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Updated: October 5, 2025
On the 1st of September, about noon, there was only a copse of fir-trees between Murat and Gjatz. The appearance of cossacks obliged him to deploy his first regiments, but in his impatience he soon sent for some horse, and having himself driven the Russians from the wood which they occupied, he crossed it and found himself at the gates of Gjatz.
Should the enemy escape this danger, he would at least no longer have an asylum or resources; and the horror of so tremendous a calamity, which would be charged to his account, as had been done in regard to the disasters of Smolensk, Dorogobouje, Wiazma, and Gjatz, would not fail to rouse the whole of Russia.
He had not marched long, however, before he was forced to halt. At Griednewa, between Gjatz and Borodino, the high-road suddenly descends into a deep ravine, whence it again rises as suddenly to a spacious height, which Kutusof had ordered Konownitzin to defend.
From Gjatz to Mikalewska, a village between Dorogobouje and Smolensk, nothing remarkable occurred in the imperial column, unless that it was found necessary to throw the spoils of Moscow into the lake of Semlewo: cannon, gothic armour, the ornaments of the Kremlin, and the cross of Ivan the Great, were buried in its waters; trophies, glory, all those acquisitions to which we had sacrificed every thing, became a burden to us; our object was no longer to embellish, to adorn life, but to preserve it.
On the 4th of September, the army, still divided into three columns, set out from Gjatz and its environs. Murat had gone on a few leagues before. Ever since the arrival of Kutusof, troops of cossacks had been incessantly hovering about the heads of our columns. Murat was exasperated at seeing his cavalry forced to deploy against so feeble an obstacle.
During this time the advanced-guard pushed the Russians as far as Gjatz, exchanging a few balls with them, an exchange which was almost always to the disadvantage of the French, the Russians taking care to employ only their long pieces, which would carry much farther than ours. Another remark which we made was, that from Smolensk the Russians had neglected to burn the villages and the mansions.
Besides, in their march to the interior of Russia, our soldiers, who had been made prisoners, were not more humanely treated, and there, certainly, imperious necessity was not an excuse. At length the troops arrived with the night at Gjatz; but this first day of winter had been cruelly occupied.
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