3-046-949 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Three Emperors at Berlin: military manoeuvres near Spandau - cavalry crossing pontoon, 1872. Festivities 'at Berlin upon the occasion of the visit of the Emperor of Russia and the Emperor of Austria to the Emperor of Germany...The military manoeuvres exhibited on the Monday were of some interest. One division of the troops, who were assumed to have forced the enemy to raise the siege of Spandau, were marching in pursuit, to prevent the other party from escaping with their heavy artillery. Leaving Spandau from two sides, the troops proceeded west, and cautiously approached the heights near the village of Staken, where the imaginary adversary had halted. While the cavalry, who came from another quarter, were crossing the Havel, on a bridge constructed by the Engineers, the infantry began to attack the heights. The struggle was kept up for some time; at last the riflemen stormed the heights with extraordinary skill and rapidity, and the cavalry, executing a grand charge, gave the finishing blow to the shattered host. The sketch we have engraved shows the Uhlans crossing the pontoon-bridge at Pickelsdorf'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.