First, however, several of the regiments were ordered to fall out, and to cut down bushes and make fascines, to enable the troops to cross the ditches.
The intrenchment was a formidable one, being provided with parapets armed with chevaux de frise, and flanked by strong exterior works, while several batteries had been placed to sweep the ground across which an enemy must advance.
The right column, under General Welling, was to march to a point nearly in the centre of the great semicircle; while the left, under General Rhenschild, was to assault a point about halfway between the centre and the river, where one of the largest and most powerful of the enemy's batteries was placed.

The king himself was with this wing, with his bodyguard, and he hoped that here he might meet the czar commanding in person.

The Russian emperor had, however, left the camp that morning, to fetch up forty thousand men who were advancing from Plescow, and the command of the army had been assumed by the Duke of Croy.
The Swedish left wing had with it a battery of twenty-one guns, while sixteen guns covered the attack on the right.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when two guns gave the signal for the advance.

Hitherto the weather had been fine, but it had become gradually overcast, and, just as the signal was given, a tremendous storm of snow and hail began.