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The fortifications at Cronstadt, the Naval Arsenal and docks at the same place, the plans for improving the Dwina at Archangel, the great iron roof of the Riding House at St. Petersburg, and the iron bridge over the Neva all received his attention.
The practice was to transport the English goods, which were to be exchanged, in canoes, up the Dwina, from Archangel to Vologda, thence over land, in seven days, to Jeroslau, and thence down the Volga, in thirty days, to Astracan.
But I had no occasion to push at a winter journey of this kind; I was bound to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways: either I must go on as the caravan went, till I came to Jarislaw, and then go off west for Narva, and the gulf of Finland, and so either by sea or land to Dantzic, where I might possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage; or I must leave the caravan at a little town on the Dwina, from whence I had but six days by water to Archangel, and from thence might be sure of shipping, either to England, Holland, or Hamburgh.
I have found them troublesome on the bar of the Mississippi in the heat of summer; and at the same season exceedingly annoying while navigating the Dwina on the way to Archangel.
Petersburg his mark: he counted much on the effects which a triumphal entry into the capital would produce throughout the country; and the fleet at Cronstadt was in itself a prize of the utmost importance. He directed, therefore, all his efforts towards the Dwina, where the Russian commander-in-chief had now halted on extensive intrenchments, and Riga.
The British expedition in Mesopotamia began an operation designed to capture Mosul and open the way to the eastern terminus of the proposed Berlin-to-Bagdad railway, which ends at Nesibin. In Russia the allies advanced 275 miles up the Dwina river and penetrated about 350 miles southward from the Murman coast. They also pushed 600 miles inland from Vladivostok.
Beauharnois, meantime, discovered before he had advanced far on his separate route, that Witgenstein, having defeated successively St. Cyr and Victor on the Dwina, was already in possession of Vitepsk. The viceroy therefore was compelled to turn back towards the Smolensko road.
The Grand Army was decidedly superior to the united forces of Barclay and Bagration. On the Dwina, Oudinot held the Russians at bay; and when he was wounded, his successor, Gouvion St. Cyr, displayed a tactical skill which enabled him easily to foil a mere fighter like Wittgenstein.
But already, a day or two earlier, Napoleon had realized the futility of his hope of peace and had resolved to retreat. The only alternative was to winter at Moscow, and he judged that the state of French and Spanish affairs rendered such a course perilous. He therefore informed Maret that the Grand Army would go into winter quarters between the Dnieper and the Dwina.
Willoughby, having reached 72 degrees of north latitude, was obliged by the severity of the season to run his ship into a small harbour, where he and his crew were frozen to death. Captain Durfovill returned to England. Chanceller was more fortunate; for he reached the White Sea, and wintered in the Dwina, near the site of Archangel.
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