Why O'Kelly ever put it there--except that he saw no place for it in his rugged localities, or no use for it anywhere--is still a mystery to the intelligent mind.

[Tempelhof, vi.

107.] The howitzers, their shells bursting mostly in the air, did O'Kelly little hurt, nor for hours yet was there any real attack on Burkersdorf or him; but the noise, the horrid death-blaze was prodigious, and kept O'Kelly, like some others, in an agitated, occupied condition till their own turn came.
For it had been ordered that Wied and Mollendorf were not to attack together: not together, but successively,--for the following reasons.
TOGETHER; suppose Mollendorf to prosper on O'Kelly (whom he is to storm, not by the steep front part as O'Kelly fancies, but to go round by the western flank and take him in rear); suppose Mollendorf to be near prospering on Burkersdorf Height,--unless Wied too have prospered, Ludwigsdorf batteries and forces will have Mollendorf by the right flank, and between two fires he will be ruined; he and everything! On the other hand, let Wied try first: if Wied can manage Ludwigsdorf, well: if Wied cannot, he comes home again with small damage; and the whole Enterprise is off for the present.

That was Friedrich's wise arrangement, and the reason why he so bombards O'Kelly with thunder, blank mostly.
And indeed, from 4 this morning and till 4 in the afternoon, there is such an outburst and blazing series of Scenic Effect, and thunder mostly blank, going on far and near all over that District of Country: General This ostentatiously speeding off, as if for attack on some important place; General That, for attack on some other; all hands busy,--the 20,000 Russians not yet speeding, but seemingly just about to do it,--and blank thunder so mixed with not blank, and scenic effect with bitter reality, [Tempelhof, vi.

105-111.]--as was seldom seen before.
And no wisest Daun, not to speak of his O'Kellys and lieutenants, can, for the life of him, say where the real attack is to be, or on what hand to turn himself.