill, fight desperately; but cannot prevail farther; and
in spite of