End of an Army
I have no army
any more! For many days I have been marching in the midst of a mob of disbanded,
disorganized men, who wander all over the countryside in search of food.
--Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon left the banks of the
Berezina with an army that was still sixty thousand strong but now wholly
without organization--nothing in the shape of divisions, brigades, or regiments;
cavalry, infantry, artillery all mixed up in a formless mass. Not just
the campaign but the army Napoleon knew was lost beyond all hope of retrieval,
and on 5 December he left the command in the hands of Murat and sped on
by sledge to the Polish frontier, with the intent of reaching Paris to
inform and reassure the people concerning the disastrous retreat.
The 'abandoned' army straggled
on in an even more disordered and desperate fashion towards Vilna, losing
many men every hour to the fury of the winter, the raiding Cossacks, and
the slow-moving pursuit of the Russian army. The road to the Russian frontier
now lay open, but it was a brutal path, instilling the most of both physical
and moral distress.
On 14 December Marshal Ney led
the troops over the frontier at Kovno, crossing the Niemen River that the
Grand Army had poured across in three long impressive columns six months
before. The campaign of 1812 was effectively at an end.
Retreat
Advance