War And Peace: Book 15 - CHAPTER X

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THE FRENCH ARMY went on melting away at a regularly increasing rate. And the

crossing of the Berezina, of which so much has been written, was only one of the

intermediate stages of the destruction of the army, and by no means the decisive

episode of the campaign. The reason that so much has been written about Berezina

on the French side is that at the broken-down bridge of Berezina the woes, which

had till then come upon them in a sort of regular succession, were suddenly

concentrated there in a single moment—in one tragic catastrophe, which remained

printed on the memory of all. On the Russian side, the reason that so much has

been made of Berezina was simply that at Petersburg, far away from the theatre

of war, a plan had been devised (again by Pfuhl of all people) for catching

Napoleon in a strategic snare on the banks of the Berezina. Every one was

convinced that the plan would come off exactly as arranged, and so they insisted

that Berezina had in any case been the scene of the final ruin of the French. In

reality the results of Berezina were less ruinous to the French in loss of

cannons and prisoners than was the fighting at Krasnoe, as statistics

prove.

The sole significance of the disaster of Berezina lies in the fact that it

proved obviously and unmistakably how misleading were all plans for cutting off

the enemy's retreat; and the one possible course of action was that which was

supported by Kutuzov and the mass of the Russian army—simply to follow on the

enemy's track. The crowd of French soldiers fled with continually accelerating

velocity, with all their energies directed to the attainment of their goal. It

was fleeing like a wounded beast and could not be stopped on the way. This was

proved, not so much by the construction of the crossing, as by what happened at

the bridges. When the bridges were broken down, unarmed soldiers, camp-followers

from Moscow, women with children, who were with the French transport, all under

the influence of vis inerti

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