Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
“I too want to fight,” he shouted, pounding his breast with his fist; “though I don’t carry a sprinkling-brush, yet with a pole from a river barge I once gave a good christening to four Prussians who tried to drown me in the Pregel when I was drunk.” “Good for you, Bartek,” said Sprinkler, “good for you; sprinkle, sprinkle!”
Its provisions had ascended the Pregel in large barges up to Vehlau, and in lighter craft as far as Insterburg. The other convoys went by land-carriage from Königsberg to Labiau, and from thence, by means of the Niemen and the Vilia, to Kowno and Wilna.
From it on either hand diverge the narrow streets that run along the river bank, busy with commerce, crowded with the narrow sleighs that carry wood from the Pregel up into the town.
Through this region the armies must cross big rivers: the Oder, Dvina, Warthe, Vistula, Pregel, and Niemen, northward and northeastward. Just above or eastward of that point, where the German-Russian frontier touches the shore, the Baltic curls into a dent, 100 miles deep, forming the Gulf of Riga.
Napoleon followed the left bank, seeking to forestall the enemy at the confluence of the Alle and the Pregel, in the hope of seizing Koenigsberg before the place could be succored. Murat and Davout were already threatening the city.
Marshal Ney, who had taken no part in the action, to which, however, he assured success, surveyed the plain, covered with corpses and inundated with blood. "He turned away from the hideous spectacle," says M. de Fezensac, "crying, 'What a massacre, and without result!" The Russians had retired behind the Pregel to cover Koenigsberg. Napoleon re-entered his cantonments.
So eager was the lodger to follow the movements of his landlord that he crept in stocking-feet out on to the roof. By lying on his face below the window he could just distinguish the shadowy form of a lame man by the river edge. He was moving to and fro, unchaining a boat moored to the steps, which are more used in winter when the Pregel is a frozen roadway than in summer.
Thus it was that he instilled into them the love of war, of glory and himself. The army, meantime, marched from the Vistula to the Niemen. This last river, from Grodno as far as Kowno, runs parallel with the Vistula. The river Pregel, which unites the two, was loaded with provisions: 220,000 men repaired thither from four different points; there they found bread and some foraging provisions.
Two ruined bridges in the Pregel bore silent testimony to the straits of the retreating Germans, for the remaining ends on the further shore were barricaded with scraps of iron and wood gathered from the wreckage. Landsturm guards examined my pass, which was good only for Tapiau and return. I decided to miss the train back, however, and push on in the wake of the army to Wehlau.
To the eastward and northward of the last mentioned, near the lower course of the Vistula and thence at least as far as the Pregel, were the primitive abodes of the Goths and their cognate tribes, who are perhaps the Istaevones." The fourth division of Prichard embraced the Scandinavians, who spoke a language kindred to the Germans and were usually classed with them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking