Putschdorf, the Third!

Sure enough, perhaps only a further minute goes past before Saxe-Peste’s plan is revealed….

The Nabstrian soldiery suddenly have to check their step: what's that in front of them?
 A messenger rides urgently back to Rumpfler's headquarters. 'Sir, sir,' he reports, 'there is a large, fetid, ill-smelling obstacle right in front of our advancing musketeers!'
'What!' roars Rumpfler. 'What in God's name is King Wilhelm doing in front of our troops?'
'No my lord,' replies the courier. 'It is a marsh - or at the least a very poorly maintained duckpond.'

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir’, says Captain von Stumpe, as the veins on von Rumpfler's forehead begin to bulge alarmingly. ‘It simply wasn’t on our maps!’ he explains. 'If only there were some cartographic method to mark them on our charts. Like scribbling on our maps a small picture of a marsh. But until we invent some solution, we seem doomed to repeat this calamity!' 

Von Rumpfler groans, and slaps his right hand onto his forehead (which has suddenly broken out with beads of sweat).  ‘Not this again!’, he cries.  ‘A swamp has ruined all my plans and hopes before!' von Rumpfler exclaims.  Yet the old campaigner isn’t beaten yet…

On the other side of the field, Saxe-Peste is chuckling away to himself…

‘Thought you could just march up and beat me, did you?,'  he says to no one in particular.  ‘Well, I’ve got news for you, Rumpy my old lad!  Once your floppy soldiers have gotten up to their knees in that swamp, they won’t be in any condition to beat my musketeers, do you hear me?!’

Saxe-Peste might be up to his eyes in Burgundy but he has a point.  Even Captain Wankrat begins to look at his commander in a different, more appreciative, light.  The unexpected swamp is bound to break up the Nabstrian formation, disrupt the onward march, and make the separate Nabstrian battalions vulnerable to defeat in detail through whatever Rotenburg counter-attack Saxe-Peste decides to muster.

‘Too much time cheating at those games of war, Rumpy me lad!  Thought you had me?  Looks like I’ll be having you!  Saxe-Peste shouts across the field.  Needless to say, his voice does not carry across to von Rumpfler, who is now busy issuing orders to his battalion commanders. Quickly, Nabstrian drill sergeants begin to enact those orders physically on the backs of the long-suffering troops. The Nabstrian infantry lines convulse, and Rumpflers troops begin to manoeuvre ....