killed or captured but for the heroism of his personal escort, who held the
line until two battalions of Guards came up.
Napoleon could sense the extreme gravity of the situation, so ordered
the second half of the reserve, originally designed to spearhead the final
breakthrough, into the breach. At about 11. 30 a.m. there occurred the
most famous cavalry charge in history as Murat's horsemen hurled
themselves upon the Russian centre. They smashed through and seized
the guns that had annihilated Augereau's corps. For the loss of r,soo men
Murat saved the day for France, relieving Augereau, Soult and St-Hilaire
at a stroke. Bennigsen, who thought himself on the brink of victory,
became confused and felt he had underestimated the strength of the
French centre. He hesitated and thus by midday had lost his chance of
victory.
The obvious next ploy was for Napoleon to order the Guard into the
centre to widen the gap made by Murat. Once again he manifested his
extraordinary reluctance to use the Guard; the excuse he afterwards gave
was that he was afraid a Prussian division under General Lestocq might
appear on the field. He therefore ordered all his units - Murat's as well as
Soult's and the remnants of Augereau's - to dig in and hold until Davout
completed his encirclement. By r p.m. Davout was ready. He and St
Hilaire now pushed back the Russian southern flank until it resembled a
hairpin. But just when victory was almost theirs, what Napoleon most
feared came to pass: Lestocq arrived on the field at 3.2 0 p.m., having
evaded Ney. The marshal later exculpated himself by saying he could
hear nothing - neither guns nor the tramp of marching men - because of
the howling din of the wind and falling snow.
By 4 p.m. Lestocq was easing the pressure on the Russians by falling
on Davout's open flank. Step by step Davout's heroes were forced to
relinquish the ground they had taken so painfully. Sensing that the
pendulum in this see-saw battle was now swinging back to the Russians,
Napoleon pinned all his hopes on Ney, for only he could turn the tide.
Fortunately for him, Ney arrived on the Russian right around 7 p.m. and
threw rs,ooo fresh troops into the fray. By ro p.m. the fortified French
had fo ught the Russians to a standstill. In essence the Emperor's nerve
held better than Bennigsen's. At a council of war Bennigsen overruled his
generals who wanted to extend the fighting into a third day and at
midnight began abandoning the field, screened by Cossacks. The
exhausted French were in no position to follow.
After fourteen hours, tens of thousands of corpses littered the field,
where the deep whiteness of the snow was stained, streaked and striated
with blood. The French had taken casualties of one in three and had lost
marcin
(Marcin)
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