In Lithuania, and East and West Prussia, typhus fever raged extensively in the winter of 1812–13. According to H. A. Göden,[124] who had charge of a large military lazaret in Gumbinnen, the epidemic spread continuously from the border of Russia to Berlin. ‘It appeared most virulently’, he says, ‘in the cities of Gumbinnen, Insterburg, Tilsit, Königsberg, Elbing, Marienwerder, Konitz, and Landsberg; it followed along the military roads, and broke out most severely in the halting-places and in those cities where French military lazarets were established.’ In Gumbinnen typhus fever broke out suddenly in the latter part of November, immediately after the arrival of the fugitives, and spread rapidly. At first it appeared in houses where officers and soldiers were quartered; as a rule, several members of a family contracted the disease simultaneously, and only rarely was one member spared. The pestilence raged most furiously in the months of January and February; the town had some 6,000 inhabitants, and frequently 20, 30, or 40 people, including entire families, died in a single day. In the military lazarets the mortality was considerably higher. In March the pestilence began to abate, and in May it disappeared altogether. In Königsberg the pestilence began in the month of December 1812 and came to an end in May 1813; excluding the soldiers who died in the military lazarets, the following deaths were recorded there: December (1812) 430 January (1813) 581 February 802 March 622 April 608 May 327 June 196 July 178 August 157 September 160 October 151 In the year 1812 there were 2,648 deaths in Königsberg, whereas in the following year there were 4,403. In the first part of January, when the city was evacuated by the French, 10,000 people, according to Stricker, were left behind. The entire province of East Prussia, according to Gurlt, lost 20,000 inhabitants by typhus fever.[125] Danzig, which was besieged by the Russians from January 11 to November 29, 1813, suffered terribly. A French army of 35,900 men, under General Rapp, was in the city, and during the siege it was exposed to all sorts of privations as well as to extreme cold. As early as February typhus fever had become very widespread; from January to May, 11,400 soldiers died in the hospitals (4,000 in March alone), while 5,592 inhabitants succumbed to the disease in the course of the entire year.[126]