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Updated: August 16, 2024
And this other great hero, who, like Ney, had never been wounded in battle, was executed by order of the court of Naples on October 13th., 1815, in the hall of castle Pizzo. In order to give an idea of the great difficulties the soldiers had to face, and examples of their heroic behavior under trying circumstances, let us relate the disaster of Vop.
This dreadful event on the retreat from Moscow is called the disaster of Vop and was the precursor of another disaster of the same nature, but a hundred times more frightful, the disaster of the Beresina. There was another cause of death of which we have not spoken yet: this was the action of the heat at the campfires.
Ney set the town on fire to cover his retreat, crossed the bridges, and there stemmed the further advance of the Russians. The French loss in the engagement was 6000 killed and wounded, and 2000 prisoners. The Viceroy was directed to march on Witebsk, but he was overtaken by the enemy when endeavouring to throw a bridge over the half-frozen little river called the Vop.
On the morning of the 9th. they left at an early hour to cross the Vop, a little rivulet during the summer but now quite a river, at least four feet deep and full of mud and ice. The pontooneers of Prince Eugene had gone ahead, working during the night to construct a bridge, but frozen and hungry they had suspended their work for a few hours, to finish it after a short rest.
I tells you vot, if you keeps jawing there, atween me and she, I shall vop you, Joe, cos vy? I be's the biggest!" was the answer of Beck the sweeper to Joe the ragamuffin. The jovial Joe laughed aloud, snapped his fingers, threw up his ragged cap with a shout for King Bill, and set off scampering and whooping to join those festivities which Beck had so churlishly disdained.
On the 7th and 8th the cold became so keen, and the ice on the roads so dangerous, that the horses could not advance, and it was necessary to leave behind some cannon. On the 9th the viceroy reached the banks of the Vop, a small stream which in winter becomes a rapid torrent, its channel being already choked with ice.
From the Niemen to Mohilew, Ostrowno, Polotsk, Krasnoi, the first time, Smolensk, Walutina, Borodino, Conflagration of Moscow, and on the retreat the battles of Winkonow, Jaroslawetz, Wiasma, Vop, Krasnoi, the second time, Beresina, Wilna, Kowno; this is not a great distance, says Paul Holzhausen in his book "Die Deutschen in Russland 1812" but a great piece of history.
I tells you vot, if you keeps jawing there, atween me and she, I shall vop you, Joe, cos vy? I be's the biggest!" was the answer of Beck the sweeper to Joe the ragamuffin. The jovial Joe laughed aloud, snapped his fingers, threw up his ragged cap with a shout for King Bill, and set off scampering and whooping to join those festivities which Beck had so churlishly disdained.
Then arrived Prince Eugene's troops, more decimated than all the others by the frightful disaster on the banks of the Vop.
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