end
of it was that the women all stayed with the army.

Everything went against Peter on this march. The weather was very dry.
Swarms of locusts were in the country, eating every green thing. There
was no food for the horses, and many of them starved to death. It was
hard for the Russians to go forward or to go backward, and harder still
to stay where they were.

At last the soldiers in front reported that the Turks were coming, and
Peter soon saw a great army of two hundred thousand fierce Moslems in
front of his little force, which counted up only thirty-eight thousand
men. Seeing the odds against him he gave the order to retreat, and the
army began its backward march. As it neared the river Pruth a new danger
showed itself. The advance-guard brought word that a great force of
savage Crim Tartars held the other bank of the river, completely cutting
off Peter's retreat.

The state of things seemed hopeless. With two hundred thousand Turks on
one side, and a strong force of Crim Tartars holding a river on the
other, Peter's little army was completely hemmed in. There was no water
in the camp, and when the soldiers went to the river for it, the Tartars
on the other shore kept up a fierce fight with them. A great horde of
Turkish cavalry tried hard to cut off the supply entirely by pushing
themselves between Peter's camp and the river, but the Russians managed
to keep them back by hard fighting, and to keep a road open to the
river.

Peter knew now that unless help should come to him in some shape, and
that very quickly, he must lose not only his army, but his empire also,
for if the Turks should take him prisoner, it was certain that his many
enemies would soon conquer Russia, and divide the country among
themselves. He saw no chance of help coming, but he made up his mind to
fight as long as he could. He formed his men in a hollow square, with
the women in the middle, and faced his enemies.

The Turks flung themselves in great masses upon his lines, trying to
crush the little force of Russians by mere numbers. But Peter's brave
men remembered that Catherine was inside their hollow square, and they
stood firmly at their posts, driving back the Turks with frightful
slaughter. Again and again and again they fell upon his lines in heavy
masses, and again and again and again they were driven back, leaving
the field black with their dead.

This could not go on forever, of course, and both sides saw what the end
must