The danger, however, grew greater throughout the summer months. The Muscovite tide rolled slowly across Poland into Frederick’s dominions east of the Oder. Europe now had an opportunity of learning something of the nature of the society which Peter the Great had brought within her pale. In the Russian army, as in the nation, the highest classes were men of honour when not too sorely tried, but the lowest were filthy savages, who made the country a desert and tortured and burned men and women alike. What the rank and file might be, Frederick had yet to learn. But that his trusted field-marshal, Keith, gave him timely warning, he might well have been pardoned for his belief that Fermor’s unseasoned horde would not face the heroes of Leuthen led by himself, the foremost captain in the world. As the King sped towards his old prison, Cüstrin, the trembling peasants came in crowds to kiss the hem of his coat. He found the fortress unharmed, but the defenceless town reduced to ashes by Fermor’s bombs. The Russians, more than 40,000 strong, lay on the eastern side of the Oder, having an open road to Poland, but all others barred by swamps and rivers. Before Frederick’s arrival, Dohna, with perhaps a third of their numbers, the waters of the Oder, and the walls of Cüstrin had been the only defences of Berlin. Now, however, the Prussians were some 36,000 strong and as much superior to their foes in mobility as were Drake and Hawkins to the Spanish Armada. Fermor was short of supplies. He could not go forward and had hundreds of miles of desert at his rear. Was the time at the King’s disposal so scanty that he could not starve, harry, and crush the enemy without the sacrifice of more than a few hundred Prussian lives? Frederick was, however, in no mood for a war of strategy. He had published his fixed resolve to conquer or die. He was impatient to return to Silesia, where he had left 40,000 men under Charles of Brandenburg-Schwedt. He was still more impatient to annihilate the bloody vagabonds, who, he wrote, were burning villages every day and committing horrors which made Nature groan. In the spirit of Leuthen, though perhaps without like need, he resolved to attack Fermor without an hour’s delay. Knowing every inch of the dismal country-side, he swiftly planned a massacre that should avenge the past and safeguard the future. The Russians had abandoned the siege of Cüstrin and taken up a position so sheltered by the Oder and its tributary, the Mietzel, that Fermor believed it to be unassailable. Frederick crossed the Oder some miles below Cüstrin, marched right round their camp, and prepared to hurl them into the waters in which they trusted for defence.