[The following takes place during Napoleon’s fateful advance into Russia.]
On June 24, 1812, Napoleon made his fateful passage across the Nieman River into Russian territory. It was his long-dreaded declaration of war. But there would be no battle. Alexander’s troops had amassed around the Lithuanian town of Vilna, but given Bonaparte’s surprise crossing and the vast size of his Grande Armée, a tactical decision was made to burn Vilna and retreat. Bonaparte was about to receive a foretaste of what was to come in Mother Russia.
”Six hundred thousand men of all the European nations politically subject to Napoleon were marching in two columns, without stores, without rations, in a country [Lithuania] impoverished by the continental system [blockade] and only recently ruined by heavy requisitions,” wrote Countess Tiesenhausen. “In the town and in the countryside, unheard of disorders. Churches looted, the sacred vessels, even the cemeteries were not respected, the unfortunate women outraged… The looters were shot [by order of Napoleon]. They went to execution with incredible insouciance, their little pipes in their mouths. What difference did it make to them if they died now or later… The army had been without bread for three days. At Vilna they gave the soldiers bread that was not properly kneaded or baked, a kind of biscuit; there was no fodder for the cavalry, and they fed the horses with wheat cut in the fields at the end of June. They were dying like flies and their carcasses were thrown in the river.”
Source:
Farquhar, Michael. “Chapter 9 – Alexander I (1801-1825): Napoleon’s Conqueror.” Secret Lives of the Tsars: Three Centuries of Autocracy, Debauchery, Betrayal, Murder, and Madness from Romanov Russia. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014. 173. Print.
Further Reading:
Alexander Vasilievich Nikitenko (Александр Васильевич Никитенко)
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