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Updated: June 19, 2025
They had been in Koenigsberg and had marched from there to Wilna during the month of November, had remained in the latter place until December 4th., when they were sent to protect the retreating soldiers and the Emperor himself, on leaving the wreck of his once grand army at Smorgoni on December 5th.
On the same day that the Emperor entered Wilna, Marshal Oudinot's troops came up against Wittgenstein's Russians at Wilkomir, where the first serious engagement of the campaign took place. I had not previously served under Oudinot, and this début confirmed the high opinion I had of his courage, without convincing me of his intelligence.
It is true that, eight hours afterward, in a second letter to the Duke of Reggio, he resigned himself to crossing the Berezina near Veselowo, and by retreating directly upon Wilna, by Vileika, to avoid the Russian admiral.
Von Lossberg says that Christian people of Wilna have also taken part in the massacre, and only the Poles did not participate. The Cossacks began their bloody work early in the morning. Awful cries of the tortured were heard in the Wuerttembergian hospital, telling the sick who were lying there what they themselves had to expect from the entering enemies.
This corps consisted of between six and seven hundred men, when it left Wilna to meet the Emperor; it perished entirely in that short passage; the winter was its only adversary. Napoleon was within an hour of falling into that affray. He met the Duke of Bassano at Miedniki.
I have thought it best to give here the entire reply of the Emperor to the deputies of the Polish confederation, as I was a witness of the effect it produced at Wilna.
I mention this because the losses suffered by the Polish lancers in the crossing of the Vilia have been grossly exaggerated. The Russians, however, retreated without waiting for the French army, which shortly occupied Wilna, the capital of Lithuania.
In the course of the following three weeks General Count von Scheeler handed him several thousand florins to be used for the alleviation of the sufferings of the soldiers under his care, and von Scherer procured from great distances, namely, from the Polish cities Mohilew, Minsk and Wilna, suitable medicines and provisions.
But upon Murat replying, by showing him a statement of the immense stores of provisions and clothing collected at Wilna, he exclaimed "that he gave him fresh life; that he would forthwith give him an order to transmit to Murat and Berthier, to halt for eight days in that capital, there to rally the army, and infuse into it sufficient heart and strength to continue the retreat less deplorably."
On the 14th, at daybreak, the Russians commenced their attack. One of their columns made a hasty advance from the Wilna road, while another crossed the Niemen on the ice above the town, landed on the Prussian territory, and, proud of being the first to cross its frontier, marched to the bridge of Kowno, to close that outlet upon Ney, and completely cut off his retreat.
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