This sketch must convince the reader that Napoleon had in his eye, from the outset, the prospect of deficiency in supplying his army with provisions, and that he had bent his mind to the task of overcoming it by timely preparation. But all his precautions proved totally inadequate. It was found a vain attempt to introduce military discipline amidst the carters and waggon-drivers; and when wretched roads were encumbered with fallen horses and broken carriages, when the soldiers and wain-drivers began to plunder the contents of the cars and waggons which they were appointed to protect and to manage, the confusion became totally inextricable. Very far from reaching Lithuania, where their presence was so essential, few of the heavy waggons ever attained the banks of the Vistula, and almost none proceeded to the Niemen. Weeks and months after the army had passed, some of the light cars and herds of cattle did arrive, but comparatively few in number, and in most miserable plight. The soldiers were, therefore, at the very commencement of the campaign, compelled to have recourse to their usual mode of supplying themselves, by laying contributions on the country; which, while they continued in Poland, the immense fertility of the soil enabled it to supply. But matters became greatly worse after entering Lithuania, which the Russians had previously endeavoured to strip of all that could benefit the French. Thus, in the very first march from the Niemen and the Wilia, through a country which was regarded as friendly, and before they had seen an enemy, the immense army of Napoleon were incurring great loss themselves, and doing infinite damage to the country on which they lived at free cost, in spite of all the measures which Buonaparte had devised, and all the efforts he had made to maintain them from their own stores. This uncertain mode of subsistence was common to the whole army, though its consequences were especially disastrous in particular corps. Ségur[118] informs us, that the armies under Eugene and Davoust were regular in their work of collecting contributions, and distributing them among the soldiers; so that their system of marauding was less burdensome to the country, and more advantageous to themselves. On the other hand, the Westphalian, and other German auxiliaries, under King Jerome, having learned the lesson of pillaging from the French, and wanting, according to Ségur, the elegant manner of their teachers, practised the arts they had acquired with a coarse rapacity, which made the French ashamed of their pupils and imitators. Thus the Lithuanians, terrified, alienated, and disgusted, with the injuries they sustained, were far from listening to the promises of Napoleon, or making common cause with him against Russia, who had governed them kindly, and with considerable respect to their own habits and customs. [Sidenote: IMMENSE LOSSES OF THE ARMY.]