Danzig, which in the spring of 1807 had passed through a siege of ten weeks, was once more, in the year 1813, from January 11 to November 29, subjected to the horrors of a siege, which for two reasons was even more horrible than the previous one; in the first place, the garrison was badly infected with disease, causing a severe epidemic to rage throughout the city; and in the second place, the defenders of the stronghold, which was most advantageously located to withstand a siege, were national enemies of the inhabitants. Consequently the latter were not only grossly disregarded in the distribution of supplies, but were actually obliged to turn over all they had to the French and then buy it back at exorbitant prices. And while the inhabitants, and toward the end of the siege the soldiers, too, suffered severely from a lack of the necessaries of life, the higher officers and the military officials lived in luxury until the day of the surrender.
Napoleon had assigned the defence of the city to General Rapp, who performed the task with great valour and ability. On the return march from Russia, some 40,000 men of Macdonald’s corps had congregated in Danzig, and 5,000 of them were sent away by Rapp; in the middle of January the total number of men in the garrison, including the military officials, was 35,934, consisting of Frenchmen, Poles, Bavarians, Westphalians, Spaniards, Italians, and Dutchmen. While Macdonald’s corps had fared pretty well, comparatively speaking, in the Russian campaign, the men were all very much exhausted, and furthermore, typhus fever was prevalent among them. As early as the latter part of January, accordingly, the number of sick soldiers was very large; in fact, only about 10,000 men were healthy and able to bear arms. ‘As there were no hospitals, beds, or remedies,’ says Friccius,[328] ‘many died from lack of care, and at the same time infectious diseases broke out and made great havoc. A heap of dead men and horses was a common sight in the streets, and in a short time many thousands of the troops, as well as of the inhabitants, were carried away.’
In January the death-rate remained comparatively low; of the garrison about 400 men died in the course of that month. But in February, which was a very cold month, typhus fever spread abroad with great rapidity, so that toward the end of the month some 130 soldiers died every day; no less than 15,000 men lay sick, and the total number of deaths for the entire month amounted to 2,000. When it began to thaw on February 24, the number of patients and deaths increased still more, so that 4,000 men died in March and 3,000 in April. From April on, the condition of health in the garrison improved, although the number of deaths in the month of May was still no less than 2,000.[329]