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.
It is not yet twenty-four hours since the victorious 6th Division of the German Army occupied this place, and already it is bristling on the Warsaw, or south-eastern side, with a most formidable line of earthworks, thanks chiefly to the marvellous exertions of the Engineer Battalion of the 3d Corps, which was quick to arrive here by rail yesterday, within an hour of our triumph—the first of the campaign. But, indeed, the spades of all our infantry have also been incessantly at work since they piled their rifles here, it being thought certain that the Russians will endeavour to get a double amount of work out of their cranky, creaking mobilisation machine, and hasten to deliver a desperate counter-attack, with the view of repairing the disastrous error they have committed—an error that has placed us in possession of a railway base of operations of incalculable price. Among other spoils we captured 123 railway waggons of various kinds, and nine locomotives, which, added to the rolling stock that is hourly pouring in from the direction of Thorn, with the remainder of the German Army of the Vistula, now rapidly massing here, render us certain of the means of transport in the event of our deciding to carry the torch of invasion deeper into the heart of Russia.