The first work for Eblé’s pontooneers was now to clear the avenues of the bridges from the mass of the dead, men and horses, of demolished wagons, and of all sorts of impediments. This task could be accomplished only in part; the mass of cadavers was too great for the time given for the removal of all of them, and those who crossed had to walk over flesh and blood.
In the night, from 9 o’clock to midnight, Marshal Victor crossed the Beresina, thereby exposing himself to the enemy, who, however, was too tired to think of fighting. He brought his artillery over the left bridge, his infantry over the right one, and with the exception of the wounded and two pieces of artillery, all his men and all his material safely reached the other side. The crossing accomplished, he erected a battery to hold the Russians in check and to prevent them from crossing the bridges.
There remained several thousand stragglers and fugitives on this side of the Beresina who could have crossed during the night but had refused to do so. Napoleon had given orders to destroy the bridges at daybreak and had sent word to General Eblé and Marshal Victor to employ all means in order to hasten the passage of those unfortunates. General Eblé, accompanied by some officers, himself went to their bivouacs and implored them to flee, emphasizing that he was going to destroy the bridges. But it was in vain; lying comfortably on straw or branches around great fires, devouring horse meat, they were afraid of the crowding on the bridge during the night, they hesitated to give up a sure bivouac for an uncertain one, they feared that the frost, which was very severe, would kill them in their enfeebled condition.
Napoleon’s orders to General Eblé was to destroy the bridges at 7 o’clock in the morning of November 29th., but this noble man, as humane as he was brave, hesitated. He had been awake that night, the sixth of these vigils in succession, incessantly trying to accelerate the passing of the bridge; with daybreak, however, there was no need any more to stimulate the unfortunates, they all were only too anxious now. They all ran when the enemy became visible on the heights.
Eblé had waited till 8 o’clock when the order for the destruction of the bridges was repeated to him, and in sight of the approaching enemy it was his duty not to lose one moment. However, trusting to the artillery of Victor, he still tried to save some people. His soul suffered cruelly during this time of hesitation to execute an order the necessity of which he knew only too well. Finally, having waited until almost 9 o’clock when the enemy approached on the double quick, he decided with broken heart, turning his eyes away from the frightful scene, to set fire to the structures. Those unfortunates who were on the bridges threw themselves into the water, every one made a supreme effort to escape the Cossacks or captivity, which latter they feared more than death.
The Cossacks came up galloping, thrusting their lances into the midst of the crowd; they killed some, gathered the others, and drove them forward, like a herd of sheep, toward the Russian army. It is not exactly known if there were 6 thousand, 7 thousand or 8 thousand individuals, men, women, and children, who were taken by the Cossacks.
The army was profoundly affected by this spectacle and nobody more so than General Eblé who, in devoting himself to the salvation of all, could well say that he was the savior of all who had not perished or been taken prisoner in the days of the Beresina. Of the 50 thousand, armed or unarmed, who had crossed there was not a single one who did not owe his life and liberty to him and his pontooneers. But the 400 pontooneers who had worked in the water, paid with their lives for this noblest deed in the history of wars; they all died within a short time. General Eblé survived his act of bravery only three weeks; he died in Koenigsberg on the 21st. day of December, 1812.
This is an incomplete sketch of the immortal event of the Beresina, full of psychological interest and therefore fit to be inserted in the medical history of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia.
To a miraculous accident, the arrival of Corbineau, the noble devotedness of Eblé, the desperate resistance of Victor and his soldiers, to the energy of Oudinot, Ney, Legrand, Maison, Zayonchek, Doumerc, and, finally, to his own sure and profound decision, his recognition of the true steps to be taken, Napoleon owed the possibility that he could escape after a bloody scene, the most humiliating, the most crushing disaster.