Cossacks Sentence Examples

A fort was erected here in the 16th century to prevent the incursions of the free Cossacks and runaway serfs who gathered on the lower Volga, as also the raids of the Kalmucks and Circassians.

Broadly speaking, the army is divided into regulars, Cossacks and militia.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks colonized the steppes farther E., towards the Don, where they met with a large population of Great Russian runaways, constituting the present Don Cossacks.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks, sent by Catherine II.

They are Lamaists by religion and immigrated to the mouth of the Volga from Dzungaria, in the 17th century, driving out the Tatars and Nogais, and after many wars with the Don Cossacks, one part of them was taken in by the Don Cossacks, so that even now there are among these Cossacks several Kalmuck sotnias or squadrons.

The two principal mining centres of European Russia are the Urals, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov and the Don Cossacks territory.

Those of them who lived on the outskirts of the pacified territory adopted a mode of life similar to that of their hereditary opponents, and constituted a peculiar class known as Cossacks, living more by flocks and The h e rds and by marauding expeditions than by a ri y g p ?'

The chief con spirator, Shuiski, seized the power and was elected tsar by an Assembly composed of his faction, but neither Shuiski, the ambitious boyars, nor the pillaging Cossacks, nor the German mercenaries were satisfied with the change, and soon a new impostor, likewise calling himself Dimitri, son of Tsar Ivan, came forward as the rightful heir.

As a precaution against Tatar invasions he founded fortified towns on his southern frontiers - Tambov, Kozlov, Penza and Simbirsk; but when the Don Cossacks offered him Azov, which they had captured from the Turks, and a National Assembly, convoked for the purpose of considering the question, were in favour of accepting it as a means of increasing Russian influence on the Black Sea, he decided that the town should be restored to the sultan, much to the disappointment of its captors.

The registered Cossacks objected to being placed under a Hetman not freely chosen by themselves, and those who were not included in the militia objected still more strongly to the prospect of being reduced to the miserable condition of Polish serfs.

In the expected war with Poland, which followed quickly, the Russians were so successful that the arrangement was upheld; but it was soon found that the Cossacks, though they professed unbounded devotion to the Orthodox tsar, disliked Muscovite, quite as much as Polish, interference in their internal affairs, and some of their leaders were in favour of substituting federation with Poland for annexation by Russia.

Many believed, or affected to believe, in the pretender, and in a short time he gathered around him a large force of Cossacks, peasants, Tatars and Tchuvash, swept over the basin of the lower Volga, executed mercilessly the landed proprietors, seized and pillaged the town of Kazan, and kept the whole country in a state of alarm for more than a year.

The soil of these plains is generally very fertile and they support a population of nearly 2,800,000 Russians, composed of Cossacks and peasant immigrants, settled chiefly along the rivers and grouped in large, wealthy villages.

But the idea of a retreat was intolerable to him, so he determined to march southwards instead of northwards as suggested by his generals, and join his forces with those of the hetman of the Dnieperian Cossacks, Ivan Mazepa, who had 100,000 horsemen and a fresh and fruitful land at his disposal.

In their application, which was unsuccessful, they stated that they had taught the Don Cossacks to " change black naphtha into white," and showed by a drawing, preserved in the archives of the Caucasian government, how this was achieved.

Of the Aryan races the Slavs - Serbs, Bulgarians, Pomaks and Cossacks - and the Greeks predominate, the other representatives being chiefly Albanians and Kurds.

In his reign the Cossacks were driven from Azov and the expedition against Crete was begun, the immediate cause being the plunder of a Turkish vessel by Maltese corsairs who took their capture to Crete.

Dissensions among the Cossacks led to the recognition by Turkey of Doroshenko, the hetman of the Sari Kamish, as ruler of the Ukraine; the Zaporog Cossacks, his antagonists, applied for aid to Russia.

His orders and the despatch conveying Napoleon's instructions fell into the hands of the Cossacks, and just in time Bennigsen's eyes were opened.

Soult and Murat attacked his rearguard on the 3rd, and learning from his Cossacks that the French corps were being directed so as to swing round and enclose him, he withdrew by a night march and ultimately succeeded in getting his whole army, with the exception of von Lestocq's Prussians, together in the strong position along the Alle, the centre of which is marked by Preussisch-Eylau.

Again the emperor had to admit that his troops could do no more, and bowing to necessity, he distributed them into winter quarters, where, however, the enterprise of the Cossacks, who were no strangers to snow and to forests, left the outposts but little repose.

With horses only just recovering from an epidemic, they proved quite unequal to the task of catching the Cossacks, who swarmed round them in every direction, never accepting an engagement but compelling a constant watchfulness for which nothing in their previous experience had sufficiently prepared the French.

Kutusov had been very slow in exploiting his success of the 24th and indeed had begun the pursuit in a false direction; but about the 2nd of November, headquarters of the French being at Vyazma, the Cossacks became so threatening that the emperor ordered the army to march (as in Egypt) in hollow square.

Kutusov had now overtaken the French, but fortunately for them he made no effort to close with them, but hung on their flank, molesting them with Cossacks and picking up stragglers.

About noon the 2nd of February Napoleon attacked them, but the weather was terrible, and the ground so heavy that his favourite artillery, the mainstay of his whole system of warfare, was useless and in the drifts of snow which at intervals swept across the field, the columns lost their direction and many were severely handled by the Cossacks.

But on the 4th of February Blucher, chafing at this inaction, obtained the permission of his own sovereign to transfer his line of operations to the valley of the Marne; Pahlen's corps of Cossacks were assigned to him to cover his left and maintain communication with the Austrians.

At the same time he heard that Pahlen's Cossacks had been withdrawn forty-eight hours previously, thus completely exposing his flank.

It is this Wale ' circumstance that facilitated the rapid invasion of Siberia Wal er l by the Russian Cossacks and hunters; they followed the omm courses of the twin rivers in their advance towards the east, and discovered short portages which permitted them to transfer their boats from the system of the Ob to that of the Yenisei, and from the latter to that of the Lena, a tributary of which - the Aldan - brought them close to the Sea of Okhotsk.

Serfs in the imperial mines were liberated and organized in Cossack regiments (the Transbaikal Cossacks); some of these were settled on the Amur, forming the Amur and Usuri Cossacks.

Soon after the first appearance (1580) of the Cossacks of Yermak in Siberia thousands of hunters, attracted by the furs, immigrated from north Russia, explored the country, traced the first footpaths and erected the first houses in the wilderness.

The Cossacks of West Siberia have the features and customs and many of the manners of life of the Kalmucks and Kirghiz.

At Irkutsk and in the valley of the Irkut the admixture of Tungus and Buriat blood is obvious, and still more in the Nerchinsk district and among the Transbaikal Cossacks settled on the Argun.

In the case of the peasants the allotments vary on an average from 32 to 102 acres (in some cases from 21.6 to 240 acres); the Transbaikal Cossacks have about 111 acres per male head, and the indigenous population 108 to 154 acres.

Yermak was drowned in the Irtysh in 1584 and the Cossacks abandoned Siberia.

The Buriats offered some opposition, but between 1631 and 1641 the Cossacks erected several palisaded forts in their territory, and in 1648 the fort on the upper Uda beyond Lake Baikal.

The resistance of the Chinese, however, obliged the Cossacks to quit their forts, and by the treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) Russia abandoned her advance into the basin of the river.

In 1852 a Russian military expedition under Muraviev explored the Amur, and by 1857 a chain of Russian Cossacks and peasants were settled along the whole course of the river.

In 1648 and 1655 it was besieged by the Cossacks, and in 1672 by the Turks.

Russia, stretching between the lower river Don and the Caspian Sea, through the Don Cossacks territory and between the government of Astrakhan on the .N.

The next war in which he was called upon to take part was with Poland, in defence of the Cossacks, who had appealed to Turkey for protection.

From Poland the word was introduced into Russia, in the form ataman, and was adopted by the Cossacks, as a title for their head, who was practically an independent prince, when under the suzerainty of Poland.

After the acceptance of Russian rule by the Cossacks in 1654, the post was shorn of its power.

The title of "ataman" or "hetman of all the Cossacks" is held by the Cesarevitch.

But it was continually plundered - either by Russians, who attacked it six times during the 16th century, or by Cossacks, who plundered it three times.

Nearly one-half of the population are Cossacks, the other ethnological groups being (1897) 2 7, 2 34 Armenians, 2255 Greeks, 1267 Albanians, 16,000 Jews and some 30,000 Kalmuck Tatars, who are Lamaists in religion.

The Cossacks own nearly 30,000,000 acres of land.

He took an active part in all the subsequent wars with the Cossacks and received more disfiguring wounds than any other commander.

For more than 150 years its possession was disputed between the Cossacks, the Poles and the Turks.

The Russians, then, at the beginning of June, were divided into three groups, the Southern, or offensive group (3 5,000), in the triangle Neuchwang-Haicheng-Kaiping; the Eastern or defensive group (30,000), the main body of it guarding the passes right and left of the Wiju-Liao-Yang road, the left (Cossacks) in the roadless hills of the upper Aiho and Yalu valleys, the right (Mishchenko's Cossacks and infantry supports) guarding Fenshuiling pass and the road from Takushan; the reserve (42,000) with Kuropatkin at Liao-Yang; the " Ussuri Army " about Vladivostok; and Stessel's two divisions in the Kwantung peninsula.

Meantime, except for the movement on Siu-yen already mentioned,' and various reconnaissances in force by Keller's main body and by Rennenkampf's Cossacks farther inland, all was quiet along the Motienling front.

Only a portion of the 10th division from Takushan helped to drive away Mishchenko's Cossacks.

Thus, in the reign of Alexander, the fugitive serfs whom tyranny or idleness had driven into this wilderness (they were subsequently known as Kazaki, or Cossacks, a Tatar word meaning freebooters) were formed into companies (c. 1504) and placed at the disposal of the frontier starostas, or lord marchers, of Kaniev, Kamenets, Czerkask on the Don and other places.

Two thousand men would suffice, he said, and the Cossacks supplied excellent military material ready to hand.

But towards the end of his reign the energy of Wladislaus revived, and he began to occupy himself with another scheme for regenerating his country, in its own despite, by means of the Cossacks.

Moreover, the Turks and Tatars being the natural enemies of Christendom, a war of extermination The Cossacks.

The rank and file of the Tatar soldiery were known as Kazaki, or Cossacks, a word meaning "freebooters," and this term came to be applied indiscriminately to all the free dwellers in the Ukraine, or border-lands.

As time went on the Cossacks multiplied exceedingly.

Indeed, it is not too much to say that, until the days of Sobieski, the Cossacks were invariably the chief cause of the breaches between the Porte and the Republic. We have seen how carefully the Jagiellos avoided participating in any of the crusades directed by the Holy See against the arch-enemies of the Cross.

The first actual collisions, the Cecora campaign of 1620 and the Khotin War of 1621 (for John Albert's Moldavian raid does not count), were due to the depredations of the Cossacks upon the dominions of the sultan by land and sea, and in all subsequent treaties between the two powers the most essential clause was always that which bound the Republic to keep its freebooters in order.

But in the meantime the Cossacks themselves had become a semi-independent community.

Ultimately the island of Hortica, just below the falls of the Dnieper, was fixed upon as their headquarters; and on the numerous islands of that broad river there gradually arose the famous Cossack community known as the Zaporozhskaya Syech, or Settlement behind the Falls, whence the Dnieperian Cossacks were known, generally, as Zaporozhians, or Backfallsmen.

The Cossacks were supposed to be left alone as much as possible by the Polish government so long as they faithfully fulfilled their chief obligation of guarding the frontiers of the Republic from Tatar raids.

But the relations between a community of freebooters, mostly composed of fugitive serfs and refugees, and a government of small squires who regarded the Cossacks as a mere rabble were bound to be difficult at the best of times, and political and religious differences presently supervened.

The Cossacks, mostly of Lithuanian origin, belonged to the Orthodox religion, so far as they belonged to any religion at all, and the Jagiellos had been very careful to safeguard the religious liberties of their Lithuanian subjects, especially as the Poles themselves were indifferent on the subject.

The old Calvinist nobility of Lithuania were speedily reconverted; a Uniate Church in connexion with Rome was established; Greek Orthodox congregations, if not generally persecuted, were at least depressed and straitened; and the Cossacks began to hate the Pans, or Polish lords, not merely as tyrants, but as heretics.

Yet all these obstacles to a good understanding might, perhaps, have been surmounted if only the Polish diet had treated the Cossacks with common fairness and common sense.

In 161g the Polish government was obliged to prohibit absolutely the piratical raids of the Cossacks in the Black Sea, where they habitually destroyed Turkish property to the value of millions.

At the same time, by the compact of Rastawica, the sejm undertook to allow the Cossacks, partly as wages, partly as compensation, 40,000 (raised by the compact of Kurukow to 60,000) gulden and 170 wagons of cloth per annum.

Parsimony prevailed, as usual, over prudence, and when the Cossacks showed unmistakable signs of restiveness, the Poles irritated them still further by ordering the construction of the strong fortress of Kudak at the confluence of the Dnieper and the Samara, to overawe the Zaporozhian community.

This further act of repression led to two terrible Cossack risings, in 1635 and 1636, put down only with the utmost difficulty, whereupon the diet of 1638 deprived the Cossacks of all their ancient privileges, abolished the elective hetmanship, and substituted for it a commission of Polish noblemen with absolute power, so that the Cossacks might well declare that those who hated them were lords over them.

In case of such rupture he meant, at the head of 10o,000 Cossacks, to fall upon the Crimea itself, the seat of their power, and exterminate the Khanate.

He then bade the Cossacks prepare their boats for a raid upon the Turkish galleys, and secured the co-operation of the tsar in the Crimean expedition by a special treaty.

To save himself he hit upon the novel and terrible expedient of uniting the Tatars and the Cossacks Cossack in a determined onslaught upon the Republic, whose Rebellion of inward weakness, despite its brave outward show, 1648.

The steppe for miles around was strewn with corpses, and the Cossacks are said to have reaped io,000,000 guldens worth of booty when the fight was over.

Chmielnicki's conditions of peace were so extravagant that the Polish commissioners durst not accept them, and in 1649 he again invaded Poland with a countless host of Cossacks and Tatars.

Three years after his defeat at Beresteczko, Chmielnicki, finding himself unable to cope with the Poles single-handed, very reluctantly transferred his allegiance to the tsar, and the same year the tsar's armies invaded Poland, still bleeding from the all but mortal wounds inflicted on her by the Cossacks.

The Cossacks of the Dnieper were henceforth to be under the joint dominion of the tsar and the king of Poland.

Hieronymus Vespasian Kohcowski (1633-1699) was a soldier-poet, who went through the campaigns against the Swedes and Cossacks; he has left several books of lyrics full of vivacity, a Christian epic and a Polish psalmody.

We first hear of him in 1661 on a diplomatic mission from the Don Cossacks to the Kalmuck Tatars, and in the same year we meet him on a pilgrimage of a thousand miles to the great Solovetsky monastery on the White Sea "for the benefit of his soul."

Even his own settlements at Saratov and Samara refused to open their gates to him, and the Don Cossacks, hearing that the patriarch of Moscow had anathematized Stenka, also declared against him.

The cathedral of the Assumption, finished in 1832, is the principal place of worship. The fortified Carmelite monastery, founded in 1627, was captured and plundered by Chmielnicki, chief of the Zaporogian Cossacks, in 1647, and disestablished in 1864.

To keep the Cossacks of the Ukraine in order he also built the fortress of Kudak.

In the 15th and 16th centuries it suffered frequently from the invasions of Tatars, Moldavians and Turks; and in 1672 the hetman of the Cossacks, Doroshenko, assisted by Sultan Mahommed IV.

The Russians are represented by the Amur Cossacks, whose villages, e.g.

In 1649-1651 a party of Cossacks, under Khabarov, built a fort at Albazin on the Amur river, but in 1689 they withdrew in favour of the Chinese.

For the next few years he defended the Ukraine against the Tatars and Cossacks, and in 1617 was involved in a war with the Porte owing to the unauthorized interference of the Polish nobles in the affairs of Wallachia and Moldavia.

Unable to defeat the vastly superior forces of the Turkish commander Skinder, he concluded with him an advantageous truce at Jaruda (27th of August 1618), by the terms of which he pledged himself to curb the Cossacks and at the same time.

In the 17th century its importance was destroyed by inroads of Tatars, Cossacks and Swedes.

Finally, when Sultan Murad was about to set out for the Persian War, the patriarch was accused of a design to stir up the Cossacks, and to avoid trouble during his absence the sultan had him killed by the Janissaries (June 1637).

From that time Kremenets was under the dominion alternately of Lithuania and Poland, till 1648, when it was taken by the Zaporogian Cossacks.

An attempt was made to show that the contagion was brought home by Cossacks returning from the Turkish War, but on absolutely no evidence.

There are many large colonies of Circassians and smaller ones of Noghai (Nogais), Tatars, Georgians, Lazis, Cossacks, Albanians and Pomaks.

The Kalmucks and Kirghiz have their own local administrations, and so have the Astrakhan Cossacks (25,600).

These tidings profoundly impressed Sultan Murad, and when the victorious Wladislaus appeared at Lemberg, the usual starting-point for Turkish expeditions, the Porte offered terms which were accepted in October, each power engaging to keep their borderers, the Cossacks and Tatars, in order, and divide between them the suzerainty of Moldavia and Walachia, the sultan binding himself always to place philo-Polish hospodars on those slippery thrones.

Then he conceived the idea of using the Cossacks, who were deeply attached to him, as a means of chastising the szlachta, and at the same time forcing a war with Turkey, which would make his military genius indispensable to the republic, and enable him if successful to carry out domestic reforms by force of arms. His chief confidant in this still mysterious affair was the veteran grand hetman of the crown, Stanislaw Koniecpolski, who understood the Cossacks better than any man then living, but differed from the king in preferring the conquest of the Crimea to an open war with Turkey.

Mahommed Ali consented, but withdrew from Teheran; and on his departure the royal bodyguard of so-called Cossacks Persian soldiers officered by Russians in the shahs serviceat once came into conflict with the Nationalists.

This incident, combined with the employment of the so-called Cossacks, evoked a protest from the Nationalists, who asserted that Russia was aiding the Royalists; the accusation was true only in so far as it referred to the conduct of certain Russian officials who acted without the consent of the Russian government.

After severe street fighting the Cossacks deserted to the rebels, and the shah took refuge in the Russian legation (July is).

On the 9th of September 1909, the ex-shah departed for his place of exile in the Crimea, escorted by Russian Cossacks and Indian sowars.

It is from these falls that the Cossacks of the Ukraine came to be known as Zaporogian Cossacks.

Later it became part of Poland, and when the Cossacks rose under their chieftain, Bogdan Chmielnicki (1648), they sacked the town.

The primary unit of this organization is the stanitsa, or village, which holds its land as a commune, and may allow persons who are not Cossacks (excepting Jews) to settle on this land for payment of a certain rent.

In return for this service the Cossacks have received from the state considerable grants of land for each voisko separately.

The central administration, at the Ministry of War, is composed of representatives of each voisko, who discuss the proposals of all new laws affecting the Cossacks.

Altogether, the Cossacks have 328,705 men ready to take arms in case of need.

As a rule, popular education amongst the Cossacks stands at a higher level than in the remainder of Russia.

In addition to agriculture, which (with the exception of the Usuri Cossacks) is sufficient to supply their needs and usually to leave a certain surplus, they"carry on extensive cattle and horse breeding, vine culture in Caucasia, fishing on the Don, the Ural, and the Caspian, hunting, bee-culture, &c. The extraction of coal, gold and other minerals which are found on their territories is mostly rented to strangers, who also own most factories.

A military organization similar to that of the Cossacks has been introduced into certain districts, which supply a number of mounted infantry sotnias.

The Cossacks of the Ukraine, who kept it, revolted against their Polish rulers about 1665, and sustained a fierce siege.

In 1768, when the Cossacks revolted anew against the Poles, they took Uman and murdered most of its inhabitants.

The king, perceiving him to be a man of some education and intelligence, appointed him pisarz or secretary of the registered Cossacks, and he subsequently served under Koniecpolski in the Ukraine campaign of 1646.

Thirsting for vengeance, he fled to the Cossack settlements on the Lower Dnieper and thence sent messages to the khan of the Crimea, urging a simultaneous invasion of Poland by the Tatars and the Cossacks (1647).

Disagreeably awakened to the insecurity of his position by the refusal of the tsar and the sultan to accept him as a vassal, he feigned to resume negotiations with the Poles in order to gain time, dismissed the Polish commissioners in the summer of 1648 with impossible conditions, and on the 23rd of September, after a contest of three days, utterly routed the Polish chivalry, 40,000 strong, at Pildawa, where the Cossacks are said to have reaped an immense booty after the fight was over.

The Liberals could see no more than that he appeared to be committed to international engagements, the logical outcome of which might beas an orator of the Opposition put itthat Cossacks would be encamped in Hyde Park for the purpose of overawing the House of Commons.

The Don, after curving east through the government of Ryazan, flows generally south through the governments of Tambov, Orel, Voronezh and the Don Cossacks territory, describing in the lastnamed a sweeping loop to the east, in the course of which it approaches within 48 m.

The lower section of the Don is subject to two annual floods, of which the earlier, known as the "cold water," is caused by the melting of the snow in the country of the Don Cossacks, and the later, or the "warm water," is due to the same process taking place in the region drained by the upper parts of the stream.

Among these last two distinct elements must be noticed - the Cossacks, who are settled on the borders of the Kirghiz steppe and have assumed many Kirghiz habits, and the peasant-settlers, who are beginning to colonize the valley of the Ili and to spread farther south.

Notwithstanding immigration, the Russians still constitute a very small proportion of the population, except in the province of Semiryechensk, where the Cossacks, the peasants, and the artisans in towns number 130,000, and, with the Russian troops, constitute 14% of the aggregate population.

After the Vilagos catastrophe, Damjanich, on being summoned to surrender, declared he would give up the fortress to a single company of Cossacks, but would defend it to the last drop of his blood against the whole Austrian army.

In 1600, however, at the head of an army of Poles and Cossacks, he attempted to recover his throne, but was routed by Michael, voivode of Moldavia, at Suceava.

He served against Chmielnicki and the Cossacks and was present at the battles of Beresteczko (1651) and Batoka (1652), but was one of the first to desert his unhappy country when invaded by the Swedes in 1654, and actually assisted them to conquer the Prussian provinces in 1655.

For his subsequent services to King John Casimir, especially in the Ukraine against the Tatars and Cossacks, he received the grand baton of the crown, or commandershipin-chief (1668).

The oligarchical party considered it a disgrace to obey a simple boyar; conspiracies were frequent, the rural districts were desolated by famine and plague, great bands of armed brigands roamed about the country committing all manner of atrocities, the Cossacks on the frontier were restless, and the government showed itself incapable of maintaining order.

In the 16th century it was a thinly populated region inhabited chiefly by Cossacks, speaking the so-called Little Russian dialect, and until 1569 it formed nominally part of Lithuania, but was practically independent.

In the treaty which Russia was compelled to sign Turkey obtained the restitution of Azov, the destruction of the forts built by Russia and the undertaking that the tsar should abstain from future interference in the affairs of the Poles or the Cossacks.

In the middle of the Don Cossacks territory it turns definitely south-west, and finally enters the north-east extremity of the Sea of Azov, forming a delta 130 sq.

Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince Andrew entered the passage.

Rostov saw the Cossacks and then the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry battalions and artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals Bagration and Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants.

Denisov called out to the Cossacks.

The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner.

The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being the richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.

The Cossacks-- those rascals--see how they run!

The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier, Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de- camp at Bennigsen's country house.

Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn.

The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked silently at one another from time to time.

In front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's.

He found the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered at Yankovo.

He drew his left foot out of the stirrup and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee, groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants who stood ready to assist him.

He joined Obolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment is being formed.

Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon were everywhere.

After Petya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for Belaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized with terror.

But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little Mytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise of people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the street, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.

Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time.

One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.

Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there.

Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like.

All this had to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided--not without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves--and it was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.

Some Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French Guards marching along the road to Borovsk.

Prisoners, Cossacks, and the scouts all say the same thing.

Some Cossacks on the prowl for booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him.

If the Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the Cossacks fell.

That morning, Cossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into the forest two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road.

In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh columns of French should show themselves.

But it is not presupposable that it is the lieutenant colonel himself, said the esaul, who was fond of using words the Cossacks did not know.

Denisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the edge of the forest.

Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him enrolled among the Cossacks.

Gave you a twist? the Cossacks would banter him.

No one found more opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen, and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars and willingly accepted that role.

Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.

In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French could not see the smoke.

On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the bridge.

Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them was safe from Cossacks.

Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare to attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly.

When they had descended to the bridge Petya and Dolokhov rode past the sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.

Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.

The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle girths.

Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the Cossacks rode past Petya and Denisov.

Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him.

Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something.

Cossacks, hussars, and ragged Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road, were shouting something loudly and incoherently.

The French were making a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.

The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya into the gateway of the courtyard.

The Cossacks saw that his arms and legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless.

And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

Darlings! old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as they embraced Cossacks and hussars.

The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them clothes, another boots, and a third bread.

The Cossacks have taken their boots.

The Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.

The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French now considered everything possible.