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Kutusow's army was still far behind, and although Wittgenstein and the Admiral hung on their rear, the French army still inspired sufficient respect to deter them from attacking it in force. As the army approached the Berezina, scarce a hundred men of the Grenadiers of the Rhone still hung together, and these were so feeble that they staggered rather than marched along.
We hear that, in the pursuit, and without having taken any part in the actual fighting after Krasnoi, Kutusow's army alone has lost nearly 100,000 men from cold and fatigue; while, of the central army of Napoleon, but four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry repassed the Niemen with their arms and standards. The other Russian divisions suffered as severely as those with Kutusow.
The Englishman Wilson, of whom I have spoken already, who had come to Wilna with Kutusow's army, says: "The Basilius monastery, transformed into a prison, offered a terrible sight 7,500 corpses were piled up in the corridors, and corpses were also in other parts of the building, the broken windows and the holes in the walls were plugged with feet, legs, hands, heads, trunks, just as they would fit in the openings to keep out the cold air.
Until after the battle at Malo-Jaroslavets on the 24th of October, when the French army owed its safety solely to Kutusow's refusal to hurl all his forces against it, he had remained at headquarters, where he was assisted in his work by the Earl of Tyrconnel, who was now also acting as aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Wilson.
The English general still acted as the Emperor's special representative, and kept him fully acquainted with all that was going on. Alexander was as much dissatisfied as were his generals and soldiers with Kutusow's refusal to put an end to the terrible struggle, by an action which must have ended in the destruction or capture of Napoleon and his army.
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