It was a "horse" battery; but the horse artillery in the Russian service is not a separately organized body as it is in the British Army. The guns are simply well-horsed, and the limbers, waggons, etc., rendered as light and mobile as possible. The batteries have not the dash and go of English horse-artillery; and I should be very sorry to see a Russian battery attempt to gallop over a ditch or other troublesome obstacle, as I can foresee what the result would be. The Russian horse-artillery is a sort of advanced-guard of the gunnery arm and has no special training for its duties. In several important particulars its equipment and organization differs from ours.
At this time there were said to be several Englishmen, two Frenchmen, and Swedes, Norwegians and Dutch, in the Russian service. I never met any of them, but I know there was a German, born and bred in Brandenburg, an officer in the 178th line, who was permitted to remain in the Muscovite Army; and who fought with invincible bravery and determination against his countrymen. There was a mystery about him, the actual nature of which I never learned; but it was said that he had received some injury which had implanted in his breast a fierce hatred of the land of his birth.
For two days after I had joined the artillery we were making forced marches to the north, and on the 16th we crossed the Vistula at Plock. The next day we were in front of the enemy between Biezun and Przasnysz, with our left flank resting on a marshy lake near the first-named place. Beyond the lake this flank was supported by a very large body of cavalry--twenty-four regiments I think, or not less than 14,000 men. This large force effectually kept off the much inferior German cavalry. It suffered a good deal from shell-fire, but our artillery prevented the Prussian infantry from inflicting any losses on it.
The country had been raided by the Germans before our arrival, and they had committed many atrocities. The young women had been abused, and the older ones cruelly ill-treated. The hamlets and isolated farms had been burnt down; in some cases the ruins were still smouldering; and what had become of the inhabitants did not appear. Some at least had been slain: for we found the body of one woman lying, head downwards, in a filthy gutter which drained a farmyard; and on the other side of the building, two men hanging from the same tree. The woman had been killed by a blow on the head which had smashed the skull, and her body had been treated with shameful irreverence. The gunners of the battery buried these three poor creatures in the same grave while we were waiting for orders to go into action.