After the battle of Borodino, on September 5th. and 7th., the army marched to Moscow and arrived there on September 11th., exhausted to the highest degree from hunger and misery. The number of Wuerttembergians suffering from dysentery was very large. A hospital was organized for them in a sugar refinery outside of Moscow. Many died here, but the greater number was left to its fate during the retreat of the army.
The quarters at Moscow until October 19th. improved the condition of the army very little. Devoured by hunger, in want of all necessities, the army had arrived. The terrible fire of the immense city had greatly reduced the hope for comfortable winter quarters. Although the eatables which had been saved from the fire were distributed among the soldiers who, during the weeks of their sojourn, had wine, tea, coffee, meat, and bread, all wholesome and plentiful, yet dysentery continued and in most patients had assumed a typhoid[[1]] character. Besides, real typhus had now made its appearance in the army and, spreading rapidly through infection, caused great loss of life and brought the misery to a climax. The great number of the sick, crowded together in unfit quarters; the stench of the innumerable unburied and putrefying cadavers of men and animals in the streets of Moscow, among them the corpses of several thousand Russians who had been taken prisoners and then massacred, not to speak of the putrefying cadavers on the battlefields and roads over which the army had marched, all this had finally developed into a pest-like typhus.
[1] The word typhoid means “resembling typhus,” and in Europe this term is correctly employed to designate a somnolent or other general condition in all kinds of feverish diseases which remind one of typhus symptoms. What English and American physicians call typhus or typhus fever is known to European physicians under the name of exanthematic or petechial typhus, indicating a symptom by which it is distinguished from abdominal typhus.
After the retreat from Moscow had been decided upon, many thousands of the sick were sent ahead on wagons under strong guards. These wagons took the shortest road to Borodino, while the army took the road to Kaluga. Several thousand typhus patients were left in Moscow, all of whom died, with the exception of a few, according to later information. Many of those who, although suffering from typhus, had retained strength enough to have themselves transported on the wagons, recovered on the way, later to become victims of the cold.
Weakened in body and mind, the army left Moscow on October 18th. and 19th. The weather was clear, the nights were cold, when they proceeded in forced marches on the road to Kaluga. Near Maloijorolawez the enemy attempted to bar the way, and an obstinate engagement developed during which the French cavalry suffered severely.
It is true, the Russian battle line was broken, and the way was open, but the French army had received its death-blow.
The order which thus far had kept the army was shaken, and disorder of all kinds commenced.
The retreat now continued in the direction of Borodino, Ghjat, and Wiasma, the same road which had been followed on the march toward Moscow, a road which was laid waste and entirely deserted.
The soldiers, in view of the helplessness which manifested itself, gave up all hope and with dismay looked into a terrible future.
Everywhere surrounded by the enemy who attacked vehemently, the soldiers were forced to remain in their ranks on the highway; whoever straggled was lost—either killed or made prisoner of war.