The retreat was conducted steadily and with no great haste. Alexander and Phull were impatient for the arrival of the army at Drissa, and the latter sent Clausewitz, afterwards the historian of the war, to hasten the march. Barclay, who knew better than Phull the demoralising effects of a hasty retreat, was very angry, and declined to hurry. On the 5th there was a slight action at Davigelishki between Sebastiani’s leading brigade under Subervie and Korff’s cavalry rear-guard. The French were repulsed, and Prince von Hohenlohe, the Colonel of the 3rd Württemberg Chasseurs, was captured. On the 6th and 8th, however, the Russians made night marches and distanced their pursuers; and on the 11th the whole of the Russian centre and left were at Drissa, while Wittgenstein was at Druia, a little lower down the Düna. There were at Drissa and Dünaburg 19 reserve battalions, all very weak, and 20 fairly strong depôt squadrons. Most of them were assigned to Wittgenstein, who formed them into provisional regiments.
Eugène and St. Cyr reached the Niemen on the 29th of June, and crossed at Prenn on the 30th, one of the pontoon bridges from Kovno being used for the purpose. Thence they marched for Vilna, the 4th Corps leading. The roads were frightfully bad; the rain poured in torrents without intermission, and, to add to their other miseries, the men were half-starved, the trains being even less able to keep up with the march than they had been a few days before. Eugène reached Novi Troki on the 4th, and there rested for two days. St. Cyr had halted about half-way from the Niemen. On the 30th Poniatowski and Latour-Maubourg reached Grodno. King Jerome, with the 8th Corps, was near Augustowo. Reynier, with the 7th, was at Bielsk on the Warsaw-Bielostok road; and Schwarzenberg, advancing with characteristic slowness and caution, some way east of Warsaw. Reynier’s special duty was to cover Warsaw, and Jerome could not therefore count upon him until he had been relieved by the Austrians. On the 30th Jerome received orders to march on Ochmiana—this was under the impression that Dokhturov’s corps, which had just reached that place, was the army of Bagration. Next day, however, he received fresh directions. Napoleon had ascertained the real identity of the troops at Ochmiana and now ordered his brother to direct the 5th and 8th Corps upon Minsk, and the 7th upon Nesvizh. It is obvious that these contradictory directions must have harassed and confused the inexperienced general whom his brother’s will had placed in command of three army corps; and his chief-of-staff Marchand, a good enough divisional leader, was hardly the man to make good his chief’s deficiencies. Jerome’s troops were so exhausted by the march from Warsaw, over bad roads and in pouring rain, that he felt himself obliged to give them a brief rest at Grodno. Reynier was delayed at the passage of the Narew, Platov having carefully destroyed all the boats. Minsk, Jerome’s indicated objective, is nearly 180 miles from Grodno by Novogrodek and Mir, and Nesvizh 140 from Bielostok.
Bagration left Volkovisk for Minsk late on June 28th. He expected to reach it on July 7th, but on the same day Davout was approaching Ochmiana, and could easily arrive before him. On the 30th, however, Colonel Benkendorff, one of Alexander’s aides-de-camp, arrived with fresh orders, by which Bagration was to march upon Drissa to join Barclay. Bagration, unaware that Davout was already advancing on Minsk from Vilna, and probably believing that the order would not have been sent had not Napoleon been following Barclay with the bulk of his forces, decided to join his colleague by the shortest possible route. He reached Slonim on July 1st, and on the 3rd arrived at Novogrodek, 40 miles on the Ochmiana road, where the 27th Division, marching from Minsk, joined him. Early on the 4th the head of the column was at Nikolaev-on-Niemen, and, although there were by no means too many pontoons, two bridges were thrown over the flooded river. The passage was begun as early as possible, and the 8th Corps was already across when reports arrived from Platov. He announced that he was at Vologin, some 20 miles from Nikolaev, that he was skirmishing with French cavalry, and that they belonged to Davout’s Corps, which was marching on Minsk. Platov had reached Vologin on his way to join Barclay; and there he was met by Dorokhov returning to effect a junction with Bagration at Minsk.
On the 3rd Jerome’s advance-guard had started eastward from Grodno, and on the 4th his main body was at last under way. Contradictory orders and lack of information had led Bagration into a situation of grave danger.
The Second Army, with Platov and Dorokhov, counted now about 45,000 regulars, 9000 irregulars and 192 guns. Davout had about 42,000 men, but only 30,000 actually in hand. Jerome was advancing from Grodno with nearly 55,000 more; his advance-guard was some 60 miles from Novogrodek in Bagration’s rear.
Bagration, of course, estimated Davout’s force as about 70,000 men—the original strength of the 1st Corps; and probably reckoned Jerome’s army at about equal numbers. After considering his position, he decided to make a dash for Minsk by way of the left bank of the Niemen and the Slonim-Minsk high-road, hoping that Platov and Dorokhov would be able to impose on Davout and hinder his march until the 8th, by which date Bagration hoped to reach Minsk. The 8th Corps was hastily crossed back over the Niemen; the pontoons were taken up; and the Second Army pushed for the Minsk road beyond Mir, which it reached on the 6th, having covered nearly 40 miles in two days.
As might have been expected, Platov’s mass of irregulars and Dorokhov’s small detachment could not for a moment withstand the march of Davout’s column. When the French infantry pushed steadily forward the Cossacks could only withdraw, and Dorokhov was not strong enough to defend an open town against 30,000 sabres and bayonets. Platov therefore retreated southward to join Bagration, and on the 7th Davout’s advanced guard entered Minsk unopposed, Compans, Desaix and Valence arriving next day. He captured in the town over 300,000 pounds of flour, and a vast quantity of forage, as well as much barrack and hospital equipment. On the same day Colbert’s Lancer Brigade, which was covering Davout’s left flank and rear, entered Vileika, where he found 180,000 pounds of flour, 200,000 of biscuit, 4500 bottles of spirits, and over 200 tons of forage, besides clothing and hospital stores. These captures were the first of any importance that had yet been made. The loss to the Russians was of far less importance than the gain to the French, upon whom inadequate supplies, hard marches, and trying climatic conditions had already had the worst effect. Even in the regiments of Davout’s Corps, notoriously the best disciplined and administered of the army, disorder was rife. The Dutch 33rd Léger was a prime offender. During the march to Minsk it left nearly half its numbers behind as marauders; and eventually Napoleon was obliged to issue a special order against them. Davout’s anger at its misconduct vented itself for days in his despatches and conversation; and, as was but too often the case with him, he allowed it to exceed the bounds of consideration and decency. The result was a permanent breach between himself and Desaix.
Bagration at Mir learned that Davout, greatly his superior in numbers as he believed, was across his path at Minsk, while Jerome’s advance-guard was approaching Novogrodek, and Reynier was on the march from Bielostok to Slonim. He decided, rightly under the circumstances as they presented themselves to him, to march for the Berezina at Bobruisk, which, as we have seen, was fortified, and thence make for the Düna by way of Mohilev and Orsha on the Dnieper. A more perilous march can hardly be imagined, for it would take him right across the front of the French columns moving eastward from Vilna and Minsk. Bagration, however, expected that Davout’s objective was Bobruisk, as appears by his action a few days later, and evidently hoped to get round his left flank. On July 7th the 8th Corps marched to Nesvizh on the Brest-Litovsk-Bobruisk high-road, and the 7th to Novi-Svergen on that to Minsk, in order to rally Dorokhov, while Platov, with some Cossacks and one of Raievski’s infantry regiments, took post at Mir to guard the road from Novogrodek against Jerome. On the 8th Raievski joined Borozdin, and both corps remained at Nesvizh until the 10th. A halt was imperative to rest the weary troops, who had marched over 150 miles in nine days, on wretched roads and in generally terrible weather; and it was also necessary to enable the jaded trains to get well forward on the road to Bobruisk. Bagration was fuming at the necessity for continual retreat, and on the 8th wrote an excited letter on the subject to Count Arakcheiev.
On the same day Jerome’s advance-guard, Rosniecki’s Polish Cavalry Division, reached Novogrodek. On the 9th the bulk of the 5th and 8th Corps arrived, Reynier reached Slonim from Bielostok, and Rosniecki started for Mir. On that day his leading brigade under General Turno came in contact with Platov, and a brisk action ensued, as the result of which the Poles were driven back with a loss of over 100 prisoners, besides killed and wounded.
