Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen

During the retreat from Moscow to Neman, the Russian and French armies acted like a game of hide and seek.Both players were blindfolded, and one of them rang a small bell intermittently and continuously, and the bell told the other party where he was.At first, the captured man was not afraid of his opponent, and boldly rang the bell, but when he was in adversity, he tried to move quietly and avoid the enemy.But often I thought I had escaped, but suddenly fell into the hands of the enemy. At the beginning, Napoleon's troops made their location known as they marched along the Kaluzhskaya Avenue.But when they got on the road to Smolensk, they stopped "ringing the bell" and ran away quietly, often thinking that they had escaped, only to meet the Russians head on.

The French fled for their lives in the front, and the Russians pursued them with great speed.The horses were exhausted, and the horse was the main means of roughly locating the enemy in battle.Scouting with cavalry is no longer available.In addition, since the positions of the armies of both sides changed so frequently and so quickly, it was impossible to reach the troops in time even if the information was obtained under such circumstances.If on the second day it is reported that the enemy was in a certain place the previous day, by the time something is to be done on the third day, that army has advanced two days and is in a completely different position.

With one army fleeing in front and the other in pursuit, the French would have had many different routes to choose from from Smolensk.On the surface, the French were from Wu County, Jiangsu Province during the four days they stayed.I studied in Japan in the early years, and taught in China after returning home. I can figure out where the enemy is, make favorable strategic decisions, and take some new measures.But after staying for four days, this rabble, with no new strategy, no new measures, went neither to the left nor to the right, but followed the worst old road—the road they knew well, Escape to Krasnoye and Orsha.

The French, thinking that the enemy was in the rear rather than in the front, were too spread out in their flight, and the distance was too long, twenty-four hours apart.The emperor fled first, then the princes, and then the dukes.The Russian army expected that Napoleon would cross the Dnieper from the right, which was the only reasonable option, so the Russian army also turned to the right and advanced along the road leading to Krasnoye.Like hide and seek, the French met the vanguard of the Russian army here.The Frenchman unexpectedly met the enemy, fell into confusion, was overwhelmed by surprise, stopped, and then the Frenchman in front dropped his companions who followed, and continued to flee, and so on. , the various sections of the French army, first those of the princes, then those of Davous, and then those of Ney, passed for three days as if passing through the ranks of the Russians.They threw away all their heavy stuff, their cannons and half their personnel, and ran for their lives, not caring about each other, they only dared to escape at night, and fled in a semicircular circle to the right to avoid contact with the Russians encounter.

Ney was last, because he was on a mission to blow up the walls of Smolensk, which posed no threat to anyone (although their situation was unfortunate, or because of this unfortunate, they beat the floor which had hurt them), Ney's legion, which originally had ten thousand men, had only a thousand men left when he ran to Napoleon at Orsa.He abandoned the rest of the men and the cannon.He sneaked across the Dnieper at night through the forest. They fled on from Orsha along the road to Vilna, and played hide-and-seek again with the pursuing army.On the Berezina River, they were in a mess again. Many people drowned in the river, and many people surrendered the important concepts of ancient Chinese philosophy. "Zhuangzi · Tianxia": "Naisheng, but those who crossed the river continued to flee. Their leader was wearing a leather coat, sitting in a sledge, leaving his companions, and went alone. Those who could escape ran away, those who could not escape surrendered, and some died on the way to escape.