Russia Against Napoleon

Even so, victory at Polotsk brought important results. General Wrede, who commanded Saint-Cyr’s Bavarian troops, did retreat due west towards Lithuania and effectively removed his men from any further participation in the war, though Wittgenstein could never be quite sure that Wrede would not re-emerge at some point to endanger his right flank. In his report to Alexander on the battle, Wittgenstein claimed correctly that he had weakened the corps of both Oudinot and Saint-Cyr to such an extent that they were no longer capable of serious resistance unless reinforced. Marshal Victor had therefore been forced to abandon Smolensk and march his entire corps to their assistance at top speed. Wittgenstein had every reason to take pride in this achievement. Three French corps, each of them initially as strong as his own, had by now been drawn away from the crucial theatre of operation in central Belorussia thanks to his efforts.⁶²

Wittgenstein advanced south from Polotsk and defeated marshals Saint-Cyr and Victor at the battle of Chashniki on the river Ulla on 31 October. According to Saint-Cyr, the Russians owed their victory to their superior artillery and to Marshal Victor’s failure to concentrate much of his corps on the battlefield. As usual, in Napoleon’s absence his marshals fought each other and Oudinot’s return from convalescence did nothing to improve coordinated leadership in the small army facing Wittgenstein. An angry Napoleon then gave Victor categorical orders to attack Wittgenstein and drive him right back over the river Dvina and away from the Grande Armée’s line of retreat, to which he was becoming dangerously close. Victor attacked towards Smoliany further east on the Ulla on 13–14 November but failed to dislodge Wittgenstein’s men from their position, despite bitter fighting.⁶³

For the first three weeks of November 1812 Wittgenstein was content to hold the line of the river Ulla and beat off any French attacks. Prince Petr Shakhovskoy, the governor of Pskov, mobilized thousands of carts and formed six mobile magazines to provide supplies for Wittgenstein’s men. Thanks to him, the Russians were far better fed than their enemies. They were also much warmer, since Wittgenstein’s corps had been sent 30,000 fur jackets in September from the provinces in his rear. With every day they stood still, the relative strength of the two armies shifted in Wittgenstein’s favour. Though only one and a half day’s march from the main Orsha–Borisov highway, Wittgenstein made no attempt to advance any further across Napoleon’s lines of communication. His caution was justified. In the first half of November he had no information about either the position of the other Russian forces or the state of Napoleon’s army. Not only Wittgenstein but also the emperor and Kutuzov feared for the safety of his corps if it found itself under attack from both Napoleon and Victor, with neither Chichagov’s nor Kutuzov’s army in the neighbourhood to help. Only when Victor retreated on 22 November did Wittgenstein move forward in his wake. He would therefore be in a position to interfere with the French crossing of the Berezina, but unlike Chichagov he would not be directly in their path.⁶⁴

He would nevertheless be much closer than Kutuzov’s main army. After the ‘battle’ of Krasnyi Kutuzov’s main concern was to rest and feed his troops. For that reason he marched south-west from Krasnyi to the small town of Kopys, the next crossing over the river Dnieper south of Orsha. There he rested his main body and succeeded in requisitioning a significant amount of food from the neighbouring districts to his south. He also parked many of his batteries, since it was obviously no longer necessary to drag along all these guns. Kutuzov did send forward an advance guard of two infantry and one cavalry corps under Miloradovich but unless Chichagov could block Napoleon on the Berezina for four days or more there was no chance of Miloradovich’s men arriving in time to dispute the crossing. As they struggled across the Dnieper and into Belorussia Miloradovich’s troops suffered badly. The historian of the 5th Jaeger Regiment wrote that ‘from Kopys on we found no civilians anywhere: the villages were empty, there weren’t even the proverbial cats or dogs. The barns and stores were also empty: there was no grain, no groats and not even a scrap of straw.’⁶⁵