strong in theory only. For
the frozen river formed the easiest possible approach, instead of an
insuperable barrier to the enemy. He had an army which was a paper army
only.

He had, according to official returns, thirty-five thousand men. In
reality a bare eight thousand could be collected to show a face to the
enemy. The rest were sick and wounded. There was no national spirit
among these men; they hardly had a language in common. For they were men
from Africa and Italy, from France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Holland.
The majority of them were recruits, raw and of poor physique. All
were fugitives, flying before those dread Cossacks whose "hurrah!
hurrah!"--the Arabic "kill! kill!"--haunted their fitful sleep at night.
They came to Dantzig not to fight, but to lie down and rest. They were
the last of the great army--the reinforcements dragged to the frontier
which many of them had never crossed. For those who had been to
Moscow were few and far between. The army of Moscow had perished at
Malo-Jaroslavetz, at the Beresina, in Smolensk and Vilna.

These fugitives had fled to Dantzig for safety; and Rapp in crossing the
bridge had made a grimace, for he saw that there was no safety here.

The fortifications had been merely sketched out. The ditches were full
of snow, the rivers were frozen. All work was at a standstill. Dantzig
lay at the mercy of the first-comer.

In twenty-four hours every available smith was at work, forging ice-axes
and picks. Rapp was going to cut the frozen Vistula and set the river
free. The Dantzigers laughed aloud.

"It will freeze again in a night," they said. And it did. So Rapp set
the ice-cutters to work again next day. He kept boats moving day and
night in the water, which ran sluggish and thick, like porridge, with
the desire to freeze and be still.

He ordered the engineers to set to work on the abandoned fortifications.
But the ground was hard like granite, and the picks sprang back in the
worker's grip, jarring his bones, and making not so much as a mark on
the surface of the earth.

Again the Dantzigers laughed.

"It is frozen three feet down," they said.

The thermometer marked between twenty and thirty degrees of frost every
night now. And it was only December--only the beginning of the winter.
The Russians were at the Niemen, daily coming nearer. Dantzig was full
of sick and wounded. The available troops were worn out, frost-bitten,
desperate. There were only a few doct