De eventu mirabili in hoc bello.
The Miracle of the Ice
The army's orderly advance gives way to a miraculous crossing of the melting Memel ice, which holds until the last man passes, then shatters—a wonder likened to the parting of the Red Sea.
It should be noted that when a campaign is launched, the army is divided into different routes so that it can advance in an orderly way and without crowding. Yet it often happens, through the unpredictable turns of events, that — proper formation being abandoned — a hundred knights, or two hundred, or even a thousand, converge on a single spot on the ice.1 But how ice can bear so great a weight without cracking — I cannot explain. God alone knows. And so in many winter campaigns — and most of all in this one, which has already been described — a remarkable thing, worthy of wonder, could be considered by anyone willing to look more closely: this army, at the end of winter, when the ice is being worn away above by the heat of the sun and below by the flowing of the water, crossed the ice of the Memel in the middle of the night, fully armed; and once it had passed over without any danger, the ice broke apart and shattered, so that when morning came, no trace of the ice remained.2 Who could have brought this about, if not the One alone who commanded the sea to stand like a wall on the right and on the left, so that the people of Israel might pass through on dry ground?✦3
Read the original Latin
Notandum, quod quando movetur bellum, exercitus dividitur in diversas vias, ut possit ordinate et sine pressura procedere. Tarnen sepe contingit ex vario eventu, quod pretermissa debita ordinacione conveniunt in glacie centum equites, vel cc vel mille, ad unum locum. Qualiter autem glacies tarn grave onus possit sustinere sine fractura, nescio, deus seit. Unde in multis bellishyemalibus et maxime in isto, de quo jam dictum est, posset mira res et ammiracione digna considerari, si quis vellct diligencius intueri, quia exercitus iste in fine hyemis, quando glacies solis calore superveniente supra, et aque fluxu infra consumitur, in media nocte armatus transivit glaciem Memele, et dum transiisset sine omni periculo, dissoluta fuit et confracta, sic quod mane facto non apparebant vestigia glaciei. Quis liec facere poterat, nisi ille solus, qui imperavit mari, ut tanquam murus staret a dextris et a sinistris, et sicco pede Israeliticus populus pertransiret?
Scripture echoes
- ↩Exod.14.21-Exod.14.22 — Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind all night long, turning the sea into dry ground, and the waters were divided. Exod.14.22 — And the sons of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right and on their left.
Notes
- 1 ↩Tarnen is a place-name (Tarwan/Tarnen in Prussia); rendered as 'Yet' would misread it. The Latin functions as a discourse connective here, likely a scribal or dialectal form. Rendered to preserve the adversative sense.
- 2 ↩Memele = the Memel River (modern Neman). Rendered as 'the Memel' for clarity.
- 3 ↩Allusion to Exodus 14:21–22 (the parting of the Red Sea). The Latin 'ille solus, qui imperavit mari' directly echoes the Exodus narrative. Final resolution of quotation boundaries belongs to tx-08 Moses resolution.
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