The battle on the Berezina

After the battle of Red, Napoleon led the remnants of his " Great Army " to the Russian border with the sole purpose of saving as many soldiers as possible. The Russian commander in chief Field Marshal Kutuzov did not want to engage in a general battle with Napoleon, the actions of the main Russian army were limited to the persecution of the French army.

Kutuzov allowed his troops long stops in settlements, so Napoleon managed to break away from Kutuzov's main army (its vanguard was 115 km from Berezina). The task of defeating Napoleon fell on the shoulders of other Russian armies.

From the south came the fresh 24,000th Danube army of Admiral Chichagov , which, according to the plan of Emperor Alexander I , was to cut off Napoleon’s retreat routes, preferably when crossing the Berezina. At the same time, it was supposed to hit Napoleon from the north with the 35,000th army of Wittgenstein , and from the east with the army of Kutuzov . Chichagov’s army was liberated as a result of the passivity of Austria , Napoleon’s formal ally. Wittgenstein , previously covering the direction to St. Petersburg, was moving south with fights, pushing back the corps of the French marshals Saint-Cyr and Victor . On November 14, Wittgenstein approached Smolensk , after which Victor’s corps broke away from Wittgenstein and joined the main army of Napoleon.

On November 16, Chichagov occupied Minsk , where he seized large supplies of Napoleon's provisions and more than 2 thousand French wounded in hospitals. Minsk was one of the large logistical points of supply for Napoleon’s troops; its loss sharply limited the possible retreat of the French army.

On November 21, the vanguard of Chichagov, under the command of General Lambert, captured Borisov , where Napoleon planned to cross the Berezina. As a result of stubborn battles during the capture of Borisov, the Russians captured up to 2 thousand prisoners from the Polish detachments of General Dombrowski and 6 cannons. However, due to the slowness of the armies of Kutuzov and Wittgenstein, the army of Chichagov alone remained an obstacle to all French forces. The approaching corps of Marshal Udino knocked out the Russians from Borisov. Chichagov stepped back behind Berezina, blowing up a permanent bridge in Borisov. During the battles for Borisov, the Russians lost up to 2 thousand soldiers ^[2] .

On November 24, Napoleon himself approached Berezina , a rather wide river with a flow to the south. The army of Chichagov served as an obstacle to advancement, guarding possible places for crossing on the other side of the river.

The forces of Napoleon according to the layouts of Chambray and Fen amounted to 30-40 thousand soldiers, of which 7-8 thousand guards ^[3] . The most powerful were the Udino 2nd Corps (7-9 thousand), which stood against Wittgenstein near Polotsk and did not go to Moscow, and Victor 9th Corps (10-14 thousand), which arrived in Russia only in September and was thrown against Wittgenstein. Now both of these corps from a secondary direction formed the basis of the “Great Army” . Under the army were up to 40 thousand unarmed soldiers, sick and civilians.

On November 25, with a series of skillful maneuvers, Napoleon managed to divert Chichagov's attention to Borisov and south of Borisov. The emperor placed artillery batteries at the site of the alleged crossing, conducted a series of demonstration maneuvers by several thousand soldiers.

While Chichagov was gathering his forces on the west (right) bank opposite the proposed crossing, the King of Naples Murat , Marshal Udino, and two prominent engineering generals, Eble and Chasslou, hastily built two bridges near Studenka (north of Borisov), where General Korbino reconnoitered the crossing. One bridge was built for the passage of people, the other for artillery and carts. On the river, whose width was about 100 meters, ice floes flooded the French pontoons standing on their shoulders in icy water (according to eyewitnesses, they all later died from the cold).

From the memoirs of a French officer ^[4] :

This river, which some imagine of gigantic proportions, is actually not wider than the Royal Street in Paris in front of the Naval Ministry. As for its depth, it is enough to say that 72 hours before the 3 cavalry regiments of the Corbino brigade crossed her ford without any adventures and crossed over again on the day in question. Their horses went down all the time ... The transition at this moment represented only slight inconveniences for cavalry, carts and artillery. The first was that the cavalry and sleds reached the knees, which was nonetheless tolerable, because, unfortunately, it wasn’t even so cold that the river froze; only rare ice floes floated on it .... The second inconvenience came again from the lack of cold and consisted in the fact that the swampy meadow that bordered the opposite shore was so viscous that the riding horses hardly walked along it, and the carts sank to half the wheels.

On November 26, Napoleon with a guard approached Studenka and ordered an immediate crossing to the west coast, the emperor himself led the defense from the east coast. The light cavalry brigade, fording, drove the Cossacks from the detachment of General Kornilov with the help of artillery batteries that shot at the Cossacks from the east coast. The first at 1 o'clock in the afternoon the 2nd Corps of Oudinot crossed, followed by Ney. The Russian detachment of General Chaplits fired at French troops from 2 cannons from afar, closer all approaches to the bridges were guarded by the French. By 4 o'clock in the afternoon the second, more solid bridge (for artillery) was ready, standing 180 meters from the first.

At 2 p.m. on November 27, Napoleon with the old guard crossed to the west bank. Then Victor’s corps divisions began to cross, part of his forces covered the crossing on the east bank. By the night of November 27, backward detachments began to arrive, crowds of incompetent soldiers, civilians with convoys. Napoleon ordered the missions of military teams (“ combat ready, going in formation ”), wagons were not allowed (with the exception of carriages of marshals). In fear of the Cossacks at the crossing accumulated thousands of wounded and frostbite, waiting for permission to drive with their wagons. In general, the crossing continued calmly throughout the day.

The first battles took place on November 27th . On the right (western) bank, Udino and Ney pushed the Russian general Chaplits in the direction of Borisov. On the left (eastern) bank near Borisov, Wittgenstein successfully attacked and forced to surrender the 12th French division of Partuno , left by Marshal Victor as a rearguard. 1,900 soldiers surrendered, 1 gun was captured, the division also lost a lot of people killed and wounded. ^[5] Many officers of the French army in their memoirs personally blamed Partuno for the heavy losses suffered by Napoleon at the crossing, counting in the ranks of the surrendered division 2 times more soldiers than it actually had.

On November 28, one of Dandels’s divisions from Victor’s corps was returned to the east coast to cover the crossing, together with the Polish division of Gerard (total 6,000). There, these divisions at 9 a.m. entered the battle with Wittgenstein’s troops ^[6] .

On November 28, the troops of Chichagov, who realized that Napoleon had crossed over from Studenka, tried to attack the crossing forces of the French, but to no avail. Chichagov had 15 thousand infantry and 9 thousand cavalry, at the Udino corps, which restrained Chichagov, up to 8 thousand soldiers were available, then Napoleon sent him a reserve of 4 thousand. Odin was wounded and replaced by Marshal Ney. The fighting took place on both banks of the Berezina in the area of ​​the marshy-wooded area, which impeded the maneuvers of the cavalry. The Russians pushed the French back, but did not capture the crossing.

In total, according to Segyur, up to 60 thousand people managed to cross the Berezina, most of them civilian and non-operational remnants of the "Great Army". Towards evening on November 28, the nucleus of Wittgenstein's artillery began to pour in on the crowd. Crowds of people rushed to the bridges. One of the bridges collapsed. In the created disorder, the crossing stopped, people according to an eyewitness account died in a crush from suffocation. Retreating at night, with continued shelling, parts of Victor swept carts and people from the bridge into the river. During battles in three French corps 13 generals were killed and wounded ^[7] .

On November 29, at 9 o’clock in the morning, the French officer Serurier, following General Eble’s order, burned down the bridges. French military convoys remained on the east bank.

A crowd of almost unarmed people remained on the eastern shore of the Cossacks. Parts of Wittgenstein belatedly approached the crossing, destroying the lagging parts of the French.

The winners got a terrible picture.

According to the memoirs of the army officer A. Chichagov I. Martos ^[8] :

On the evening of that day, the Veselovskaya plain, quite voluminous, presented a terrible, inexpressible picture: it was covered with carriages, carts, mostly broken, piled one on top of another, covered with the bodies of dead women and children who followed the army from Moscow, fleeing the calamities of this city or wanting to accompany their compatriots, whom death struck in various ways. The fate of these unfortunates, between the two fighting armies, was fatal death; many were trampled by horses, others were crushed by heavy wagons, others were hit by a hail of bullets and cores, others were drowned in the river when crossing troops or, stripped by soldiers, thrown naked in the snow, where the cold soon stopped their torment ... According to the most moderate calculation, the loss extends to ten thousand people ...

The main result of the crossing was that Napoleon in seemingly hopeless circumstances managed to transport and maintain combat forces. Clausewitz calculates Napoleon’s losses for several days of the Berezina in 21 thousand of the number of combat-ready soldiers he had ^[9] . The losses of the incapacitated remnants of the "Great Army" are more difficult to calculate, Clausewitz mentions that up to 10 thousand lagging French were captured by Wittgenstein. At the very crossing, thousands of wounded and frostbitten Frenchmen also died. Kutuzov in his report to the king estimates the loss of the French at 29 thousand people ^[10] .

According to Chambray , Napoleon’s army 3 days after the crossing was reduced to 9 thousand soldiers under arms, 4 thousand of them in the guard ^[11] . The same Chambray totaled 30 thousand combatants to Berezina, from which it follows that 21 thousand soldiers were out of order from Napoleon, not counting the losses among the combatants in the army. Most of these losses should not be attributed to combat losses, but to demoralized soldiers who abandoned or lost weapons. According to eyewitnesses, they didn’t make them lose their weapons and could not punish them, which many used. The impact of frost accelerated the decomposition of the Great Army.

In total, Napoleon lost about 35 thousand people on the river captive, wounded, killed, drowned and frozen.

The losses of the Russian troops, according to the inscription on the 25th wall of the gallery of military glory of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior , amounted to about 4 thousand soldiers during the days of battles during the Napoleon crossing. If for the correct comparison with the French losses we add the damage of the Russian avant-garde Lambert during the capture of Borisov, then the Russian losses can be estimated at 8 thousand people ^{[12] [13]} .

General Kolenkur testifies to 1,500 Russian prisoners ^[14] taken on the right bank on November 28 in battles with Chichagov, and the number of which rumors among the French doubled ^[15] .

A major German military leader and theorist Schlieffen wrote: “Berezina imposes the seal of the most terrible Cannes on the Moscow campaign”, referring to the Battle of Cannes , during which the Roman army was encircled and utterly defeated by the Roman army ^[16] .

Napoleon's departure

The main blame for the lost chance to destroy Napoleon on the Berezina contemporaries laid on Admiral Chichagov. The fabulist Krylov composed the fable "Pike and the Cat" with a hint of the admiral's failure on land. Kutuzov in a letter addressed to Tsar Alexander I outlined the main omissions of a mediocre commander.

From the report of Kutuzov ^[17] :

... Count Chichagov ... made the following mistakes: 1) Instead of taking the superior right bank of the Berezina, he transferred part of his troops to the left and located his main apartment in the mountains. Borisov, lying in the boiler, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The inevitable consequence of this should be and really was the sacrifice of many brave warriors. and. at. and the loss of everything at the main apartment of the convoy, for the vanguard, under the command of Count Palen, being met 10 miles from Borisov by the entire retreating enemy army, brought it on his shoulders to Borisov at a time when the commander-in-chief dined calmly in it.

2) The bridge, high and narrow on stilts, and a dam over the Zayka river, with a length of up to 300 fathoms, was not destroyed, and the enemy took advantage of it, although the troops of Admiral Chichagov were on Berezin 4 days before the enemy.

3) The enemy built the bridge, began and continued its crossing for more than a day before Admiral Chichagov found out, although all the observed distance to him was no more than 20 miles, and when he found out about this crossing, he moved to the place of it, but when he was met by the enemy arrows, did not attack them with large masses, but was content with the action on the whole day of November 16 with two guns and arrows, through which he not only could not keep the enemy’s retirement, but also had very sensitive damage.

However, Denis Davydov does not agree with this assessment of Chichagov’s actions, blaming partially on Kutuzov himself. Davydov expressed a widespread view in the Russian army about the strength of Napoleon, which the participants in the hostilities, unlike later authors, could not really appreciate ^[18] :

Everyone in the army and in Russia condemned and condemned Chichagov, blaming him alone for the miraculous salvation of Napoleon. He undoubtedly made an unforgivable mistake, moving to the Abbot; but here he justifies it: firstly, partly the injunction of Kutuzov, pointing to the Igumen, as the point through which Napoleon supposedly intended to follow without fail; secondly, even if his army did not leave the position in which Chaplitz remained, the disproportion of his forces with respect to the French would not allow him to decisively hold on to a somewhat superior enemy in all respects, protected by the fire of strong batteries arranged on the left bank of the river; moreover, the Chichagov’s army, weakened by the detachment of observation teams along the Berezina, included seven thousand cavalry men, because of the terrain it was completely useless to him; thirdly, if Chaplits, not being able to deploy all his forces, could not benefit from his artillery, all the more so, Chichagov’s army could not, under these local conditions, think of serious resistance to Napoleon, whose one name, which was charming to all his contemporaries action, cost a whole army.

Alternative ratings

Despite the enormous losses suffered by the “Great Army”, some experts (mostly foreign) consider the outcome of the battle in favor of Napoleon, on the basis that he managed to mislead the enemy and avoid total destruction in this way ^{[19] [20] [21 ] ] [22] [23] [24] [25]} .

The battle on Berezina is devoted to:

• The painting by Peter von Hess - “Crossing the Berezina”.
• Panorama " Berezina" by Wojciech Kossak and Julian Falat , not yet fully preserved.
• Commemorative coin of Russia, issued in 2012 .
• Monument in honor of the victory of Russian troops in 1812 on the Berezina River near Borisov; Sculptor N. Ryzhankov
• The village of Berezinsky of the Chelyabinsk region got its name in memory of the victory.

• Song about Berezina

• Postnikova A. A. The battle of Berezin in the historical memory of France // New and modern history . - 2012. - No. 2 . - S. 53-63 . - ISSN 0130-3864 .

• Tarle, "Napoleon's Invasion of Russia", Ch. 10
• Carl von Clausewitz, 1812
• Berezinsky operation , article by A.N. Apukhtin in 1912
• Crossing the Berezina, from the memoirs of a French officer
• The battle of Berezin , on the site dekabristy.ru
• Chichagov P.V. Crossing the Berezina. (From Notes by Admiral Chichagov) // Per. N. Ilyina // Russian Archive, 1869. - Issue. 7. - Stb. 1147-1178.