Nor had they long to wait for this result, for the furious artillery duel had barely lasted an hour when Grodnovodsky’s guns were seen to limber up—such of them as had escaped dismounting—and lumber off; and then our impatient battalions, throwing out their first fighting line, fanlike, in skirmishing order, with supports behind and reserves following, all in as machine-like and magnificent order as at a field-day on the Tempelhof Common, began to push forward, the guns firing over their heads all the while as they swarmed down the Russian-ward slope of our eminence and across the rye and potato fields, still rather wet and cloggy from last night’s rain, in front of Alexandrovo. The Russian infantry attempted to debouch from their shell-shattered position behind the railway station and other adjacent buildings, and deploy in line of purpose to stem our steadily advancing tide; but our guns, which were still able to pound away over the heads of our own battalions, played dreadful havoc with their shrapnel charges among Grodnovodsky’s out-manœuvred troops, who were also mown down in great numbers by the fearful fire of our magazine-rifles, of which the murderous volleys appeared to inspire our opponents with a feeling of panic as unfamiliar to them as the effects of smokeless powder; and, for the first time probably in all the military history of Russia, the soldiers of the Czar positively turned tail and fled before superior numbers and unaccustomed terrors. Yet the dead and wounded whom they left behind amply attested the tenacious bravery with which they had fought; and the losses on our side were not insignificant, including, as they did, the death of Colonel von Degenzieher and Lieutenant Prince Zu Sonnenwalde-Drachenfels-Schinckenstein, a young man as brave as he was handsome, both of the 8th Brandenburg (Prince Frederick Charles’s) Infantry Regiment. Still, the loss of these two gallant officers, and other brave men on our side, was more than compensated for by the capture of Alexandrovo (into which we marched, or rather rushed, with colours flying, and drums beating) with its rich accumulation of railway rolling stock, which will be far more precious to us than acres upon acres of military stores. How in the Heaven’s name the Russians could ever have failed to concentrate, at the very outset of this war, a more formidable defending force around so very important a strategic point as Alexandrovo, is a bewildering puzzle even to those who have busied themselves with the systematic study of the Russian character; but, at any rate, there _they_ were and here _we_ are, thanks to the incredible supineness of our foes, their contemptible outpost service, the audacity and sudden swiftness of our movements, and the disastrous surprise which we then sprung upon them. My courier returns with this despatch to Thorn, where I trust he will be able to commit it to the wires. OCCUPATION OF ALEXANDROVO BY THE GERMANS.