such a scene as probably was never witnessed in the history of the
world.Wilson makes the important point that, even without the presence of the
murderous partisans, the Grand Army would have been in grave trouble
from lack of equipment and horses. Soon the French discarded uniforms
in favour of anything that gave a little warmth, be it stolen or looted
merchants' winter coats, women's fu rs and even Chinese or Tartar
apparel. The very appearance of the army worked against its morale, as it
looked like a gigantic troupe of itinerant mountebanks or some Dantean
version of a travelling circus.
Meanwhile the horses, which had died in tens of thousands on the
outward march, succumbed in even larger numbers on the retreat. In the
early days, on an inadequate diet of pine and willow bark, they were too
exhausted to pull the artillery out of the mud and, when the snow and ice
came, they could not walk at all. Not having been fitted with winter shoes
(small iron spikes or crampons), they simply slithered helplessly on the
snow and ice. Miraculously, almost until the end the French were still
somehow able to mount cavalry charges, but mostly the horses simply
dropped in their tracks. For hundreds of miles the Grande Armee lived
mainly on horseflesh.
Napoleon's once proud host was on the verge of extinction even before
it reached Smolensk. They had run out of provisions and there were no
more to be had in the desolate and ravaged countryside. Mortier, who
had hitherto survived with the Young Guard in the rear on an exclusive
diet of brandy and biscuits, found himself by 8 November reduced to
eating horse's liver washed down with snow. More and more men
abandoned their booty, and then their weapons. When Napoleon reached
Viasma, there was already a so-mile column straggling behind him, with
the rearguard looking like a rabble of refugees, with masses of starving
camp-followers strung out behind it. As the Army approached Smolensk,
attacks intensified: on 3 November I Corps was cut off near Fiodoroivsky
and only narrowly rescued by the intervention of IV Corps. And now
what Napoleon had most dreaded finally came to pass: the intervention of
'General Winter'. The first snow flurries fell on 5 November and by 7
November it was snowing heavily.
Napoleon reached Smolensk on 9 November to find that all his hopes
of wintering in a secure base in the city were vain. No less than four items
of depressing intelligence rained in on him and made him aware that he
would have to retreat immediately all the way back to the Niemen.
First, the city governor, General Charpentier, informed him that the