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As no parallel to the numbers engaged in this enterprise can be found in European story, nothing comparable to its organization can be found in the history of any land or age. Every corps had its ammunition-train, and great reserves of supplies were stored in Modlin, Thorn, Pillau, Dantzic, and Magdeburg. In the two last-named arsenals were siege-trains for beleaguering Dünaburg and Riga.
The Russian fleet commanding the town would have thundered down on them, and they in their turn would have been subjected to an immediate attack from the powerful Russian forces hastening towards the place. It was therefore decided by the allied chiefs to wait till their siege-trains were landed, and then to lay regular siege to the place.
Already their lands and cattle had been harassed to yield provision for the army and large towns; already their best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-waggons; already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of war had entered their souls.
Already their lands and cattle had been harassed to yield provision for the army and large towns; already their best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-wagons; already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of war had entered into their souls.
Bridge-trains, engineer-tool trains, matériel of artillery, siege-trains if they are to move, ambulances, in a word, every thing which conies under the head of matériel, should be carefully examined and placed in good order.
The terror of his siege-trains and Ironsides was spread over the greater part of three Provinces, and his well-reported successes had proved so many steps to the assumption of that sovereign power at which he already aimed. Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it is impossible to speak without a shudder.
The remnants of the armies of defence had been gradually driven in upon the vast wilderness of bricks and mortar which now held more than eight millions of men, women, and children, hemmed in by long lines of batteries and entrenched camps, from which thousands of guns hurled their projectiles far and wide into the crowded masses of the houses, shattering them with bursting shells, and laying the whole streets in ruins, while overhead the war-balloons slowly circled hither and thither, dropping their fire-shells and completing the ruin and havoc wrought by the artillery of the siege-trains.
The terror of his siege-trains and Ironsides was spread over the greater part of three Provinces, and his well-reported successes had proved so many steps to the assumption of that sovereign power at which he already aimed. Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it is impossible to speak without a shudder.
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