Napoleon: A Biography

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Russian Campaign

June-December 1812

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• • • • • Grande Annee advance
  --• Grande Armee retreat
  
  
  • French Anny Corps
    lllllll!l!lllll Russian Army Corps
    � Russian Army movements
  
  
  
  

Leaving Vilna finally in mid-July, Napoleon with a few hard gallops

soon caught up with his slow-moving army. Having failed to trap

Bagration, he now made Barclay his target. On 25 July Murat caught up

with the Russian rearguard and a sharp engagement took place at

Ostrovno, a few miles west of Vitebsk, in which both Murat and Eugene

performed impressively. Barclay, whose relations with Bagration had

always been sour, was stung by the prince's taunts that he (Barclay) always

ran away while ordering Bagration to hold fast. He therefore decided to

stand and fight and drew up his army in battle order on 27 July. Napoleon,

aware that he was between the two Russian armies, was overjoyed and

looked forward to an easy victory. But he delayed going into action at once

and waited for reinforcements to make the victory certain.

Next morning, however, there was no Barclay. Having learned that

Bagration could not arrive to support him and was proposing instead to

effect the junction of the two armies at Smolensk, Barclay slunk away in

the night, leaving a disconsolate Napoleon empty-handed. The twenty­

four-hour delay in joining battle, so untypical of the hero of Lodi,

Marengo and Jena, meant that it was the second time in a month that

French armies had failed to trap the enemy. Nothing had been achieved,

Barclay and Bagration were now free to unite at Smolensk, and