It is impossible to describe the losses and sufferings of the French till they arrived at this place. About the be ginning of November, the Russian winter set in with more than usual severity, and on the first day of the frost nearly 30,000 horses perished. " All possibility of carrying for ward their artillery was now at an end : the spirits of the soldiers completely deserted them; they crawled on, expos ed to the most dreadful cold, exhausted with fatigue and hunger, emaciated and almost naked. The road was lite rally blocked up with the dead and the dying ; they had no power to defend themselves against the Cossacks, who con stantly hovered around them : they had no inclination to do it : death to them would have been a blessing : at the sight of the Cossacks they hoped their miseries would soon be terminated ; but their enemies were not so merciful as to put them to death : piercing, them with wounds, stripping off the little covering they had, they left them in the snow, there bleeding and naked, to the rigours of a Russian win ter. Whenever the French entered any village, where there was the least chance of repose or food, they exerted their little remaining strength, and crawled on their hands and feet to seek it. Frequently, just as they had stretched out their hands to seize a little food, or reached the thres hold of a wretched hut, under which they looked for shelter from the weather, perhaps for a few minutes sleep, the remnant of their strength failed them, and they expired." It may well be conceived, how little able such an army to resist the regular Russian troops ; yet occasionally despair lent them strength, and they fought obstinately, but never successfully. In addition to their miseries, they lost all confidence in Bonaparte, and in fact could no longer be said to compose an army ; ignorant of the roads, and afraid to meet with the Cossacks, they wandered in all di rections, or actually laid themselves down to die. Every day witnessed the diminution of their numbers by defeat, or the effects of famine and the climate ; but their most serious loss took place at Krasnoi, where Kutusoff com pletely routed them ; the division of Davoust, nearly 24,000 strong, being, for the most part, killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. A few clays afterwards, the division of Ney at tacked the Russians, but they were repulsed, and being surrounded, 12,000 laid down their arms. But it is not pos sible, within our limits, to particularise all the disasters to which they were exposed : The passage of the Beresina, however, must not be omitted ; here the slaughter was dreadful, for Bonaparte, after he had crossed it with part of his troops, perceiving that the Russians were close behind him, ordered the bridge to be set on fire, and thus exposed his soldiers to most dreadful destruction, both from the flames and the enemy. After this their retreat to \Vilna was not so disastrous : before, however, the troops arrived there, Bonaparte left them, travelling in a aledgeincog-nitc, along with Caulincourt, and returned to Paris on the 18th of December. Murat was left in command ; but he soon followed the example that had been set him ; and the com mand of the disorganized remains of this once most numc• rows and formidable army devolved on the Viceroy of Italy. The loss of the French in this campaign cannot be esti mated lower than 300,000 men ; and this loss was entirely occasioned by the mad and obstinate ambition of Bonaparte ; for when we recollect that, " at the close of summer, he led an immense army into the very heart of Russia.—into e country, in which winter reigns with most intense and un broken severity for half the year ; that in front, and rear, and both sides of this army, were immense bodies of troops, inured to the climate, and cutting off all chance of procur ing provisions; and that this army, when compelled to re treat, had to march upwards of 500 miles, without shelter, almost without food and cloathing, on roads broken up, or rendered nearly impassable by the snow, exposed to the most intense cold, and harassed night and day by clouds of Cossacks, we may be astonished at the insane rashness of Bonaparte, but we cannot he surprised that nearly the whole of his army was destroyed." That division of the French army which marched on the road to Petersburg, shared the fate of the main army; for, not being able to gain possession of Riga, and being con tinually opposed by the Russians, while Bonaparte would not allow it to retreat, till he himself had retired, it suffer ed nearly in an equal degree, both from the enemy, and the severity of the climate.
It has already been stated, that the French Bulletins re presented Bonaparte's advance into Russia as the conquest of that country, and his possession of Moscow as the com pletion of his triumph. The real state of the case, how
ever, was known at Paris ; and even he, soon after he left Moscow, could no longer conceal it. His twenty-ninth bul letin exposed his disgrace and disasters in more complete nakedness to the citizens of Paris, than they had ever be fore witnessed. They believed, or hoped, that his situation was even more desperate than he admitted. A report of his death was spread. Part of the national guard betrayed symptoms of open opposition to his government ; but the plot, not being laid with judgment and caution, was detect ed, and the ringleaders apprehended. The intelligence of it is supposed to have contributed to induce Bonaparte to quit the army, and return to Paris.
As the yoke of Bonaparte had been impatiently borne by the Prussians, the defection of a corps of them, which had been attached to the French army that marched on the road to Petersburg, was not surprising. Macdonald, who commanded this army, being thus weakened, and being, moreover, harassed by the Russians, retreated in great dis order; abandoning Koningaberg to its fate, and directing his flight to the Vistula. Across this river the remnant of the French also fled, pursued by their unwearied and im placable enemy.
The King of Prussia, being still in some measure in the power of the French, knew not how to act. His interest, as well as his inclination, led him to justify the defection of his generals, and openly to abandon the French ; but he was apprehensive, that if Bonaparte recovered from his losses, he might again be reduced under his power. In these circumstances, on the 15th of February 1813, he made a proposal for a truce, on condition that the Russians should retire behind the Vistula, and the French behind the Elbe, leaving Prussia entirely free from foreign occupa tion. To this proposal, however, neither party agreed. In the mean time, Bonaparte was deserted by the Austrian auxiliaries, who, indeed, had been of very little service during the campaign.
The French still continued their retreat ; for a short time they appeared as if they would have made a stand at Berlin; but finding the people of Prussia decidedly hostile to them, they quitted that city on the night of March 3d, and the Russians entered it on the following morning, when they were received as friends and deliverers. The French, on leaving Berlin, retreated on the line of the Elbe, towards Magdeburg, where they concentrated their force, and strengthened themselves draughts from Dresden and Leipsic—the king of Saxony still adhering to their cause. 011 the 2d of April, the Russians and Prussians first fought together against the French, in the vicinity of Luneburg : the combat was long and sanguinary, but a complete victory was obtained by the allies. The Rus sians at this time were divided into three armies ; one had crossed the Elbe, in order to drive the French towards the Maine ; the second was employed in the siege of Dantzic and Thorn ; and the third was posted at Custrin and Dres den ; the Prussians were distributed in Saxony, Berlin, Hamburgh, and Rostock, and also invested Stettin. The Crown Prince of Sweden, who had long promised his as sistance to the allies, was expected at Stralsund, to take the command of 50,00t) men. From this account of the extent of country over which the allied armies were spread, may easily be collected the loss of territory which the French had sustained.
Notwithstanding this loss, however, and the still more important loss of his best soldiers, and the blow which had been given to his military reputation, Bonaparte resolved to hazard another campaign ; for this purpose, he exerted all his activity and vigour in calling forth the resources of France, in order again to place his army on a formidable footing. By a senatus consultum of the llth of January, 350,000 men were placed at his disposal ; and shortly af terwards, in the annual expose, a very flattering account of the state of the French empire was published, in which its population was rated so high as 42,700,000. At length Bonaparte, having appointed the Empress Regent during his absence, set out for the army on the 5th of April, and arrived at Mentz on the 20th. This army consisted of 12 corps, besides the Imperial guards: the different divisions were directed to march in such directions, as to form a junction near Jena and upon the Saale. The head quar ters of the Russian army, now commanded by Witgenstein, in consequence of the death of Kutusoff, were to the north of Leipsic ; the Prussians, under Blucher, were to the south of that city.