Figure 1-3. At the brink of war. The origin of Napoleon’s troops (figure 1-3a) and the situation at the front in June 1812 (figure 1-3b). The center displays portraits of Napoleon (top) and Alexander (bottom).
On June 24, Napoleon and his main army crossed the Neman River between Hrodna and Kaunas (in modern-day Lithuania). Four days later, they reached Vilnius. Marshal Jacques MacDonald’s X Corps covered the invasion force’s northern flank from Tilsit, while Schwarzenberg’s Austrian force covered the southern flank from Lublin. This move split the Russian First Army from the Second Army. However, Jerome failed to pursue the Second Army and destroy them, so Bagration and his men escaped (prompting Napoleon to send Jerome home). Even at this early stage, problems created by heat and poor supply plagued the French army.
After a two-week stay, Napoleon left the town of Vilnius on July 16 to pursue Barclay de Tolly’s First Russian army, which was marching toward Vitsyebsk, on the River Dzvina. The Russians continually withdrew to avoid battle, partly because Barclay feared that he would be cut off by the French southern troops already stationed in Minsk. On July 28, after only a few skirmishes, Napoleon entered Vitsyebsk. His troops were exhausted and hungry. The size of the core army had already fallen by almost a quarter—to 150,000 men—with only a few casualties due to contact with the enemy. Several corps under Marshals Gouvion St. Cyr and Nicolas Oudinot battled General Peter Wittgenstein’s divisions along the Dzvina River, near Polatzk. Here they more or less remained until the end of October. MacDonald pressed ahead, occupied several cities along the western Dzvina, and laid siege to Riga. Meanwhile, the Russian Second Army was chased by the corps of Marshals Louis Davout, Michel Ney, and others who moved via Minsk to Mahilyow, at the River Dnjepr. By the end of July, the Russians counted only 70,000 troops. Crossing the river and turning north in the direction of Smolensk, they fled, and on August 3 joined the Russian First Army. To the south, the Austrians attacked the Third Army and advanced to Kobryn.
The French sojourned in Vitsyebsk in order to top-up supplies, rest troops, and restore communications between units. Napoleon and 180,000 soldiers left Vitsyebsk on August 13 and marched toward Smolensk, where the Russian army had amassed 120,000 soldiers in its defense. Between August 16 and 18, the two armies clashed near the fortified city, on both banks of the Dnjepr River. The Battle of Smolensk cost the lives of more than 20,000 soldiers on both sides. In the end, the Russians retreated farther east, denying Napoleon the decisive battle he sought. The French cavalry under Marshal Joachim Murat harassed the Russian rear guard as the main army marched toward Moskva. By then, most Russian leaders had grown dissatisfied with Barclay’s tactics. At the end of August as Napoleon pressed east, Emperor Alexander replaced him with Mikhail Kutuzov, a veteran general, who made a stand at Borodino near Moskva. On September 7, 120,000 Russians clashed with 130,000 French in the largest battle of the war. After two days of battle, the Russians lost over 40,000 men and the French over 28,000 men. As a result, the Russians fell back, quitting Moskva, burning the city, and evacuating its inhabitants in the process.
Napoleon entered Moskva on September 14. The Russians set up camp east of Moskva, near Tarotino, and began to reinforce their army with new recruits and supplies. Napoleon waited, hoping the Russians would agree to make peace; after all, he now occupied their capital. However, the Russians proved unwilling to negotiate until invaders left their soil. Napoleon now faced a difficult decision. Sitting in a half-burned city without sufficient supplies, organization was breaking down within the army. He considered his options. He could stay for the winter, march northwest toward St. Petersburg, or pursue a southern route through areas not yet destroyed by the war. This decision grew more difficult when news came that the Russians had ended their wars with Sweden in the north and Turkey in the south. Russian units could now march against MacDonald in the northwest and Schwarzenberg in the southwest. Hostilities had already erupted again near Polatsk, where Wittgenstein attacked St. Cyr in order to stop the advance toward St. Petersburg. The French did receive reinforcements through Marshal Claude Victor’s IX Corps, which marched 30,000 men from Poland to Smolensk. However, Napoleon apparently regarded this as too little to secure his position, because he decided to order a southwesterly retreat.
On October 19, Napoleon left Moskva with just over 105,000 soldiers. He marched southwest, toward Malojaroslavetz. Overstretched, the army faced frequent enemy ambushes, so Napoleon decided to retreat farther west toward Smolensk along the same road by which his Grand Army had invaded Russia months earlier. Their supply problems persisted, because they had already exhausted the surrounding territory of its material wealth and the land had little left to offer. Then, at the end of October, the weather began to exact its toll. Temperatures dropped far below zero degrees Celsius as heavy snows began to fall. Severe winter weather punished Napoleon’s army as they marched into Smolensk on September 9. Three different Russian armies harassed them as they fell back (see figure 1-4). Kutuzov’s main army tailed Napoleon from Moskva, while the western army under Admiral Pavel Chichagov battled the Austrians in the west and Wittgenstein engaged the French in the north near Polatsk. Harassing attacks persisted as they retreated. Soldier morale sank.
On November 14, the French army left Smolensk with just over 50,000 men. A Russian force of 80,000 under the command of a hesitant Kutuzov pursued them. Continued skirmishes and small battles, notably at Krasnoi, thinned the army to a mere 25,000 soldiers. On November 19, Napoleon reached Orsha as Chichagov and his Russian force marched east toward the Berezina River. Two days earlier, Chichagov’s army had captured Minsk, which had functioned as a French supply center. On November 22, Chichagov reached the Berezina River and captured Barysaw. Napoleon ordered Oudinot to move his corps south to Barysaw and support the local garrison there, as Victor tried to slow down Wittgenstein, who was closing in from the north. Oudinot drove the Russians from Barysaw to the west bank of the Berezina River, but not before the Russians destroyed the river’s only bridge. Victor and Napoleon joined him on the November 25. There was no bridge to cross, however.
The bridge’s loss dealt a serious blow to Napoleon. Weeks earlier, he had ordered his soldiers to destroy or abandon unnecessary materials. This included bridge building equipment. He would not need them, the emperor had assumed, because the winter weather would allow his soldiers to cross over Russian’s frozen rivers with ease. He had not expected the temperature to rise, but it did, making the river impassable by foot. The French had to quickly find another place on the river to cross. Fortunately, they deceived Chichagov’s army into thinking that they would cross the Berezina south of Barysaw. Instead, Oudinout found a suitable location near the village of Studianka, a few kilometers north of the city. Fortunately for Napoleon, his commander of the army’s mostly Dutch unit of pontonniers (pontoon bridge builders), General Jean Baptiste Eblé, had disobeyed his emperor’s orders and kept all his bridge building supplies intact. That same day, November 25, he ordered his bridge builders to begin construction on two bridges.
Figure 1-4, adapted from an 1848 original, shows the positions of the French and Russian troops at a particular moment in time during their three-day battle around the Berezina River’s crossing. The map has been enhanced with data from a digital elevation model to emphasis the terrain. The river was between 80 and 100 meters wide, but melting ice made both banks swampy.
In the early morning hours, a small group of Polish lancers crossed the Berezina River to establish a bridgehead on its far side. They met with little resistance. By 13:00 the next day, the pontonniers finished the first bridge, which they had built for infantry only. Oudinout hastily moved his II Corps over the bridge to strengthen the bridgehead. Fighting erupted at Brillo when the Russians descended upon the Berezina’s western bank. Three hours later, at 16:00, the pontonniers finished the second bridge made for artillery and other heavy goods. Other units followed II Corps across the first bridge, starting with III and V Corps. The second bridge collapsed twice during the evening and early morning of the November 27, and it took the pontonniers three to four hours to repair them. The bridge builders were exposed to frigid and wet weather, many of them working up to their necks in the river’s freezing water, and few survived. Among the casualties was General Eblé, who died a month later. Once across the
