Here, with brevity, is the catastrophe of Custrin.
TUESDAY, 15th AUGUST, 1758.

At two in the morning, several thousand Russians, grenadiers, under Quartermaster General Stoffeln, whom the readers of Mannstein know from old Oczakow times, are astir; pushing along from Gross Kamin, through the scraggy firwoods, and flat peat countries; intending a stroke on Custrin, if perhaps they can get it: [Tempelhof, ii.

217; but Tielcke, ii.

69 et seq., the real source.]--not the slightest chance to get Custrin; Prussian soldiership and Turkish being two quite different things! The pickeering and manoeuvring of Stoffeln shall not detain us.

Stoffeln came along by the Landsberg road (course of the now Konigsberg-Custrin Railway); and drove in the Prussian out-parties, who at first took him for Cossacks.