only possibility was to seize the road to Minsk, where he would find abundant stores of every kind (which supplied our own army and other forces) and be able to rest his army, having drawn reinforcements from Lithuania and restored order there.’ If the highly intelligent Ermolov, who had been an eyewitness to the disintegration of Napoleon’s army for the last month, thought this way, then it is hardly surprising that Wittgenstein and Chichagov did so too.71
Hoodwinked by Napoleon, Chichagov took most of his army southwards on 25 November to Shabashevichi to cover the road to Minsk. He left Count Langeron with one weak infantry division in Borisov, but ordered Major- General Chaplitz to abandon his position opposite Studenka and bring his detachment to join Langeron. By the time he received these orders Chaplitz’s scouts had already provided him with clear indications that Napoleon was preparing bridges for a crossing at Studenka. Nevertheless in the face of categorical orders from both Chichagov and Langeron he marched south, to the joy of French observers on the opposite side of the river. He also failed to destroy the bridges and causeways through the swamps near Zembin. The narrow defile at Zembin was in fact the best defensive position available to any Russian force which was trying to stop Napoleon breaking out to Vilna. If the bridges and causeways had been destroyed, a single division at Zembin might have held up the whole French army. Even if Chaplitz had destroyed the causeway and bridges and then departed, rebuilding them would have delayed Napoleon’s escape for at least a day.72
On the morning of 26 November French cavalry swam across the Berezina at Studenka and 400 light infantry crossed on rafts. The building of the two bridges began. On the opposite shore Napoleon was faced by a puny force of two jaeger regiments, a smattering of cavalry and one horse artillery battery positioned near the village of Brili. The battery’s commander was Captain Ivan Arnoldi, one of the best young artillery officers in the Russian army, who already had a fine war record in 1806– 7 and was to retire as a full general. In his memoirs Arnoldi states that even if the Russian forces opposite Studenka had been much stronger, they still could not have stopped Napoleon crossing the river. The east bank was higher than the west and it was possible to deploy all Napoleon’s batteries in a commanding position. The west bank, on the contrary, was low-lying, very swampy and forested: it was impossible to deploy more than a very few guns there within range of the river and the bridges.73
On the other hand, if thousands of Russian infantry had been present they might have been able to keep Napoleon pinned in the bridgehead and away from the road from Borisov to Zembin, and they certainly could have blocked the defile at Zembin. The tiny Russian force present on 26 November had no chance of doing either of these things. Commanded by Marshal Oudinot, the French forced their way out of the bridgehead and then turned south down the road towards the village of Stakhovo. By the time Chaplitz had returned with his whole detachment he was outnumbered. Chichagov and the core of his army did not reach the area until the evening of 27 November and only went into action the next day. By then, however, all but Napoleon’s rearguard had already crossed the Berezina. Though there was fierce fighting near Stakhovo from 26 to 28 November there was never any likelihood that the Russian forces would break through the enemy line and regain control of the road to Zembin. Napoleon had more infantry than the Russians on the west bank, the terrain favoured the defensive and his troops fought with the desperate courage that their perilous situation required.74
Meanwhile there was also fierce fighting on the east bank of the Berezina as Peter Wittgenstein’s corps came into action against Marshal Victor’s rearguard. Wittgenstein showed little initiative during these crucial days, though his troops were much less exhausted than Kutuzov’s men. It was hard to recognize the daring general of the summer months. Perhaps Wittgenstein was unenthusiastic about coming under Chichagov’s command, or was made cautious by the fact that Napoleon was present in person. He followed Victor down the road to Borisov, claiming – perhaps correctly – that the country paths leading directly into Napoleon’s rear at Studenka were impassable. Having reached Borisov on 27 November, Wittgenstein did then turn to the north towards Studenka to interrupt Napoleon’s crossing of the Berezina. More by luck than good design, this move cut off General Partouneaux, whose division was forced to surrender. Seven thousand men went into captivity, though of these half were by now stragglers rather than fighting soldiers. During the whole of 28 November Wittgenstein fought the rest of Victor’s corps which was forming a rearguard around the bridgehead at Studenka, but he got only 14,000 of his men into action. Though the Russian artillery did dreadful damage to the hordes of people trying to cross the river, the Russians could not break through the outnumbered but courageous enemy rearguard, which held them at bay all day and then made its escape safely over the bridges.75
They left behind a vision of desolation. Ermolov recalled the scene on the east bank of the Berezina after the end of the battle:
Near the bridges, which were partially destroyed, guns and transport wagons had fallen into the river. Crowds of people, including many women, children and infants, had moved down to the ice-covered river. Nobody could escape from the terrible frost. No one could ever witness a more terrible sight. The people who ended their miseries there and then by dying were the lucky ones. Those who remained alive envied them. Much less fortunate, they had preserved their lives only subsequently to die of the cruel cold, amidst terrible suffering…The river was covered with ice which was as transparent as glass: there were many dead bodies visible beneath it across the whole width of the river. The enemy had abandoned huge numbers of guns and wagons. The treasures of ransacked Moscow had also not succeeded in getting across the river.76
At one level the crossing of the Berezina was a disaster for Napoleon. He had lost somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 men, and almost all his artillery and baggage. Even his Old Guard was now down to 2,000 men. His last viable corps, commanded by marshals Victor and Oudinot, were now barely capable of further action. Had Napoleon held the bridge at Borisov or had the Berezina been firmly frozen the great majority of these casualties would have been avoided.
Nevertheless he had every reason for satisfaction on 29 November. Outnumbered, surrounded and faced with the threat of total destruction, he had escaped. Above all, this was thanks to the splendid courage of his remaining troops and the resolution of their commanders. It is also true that even at the Berezina Napoleon possessed some advantages. His forces were concentrated, they were in the middle of the Russians and they were directed by a single will. Nature as well as human failures made coordination between the Russian armies difficult. When one looks at the perceptions and actions of the individual Russian commanders, it is almost always possible to see some logic to their behaviour and to sympathize with their dilemmas. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the miscalculations, lack of resolution and the selfishness of the Russian senior generals had allowed more of Napoleon’s army to escape than should have been the case.
For many Russians, and above all for Alexander, the chief cause of discontent was that Napoleon himself had escaped. This feeling, though natural, was misplaced. It was always in Napoleon’s power to ride up the east bank of the Berezina and then cut across country towards Vilna. At Studenka he still had more than sufficient well-horsed cavalry to provide him with a strong escort. On his route to Vilna he would have had to be very unlucky to encounter a Cossack detachment sufficiently large and determined to challenge such an escort.
Much less probable and more annoying was the escape of many thousands of Napoleon’s troops. At first blush this might not seem a serious matter. More than half the men who escaped over the Berezina died or were taken prisoner amidst the fearful cold of the next three weeks. Fewer than 20,000 men survived to serve again in Napoleon’s armies. But 2,500 officers just from the Guards and the corps of Davout, Ney and Eugene escaped back over the Russian frontier. They included most of the senior commanders and many of their staff officers. Had they been captured at the Berezina it would have been very difficult for Napoleon to rebuild a new
After the drama on the Berezina, the last weeks of the 1812 campaign are an anticlimax, though this is a poor word to describe seventeen days of immense suffering. Everything that French apologists say about the weather in December 1812 is true. Even by the standards of a Russian December, it was exceptionally cold. This caused the final disintegration of most French units. On 5 December Napoleon himself left the army and headed for Paris, leaving Murat in charge. By then nothing and no one could have rallied the French army east of the Russian border and Napoleon was right to depart. On 11 December Vilna fell to the Russians. Three days later Matvei Platov’s Cossacks captured Kovno, Michel Ney led his indomitable rearguard back across the river Neman and the 1812 campaign was over.
During these weeks the Russian army also suffered grievously. On 19 December Kutuzov reported to
