he ooze"--"like a pavement," says Tielcke. The Russians,--never was
such VIS INERTIAE as theirs now. They stood like sacks of clay, like
oxen already dead; not even if you shot a bullet through them, would
they fall at once, says Archenholtz, but seem to be deliberate about it.

Complete disorder reigned on both sides; except that the Prussians
could always form again when bidden, the Russians not. This lasted till
nightfall,--Russians getting themselves shoved away on these horrid
terms, and obstinate to take no other. Towards dark, there appeared, on
a distant knoll, something like a ranked body of them again,--some 2,000
foot and half as many horse; whom Themicoud (superlative Swiss Cossack,
usually written Demikof or Demikow) had picked up, and persuaded from
the shore of Acheron, back to this knoll of vantage, and some cannon
with them. Friedrich orders these to be dispersed again: General
Forcade, with two battalions, taking the front of them, shall attack
there; you, General Rauter, bring up those Dohna fellows again, and take
them in flank. Forcade pushes on, Rauter too,--but at the first taste of
cannon-shot, these poor Dohna-people (such their now flurried, disgraced
state of mind) take to flight again, worse than before; rush quite
through Wilkersdorf this time, into the woods, and can hardly be got
together at all. Scandalous to think of. No wonder Friedrich "looked
always askance on those regiments that had been beaten at Gross
Jagersdorf, and to the end of his life gave them proofs of it:"
[Retzow;--and still more emphatically, _Briefe eines alten Preussischen
Officiers_ (Hohenzollern, 1790), i. 34, ii. 52, &c.] very natural, if
the rest were like these!

Of poor General Rauter, Tempelhof and the others, that can help it, are
politely silent; only Saxon Tielcke tells us, that Friedrich dismissed
him, "Go, you, to some other trade!"--which, on Prussian evidence too,
expressed in veiled terms, I find to be the fact: _Militair-Lexikon,_
obliged to have an article on Rauter, is very brief about it; hints
nothing unkind; records his personal intrepidity; and says, "in 1758 he,
on his request, had leave to withdraw,"--poor soul, leave and more!

Forcade, left to himself, kept cannonading Themicoud; Themicoud
responding, would not go; stood on his knoll of vantage, but gathered
no strength: "Let him stand," said Friedrich, after some time; and
Themicoud melted in the shades of night, gradually towards the hither