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The bombshells had already set fire to several parts, and during the night the whole of the town was in flames, kindled by the Russians. Their battalions were withdrawn, and the old town gradually evacuated. Barclay de Tolly prepared to follow their example. At sunrise Davout entered without difficulty into Smolensk in flames.
It was therefore at a hundred leagues beyond Smolensk, in a more compact position, behind the morasses of the Berezina, it was to Minsk, that it was necessary to repair in search of winter-quarters, from which he was forty marches distant. But should he arrive there in time? He had reason to think so. Dombrowski and his Poles, placed around Bobruisk, would be sufficient to keep Ertell in check.
Scarcely had the new troops arrived at Smolensk, according to the emperor's order, than they found themselves obliged to go to the assistance of our left wing, which was threatened by Count Wittgenstein. A large reinforcement had joined the Russian army at this point. Marshal Macdonald was compelled to abandon the siege of Riga in order to support the Prussians on the lower Dwina. Marshal St.
Probably the reasons which he assigned did more for him than his supplications. "When he arrived," he said, "bands of stragglers, whom, when advancing, the army left behind it, had, as it were, involved Smolensk in terror and destruction. The men died there of hunger as upon the road.
If the great captain had halted at Smolensk and strengthened himself on the double line of the Dwina and Dnieper, as was perhaps possible in spite of all difficulties, he would have been quite as strong in a military way as before Austerlitz or Eylau. But had Russia learned nothing from these two experiences, and would she come on again a third time as on those two occasions to certain defeat?
The message that was brought to him was that his wife and child had been murdered on the road. Believing this to be true, he went on with his regiment before they arrived at Smolensk with henceforth only one aim in life to avenge Poland's wrongs.
Others, especially those of strong constitution, would become melancholy and commit suicide. The number of deaths increased from day to day. Marvelous was the effect of emotion on the disease. Surgeon-General von Kohlreuter, during and after the battle of Smolensk, witnessed this influence. Of four thousand Wuerttembergians who took part in that battle, there were few quite free from dysentery.
At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's pale worn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it was to get away. "Are we really quite lost, your excellency?" he asked again. Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister: "Smolensk is being abandoned.
To him the emperor replied, "that he saw clearly enough that the Russians wanted to draw him on; but that, nevertheless, he must proceed as far as Smolensk; that there he would establish his head-quarters; and that in the spring of 1813, if Russia did not previously make peace, she would be ruined; that Smolensk was the key of the two roads to Petersburgh and Moscow; that he must get possession of it; and that he would then be able to march on both those capitals at the same time, in order to destroy every thing in the one, and preserve every thing in the other."
It was arranged that they should leave the following spring, and meantime Jurgis sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly four hundred miles from home with a gang of men to work upon a railroad in Smolensk.
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