People

Napoleon, disappointed of battle, entered Witepsk Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 4:08:40 +0000
Barclay immediately gave up the thought of fighting a battle,and took the road to Smolensko himself, leaving his watch-fires burning.His movement was unperceived by the French; the retreat was made in goodorder; and the two severed Russian armies at length effected their junctionat a point three hundred miles distant from the frontier.Napoleon, disappointed of battle, entered Witepsk on the evening after theRussians had abandoned it (July 28).

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Sincequitting Wilna the 50,000 sick Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 4:26:08 +0000
Barclay's escape was, for the French,a disaster of the first magnitude, since it extinguished all hope ofcrushing the larger of the two Russian armies by overwhelming numbers inone great and decisive engagement. The march of the French during the lasttwelve days showed at what cost every further step must be made. Sincequitting Wilna the 50,000 sick and stragglers had risen to 100,000.

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Of the 200,000 men Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 4:45:17 +0000
Feverand disease struck down whole regiments. The provisioning of the army wasbeyond all human power. Of the 200,000 men who still remained, it mightalmost be calculated in how many weeks the last would perish.

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The armyleft Witepsk Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 4:57:48 +0000
So fearfulwas the prospect that Napoleon himself thought of abandoning any furtheradvance until the next year, and of permitting the army to enter intowinter-quarters upon the Dwina. But the conviction that all Russianresistance would end with the capture of Moscow hurried him on. The armyleft Witepsk on the 13th of August, and followed the Russians to Smolensko.

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The generals caballed against him;the Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 5:11:54 +0000
Here the entire Russian army clamoured for battle. Barclay stood alone inperceiving the necessity for retreat. The generals caballed against him;the soldiers were on the point of mutiny; the Czar himself wrote to expresshis impatience for an attack upon the French.

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The surrender ofSmolensko was Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 5:29:49 +0000
Barclay neverthelesspersisted in his resolution to abandon Smolensko. He so far yielded to thearmy as to permit the rearguard to engage in a bloody struggle with theFrench when they assaulted the town; but the evacuation was completed undercover of night; and when the French made their entrance into Smolensko onthe next morning they found it deserted and in rums. The surrender ofSmolensko was the last sacrifice that Barclay could extort from Russianpride.

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The Czar had been forced Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 5:46:38 +0000
He no longer opposed the universal cry for battle, and the retreatwas continued only with the intention of halting at the first strongposition. Barclay himself was surveying a battleground when he heard thatthe command had been taken out of his hands. The Czar had been forced bynational indignation at the loss of Smolensko to remove this able soldier,who was a Livonian by birth, and to transfer the command to Kutusotff, athorough Russian, whom a life-time spent in victories over the Turk hadmade, in spite of his defeat at Austerlitz, the idol of the nation.

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The villages were burnt down Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 6:00:09 +0000
When Kutusoff reached the camp, the prolonged miseries of the Frenchadvance had already reduced the invaders to the number of the army opposedto them. As far as Smolensko the French had at least not suffered from thehostility of the population, who were Poles, not Russians; but on reachingSmolensko they entered a country where every peasant was a fanatical enemy.The villages were burnt down by their inhabitants, the corn destroyed, andthe cattle driven into the woods.

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About sixty thousand guarded Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 6:17:15 +0000
Every day's march onward from Smolenskocost the French three thousand men. On reaching the river Moskwa in thefirst week of September, a hundred and seventy-five thousand out ofNapoleon's three hundred and eighty thousand soldiers were in thehospitals, or missing, or dead. About sixty thousand guarded the line ofmarch.

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At early morning Post Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 6:30:25 +0000
The Russians, on the other hand, had received reinforcements whichcovered their losses at Smolensko; and although detachments had been sentto support the army of Riga, Kutusoff was still able to place over onehundred thousand men in the field.On the 5th of September the Russian army drew up for battle at Borodino, onthe Moskwa, seventy miles west of the capital. At early morning on the 7ththe French advanced to the attack.

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