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These illiterate boors conscripted from villages all across the Czarina's empire had, Suvorov may have told Lewis, just two things a commander could count on: physical fitness and personal courage.

When their levies came shambling into camp, they were all elbows, hair, and beard.

They emerged as interchangeable cogs in a faulty but formidable machine: shaved nearly naked, hair queued, greatcoated, jackbooted, and best of all -- in the opinion of the British professional, Major Semple-Lisle -- `` their minds are not estranged from the paths of obedience by those smatterings of knowledge which only serve to lead to insubordination and mutiny ''.