The movements of the French from Moscow back to the Niemen were confused and disorderly. They abandoned artillery and baggage, and lost many men to desertion.
The movements of the French from Moscow back to the Niemen were confused and disorderly. They abandoned artillery and baggage, and lost many men to desertion.
Book 14, Chapter 17
The movements of the French from Moscow back to the Niemen were confused and disorderly. They abandoned artillery and baggage, and lost many men to desertion.
Summary:
The separate portions of the French army, under Murat, Davout and Ney were moving confusedly in flight from Moscow back to the Niemen. Their movements were very confused and disorderly. Because the French were moving so quickly and erratically, Russian scouts were not of much use. Often neither army knew the location of the other, and the French sometimes ran right into the pursuing Russians simply by accident. They moved in mob-like groups. In front of the French mobs all fled – the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. They abandoned one another, much of their heavy baggage, and much of their artillery, and half their men, their military force melting away rapidly. Ney, for example, who had once had a corps of ten thousand men reached Napoleon at Orshá with only one thousand men left, having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon.
quote from the chapter:
One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolénsk there were several different roads available for the French, and one would have thought that during their stay of four days they might have learned where the enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and undertaken something new. But after a four days’ halt the mob, with no maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither to the right nor to the left but along the old-the worst-road, through Krásnoe and Orshá.
Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond the Dnieper-which was the only reasonable thing for him to do-themselves turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at Krásnoe. And here as in a game of blindman’s bluff the French ran into our vanguard. Seeing their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into confusion and stopped short from the sudden fright, but then they resumed their flight, abandoning their comrades who were farther behind. Then for three days separate portions of the French army-first Murat’s (the vice-king’s), then Davout’s, and then Ney’s-ran, as it were, the gauntlet of the Russian army.
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