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Updated: May 9, 2025
Days of terrible suffering for Napoleon's army followed, but eventually Studzianka, on the left bank of the Beresina, was reached, and the soldiers hoped that once in Poland their trials would diminish.
France is the domain of satire, which reigns supreme in our land; Frenchmen jest on a scaffold, at the Beresina, at the barricades, and some will doubtless appear with a quirk upon their lips at the grand assizes of the Last Judgment.
Soldiers and horses, cannons and wains, rolled headlong into the deep though narrow river; which renewed, though on a smaller scale, the horrors of the Beresina. Marshal Macdonald swam the stream in safety: the gallant Poniatowski, the hope and pride of Poland, had been twice wounded ere he plunged his horse into the current, and he sank to rise no more.
General Wrède was unable to do this, so Corbineau left him and headed for Dokshitsy and the headwater of the Beresina, then, going down the right bank of the river, he intended to reach Borisoff, cross the bridge and take the road to Orscha to look for Oudinot's Corps, which he thought was in the region of Bobr.
He was going on with ordinary work and play, enjoying the pageantry of the christening of the Prince of Wales, and cheering himself hoarse and half-frantic when the King of Prussia came to see the school; then on his father's birthday writing with a 'hand quite trembling with delight' to announce what he knew would be the most welcome of birthday presents, namely, the news that he had been 'sent up' for a very good copy of seventy-nine verses, 'all longs, on Napoleon e Seylhia profugus, passage of Beresina, and so forth. His Latin verses were his strong point, and from this time forward he was frequently sent up, in all twenty-five times, an almost unprecedented number.
He left Moscow on October 18th, and, reaching the Beresina with but 12,000 men, was joined there by Oudinot and Victor, who had been holding the line of the Dwina, with 18,000. His passage of the river was opposed, but he succeeded in crossing, and on December 6th the miserable remnant of the Grand Army reached Vilna.
The horses that had trampled and crushed so many dying men were crushed and trampled to death in their turn by the human maelstrom which eddied from the bank. Sheer physical strength saved the major and the grenadier. They killed others in self-defence. That wild sea of human faces and living bodies, surging to and fro as by one impulse, left the bank of the Beresina clear for a few moments.
It is the same in nature; every species has its bridge of Beresina; it has to fight its way through and struggle with other species; and when well nigh overpowered, it may be that the smallest chance, something in its colour, perhaps the minutest circumstance will turn the scale one way or the other.
The great surgeon Larrey tells how he nearly perished at the crossing of the Beresina, how he went over the bridge twice to save his equipment and surgical instruments, and how he was vainly attempting to break through the crowd on the third trip, when, at the mention of his name, every one proffered assistance, and he was carried along by soldier after soldier to the end of the bridge.
On March 21, 1917, in the direction of Lida, on the river Beresina, in the region of the villages of Saberezyna and Potaschnia, German thrusting detachments after a bombardment of long duration attacked Russian positions and occupied them. By a counterattack they were driven out of Potaschnia. The other part of the positions remained in their hands.
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