Napoleon was wholly unprepared for this disaster; he fancied that he had completely prevented it by the instructions he had sent to Victor from Moscow, on the 6th of October. These instructions "anticipated a warm attack from Wittgenstein or Tchitchakof; they recommended Victor to keep within reach of Polotsk and of Minsk; to have a prudent, discreet, and intelligent officer about Schwartzenberg; to keep up a regular correspondence with Minsk, and to send other agents in different directions."
But Wittgenstein having made his attack before Tchitchakof, the nearer and more pressing danger had attracted every one's attention; the wise instructions of the 6th of October had not been repeated by Napoleon, and they appeared to have been entirely forgotten by his lieutenant. Finally, when the Emperor learned at Dombrowna the loss of Minsk, he had no idea that Borizof was in such imminent danger, as when he passed the next day through Orcha, he had the whole of his bridge-equipage burnt.
His correspondence also of the 20th of November with Victor proved his security; it supposed that Ouidinôt would have nearly arrived on the 25th at Borizof, while that place had been taken possession of by Tchitchakof on the 21st.
It was on the day immediately subsequent to that fatal catastrophe, at the distance of three marches from Borizof, and upon the high road, that an officer arrived and announced to Napoleon this fresh disaster. The Emperor, striking the ground with his stick, and darting a furious look to heaven, pronounced these words, "It is then written above that we shall now commit nothing but faults!"
Meanwhile Marshal Ouidinôt, who was already marching towards Minsk, totally ignorant of what had happened, halted on the 21st between Bobr and Kroupki, when in the middle of the night General Brownikowski arrived to announce to him his own defeat, as well as that of General Dombrowski; that Borizof was taken, and that the Russians were following hard at his heels.
On the 22d the marshal marched to meet them, and rallied the remains of Dombrowski's force.
On the 23d, at three leagues on the other side of Borizof, he came in contact with the Russian vanguard, which he overthrew, taking from it nine hundred men and fifteen hundred carriages, and drove back by the united force of his artillery, infantry, and cavalry, as far as the Berezina; but the remains of Lambert's force, on repassing Borizof and that river, destroyed the bridge.
Napoleon was then at Toloczina: he made them describe to him the position of Borizof. They assured him that at that point the Berezina was not merely a river but a lake of moving ice; that the bridge was three hundred fathoms in length; that it had been irreparably destroyed, and the passage by it rendered completely impracticable.
At that moment arrived a general of engineers, who had just returned from the Duke of Belluno's corps. Napoleon interrogated him; the general declared "that he saw no means of escape but through the middle of Wittgenstein's army." The Emperor replied, "that he must find a direction in which he could turn his back to all the enemy's generals, to Kutusoff, to Wittgenstein, to Tchitchakof;" and he pointed with his finger on the map to the course of the Berezina below Borizof; it was there he wished to cross the river. But the general objected to him the presence of Tchitchakof on the right bank; the Emperor then pointed to another passage below the first, and then to a third, still nearer to the Dnieper. Recollecting, however, that he was then approaching the country of the Cossacks, he stopped short, and exclaimed, "Oh yes! Pultawa! that is like Charles XII.!"
In fact, every disaster which Napoleon could anticipate had occurred; the melancholy conformity, therefore, of his situation with that of the Swedish conqueror, threw his mind into such a state of agitation, that his health became still more seriously affected than it had been at Malo-Yaroslawetz. Among the expressions he made use of, loud enough to be overheard, was this: "See what happens when we heap faults on faults!"