stein, or Mannstein's patience was less
infinite; any way it provoked Mannstein to boil over; and in an evil
moment he said, "Extinguish me that Croat canaille, then!" Regiment
Bornstedt faced to right, accordingly; took to extinguishing the Croat
canaille, which of course fled at once, or squatted closer, but came
back with reinforcements; drew Mannstein deeper in, fatally delayed
Bornstedt, and proved widely ruinous. For now he stopped the way to
those following him: regiments marching on to rear of Mannstein see
Mannstein halted, volleying with the Austrians; ask themselves "How? Is
there new order come? Attack to be in this point?" And successively fall
on to support Mannstein, as the one clear point in such dubiety. So that
the whole right wing from Regiment Bornstedt westward is storming up
the difficult steeps, in hot conflict with the Austrians there, where
success against them had been judged impracticable;--and there is now
no reserve force anywhere to be applied to in emergency, for Hulsen's
behoof or another's; and the Plan of Battle from Mannstein westward has
been fatally overturned. Poor Mannstein, there is no doubt, committed
this error, being too fiery a man. Surely to him it was no luxury,
and he paid the smart for it in skin and soul: "badly wounded in this
business;" nay, in direct sequel, not many weeks after, killed by it, as
we shall see!--

To Mannstein's mistake, Friedrich himself, in his account of Kolin,
mainly imputes the disaster that followed; and such, then and
afterwards, was the universal judgment in military circles; loading the
memory of too impetuous Mannstein with the whole. [See Retzow, i.
135; Templehof, i. 214, 220.] Much talk there was in Prussian military
circles; but there must also have been an admirable silence on the part
of some. To Three Persons it was known that another strange incident
had happened far ahead, far eastward, of Mannstein's position:
incident which did not by any means tend to alleviate, which could only
strengthen and widen, the evil results of Mannstein; and which might
have lifted part of the load from Mannstein's memory! Not till the
present Century, after the lapse of almost fifty years, was this secret
slowly dug out of silence, and submitted to modern curiosity.

The incident is this;--never whispered of for near fifty years (so
silent were the three); and endlessly tossed about since that; the sense
of it not understood till almost now. [See Retzow