B009YBU18W EBOK (86 page)

Artillerymen of the 25th Württemberg Division, part of Ney’s 3rd Corps, spiking the guns they no longer have the horses to draw and throwing them into the river Dnieper before moving out of Smolensk. The spike was driven into the firing-breach, making the guns unusable even if recovered. A lithograph by Faber du Faur.

The river Berezina near Studzienka on the night of 25 November. The French pontoneers have just begun building the struts for the bridge. In the bottom right-hand corner their commander, General Eblé, can be seen directing the work. Across the river, a cossack picket is keeping an eye on the proceedings, and, beyond the woods in the top left-hand corner, the sky reflects the campfires of the Russian force which was supposed to prevent the French from crossing. The scene was drawn from life by François Pils, a grenadier in Oudinot’s corps. (See p.464.)

In the early hours of 26 November, Napoleon reached Studzienka. He is pictured here by Pils talking to Oudinot in front of the bridge-struts, which are ready to be hauled down to the river. The tallest struts, at about three metres, were nearly twice as tall as Napoleon.

LEFT
This sketch by Pils shows Oudinot’s corps crossing the river on the first bridge, as Napoleon watches, flanked by Berthier and a plumed Murat.On the left of the picture, sappers are at work on struts for the second bridge.

RIGHT
General Eblé sketched by Pils on 28 November as he exhorts stragglers to cross the river before he must burn the bridges.Note the soldier in the foreground cutting open a horse’s stomach with his sabre to get at its heart and liver, the most prized nourishment.

The Grande Armée bivouacking on the right bank of the Berezina on 27 November, by Faber du Faur.In the background, some generals who have taken over a hut are trying to prevent their shelter being dismantled from outside by men desperate for firewood, a frequent occurrence.

‘Billets – understand? Billets! Not a bivouac, not a camp, but real billets – a palace, paradise!’ noted Chicherin in his diary on 11 November, the first time they had not camped in the snow for two weeks.In his drawing of the scene one can see him and his brother officers pressed like sardines on the floor, with the luckiest ones on the shelf above the stove – the warmest place.

The pursuing Russians were under severe strain as well, both physical and psychological, and iron discipline had to be applied.This grim watercolour in Chicherin’s diary records the execution of a Russian officer.

A dying man being stripped by his fellows, a watercolour by an unidentified participant.

This detail from a watercolour by an anonymous French soldier shows men cutting up a horse for meat.

‘The sight of these people so numbs the heart that in the end one ceases to feel anything at all,’ Chicherin noted over this drawing of a group of stragglers seeking a remnant of warmth among the corpses and embers of a burnt-out cottage.

Many witnesses noted that as they froze to death, men looked haggard and even appeared to be drunk. Detail of a lithograph by Faber du Faur.