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Updated: June 2, 2025
The emperor still had at his disposition 255,000 soldiers; but Macdonald on the Baltic, and Oudinot at Polotsk, ought still to have 60,000, and General Reynier remained on the Dnieper with a body of 20,000 soldiers. Napoleon already spoke of calling Marshal Victor, with his 30,000 men of reserve, cantoned between the Niemen and the Rhine.
The Russian dragoons were already close to Polotsk, when a prompt and skilful manoeuvre of Berkheim and the 4th French cuirassiers put an end to this warm affair. The Russians betook themselves to the woods. The following day Saint-Cyr sent a body of men in pursuit of them, but merely to observe their retreat, to mark the victory, and to reap some more of its fruits.
Mazeppa insisted on certain conditions, and these conditions Charles thought too heavy. The hetman agreed that Poland should take the Ukraine and White Russia, and that the Swedes should have the fortresses of Mglin, Starodoub, and Novgorod-Sievierski, but he himself insisted on being apportioned Polotsk, Vitebsk, and the whole of Courland, to be held in fief. Thus the negotiations were delayed.
Let Lithuania, Samogitia, Witepsk, Polotsk, Mohilow, Wolhynia, Ukraine, and Podolia be animated by the same spirit I have seen in great Poland, and Providence will crown with success the holiness of your cause; it will recompense this devotion to your native country which has made you such an object of interest, and has obtained for you the right to my esteem and protection, on which you may rely under all circumstances."
All the generals urged Saint-Cyr to order the evacuation of Polotsk, but he wanted to wait for nightfall, because he felt sure that the 50,000 Russians who faced him were waiting only for his first backward move to throw themselves on his weakened army and create a state of disorder in the ranks.
In Petersburgh, the centre of the government, the knot to which all the threads of the administration were united, the brain of Russia, were her military and naval arsenals; in short, it was the only point of communication between Russia and England, of which he should possess himself. The victory of Polotsk, of which he had just received intelligence, seemed to urge him in that direction.
There was rejoicing in the French camp, but on the morning of the 19th we heard that General Steinghel with 14,000 Russians had just crossed the Dvina above Disna and was moving up the left bank to get behind Polotsk, seize the bridges and trap Saint-Cyr's force between his own and Wittgenstein's.
It was in this last state that he took his troops back to Polotsk, although they were displeased at being made to fall back before the Russians whom they had recently defeated in almost every encounter.
Marches and countermarches. Retreat to Polotsk. General St. Cyr. Oudinot is wounded. St. Cyr takes over. Chap. 11. Surprise attack on the enemy. Various incidents. We settle in Polotsk. Chap. 12. The advance of the Grande Armée. Capture of Smolensk. The battle for Moscow. Chap. 13. Bad news from Spain. Rostopschine. The fire of Moscow. Revival of the Russian army. Koutousoff's treachery.
But Wittgenstein, still before Polotsk, threatened the left flank of the former, and Tchitchakof, already at Bresk-litowsky, the right flank of the latter. Wittgenstein's force was gaining strength by recruits and fresh corps which he was daily receiving, and by the gradual diminution of that of Saint Cyr.
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