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Updated: June 5, 2025
On the 10th of December, Schwartzenberg was at Slonim, presenting successively vanguards towards Minsk, Nowogrodeck, and Bienitza. He was still persuaded that the Russians were beaten and fleeing before Napoleon, when he was informed at the same moment of the Emperor's departure, and of the destruction of the grand army, but in so vague a manner that he was for some time without any direction.
He had not expressed himself well, for it was evident that if we failed it was not merely the loss of a detachment. It is quality as well as quantity which counts. And yet how honourable a mission and how glorious a risk! If mortal men could bring it, then the corn should come from Minsk.
But scarcely had the Emperor passed the Dnieper, when he received the tidings of the fall of Minsk, and the subsequent retreat of Schwartzenberg towards Warsaw. It was, therefore, necessary, to alter his plan, and force a passage into Poland to the northward of that great depôt.
Perhaps all that gay circle are gone and the Lady Jane only lives now in the memory of an old half-pay French brigadier. He at least can never forget. VI. How the Brigadier Rode to Minsk I would have a stronger wine to-night, my friends, a wine of Burgundy rather than of Bordeaux. It is that my heart, my old soldier heart, is heavy within me. It is a strange thing, this age which creeps upon one.
And to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
In five days, every evil had been aggravated; destruction and disorganization had made frightful progress; Minsk had been taken. He had no longer to look for rest and abundance on the other side of the Berezina, but fresh contests with a new enemy. Finally, the defection of Austria from his alliance seemed to be declared, and perhaps it was a signal given to all Europe.
For the withdrawal of the Russians from Grodno there were available two railroads, one running north to Vilna and another running at first southeast to Mosty, and there dividing into two branches by both of which finally in a roundabout way either Minsk or Kieff could be reached. The Germans, of course, were eager to cut off these lines of retreat.
Do you mean those of Kiev or of Minsk?”132 said old Maciej. “You must mean the Babin government!133 Pan Buchmann, whether God or the devil chose to cast the Tsar upon us I will not dispute with Your Honour; Pan Buchmann, tell us, please, how to cast off the Tsar.”
Other parts of this group which had advanced east from Brest-Litovsk along the Minsk railroad reached the Jasiolda River, a tributary of the Pripet, at a point near Bereza, while Austro-Hungarian troops forming part of Von Mackensen's army advanced to east and south of Boloto and Dubowoje.
More than a hundred thousand human beings had died of misery, or under the lash, as the Minsk nuns were proved to have been killed, before he terrified these unhappy millions into a submission against which their consciences revolted. Yet with this man, red with Catholic blood, and damned with the million curses of their co-religionists, the Rev. Father Jesuits are in alliance; and why?
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