The traditions related to Axumite rule will…

The Russians and Austrians have lost about fifteen thousand men (approximately five thousand killed), although some sources suggest a slightly higher number, perhaps fifteen thousand six hundred or fifteen thousand seven hundred, about twenty-six percent.

Christopher Duffy places Russian losses at thirteen thousand four hundred and seventy-seven; in addition, the Russians had lost about four thousand at the Battle of Kay a week earlier.

Sources differ on Prussian losses.

Duffy maintains six thousand killed and thirteen thousand wounded, a casualty rate of more than thirty-seven percent.

Gaston Bodart represents losses at thirty-nine percent, and that two thirds (twelve thousand) of the nineteen thousand casualties were deaths.

Following the battle, the victorious Cossack troops plunder corpses and slit the throats of the wounded; this no doubt contributes to the death rate.

The Prussians have lost their entire horse artillery, an amalgam of cavalry and artillery in which the crews ride horses into battle, dragging their cannons behind them, one of Frederick's notable inventions.

The Prussians have also lost sixty percent of their cavalry, killed or wounded, animals and men.

The Prussians have lost one hundred and seventy-two of their own cannons plus the one hundred and five that they had captured from the Russians in the late morning on the Mühlberge.

They have also lost twenty-seven flags and two standards.

Staff losses are significant.

Frederick has lost eight regimental colonels.

Of his senior command, Seydlitz is wounded and had to relinquish command to Platen, nowhere near his equal in energy and nerve; Wedel is wounded so badly that he will never fight again; Georg Ludwig von Puttkamer, commander of the Puttkamer Hussars, lies among the dead.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, later the inspector general and major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, had been wounded at the battle.

Ewald Christian von Kleist, the famous poet of the Prussian army, had been badly injured in the latter moments of the assault on the Walkeberge.

By the time he was injured, Major Kleist was the highest ranking officer in his regiment.

Generalleutnant August Friedrich von Itzenplitz will die of his wounds on September 5, Prince Charles Anton August von Holstein-Beck on September 12, and Finck's brigade commander, Generalmajor George Ernst von Klitzing, on October 28 in Stettin.

Prussia is at its last gasp and Frederick despairs of preserving much of his remaining kingdom for his heir.

The Russian and Austrian commanders, although still wary of one another, are satisfied with the result of their cooperation.

They had outfought Frederick's army in a test of nerve, courage and military skills.

Elizabeth of Russia promotes Saltykov to Generalfeldmarschall and awards a special medal to everyone involved.

She also sends a sword of honor to Laudon.

The price of this rout, though, is high: twenty-six percent Austrian and Russian losses would not usually qualify as a victory.

The storming of field works typically resulted in a disproportionate number of killed over wounded.

The conclusion of the battle in hand-to-hand struggle also increased casualties on both sides.

Finally, subsequent cavalry charges and the stampeding flight of men and horses had caused many more injuries.

Regardless of the losses, though, Saltykov and Laudon had remained on the field with intact armies, and with extant communications between one another.

The Prussian defeat remains without consequences when the victors do not capitalize on the opportunity to march against Berlin, but retire to Saxony instead

If Saltykov had sought the coup de grâce in the last hour of the battle, he did not follow through with it.

Within days, Frederick's army has reconstituted itself.

Approximately twenty-six thousand men—most of the survivors—had been scattered over the territory between Kunersdorf and Berlin.

Four days after the battle, though, most of the men turn up at the headquarters on the Oder River or in Berlin, and Frederick's army recovers to a strength of thirty-two thousand men and fifty artillery pieces

South Carolina becomes on February 5, 1778, the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

The main British Army winters comfortably in Philadelphia while poor conditions and supply problems at Valley Forge result in the deaths of some twenty-five hundred troops by the end of February 1778.

Baron von Steuben had meanwhile arrived at Valley Forge on February 23 and reported for duty as a volunteer.

Appointed by Washington as temporary inspector general, he gad gone out into the camp to talk with the officers and men, inspect their huts, and scrutinize their equipment.

Steuben establishes standards of sanitation and camp layouts that will still be standard a century and a half later.

There had previously been no set arrangement of tents and huts.

Men relieve themselves where they wish and when an animal dies, it is stripped of its meat and the rest is left to rot where it lies.

Steuben lays out a plan to have tent rows for command, officers and enlisted men.

Kitchens and latrines are on opposite sides of the camp, with latrines on the downhill side.

There is the now-familiar arrangement of company and regimental streets.

The Continental Army has been put through a new training program, supervised by Baron von Steuben, introducing the most modern Prussian methods of drilling.

On May 5, 1778, on General Washington's recommendation, Congress appoints Steuben inspector general of the army, with the rank and pay of major general.

Internal administration has been neglected, and no books have been kept either as to supplies, clothing or men.

Steuben has become aware of the "administrative incompetence, graft, war profiteering" that exists.

He enforces the keeping of exact records and strict inspections.

His inspections save the army an estimated loss of five to eight thousand muskets.

Steuben has picked one hundred and twenty men from various regiments, to form an honor guard for General Washington, and has used them to demonstrate military training to the rest of the troops.

These men in turn train other personnel at Regimental and Brigade levels.

Steuben's eccentric personality greatly enhanced his mystique.

In full military dress uniform, he twice a day trains the soldiers who, at this point, are themselves greatly lacking in proper clothing.

As he can only speak and write a small amount of English, Steuben originally writes the drills in the German dialect of Prussian, the military language of Europe at the time.

His secretary, Du Ponceau, then translates the drills from Prussian into French, and a secretary for Washington translates it to English.

They do this every single night so Washington can command his soldiers in the morning.

Colonel Alexander Hamilton and General Nathanael Greene are of great help in assisting Steuben in drafting a training program for the Army.

The Baron's willingness and ability to work with the men, as well as his use of profanity (in several different languages), makes him popular among the soldiers.

It is here he has met his reputed future lover, Captain Benjamin Walker.

Upon meeting Walker for the first time he exclaimed "If I had seen an angel from Heaven I should not have more rejoiced."

Within weeks, Walker was Steuben's aide-de-camp.

Steuben introduced a system of progressive training, beginning with the school of the soldier, with and without arms, and going through the school of the regiment.

This corrects the previous policy of simply assigning personnel to regiments.

Each company commander is made responsible for the training of new men, but actual instruction is done by sergeants specifically selected for being the best obtainable.

Washington's army shadows Clinton's, and Washington successfully forces a battle at Monmouth Courthouse on June 28, the last major battle in the North.

Washington's second-in-command, General Charles Lee, who leads the advance force of the army, orders a controversial retreat early in the battle, allowing Clinton's army to regroup.

Clinton is in New York City by July, and ...

...Washington is again at White Plains, New York.

Both armies are back where they had been two years earlier.

The British Army numbers seventy-two hundred men with the arrival of Cornwallis and more reinforcements from New York.

Cornwallis wants to push Lafayette, whose force now numbers three thousand men with the arrival of Virginia militia.

On May 24, he sets out after Lafayette, who withdraws from Richmond, and links forces with those under the command of Baron von Steuben and Anthony Wayne.

Cornwallis had not pursued Lafayette.

Instead, he had sent raiders into central Virginia, where they had attacked depots and supply convoys, before being recalled on June 20.

Cornwallis now headed for Williamsburg, and Lafayette's force of now forty-five hundred followed him.

General Clinton, in a confusing series of orders, had ordered Cornwallis first to Portsmouth and then Yorktown, where he is instructed to build fortifications for a deep water port.