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Updated: May 19, 2025
Despite the heavy shrinkage in the Grand Army caused by a remorseless rush through a country wellnigh stripped of supplies, the Emperor sought to force on a general engagement. He hoped to catch Barclay at Vitepsk. "The whole Russian army is at Vitepsk we are on the eve of great events," he writes on July 25th.
Napoleon quitted Vitepsk on the 8th of August, and after a partial engagement at Krasnoi on the 14th, came in sight of Smolensko, on the 16th. Three times did Buonaparte attack it, and three times he was repulsed.
He passed the Niemen on the 24th of June, took Vilna, and Vitepsk, defeated the Russians at Astrowno, Polotsk, Mohilev, Smolensk, at the Moskva, and on the 14th of September, made his entry into Moscow. The Russian cabinet relied for its defence not only upon its troops, but on its vast territory and on its climate.
Beauharnois, after this, separated his division from the rest, and endeavoured to push for Vitepsk, by the way of Douchowtchina, and Platoff followed him, while Milarodowitch continued the pursuit on the main road.
And the momentous question faced him whether he should halt, now that summer was on the wane, or snatch under the walls of Moscow the triumph which Vilna, Vitepsk, and Smolensk had promised and denied. It is stated by that melodramatic narrator, Count Philip Ségur, that on entering Vitepsk, the Emperor exclaimed: "The campaign of 1812 is ended, that of 1813 will do the rest."
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