[The following describes a time when Napoleon was facing great difficulty in his invasion of Russia, just before his disastrous retreat back to Western Europe.]
An average of 1,000 horses were to die for every day of the 175 days that the Grande Armée spent in Russia. Ségur recalled that the more than 10,000 horses that died from dehydration and heat exhaustion, when unripe rye had been their only fodder, ‘sent forth a stench impossible to breathe’.
Caulaincourt, Napoleon’s master of horse, was devastated. ‘The rapidity of the forced marches, the shortage of harness and spare parts, the dearth of provisions, the want of care, all helped to kill the horses,’ he recorded.
The men, lacking everything to supply their own needs, were little inclined to pay heed to their horses, and watched them perish without regret, for their death meant the breakdown of the service on which the men were employed, and thus the end of their personal privations. There you have the secret and cause of our earlier disasters and of our final reverse.
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "Trapped." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 587. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Cartwright and Biddiss, Disease and History p. 91.
ed. Hanoteau, With Napoleon in Russia pp. 66-7.
Further Reading:
La Grande Armée (The Great Army)
Armand-Augustin-Louis, Marquis de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza
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