The Great White Army

THE GREAT WHITE ARMY
Max Pemberton
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto & Melbourne 1916
Works by the same Author MILLIONAIRE'S ISLAND THE IRON PIRATE WHITE MOTLEY THE VIRGIN FORTRESS WAR AND THE WOMAN CAPTAIN BLACK. A sequel to The Iron Pirate THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR THE SHOW GIRL THE HOUSE UNDER THE SEA THE SEA-WOLVES THE IMPREGNABLE CITY THE GIANT'S GATE A PURITAN'S WIFE THE GARDEN OF SWORDS KRONSTADT. A Novel THE LITTLE HUGUENOT RED MORN THE HUNDRED DAYS THE DIAMOND SHIP WHEELS OF ANARCHY SIR RICHARD ESCOMBE CASSELL AND CO., LTD., LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The greatest military tragedy in history is the retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army from Moscow. Napoleon set out to invade Russia in the spring of the year 1812. In the month of June 600,000 men crossed the River Niemen. Of this vast army, but 20,000 famished, frost-bitten spectres staggered across the Bridge of Kovno in the month of December.
Many pens have described, with more or less fidelity, the details of this unsurpassable tragedy. The story which we are now about to represent to our readers is that of Surgeon-Major Constant, a veteran who accompanied Napoleon to Moscow, and was one of the survivors who returned ultimately to Paris. Constant had fled from Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution in the year 1792. He lived for a while at Leipsic, where he gave lessons in French and studied medicine. His nephew, Captain Léon de Courcelles, was one of the famous Vélites of the Guard. It is with the exploits of this young and daring soldier that the veteran's narrative is often concerned.
CONTENTS

I, Janil de Constant, remember very well the moment when we first beheld the glorious city of Moscow, which we had marched twelve thousand leagues to take.
It would have been the fourteenth day of September. The sun shone fiercely upon our splendid cavalcade, and even in the forests, which we now quitted very willingly, there were oases of light like golden lakes in a wonderland.