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At an early stage in our acquaintanceship he had abandoned the air of sulky deference which he had shown when we first met on the car returning to Dunaburg after the accident, and had treated me more or less en camarade, though in a kind of paternal manner; and yet I doubt if he was my senior in years. He was a man of considerable education, too, though he was usually careful to conceal the fact.
Also we travelled by sea, from Hull to Riga, taking the gear along with us; which in itself minimized the chance of detection. We were to travel by rail from Riga to Wilna, via Dunaburg; and the rest of the journey, rather over than under a hundred and twenty miles, must be by road, riding or driving. From Wilna the goods we were taking would follow us under a military escort. "How's that?"
I was hurt in that railway accident last month, and his Highness was good enough to order one of his servants to look after me; and he also called to see me at an hotel in Dunaburg. I thought it very condescending of him. Though I don't suppose I'd have the chance of meeting him again, as there are no Court festivities now; or if there are, we outsiders aren't invited to them.
Augustus, repulsed by the Swedish King, threw himself into Peter's arms, and in February, 1701, the common destinies of the Czar and the King of Poland were once more bound together. A fresh treaty was signed at the Castle of Birze, close to Dunaburg. The year 1701 was a hard one for Peter.
The prestige of his glory and his power demanded a decisive blow; and the emperor prepared for it at Vitebsk. Marshal Macdonald, however, had taken possession of Courland, after one battle before Mittau. The Russians everywhere retreated before him, evacuating even the stronghold of Dunaburg.
If the Russian army in 1812, instead of concentrating on Smolensk, had supported itself on Dunaburg and Riga, it would have been in danger of being forced into the sea and of being cut off from all its bases. The relations between sieges and the operations of active armies are of two kinds.
I discerned the same ominous state of things the calm before the storm at Dunaburg and Wilna, but it was not until we had left the railroad and were well on our two days' cross-country ride to Zostrov that I became acquainted with two important ingredients in that "seething pot" of Russian affairs, to use Mishka's apt simile. Those two ingredients were the peasantry and the Jews.
On the side where that marshal commanded, the whole of the war had been only a rapid march from Tilsit to Mittau, a display of force from the mouth of the Aa to Dünaburg, and finally, a long defensive position in front of Riga; the composition of that army being almost entirely Prussian, its position and Napoleon's orders so willed it.
Back to Dunaburg; it will be many hours before the line is restored." I was not surprised to hear this, knowing of old the leisurely way in which Russians set about such work. "My master has left me to look after your excellency," he continued, in the same curious manner, respectful almost to servility but sullen withal. "What are your orders?" I guessed now that he belonged to my tall friend.
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.
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