D’Arnoult, of the 6th mounted chasseurs (known in the fort simply as “le Chasseur”), is Major von Stengel’s secretary. He takes his seat by my side. Having read the papers, he is able to inform me that in France the 15th class is to be called up on November 2nd. He relates that the Russians seem inclined to repeat with the Germans the tactics successfully employed against Napoleon: to entice them far into the interior, where they will perish of cold and hunger; to harass them unceasingly by threatened attacks; to break up their forces into incoherent fragments, and then to overwhelm these isolated detachments in detail amid the snows. The men at work on the vegetables were listening. “We are likely, then, to stay here for some time,” said one of them. “Never mind,” says Bonin; “we are better off than we should be at Augsburg. In the Ingolstadt hospital I had a talk with some of the men from the Lechfeld camp. There, I gathered, the prisoners sleep under canvas, mixed higgledy-piggledy with the wounded who are awaiting removal to hospital. There are no plates. They feed by sections, out of a trough. No meat. Nothing but turnips and red cabbage. Not very pleasant, this starvation camp, during the cold winter rains. They would regard our fortress as the lap of luxury!” The potatoes have been peeled. Now for the turnips. The soldiers cut slices and chew them raw while they are at work. Poor devils! The task is done. They sweep up the peelings. How limp are their movements! To think that they are all men between twenty and thirty years of age. The Lenting curé told us in one of his sermons: “You have been welcomed here as friends.” Major von Stengel hit the mark more aptly one Sunday. Apropos of the fact that all through the week, from matins to compline, the religious services had been diligently said, he remarked: “Sie würden lieber etwas mehr Brot haben, als so viele christliche Seelensorge.”[20]