While we drove them before us, General Heudelet threatened their rear. As soon as the enemy perceived this movement, it was no longer a flight, it was disorder, confusion, of which it is difficult to form an idea. They deserted their wounded and their hospitals; they evacuated, with all speed, Schweiskopff, Saint-Albrecht, and did not halt till they reached the other side of Praust, which our voltigeurs entered pell-mell with them.
On arriving at Saint-Albrecht, I learned that the Russians were still maintaining their ground on the banks of the Mottlaw. I made arrangements to prevent their receiving any relief while we attacked them. Major Scifferlitz, with a battalion of the 13th Bavarian, assisted by a company of Westphalians and the flotilla, was charged with this attack. It took place with perfect concert and great impetuosity: 300 Russians were laid in the dust with their chief, who had fallen under the blows of the brave Zarlinwski; the remainder were drowned or taken. A hundred of them were escaping through the inundation, when they were overtaken by Lieutenant Faber, who charged them at the head of some brave troops, up to the neck in water, and brought them back. A mere boy, young Kern, animated our soldiers; he went before them; excited them; he threw himself into the thickest of the fight. His comrades paused, and hesitated to follow him. He turned to them with the boldness which courage inspires; "Forward! Bavarians!" he exclaimed, and they were carried away by his impulse.
The day was drawing to a close: the Russians displayed such large numbers of troops in front of Quadendorf, that I did not judge it right to continue the attack. We returned to Dantzic, after having caused the enemy an immense loss, and having taken from them 350 men. This was almost the only result of so brilliant a sally. Scarcely did it procure us a hundred head of cattle. We had been anticipated: all that the villages had contained had been removed to the rear.
Independently of the attempt to procure provisions, I had another object in view, which did not succeed better. Since the commencement of the blockade I had no channel of communication with the French army: I was not aware of its force, or of its fortune. I had put every means in operation in order to get some information on these points; but the hatred was so general and so rooted, no bribery had been able to overcome it. I hoped that the burgomasters would be more tractable, but they knew nothing but the reports that were circulated by the Russians. I remained in a state of the most complete ignorance of every thing that was going on around me.
After all, whatever might be the course of events, the place was to be defended, and defended to the very last moment; that is to say, we had to live as long as possible with the resources that we still possessed. I redoubled my economy; and, as something is generally gained by an interchange of ideas, I formed a commission which was exclusively charged with the care of the provisions. Count Heudelet was the president; it was of very great service. It applied itself in a particular manner to ameliorate the condition of the hospitals. It made purchases of linen, of medicines, and substituted for butter, which was no longer to be procured, gelatine. All the wine and fresh meat we had was reserved for the sick; and in order that they might not fail us, the commission seized, after a valuation on both sides, the cellars and the cattle which were found in the place. The troops no longer received any animal food but the flesh of horses, which had been obtained in the same way. But all the cares of the commission could not subdue the epidemic: it might be said that this cruel pest was inflamed in proportion to the opposition it met. Continually more violent, more irremediable, it burst forth with fresh strength in those places that it had already attacked, and assailed those that had before escaped. Weichselmunde, Neufahrwasser, previously free from its attacks, now became a prey to its ravages. The troops, the population, from one extremity of our lines to the other, struggled in the agonies of a cruel disease. Those who escaped, and those who fell, equally deserved pity. Given up to all the convulsions of delirium, they wept, they groaned, they dwelt on the remembrance of their battles and their pleasures, which no longer existed but in their dreams.—Now calm, now furious, they called on their country, their parents, the friends of their childhood; they prayed for, they shuddered at, the destiny of the brave men who had perished;—torn alternately by contrary passions, they breathed out the remnant of life in the horrors of despair.
The more remedies were lavished, the more the sufferings increased. The evil spread by means of those very efforts which were used to destroy it. Every day of the last fortnight of March carried off more than 200 men. The epidemic gradually ceased to be so destructive; but it was not till the end of May that it was subdued altogether. It had by that time swept away 5500 inhabitants, and 12,000 brave soldiers. Among this number was General Gault: an excellent officer, a soldier full of courage—he deserved a better lot.
Disease was making war on us for the benefit of the Russians, while they themselves disturbed us but very little. The expedition of Borgfeld had cooled their courage; they made intrenchments, they fortified themselves, they were only engaged in defensive measures. Nevertheless, as it was absolutely necessary to give some signs of life, they every now and then endeavoured to surprise my advanced posts. Annoyed by these insignificant attacks, I wished in return to break their slumbers as they were breaking ours. They had above Brentau a signal which furnished me with the means. Our business was to burn it: I intrusted the management of it to two officers, whose intelligence and courage I had experienced. They were the chiefs of battalion Zsembeck and Potocki. On a dark night they went forth from Langfuhr, and marched for a long time without being perceived: discharges of musquetry at length apprised them that they were discovered; they immediately rushed on and overthrew the enemy. Potocki advanced towards Brentau, and dispersed a numerous body of infantry which opposed his passage. Forty men threw themselves into a kind of block-house: a voltigeur followed them, and summoned them to surrender; he was killed. The Poles, quite furious, immediately inundated the redoubt, and exterminated all the Russians that it contained.
Whilst these things were going on in the village, Zsembeck made himself master of the signal. He set fire to it, and immediately descended into the plain, overthrew and cut to pieces the detachments which he found in his way, and pushed on as far as the walls of Oliwa, where he threw some shells. At the same time the brave Devillain, quarter-master to the eighth, swept, with a dozen hussars, all that part of our advanced posts. He charged with so much boldness that the Cossacks were terrified and broken. Success encouraged him; he extended himself to the right, reconnoitred, searched the wood, and did not join our troops till the moment they were retiring.
Meanwhile all the signals were on fire. The Russian army ran to arms, and expected every moment to see itself attacked; it passed in this state the rest of the night and the whole of the next day. We repaid them in a mass the alarms which they had given us in detail.