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All was quiet in the Russian camp, towards which we advanced slowly and in silence, and my hopes of achieving a total surprise were increased by the fact that General Koulnieff not having brought any cavalry across the ford, we saw no mounted outposts, and could distinguish by the feeble light of their fires only a few infantry sentries, posted so close to the camp that between their warning and our sudden arrival the Russians would have little chance to prepare themselves for defence.
This advance party was commanded by General Koulnieff, an enterprising officer but one who, like most of the Russian officers of the period drank to excess.
General Koulnieff, hardly awake, joined a group of two thousand men of whom about one third had muskets, and following mechanically this disorganised crowd he arrived at the ford, but I had given orders that this important spot should be occupied by five or six hundred horsemen, amongst whom were the élite company who, enraged at the loss of their captain, massacred most of the Russians.
Two of the men who were included in my list had just been severely wounded. Sergeant Legendre, who had killed General Koulnieff, had an arm carried away, and Corporal Griffon had a leg smashed. The injured limbs were being amputated when I went to the dressing station to give them their decorations.
General Koulnieff, who had already been drinking, attacked Sergeant Legendre, who, thrusting his sabre into the Russian's neck, laid him dead at his feet. M. de. Ségur, in his story of the campaign of 1812, has General Koulnieff making a dying speech worthy of Homer.
General Legrand, with the authority of his seniority, long service and experience in warfare, proposed that they should take advantage of the serious error made by Koulnieff by attacking the advance-guard so imprudently placed without support on the bank which we occupied, and drive them back into the Drissa which they had behind them.
Chap. 7. The Russian army split. Bagration escapes from Jérôme. Fruitless attack on Dvinaberg. I defeat two of Wittgenstein's units. We leave the Grande Armée. Composition of 2nd Corps. Chap. 8. Jakobovo and Kliastitsoui. I am wounded. Chap. 9. The marsh at Sebej. Retreat. The ford at Sivotschina. Death of Koulnieff. A last farewell. Chap. 10. Fresh withdrawal by Oudinot.
Koulnieff had therefore no other line of retreat but the ford. Could it be that he hoped that his eight battalions and fourteen canons would be able, if defeated, to withdraw smartly across this one passage, in the face of an attack which might be launched at any moment by the French army from nearby Bieloe?
The answer must be no, but general Koulnieff was in no state to consider the matter when he put his camp on the left bank of the river. It is perhaps surprising that Wittgenstein should have entrusted the command of his advance guard to Koulnieff, of whose intemperate habits he must have been aware.
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