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Updated: June 14, 2025
The cold, which seemed to have become milder only to make the passage of the Dnieper and the Berezina more difficult, again set in more keenly than ever. I shall not undertake to depict the spectacle which we looked upon.
The retreat continued: the horrible suffering of a Russian winter added to the carnage of a battle-tide, which flowed unceasingly from the ruined walls of the Kremlin to the banks of the Vistula: the battle of Borisow and the passage of the Berezina followed fast on each other.
It was therefore a hundred leagues beyond Smolensk, in a more compact position, behind the morasses of the Berezina to Minsk, that it was necessary to repair in search of winter quarters, from which he was then forty marches distant. Napoleon's attempt to destroy the Kremlin: view of the battle-field of Borodino.
He was permitted to retire into Westphalia without his guard; which he accordingly did. Meanwhile Davoust vainly waited for Bagration at Glusck. That general, not being sufficiently pressed by the Westphalian army, had the option of making a new detour towards the south, to get to Bobruisk, and there cross the Berezina, and reach the Boristhenes near Bickof.
Disappointed in this last hope of glory, Napoleon then decided for Borizof. He ordered General Eblé to proceed with eight companies of sappers and pontonniers to secure the passage of the Berezina, and General Jomini to act as his guide. But he said at the same time, "that it was cruel to retreat without fighting, to have the appearance of flight.
The French were thirty thousand against forty thousand; there, as well as at Wiazma, the soldiers were sufficiently numerous, if they had not had too many leaders. The two Marshals disagreed. Victor wished to manoeuvre on the enemy's left wing, to overthrow Wittgenstein with the two French corps, and march by Botscheikowo on Kamen, and from Kamen by Pouichna on Berezina.
A few days after, some sinister reports brought him the news of the capture of Minsk. He began to be alarmed, when, on the 4th of December, a letter from Maret, magnifying the victory of the Berezina, announced to him the capture of nine thousand Russians, nine standards, and twelve cannon. The admiral, according to this letter, was reduced to thirteen thousand men.
The unnatural mother was herself abandoned to the same snow from which her infant was snatched, and entrusted to another mother; this little orphan was exhibited in their ranks; he was afterwards seen at the Berezina, then at Wilna, even at Kowno, and finally escaped from all the horrors of the retreat.
And Heaven heard the agonizing shrieks of misery which ascended from the smoking ruins of Moscow, from the bloody battlefield of Borodino, from the river Berezina, from the homes of the murdered soldiers, from the widows and orphans of more than a million of brave men who had died to advance his glory, from the dismal abodes of twenty-five millions more whom he had cheated out of their liberties and mocked with his ironical proclamations; yea, from the millions in Prussia, Austria, and England who had been taxed to the uttermost to defeat him, and had died martyrs to the cause of nationalities, or what we call the Balance of Power, which European statesmen have ever found it necessary to maintain at any cost, since on this balance hang the interests of feeble and defenceless nations.
He probably thought it too rash to turn the Berezina at its sources, in order to join Tchitchakof; for a vague rumour had already reached us of the march of this army from the south upon Minsk and Borizof, and of the defection of Schwartzenberg.
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