The four columns once got to Borne shall fall into two; turn to the right, and go southward, ever southward:--they are to become our two Lines of Battle, were they once got to the right point southward.

Well opposite Sagschutz, that will be the point for facing to left, and marching up,--in "Oblique Order," with the utmost faculty they have! "The Oblique Order, SCHRAGE STELLUNG," let the hasty reader pause to understand, "is an old plan practised by Epaminondas, and revived by Friedrich,--who has tried it in almost all his Battles more or less, from Hohenfriedberg forward to Prag, Kolin, Rossbach; but never could, in all points, get it rightly done till now, at Leuthen, in the highest time of need.

"It is a particular manoeuvre," says Archenholtz, rather sergeant-wise, "which indeed other troops are now [1793] in the habit of imitating; but which, up to this present time, none but Prussian troops can execute with the precision and velocity indispensable to it.

You divide your line into many pieces; you can push these forward stairwise, so that they shall halt close to one another," obliquely, to either hand; and so, on a minimum of ground, bring your mass of men to the required point at the required angle.

Friedrich invented this mode of getting into position; by its close ranking, by its depth, and the manner of movement used, it had some resemblance to the "Macedonian Phalanx,"-- chiefly in the latter point, I should guess; for when arrived at its place, it is no deeper than common.