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Updated: May 27, 2025
But at length Ney had succeeded in reaching Orcha; from this time forward he was the hero of the retreat. When Napoleon, who was two leagues farther on, heard that Ney had again made his appearance, he leaped and shouted for joy, exclaiming, "Then I have saved my honor! I would have given three hundred millions from my exchequer sooner than have lost such a man." Capture of Minsk by the Russians.
At Krasnoë, where our miseries had successively been unrolled before his eyes, the peril had distracted his attention; but at Orcha he could contemplate, at once and leisurely, the full extent of his misfortunes.
Hitherto they had been rather the spectators than the authors of our calamities; but from this time we saw them no more, and were at last delivered from the punishment of their joy. On the 22d of November the army had a disagreeable march from Orcha to Borizoff, on a wide road skirted by a double row of large birch-trees, the snow having melted, and the mud being very deep.
But the short delay had been precious: Ney rose to the occasion, and on the nineteenth crossed the Dnieper over the ice, hoping to follow the right bank westward and rejoin the main army at Orcha. This was one of his most daring feats, perhaps his most brilliant deed of arms. Summoned by a flag of truce to surrender, he replied: "A marshal of the Empire has never surrendered!"
The emperor of the French had correctly appreciated the designs of Barclay. The Russian general, believing Bagration to be still near Orcha, had resolved upon fighting, in order to give him time to rejoin him. It was the intelligence which he received that very evening, of the retreat of Bagration by Novoï-Bikof towards Smolensk, which suddenly changed his determination.
He called Mortier, and squeezing his hand sorrowfully, told him, "that he had not a moment to lose; that the enemy were overwhelming him in all directions; that Kutusoff might already reach Liady, perhaps Orcha, and the last winding of the Boristhenes before him; that he would therefore proceed thither rapidly with his old guard, in order to occupy that passage.
By retreating in this manner towards the south, they covered the right flank of the road from Orcha to Borizof, by which the Emperor was returning from Moscow. One column only, that of the left, met with a check. It was that of De Wrede and his fifteen hundred Bavarians, augmented with a brigade of French cavalry, which he retained with him in spite of Saint Cyr's orders.
There again, if the Westphalian army had had a commander, if that commander had pressed the Russian leader more closely, if he had replaced him at Bickof, when he came in collision with Davoust at Mohilef, it is certain that in that case Bagration, enclosed between the Westphalians, Davoust, the Boristhenes, and the Berezina, would have been compelled to conquer or to surrender We have seen that the Russian prince could not pass the Berezina but at Bobruisk, nor reach the Boristhenes, except in the direction of Novoï-Bikof, forty leagues to the south of Orcha, and sixty leagues from Witepsk, which it was his object to reach.
At Orcha we found rather an abundant supply of provisions, a bridge equipage of sixty boats, with all its appurtenances, which we burned, and thirty-six pieces of cannon, with their horses, which were distributed between Davoust, Eugene, and Latour-Maubourg. Napoleon entered Orcha with six thousand guards, the remains of thirty-five thousand!
At Orcha we found rather an abundant supply of provisions, a bridge equipage of sixty boats, with all its appurtenances, which were entirely burnt, and thirty-six pieces of cannon, with their horses, which were distributed between Davoust, Eugene, and Latour-Maubourg.
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