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Updated: June 14, 2025
This respite was partly owing to the vigorous efforts of Ney and Maison, which had kept the enemy in check, to the then milder temperature, to the supplies which were obtained from a less ravaged country, and, finally, to the circumstance that they were the strongest men who had escaped from the passage of the Berezina.
The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle. When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark.
He had retained it until he reached Dokszitzi, from whence he sent it back to the second corps by way of Borizof. When Corbineau arrived there, he found Tchitchakof already in possession of it, and was compelled to make his retreat by ascending the Berezina, and concealing his force in the forests which border that river.
The retreat was effected with some order as far as the Berezina, where it became one vast rout. After the passage of this river, Napoleon, who had hitherto accompanied his army, started in a sledge for Paris, in great haste, a conspiracy having broken out there during his absence. General Mallet, with a few others, had conceived the design of overthrowing this colossus of power.
At the Berezina they again became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a fur coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone, abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too, leaving those who could not to surrender or die.
It aggravated every thing, and seemed to have planted itself completely between Wilna and the army. Till we arrived at Malodeczno, and up to the 4th of December, the day when it set in upon us with such violence, the march, although painful, had been marked by a smaller number of deaths than before we reached the Berezina.
But to make still more sure of the latter not keeping their word with him, he made them swear that they would return to meet us, in the direction of lower Berezina, in order to inform us of the enemy's movements. While these attempts were making to draw Tchitchakof's attention entirely to the left, the means of effecting a passage were secretly preparing at Studzianka.
Why should he seek to purchase of Fortune what she was so generously giving him? Was not the term of Napoleon's destiny already irrevocably marked? it was in the marshes of the Berezina that this meteor would be extinguished, this colossus overthrown, in the midst of Wittgenstein, Tchitchakof, and himself, and in the presence of the assembled Russian armies.
In this desperate situation, in which all France seemed destined to be taken prisoner in Russia, where every thing was against us and in favour of the Russians, the latter did nothing but by halves. Kutusoff did not reach the Dnieper, at Kopis, until the very day that Napoleon approached the Berezina.
An abatis and heaps of bavins of combustible wood, already dry, were laid at their entrance, as if to remind him of the use he had to make of them. It would not have required more than the fire from one of the Cossacks' pipes to set these bridges on fire. In that case all our efforts and the passage of the Berezina would have been entirely useless.
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