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Such were the circumstances under which the eventful year 1812 began. Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajos Battle of Salamanca State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations His Military Resources Napoleon at Dresden Rupture with Russia Napoleon's conduct to the Poles Distribution of the Armies Passage of the Niemen Napoleon at Wilna.
General Rapp, who commanded at Dantzig, felt it his duty to inform Marshal Davout of the precarious state in which our rule in Europe then stood. "If the French army has a single check," wrote the general, "there will quickly be from the Rhine to the Niemen only one single insurrection."
The king of Westphalia then went along the Niemen at Grodno, with a view to repass it at Bielitza, to overpower the right of Bagration, put it to the rout, and pursue it. This Saxon, Westphalian, and Polish army had in front of it a general and a country both difficult to conquer.
The Russians actually on the field at the opening of the campaign were, then, as nearly as can be computed, in number 260,000; while Napoleon was prepared to cross the Niemen at the head of at least 470,000 men. On the Russian side the plan of the campaign had been settled ere now; it was entirely defensive.
The Duke of Trevisa wrote: "From the Niemen to the Vilia I saw nothing but houses in ruins, wagons and carriages abandoned; we found them scattered on the roads and in the fields; some upset, others open, with their contents strewed here and there, and pillaged, as if they had been taken by the enemy. I thought I was following a routed army.
Late in December he signed a convention with the Prussian commander, General Yorck, whereby the Prussian army was to cooperate with the Russian, British, and Swedish forces, and, in return, Prussia was to be restored to the position it had enjoyed prior to Jena. On 13 January, 1813, Alexander at the head of the Russian troops crossed the Niemen and proclaimed the liberty of the European peoples.
It was one of the strongest Russian fortresses, with eleven outlying forts on both sides of the Niemen, commanding this river at the point where it turns from its northerly course toward the west and defending the approach to Vilna from the west. Over 400 guns and vast quantities of supplies and equipment as well as about 4,000 officers and men made up the booty.
To his surprise and uneasiness, therefore, Napoleon after crossing the Niemen found the Russians always retreating before his advance. No decisive victory could be won against the elusive foe. Nor was the temper of the Lithuanians such as to encourage him to remain all winter among them.
In the mean time the last of the Great Army had reached the Niemen, that narrow winding river in its ditch-like bed sunk below the level of the tableland, to which six months earlier the greatest captain this world has ever seen rode alone, and, coming back to his officers, said "Here we cross." Four hundred thousand men had crossed a bare eighty thousand lived to pass the bridge again.
Alas! it was not Russia, it was France; it was the Emperor who was led by fatality. The army had crossed the Niemen June 24. As the national historian has said, "We shall find glory at every step; but we must not look for good fortune beyond the Niemen." Up to this point every one looked upon Napoleon as invincible, and his young wife had imagined that he was the incarnation of success.
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