During the night every space was occupied as a resting place.
While those who could afford it enjoyed all the good things of which they
had been deprived so long, the poor soldiers in the streets were in great
misery. The doors being shut, they entered the houses by force and
illtreated the inhabitants who on the next day took a bitter revenge.
Even the rich magazines had remained closed, tedious formalities had to be
observed, the carrying out of which was an impossibility since the whole
army was disbanded. No regiment had kept together, no detachment could be
selected to present vouchers for receiving rations.
Lieutenant Jacobs gives an illustration of the condition: "Orders had been
given to receive rations for four days. Colonel von Egloffstein in the
evening of the 9th sent Lieutenant Jacobs with 100 men to the bread
magazine to secure as much as possible, and as this magazine was at some
distance, and as Cossacks had already entered the city, he ordered 25 armed
men to accompany the hundred, who, naturally enough, were not armed. The
commissary of the magazine refused to hand out bread without a written
order of the commissaire-ordonateur; the lieutenant therefore notified him
that he would take by force what he needed for his regiment. And with his
25 carabiniers he had to fight for the bread."
Finally the pressing need led to violence. During the night of the 10th.
the desperate soldiers, aided by inhabitants, broke into the magazines, at
first into those containing clothing, then they opened the provision
stores, throwing flour bags and loaves of bread into the street where the
masses fought for these missiles.
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