SMOLENSK
All the corps marched to Smolensk where they expected to reach the end of all their misery and to find repose, food, shelter; in fact, all they were longing for.
Napoleon entered the city with his guards and kept the rest of the army, including the stragglers, out of doors until arrangements could have been made for the regular distribution of rations and quarters. But together with the stragglers the mass of the army became unmanageable and resorted to violence.
Seeing that the guards were given the preference they broke out in revolt, entered by force and pillaged the magazines. “The magazines are pillaged!” was the general cry of terror and despair. Every one was running to grasp something to eat.
Finally, something like order was established to save some of the provisions for the corps of Prince Eugene and Marshal Ney who arrived after fighting constantly to protect the city from the troops of the enemy. They received in their turn eatables and a little rest, not under shelter but in the streets, where they were protected, not from the frost, but from the enemy.
There were no longer any illusions. The army having hoped to find shelter and protection, subsistence, clothes and, above all, shoes, at Smolensk, they found nothing of all this and learned that they had to leave, perhaps the next day, to recommence the interminable march without abode for the night, without bread to eat and constantly fighting while exhausted, with the cruel certainty that if wounded they would be the prey of wolves and vultures.
This prospect made them all desperate; they saw the abyss, and still the worst was yet in store for them: Beresina and Wilna!
Napoleon left Smolensk on November 14th. The cold had become more intense—21 deg. Reaumur (16 deg. below zero Fahrenheit)—this is the observation of Larrey who had a thermometer attached to his coat; he was the only one who kept a record of the temperature.
The cold killed a great many, and the road became covered with dead soldiers resting under the snow.
To the eternal honor of the most glorious of all armies be it said that it was only at the time when the misery had surpassed all boundaries, when the soldiers had to camp on the icy ground with an empty stomach, their limbs paralyzed in mortal rigor, that the dissolution began.
It was even after the heroic battle of Wiasma that they fought day for day.
It was not the cold which caused the proud army to disband, but hunger.
Provisions could nowhere be found; all horses perished, and with them the possibility of transporting food and ammunition.
And it is one thing to suffer cold and hunger, traveling under ordinary circumstances, and another to suffer thus and at the same time being followed by the enemy.