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Updated: May 12, 2025
They passed in silence within half a mile of the Cossack fires, and reaching a village on the Dnieper, attempted the passage; but the ice broke under the first gun, and it was necessary to abandon the whole of the artillery and every vehicle.
A major engagement took place which could have been disasterous for the enemy if General Junot, who commanded 8th Corps and who had been slow in crossing the Dnieper two leagues above Smolensk, and who had then halted for forty-eight hours, had hastened to the sound of Ney's guns, which were no more than a league away. Although informed of the situation by Ney, Junot did not budge.
He was looking through the presidential rostrum, through the big buildings behind it, looking out over leagues of space to a snow-swept village that huddled on an island in the Beresina, the swift-flowing tributary of the mighty Dnieper, an island that looked like a black bone stuck tight in the maw of the stream.
So much is certain, that when Murat quitted his brother-in-law, his face wore the expression of deep chagrin; his motions were abrupt; a gloomy and concentrated vehemence agitated him; and the name of Moscow several times escaped his lips. Not far off, on the left bank of the Dnieper, a formidable battery had been placed, at the spot whence Belliard had perceived the retreat of the enemy.
His journey occupied six months: he first went through Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland, to Kiov, at that time the capital of Russia. Thence he proceeded by the Dnieper to the Black Sea, till he arrived at the head quarters of the Khan Batou.
The court and all the land lived in such high honors, that all time men found the pastimes which each heart desired, through the favor of the king and his good queen. Its capital of the same name, situated on the Dnieper, is the oldest of the better known cities of Russia, and in the latter Middle Ages was an important station of the Hanseatic league.
The great army by this time scarcely amounted to 36,000 fighting men; and the cavalry, entirely under the orders of General Latour-Maubourg, only counted 1800 horse. Napoleon followed on the left bank the road from Smolensk to Orscha, without taking the precaution to place between him and General Kutuzoff the rapid current of the Dnieper. He was soon to pay dearly for this fault.
Before our arrival at the residence of Baatu, two of our Tartars rode on before, to give him an account of what we had said to Corrensa. It is difficult to understand the ambiguity here used, unless we suppose that the station of Montij was on the right bank of the Dnieper; while certainly that of Corrensa was on the left or north-east bank. The Euxine and Caspian are here confounded as one sea.
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 DNIEPER WORD has paid me an honorarium, and this is just as much of a miracle as winning two hundred thousand on a check from a theatre coat room. Pardon me, I'll be right back..." He walked up to the old man with whom he had been sitting before, shoved some money into his hand, and gently took leave of him.
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