to the Silesian Protestants. No enterprise at that time appeared impossible to him. He had even dispatched several officers privately into Asia and Egypt, to take plans of the towns, and examine into the strength and resources of those countries."[1]
Napoleon thus epitomises the earlier operations of Charles's invasion of Russia:—
"That prince set out from his camp at Aldstadt, near Leipsic, in September 1707, at the head of 45,000 men, and traversed Poland; 20,000 men, under Count Lewenhaupt, disembarked at Riga; and 15,000 were in Finland. He was therefore in a condition to have brought together 80,000 of the best troops in the world. He left 10,000 men at Warsaw to guard King Stanislaus, and in January 1708, arrived at Grodno, where he wintered. In June, he crossed the forest of Minsk, and presented himself before Borisov; forced the Russian army, which occupied the left bank of the Beresina; defeated 20,000 Russians who were strongly entrenched behind marshes; passed the Borysthenes at Mohilov, and vanquished a corps of 16,000 Muscovites near Smolensko, on the 22nd of September. He was now advanced to the confines of Lithuania, and was about to enter Russia Proper: the Czar, alarmed at his approach, made
- ↑ Crighton's "Scandinavia."
