The 1st Corps contained in its staff a considerable foreign element. Wittgenstein, his chief-of-staff, Major-General D’Auvray, and the Quartermaster-General Diebich, were all Germans. Wittgenstein himself was a man of no special talent, but active and energetic, and in the prime of life. D’Auvray was an older man, but possessed plenty of vigour, and was a good theoretical officer, though somewhat deficient in practical experience of warfare. Colonel Diebich, a Prussian, only twenty-seven years of age, was probably the most intellectually distinguished of the three. His enduring fame as “Zabalkanski”--the Balkan-Passer--dates from the year 1829, when he commanded in chief against the Turks. For the present all that need be observed is that the command of the Russian army of the Düna was in vigorous hands. Clausewitz notes that D’Auvray, especially, could “lay about him” at need; and doubtless the process was often necessary in dealing with the gallant but amateurish and frequently indolent Russian officers. From Dünaburg to Riga, a distance of some 130 miles, there were practically no Russian troops. In the great Baltic port and its neighbourhood there were 30 depôt battalions, 8 squadrons, and some Cossacks and field artillery, which, with garrison troops, totalled perhaps 14,000 men, sufficient to defend the fortifications and outlying places, but not to furnish any considerable detachment for the field. Riga was furthermore defended by Russian and English gunboats and bomb-brigs; and naval assistance to almost any amount was available from the British Baltic fleet, should it be necessary. Riga was practically secure against any but a very large army. Its commander, Lieutenant-General Essen I, was an officer of no great ability, and in poor health. The Russian forces therefore available for the defence of Kurland and the line of the Düna amounted in all to perhaps 43,000 men, but could be reinforced to nearly double that number by militia and regulars, the latter partly depôt troops, but chiefly belonging to Count Steingell’s army of Finland, soon rendered disposable by the conclusion of peace with Sweden. Towards Riga Napoleon had directed the so-called 10th Corps, under Marshal Macdonald. It had, in fact, as Macdonald complained, no proper corps organisation or administration; and consisted of two distinct bodies--Grandjean’s Polish and German division, formerly attached to the 1st Corps, and the bulk of the Prussian contingent under General Grawert. The operations of the corps were languid; it certainly was not strong enough to besiege Riga; and Napoleon paid curiously little attention to it. It would almost seem as if his real object in constituting it at the last moment was to have the notoriously disaffected Prussian contingent accompanied and watched by a competent force of troops drawn from states which he regarded as devoted to him.