The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-03

MS cOuntrymon.
The battle Of Gross-Beeren was fought on
the 23d of August, 1913, between the army
Of the Grown Prince Of Sweden (Bernadotte)
and a French army commanded by Marshal
Oudinot. The Prussians did most of the
fighting on the side Of the Allies, but they
we're well supported by Russian cavalry, aud
by Swedish cavalry an dby Swedish artillery.
This battle, however, was to a large extent a
battle between Germans, for there was a
very heavy force of Saxons in the French
army, %, 600 men, according to an authority
eminently friendly to the Prussians, besides
other Germans. In the first part of the bat
tie the Saxons were successful, but later they
were beaten, through the concentration of
an immensely superior force against them,
(Prussians, Swedes, and Russians.)
The battle of Dennewitz was fought on the
9th of September, 1918, between the allied
army which Bernadotte commanded and a
French army commanded by Marshal Ney.
The Prussians fought with great bravery, but
the result would have been q drawn battle
had not Bernadotte brought up his Swedes
and Russians, and made it a brilliant victory
for the allies. 1t was the work of the Rus
sian cavalry that converted the French re-
treat into a rout, and gave to the victors the
prisoners, cannon, and so forth that testified
to the greatness of their success. OF the
COCO men lost by the allies In the action, 1000
we're not Prussians, which shows that men
of other nations took an effective part
in winning the victory. 1t is nonsense to say
that 'forty thousand Prussians routed seventy
thousand Frenchmen, y for large parts of Ney's
army were composed of Germans and Italians,
and there was no rout of the French army so
long as it had only the Prussians to fight: the
rout took place after the Swedes and Russians
arrived on the field (40,000 strong or there
about, with $50 pieces of cannon), and was
Immediately brought about by charges made
by the Russian horse. To call Dennewitz
'the most glorious victory Of this century"
is to utter nonsense; and it would be equally
untrue had 40 600 Prussians there beaten
20, 600, Frenchmen; for at Auerstadt, seven
years before, 26, 900 Frenchmen under Mar
shall Davoust defeated 66, 900 Prussians.
But enough of particular instances of bat
ties fought between the Prussians and the
French in the old wars. Mr.. Roemer is most
audaciously cool when he talks of the Prus-
slams "being encountered by Russians or
Austrians'! Why, there could have been no
war in 1918 had not the Russians acted with
the Prussians in the April and May of that
year; and no renewal of the war in August,
1913, had not the Austrians Joined the Rus
slams and the Prussians, who had been de-
feated at Lutzen and Bautzen by the French.
Butcher never could have had an army to
c~ommand-the Army of Silesia never could
have won a place in history-had he not been
encountered by Russians. 1t was the heroic
action of the Russians at Kuhn that led to the
winning of that field, which rendered the great
French victory at Dresden barren. Had Kuhn
not been lost, even Butchers victory at the
Katzbach would have been a ~fruitless affair.
Germany was delivered" in 1913, by the
Russians, if any one people are to have the
exclusive merit of that work. We observe
that one of the speakers at the late Prussian
meeting in Faneuil Hall referred to the battle
of Leipsic as if it had been a Prussian action!
1t vas not a German action, much less a
Prussian action. The Russians bore the chief
burden of that great fight, on the side of the
Allies. The Allied loss at Leipsic was AZ, 800;
and of this 20, 5000 belonged to the Russian
army, 1850 to the Austrian army, and
80 to the Swedes; leaving II, 100 to
the Prussians. Considering that a large
part of the Austrian army was not
composed of Germans, we shall not
err in putting about three-ffths of the entire
loss of the Allies as having fallen upon men
who were not of the German race. The loss
of the Prussians was very great, and t~estifies
nobly to their valor on that memorable field;
but that field never could have been fought
had either the Russians or the Austrians been
absent from it. So severely were the Allies
handled on the first day of the battle (Octo-
Der 16, 1879 that they did not resume fight
ing on the 18th, but awaited the arrival of
relnforcements, particularly Benningsen's
Russians and Colloredo's Austrians; and
Bernadotte's army, which Joined Butcher
on the north side of Leipsic, contained
Russians and Swedes. The event of the
battle was decided on the 18th by the weight
of the allied artillery fire at the south, prin-
cipally proceeding from Austrian and Russian
batteries; and at the north, by the arrival of
Bernadotte, whose army was made up princi-
pally of men who were not Prussians. The
Russians suffered dreadfully on the north
side, where Butcher led the allied forces.
There were even some Englishmen at the
battle of Leipsic, Captain Bogue commanding
there an English rocket brigade, Congreve
rockets being then and there used for the first
time. Leipsic was neither a German nor a
Prussian victory, for it was won by Russians,
Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, Swedes, Eng
lishmen, Croats, and various kind of Germans,
who fought against Frenchmen, Italians,
Dutchmen, Belgians, Poles, and various kinds
of Germans. In short, it was, as it has been
called, a Peoples Battle, a Congress of
Nations, all the members of which were
armed, and whose noise was greater even
than that which a political Congress could
have produced.