Napoleon began to make preparations for his Russian campaign as early as the year 1811; troops were assembled in Westphalia, Hamburg, Saxony, Holland, on the Rhine, and near Verona, and several hospitals were founded, as in Danzig. An army of 550,000 men was organized to take part in the expedition into Russia; it consisted of Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and Poles. How this army was destroyed on its march to and from Moscow, and in what a pitiable condition the remnants of it arrived in Germany, is well known. Since it is our purpose to point out here how that severe epidemic of typhus fever spread abroad from those remnants, we can deal but briefly with the prevalence of the disease in the army itself. In consequence of the great heat, of the lack of drinking-water and good food, and of the continual bivouacking (the peasants burned and deserted all the villages along the way), the army suffered greatly even on the march to Moscow. After crossing the Polish border the soldiers were severely attacked by dysentery and diarrhoea; Kerckhoffs estimates that no less than 80,000 men were suffering from dysentery at the beginning of August 1812. Typhus fever broke out, very sparsely, to be sure, as early as the latter part of July, when the army arrived at Vilna; there were also cases in the hospitals at Minsk, Vilkomir, Globokie, and Mittau, but the disease was not yet so infectious as it proved to be later. After the battle of Smolensk (August 14–18) large numbers of wounded soldiers (between 6,000 and 10,000 according to various reports) were brought to that city, and from that time on, typhus fever and other diseases (hospital fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, gastric fever, &c.) continued to spread throughout the army. On September 14, Moscow was entered, and on September 15 the city was in flames. The army then had peace until October 19, when the return march began. During their sojourn in Moscow the soldiers were very improperly nourished, eating almost nothing but salted meat and fish, and drinking large quantities of wine and spirits. According to Lemazurier, the number of sick and wounded soldiers in Moscow was 15,000. The most common disease even in Moscow was typhus fever; according to Scheerer, when Napoleon’s army withdrew from the city it left behind several thousand typhus-fever patients, almost all of whom died—only the stronger patients were taken along on wagons.