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Updated: June 14, 2025
On the night of September 15 of the year 1812, Moscow caught fire. The town burned four days. When the evening of the fifth day came, Napoleon gave the order for the retreat. Two weeks later it began to snow. The army trudged through mud and sleet until November the 26th when the river Berezina was reached. Then the Russian attacks began in all seriousness.
But the position of this corps, almost entirely Austrian, became more and more important, as the grand army retreated upon it. It will be seen whether Schwartzenberg deceived its confidence, whether he left us to be surrounded on the Berezina, and whether it be true, that he seemed on that occasion to aspire to no other character than that of an armed witness to the great dispute.
Some pretended that a comet had enlightened our passage across the Berezina with its ill-omened fire; it is true that they added, "that doubtless these stars did not foretel the great events of this world, but that they might certainly contribute to modify them; at least, if we admitted their material influence upon our globe, and all the consequences which that influence may exercise upon the human mind, so far as it is dependant on the matter which it animates."
The Polish general Bronikowski being unable with 3000 men to defend the place, had joined Dombrowski, who was covering the Dnieper, and both guarded the bridge of Borisow on the Berezina with insufficient forces.
The emigrants had to wait several days before the vehicles were ready for their use, during which time they were not provided with the necessary diet money. They were further furnished with boats for the purpose of performing part of the journey on the river Berezina and Dnieper. The money requisite to pay the hire of these boats was deducted from the amount allotted for their diet.
All hope of passing between the Russian armies was thus lost: driven by the armies of Kutusoff and Wittgenstein upon the Berezina, there was no alternative but to cross that river in the teeth of the army of Tchitchakoff, which lined its banks.
It was possible that the latter would then become aware of his superiority: and the Emperor, who at Orcha, on the 20th of November, saw his rear-guard, lost, his left flank menaced by Kutusoff, and his advance column stopped at the Berezina by the army of Volhynia, learned that Wittgenstein and forty thousand more enemies, far from being beaten and repulsed, were ready to fall upon his right, and that he had no time to lose.
On the 22nd, at Tolocsin, the emperor learned that, after a keenly-fought battle, the Russians had taken Borisow and the bridge over the Berezina. He dismounted, and showing more uneasiness than he had yet done, called to his side General Dode de la Brunerie, an officer of the engineers, whom he had already distinguished. "They are there!" said he, without further explanation.
But on the 24th he learned that the passage could only be attempted near Studzianka; that at that spot the river was only fifty-four fathoms wide, and six feet deep; and that they would land on the opposite side in a marsh, under the fire of a commanding position strongly occupied by the enemy. March through the forest of Minsk; passage of the Berezina.
Happily for the French, Kutusow, with the main Russian army, was far in their rear, and they might well hope, when joined by Victor, who was to meet them near the Berezina with his division, to be able to defeat the two Russian armies that barred their way, either force being inferior to their own. Stephanie had borne the march wonderfully well.
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