162 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1756-63He spoke dismissively to Field-Marshal Keith, a veteran of the Rus-
sian service, about the military qualities of the Muscovites, but he
made the same kind of personal arrangements as he did before the
battle of Leuthen: 'It is my intention that, after I am dead, my body
shall be disposed of with no ceremony. I am not to be opened by the
surgeons, but taken quietly to Sans Souci and buried in my garden'
(Ordre, 22 August, PC 10230).
On 11 August Frederick left Margrave Carl of Brandenburg-
Schwedt in charge of the forces in Silesia, and set off in person for the
Oder with a corps of just fourteen battalions and thirty-eight squad-
rons, or about 11,000 men in all. He could not take a greater force with
him without revealing his design to Daun. On the eastern theatre he
intended to join the 26,000 troops of Lieutenant-General Dohna, who
had taken over the command from Lehwaldt in March. He faced an
army of some 45,000 Russians, who were making their way westwards
to the Oder under the command of General Fermor.
On 15 August the main Russian force opened a bombardment of
the small fortress of Ciistrin. Once in their hands, this place would
offer them a secure passage of the Oder just fifty miles from Berlin.
There could be no question of stopping the Russians somewhere
beyond the Oder, as Frederick had originally hoped. His plan was now
to join Dohna, relieve Ciistrin, and bring the Russians to battle in the
neighbourhood.
Frederick drove his corps relentlessly north-west to Crossen and
then down the left bank of the Oder to the pretty university town of
Frankfurt, where he arrived on 20 August. He lodged at the house of a
clergyman's widow, and as he stood at the door the sound of the
Russian bombardment of Ciistrin was carried distinctly from the
north. 'I noticed', wrote one of his officers, 'how at every shot the king
took a pinch of snuff. It was possible to detect, under that amazing
steadfastness which distinguishes the character of that remarkable
man, the working of his sympathy for the fate of that unlucky town,
and how desperately impatient he was to come to its help' (Anon.,
1787-9, II, 13).
The king rode off with a small party at two the next morning, and
he reached Dohna's corps at Gorgast, just outside Ciistrin. The troops
were in fine external order, with powdered hair and a good carriage,
but Frederick did not bother to conceal his dissatisfaction with their
commander. Frederick's own corps was resting exhausted at Frank-
furt, after its forced marches over sandy tracks under a burning sun.
The Russians promptly abandoned their siege of Ciistrin, and
formed themselves up nearby on the east bank of the Oder. Frederick
associated Ciistrin with some of the most vivid episodes of his im-
pressionable youth, and now when he entered the town its hideous