163 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63aspect made all the greater impression. 'Here and there stood part of a
wall, or some remnants of rooms or stables, but everything was
charred and devastated, and the interiors of the roofless buildings
were filled with wreckage, still glowing within* (Ortmann, 1759,
417).
The two forces, Frederick's and Dohna's, united at Manschnow
on 22 August, making an army of about 37,000 troops. 'Nobody could
have been more avid for battle than were the Prussians at this
juncture. The demon of war seemed to have taken possession of the
entire army, and every man longed for action' (Hiilsen, 1890, 86).
Frederick maintained a cannonade on the far side of the Oder
near Ciistrin, but meanwhile he made preparations to cross the river
nearly twenty miles downstream at Alt-Giistebiese. Lieutenant-
General Kanitz went ahead with the pontoon train and two regi-
ments of infantry, and on the night of 22 August he built a bridge
undetected by the Russians. Frederick simultaneously fed some of the
infantry and hussars of the advance guard across the river by boats,
and they established a bridgehead on the far bank. The army hurried
up from Ciistrin on the 23rd. The regiments began to cross the bridge
at noon, and they hastened ahead to a camp between Zellin and
Clossow. The season was as hot as ever, and the strain of covering an
average of fifteen miles on every day's march was now telling heavily
on the troops. 'The men were hungry, but they had to eat their bread
on the march, and satisfy their thirst from whatever puddle they
found by the road. It is safe to say that a good third of the army was
stricken and collapsed' (Prittwitz, 1935, 213). This last push beyond
the Oder was particularly valuable for Frederick, for it enabled him to
cut between Fermor's main army, to the south, and the nearly
12,000-strong corps of General Rumyantsev, which was stranded
downstream at Schwedt.
The 24th was another day of terrible heat, and Frederick allowed
the troops to take a little rest before they set off in four columns in
search of the enemy at two in the afternoon. From a church tower a
lad watched the army advance over the fields, 'or rather we deduced
as much from the way the muskets gleamed in the sun. But soon the
dust arose and hid the sight from our view. People also said that on the
way Frederick repeated an order to the infantry to reverse their
muskets and carry them with the butts uppermost, so as to conceal
the march from enemy reconnaissance parties' (Jakob Wilhelm Ber-
tuch, in Kalisch, 1828, 48).
Late in the afternoon Frederick detected the presence of the
Russian army south of the little river Mietzel. The stream itself was
unguarded, and Frederick pushed the advance guard over the intact
bridge at the Neudammer Miihle and arranged the troops in a bridge-