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Updated: June 6, 2025
This fire disclosed their movement; the whole of Wittgenstein's batteries immediately began their fire; his columns rushed forward, his shells set fire to the town; the French troops were obliged to contend every inch of ground with the flames, the fire throwing light on the engagement the same as broad daylight.
Wittgenstein's first attack was not made until ten o'clock in the morning of the 28th, across the road of Borizof, and along the Berezina, which he endeavoured to ascend as far as the passage, but the French right wing stopped him, and kept him back for a considerable time, out of reach of the bridges.
The noise of Wittgenstein's artillery filled it with its echo. That Russian general came rushing from the north upon the right flank of our expiring column; he brought back with him the winter which had quitted us at the same time with Kutusoff; the news of his threatening march quickened our steps.
Wittgenstein's army, after its defeat, had retired beyond those towns, so that there was between the French and the Russians a space of more than twenty-five leagues of no-mans-land, into which both sides sent reconnaissance parties of cavalry, giving rise to unimportant skirmishes.
He must have been aware, since he had come from Borisoff, that the Beresina was on his left, and he should have concluded that to reach Studianka, at the side of this watercourse, it was the road on the left which he should take... but he did not do so, and following blindly some light infantry which had been ahead of him, he took the right hand road and landed in the middle of a large force of Wittgenstein's Russian troops.
While Oudinot was making his assault on Dvinaburg, the corps commanded by Ney, as well as the immense body of cavalry commanded by Murat, were proceeding up the left bank of the Dvina towards Polotsk, while Wittgenstein's Russian army followed the same route on the right bank.
Of Kutusoff's two hundred thousand men only forty thousand remained when he entered Vilna after the Napoleonic forces had left it; Wittgenstein's army had suffered proportionately, and the troops from the Danube still more.
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.
In spite of this reproach, merited or not, Curély became a colonel shortly after, and a general in 1814. To return now to Polotsk where the enemy, repelled on the 17th, returned to the attack on the 18th in so much greater numbers that, after suffering very heavy losses, Wittgenstein's men captured the entrenched camp.
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.
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