27-28 November 1812
the surviving masses of the Grande Armee struggled on for
the perceived safety of the west, the Russian armies of
Kutusov and Admiral Tshitsagov
closed in on them.
some 49,000 French soldiers were capable of putting up a
fight and they were followed closely by some 40,000 non-combatants.
The Russians had more than 140,000 troops.
Bonaparte's plan was to cross the Beresina River and
head for Poland, while his enemies wanted to trap him there
and destroy him.
at the river, Bonaparte had a nasty shock in that the usually
frozen waterway had thawed and was now impassable.
nearby bridge at Studienka had been destroyed and most of
the equipment to build a pontoon bridge had been destroyed
only a few days earlier.
for the French, the commander of the bridging equipment
General Jean-Baptiste Eble
had kept crucial forges, charcoal and sapper tools and only
needed protection from the Tshitsagov's force on the far
west bank to span the river.
Oudinot was given the task of drawing off the admiral
and made a move towards the south.
plan worked and so Eble's engineers braved ferociously cold
water to construct the vital 100-metre bridge.
Cavalry quickly crossed it followed by infantry to hold
second structure opened within hours and cannons were taken
across it to bolster the defensive perimeter. Their arrival
was just in time as Tshitsagov realised his error and attacked
the 11,000 French troops.
By midday of the 27th, Bonaparte and the Imperial Guard
were across and the strategy now swung to saving the rearguard,
which was fighting against Wittgenstein's arriving army.
of the spans broke in the late afternoon but more feats
of engineering skill had it repaired by early evening. Marshal
Davout and Prince Eugene got their corps across leaving
Marshal Victor's IX Corps
to hold off the enemy on the east bank.
his firepower with artillery from across the river, Victor
held out until after midnight when his forces were able
to join their colleagues and push Tshitsagov aside and continue
the retreat to France.
some 25,000 French troops became casualties and a further
20,000 Russians, their losses paled next to that of the
least 10,000 were massacred by rampaging cossacks, while
another 20,000 died in the near freezing water or were crushed
to death in the panic to cross the bridges.