A Russian army under Fermor invaded Prussia, burning the town of Küstrin and threatening Berlin. Frederick marched to intercept them at Zorndorf. In one of the most brutal battles of the century, Russian troops — renowned for their willingness to stand and fight even when outflanked — refused to break. The battle turned into a grinding, savage engagement lasting the entire day, with both sides taking catastrophic casualties. Frederick held the field but failed to destroy the Russian army.
Zorndorf revealed the central problem of Prussia's strategic situation: Russian soldiers simply did not break the way French or Austrian troops did. Frederick remarked afterward that Russian soldiers could be killed but not defeated. The battle temporarily halted the Russian invasion, but at enormous Prussian cost — and Russia had the manpower to absorb losses that would have destroyed Prussia.
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The largest battle of the war to that point, Liaoyang saw three Japanese armies converge on the major Russian base. Kuropatkin's forces initially held strong defensive positions, even launching limited counterattacks. But when General Kuroki's First Army succeeded in crossing the Taitzu River north of the city and threatened the Russian line of retreat, Kuropatkin ordered a withdrawal to Mukden. The retreat, though conducted in reasonable order, was a major strategic defeat that ceded southern Manchuria to Japan.
Liaoyang demonstrated both the tactical ability of Russian soldiers and the strategic timidity of their commander. Kuropatkin's excessive caution in withdrawing from a position he might have held — or turned into a Russian victory — became a defining failure of the Russian war effort.
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During the grinding stalemate phase of the war, UN forces were ordered to seize a complex of ridges near Mundung-ni known as Heartbreak Ridge. What commanders expected would take a few days stretched into 52 days of savage fighting. Hill 851 changed hands five times. American and French soldiers attacked up steep slopes into withering fire, captured peaks, were counterattacked, fell back, and attacked again. Casualties mounted horrifically for terrain of limited strategic value as armistice talks stalled.
Heartbreak Ridge epitomized the bitter futility of the war's second phase — men dying by the thousands for hills that would be traded back in negotiations. The battle's terrible cost influenced the decision to shift to a more defensive posture and accelerated pressure for an armistice agreement.
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