Napoleon deserting his troops during the retreat from Moscow, when the emperor defied the winter, and left a quarter of a million men dead on the snows of Russia.
"Then came the snow. No longer was the red sunrise before them, but behind them. The victorious march was a defeat. Black-gray clouds came over the sky and obscured the sun. At first the snow was to the ankles, then to the calves, and then to the knees. The wind was bitterly cold and the men ill-clad. It froze the French to their marrow. Every few minutes a soldier dropped from starvation, cold and exhaustion. The Russians did not appear. There was no need. They had a new ally—the wolves! No one could stop to pick up an exhausted soldier; it was all that any man could do to keep up himself. Half the officers were on foot. The cannons were abandoned. When a horse died, the regiment ate him and staggered on.
"The Cossacks now began to add their terrors to those of the wolves. If a small detachment straggled out of the blinding snow, unseen until that time would come a rush of the furious and valiant horsemen of the steppes, and the detachment, hungry and exhausted, would be cut to pieces. They fought with heroic courage, but no man can fight the Weather.
"Smolensk was reached on the return march, with the wreck of the French army, now only fifty thousand strong. The skeletons of four hundred thousand men lay on the Russian plains. Near a place called Krasnoi, the Russian army suddenly appeared and a battle was fought. Napoleon commanded with his old-time mastery and succeeded in breaking through the Russian lines, but he had to leave Marshal Ney with six thousand men behind him. Ney performed wonders, and with his tiny force also broke through the Russian army, but when the French resumed their flight, Ney had only eight hundred men. The rear-guard alone lost five thousand at that place.
"The French Army had now reached the marshes, but the Weather was fighting for Russia. Just at this time, a sudden and unexpected thaw set in, making the marsh a morass. The Russians, well-provisioned, circled around the French army, and again came in front of them at a river called the Beresina. Waist-deep in that icy current, with masses of floating ice being carried down by the sudden thaw, with a huge Russian army on the opposite bank, the French soldiers fought for their homeward way. Winter was before, winter behind, the Russians on the barrier. Yet the French fought on and crossed the Beresina with marvellous courage, the Russian strategy, meanwhile, sacrificing comparatively few men. The Beresina was crossed, but when the Russians were finally swept aside and the French passed through, less than nine thousand men answered the roll call. Forty thousand had been lost between Smolensk and the Beresina.
"The thaw was followed by another terrible period of cold. The retreat of the army became a fearful rout. Napoleon, himself, fell a victim to the panic, and deserting his troops to Murat, spurred for France, reaching Paris after a ride of three hundred and twelve hours. The routed and disorganized French Army straggled back to Germany, to Austria and to France. When Christmas Day that year came down over Europe, less than five thousand men were alive of the four hundred and fifty thousand who had started six months before to carry the eagles of Napoleon over Russia. It was the most splendid campaign and the most spectacular rout in history, and the foe who fought the battles that defeated the Great Emperor was—The Weather."
CHAPTER V
THE RUNAWAY KITE
The sunset pictures made a better showing as lithographs than even their young creator could have hoped, and the Issaquena County Weather Review became a source of personal pride to every one in the neighborhood. The farmers and planters vied with each other in giving information of weather happenings and the little publication was never short of "copy."