not form a compact fo rce but were still strung out: it was not until the
17th that Ney and the rearguard got clear of Smolensk.
Leaving Smolensk on icy roads, the Grande Armee literally slid and
slithered the first 15 miles, which they covered in 22 hours. By now it was
snowing heavily; visibility was severely limited in thick blizzards; the
breath of the exhausted soldiers fr oze on their beards; the heavy weight of
the snow on their boots made every step an ordeal. Some sank into
crevasses formed by sunken lanes or excavated earth and never rose again.
With temperatures ranging fr om a high of -20° F to a low of -30°,
frostbite was common.
Napoleon forced the pace, ordering fourteen hours marching a day,
much of it in darkness since by now there was daylight only between the
hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. There was no shelter and little rest and their
clothes, sodden with snow, froze on their bodies. The nights were if
anything even worse. In the first place it was hard to light fires fr om
frozen pine branches, and when the fires were lit places nearest the flames
were sold to the highest bidder. Too far fr om the fire, and you risked
freezing to death or being picked off by the lupine partisans who were
attracted to the beacons of light. Too near, and you were in danger, when
returning to the cold, of suffering gangrene on the extremities.
Food and drink could scarcely be had at any price. Many men were
killed when they swallowed snow to quench their thirst. Steaks were cut
from the haunches of horses on the hoof: numbed by the cold, the
animals felt no pain and their wounds would congeal in sixteen degrees of
frost, but they would die later from septicaemia. At dawn a line of ragged,
bedraggled and increasingly shoeless men began dragging themselves
through the snow, leaving behind a deserted camp-village of corpses,
cannons and wagons. Many companies who managed to sleep in comfort
around a roaring fire after dining on horseflesh lost the will to march on
in the morning and were still apathetically sitting by their fires when the
Cossacks or partisans caught up with them.
The languishing army struggled on until 17 November when Kutusov
unexpectedly launched an attack. Six miles east of Krasnyi a force of
20,0 00 Russians under Miloradovich cut the road between Napoleon's
vanguard and Eugene de Beauharnais's corps. Eugene resisted stubbornly
and sent to the Emperor for reinforcements. Napoleon sent back Mortier
and the Young Guard, whom after Smolensk he had switched to the van.
The Young Guard acquitted themselves brilliantly and forced the
Russians to break off the action. But if Eugene was now safe, Davout was
not. Napoleon was finally forced to send his 16,ooo 'immortals' of the Old
Guard into action. The Guard proved as good as their reputation and
marcin
(Marcin)
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