Barclay’s preparations, in brief, included the increase of the number of the regiments of the Russian army, the completion to war strength of two battalions per infantry, and four squadrons per cavalry, regiment; the organisation of depôts to complete the third battalions and fifth squadrons with all speed, and the concentration on the western frontier of all available forces--ultimately including 9 army corps, 2 independent divisions, 5 reserve cavalry “corps,” and 3 corps of irregular horse. Information concerning the state of Napoleon’s forces, especially in Germany and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, was carefully collected, and the possible theatre of war studied and surveyed. The fortifications carried out had a purely defensive character, and cannot be for a moment compared with Napoleon’s constant provocative preparations in Germany and Poland. Riga was fortified, and fortifications were projected at Dünaburg, where the St. Petersburg-Vilna road crossed the Düna. Other works were planned at Borisov on the Berezina, where the river is crossed by the Moscow-Warsaw high-road. Kiev, the famous old Russian city on the Dnieper, was also fortified, as was Bobruisk on the Berezina. A glance at the map will show how absolutely defensive these fortifications were. Riga is 150 miles from the frontier, and all the other places much farther back. As a fact some of them were not completed, hardly even begun, when war broke out. These preparations were due in their inception to Barclay, but there were others which were inspired by the unpractical advisers immediately about the Tzar. Wellington’s Torres Vedras campaign had made a great sensation in Europe, and General Phull, Alexander’s Prussian instructor and adviser, had projected a great entrenched camp at Drissa, a town that was literally nowhere. It covered nothing; it was hardly even tactically well placed. It is a striking indication of the confusion in the Russian councils that, practically behind the back of the War-Minister who was nominally responsible for military preparations, a vast amount of time and labour was wasted on this pretentious and unprofitable camp of refuge. In a sentence, Drissa was absolutely useless. Yet the man who conceived this almost childish idea of drawing Napoleon against his will upon an arbitrarily placed entrenchment, and inducing him to waste time and lives before it, passed for a scientific soldier! The amount of time and labour expended on Drissa rendered all the other works slow in construction, and Dünaburg was hardly commenced when the war broke out.