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The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not at all the decisive episode of the campaign.
On the same day, while he was thus irresolute, Napoleon, with about five thousand guards, and Ney's corps, now reduced to six hundred men, crossed the Berezina about two o'clock in the afternoon; he posted himself in reserve to Oudinôt, and secured the outlet from the bridges against Tchitchakof's future efforts. He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers.
Everyone assured himself that all would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just the crossing of the Berezina that destroyed the French army. In reality the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French in guns and men lost than Krasnoe had been, as the figures show.
Thence, towards the south, the Berezina and its marshes, covered by the Boristhenes, supply no other passage but a few defiles; a very few troops would be sufficient to guard them. Further on, Bobruisk marked out the right of this great line, and orders were given to obtain possession of that fortress.
The advanced posts at Lyadi, Vinkowo, and Velij, opposite to those of Barclay and Bagration; for these two hostile armies, the one flying from Napoleon, across the Düna, by Drissa and Witepsk, the other, escaping Davoust across the Berezina and the Boristhenes, by way of Bobruisk, Bickof, and Smolensk, succeeded in forming a junction in the interval bounded by these two rivers.
It is true that, eight hours afterward, in a second letter to the Duke of Reggio, he resigned himself to crossing the Berezina near Veselowo, and by retreating directly upon Wilna, by Vileika, to avoid the Russian admiral.
He added, that in this season, and in such a state of disorder, a change of route would complete the destruction of the army; that it would lose itself in the cross-roads of these barren and marshy forests; he maintained that the high road alone could keep it in any degree of union. Borizof, and its bridge over the Berezina, were still open; and it would be sufficient to reach it.
He then mentioned the capture of Minsk, and, admitting the skilfulness of Kutusoff's persevering manoeuvres on the right flank, he said that "it was his intention to abandon his line of operations on Minsk, unite with the Dukes of Belluno and Reggio, cut his way through Wittgenstein's army, and regain Wilna by turning the sources of the Berezina." Jomini combated this plan.
"You think the old man is a fool," he said repeatedly, "that he is timid, and without energy: you are young, and don't understand. If Napoleon turned back, none of us dare meet him; he is still terrible. If I bring him back to the Berezina, ruined and without an army, I shall have accomplished my task." Thus protected by the terrible renown of his name, the emperor advanced to Liady.
All the others, restrained by policy or feelings of honour, allowed themselves to be anticipated by their subjects. This infection even penetrated to the grand army; after the passage of the Berezina, Napoleon had been informed of it. Communications had been observed to be going on between the Bavarian, Saxon, and Austrian generals.
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