At Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of foot and a field-piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder; the middle party of them within forty miles of him.

Probably stronger, even this middle one, than his small body (of "six thousand Horse, twelve hundred Foot and three guns");--stronger, but capable perhaps of being surprised, of being cut in pieces, before the others can come up?
Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party: thither goes the Kurfurst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (16-17th June, 1675); gets into Rathenau, by brisk stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse-regiment there, drives it back towards Fehrbellin.
He himself follows hard;--swift riding enough, in the summer night, through those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fashion: and indeed old Freisack Castle, as it chances,--Freisack, scene of Dietrich von Quitzow and LAZY PEG long since,--is close by! Follows hard, we say: strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice his number, but Infantry for the most part); and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed.

Thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail WITHOUT body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army.

[Stenzel, ii.

350-357.] Same feat intrinsically as that done by Cromwell, on Hamilton and the Scots, in 1648.