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Updated: June 22, 2025
He was at liberty to avoid this fatal engagement; to gain Orcha and Borizof by rapid marches along with Eugene and his guard; there he could rally his forces with thirty thousand French under Victor and Oudinôt, with Dombrowski, with Regnier, with Schwartzenberg, and with all his depôts, and be might again, the following year, make his appearance as formidable as ever.
He saw the Emperor every where; before his right, in the simulated preparations for a passage; opposite his centre at Borizof, because in fact the arrival of the successive portions of our army filled that place with movements; and finally, at Studzianka before his left, where the Emperor really was.
Both started at the same time from Borizof, Napoleon for Studzianka, Tchitchakof for Szabaszawiczy, turning their backs to each other as if by mutual agreement, and the admiral recalling all the troops which he had above Borizof, with the exception of a small body of light troops, and without even taking the precaution of breaking up the roads.
It was during the first days of the march to Borizof, that the news of the fall of Minsk became generally known in the army. The leaders themselves began then to look around them with consternation; their imagination, tormented with such a long continuance of frightful spectacles, gave them glimpses of a still more fatal futurity.
When he quitted Borizof, therefore, at ten o'clock at night, Napoleon imagined that he was setting out for a most desperate contest. He settled himself for the night, with the 6,400 guards which still remained to him, at Staroi-Borizof, a chateau belonging to Prince Radzivil, situated on the right of the road from Borizof to Studzianka, and equidistant from these two points.
Napoleon was even uncertain whether he should reach Borizof in time to meet the new peril, which Schwartzenberg's hesitation seemed to have prepared for him.
Numbers of them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight lasted. The army of Victor, at the same time, succeeded the guard in its position on the heights of Studzianka. Hitherto all had gone on well. But Victor, in passing through Borizof, had left there Partouneaux with his division.
Notwithstanding, at Szabaszawiczy, he was not more than five or six leagues from the passage which was effectuating. On the morning of the 26th he must have been informed of it. The bridge of Borizof was only three hours' march from the point of attack.
On the 18th of October, at the very moment that the cannon of Kutusoff were destroying Napoleon's illusions of glory and of peace, Wittgenstein, at one hundred leagues in the rear of his left wing, had thrown himself upon Polotsk; Tchitchakof, behind his right, and two hundred leagues farther off, had taken advantage of his superiority over Schwartzenberg; and both of them, one descending from the north, and the other ascending from the south, were endeavouring to unite their forces at Borizof.
Tchaplitz, in obedience to the admiral's orders, proceeded as far as Stakhowa, a village close to Borizof, he then turned back, and encountered the first troops of Oudinôt commanded by Albert. Both sides halted. The French, finding themselves rather too far off from their main body, only wanted to gain time, and the Russian general waited for orders.
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