How much they had suffered manifested itself in many ways after the thick crust had been removed from their body and, above all, after what had taken the place of shoes had been taken off. When Sergeant Toenges removed the rags from his feet the flesh of both big toes came off. Captain Gravenreuth’s boots had been penetrated by matter and ichor. Painful operations had to be performed to separate gangraenous parts. In Marienwerder Hochberg found all the attendants of Marshal Victor on the floor while a surgeon was amputating their limbs.
But these were comparatively minor affairs, amputated limbs played no roll when hundreds of thousands of mutilated corpses rested on the fields of Russia.
An enemy more vicious than the one that had decimated the beautiful army was lying in wait for the last remainder which tried to rally again.
It was the typhus that on the road from Moscow all through Germany and through France did its destructive work.
This disease had been observed, as Dr. Geissler reports, first in Moscow, ravaged most terribly in Wilna and held a second great harvest in Koenigsberg, where the first troops arrived on December 20th.
One-half of those who had been attacked succumbed, although the hospitals of Koenigsberg were ideal ones compared with those of Wilna.
Geissler and his colleague had to work beyond description to ameliorate and to console; help was impossible in the majority of cases.
The physicians of Koenigsberg were not as lucky as Dr. Krantz, whose patients were in the open air instead of being confined in a hospital.
It is heartrending to read how so many who had withstood so much, escaped so many dangers, had to die now. One of these was General Eblé, the hero of the Beresina.