The expedition into Russia in the year 1812 was divided into ten divisions,
each of these numbering fifty to sixty thousand men, all healthy, robust,
most of them hardened in war. The Wuerttembergians were commanded by
General Count von Scheeler and the French General Marchand; the highest
commander was Marshal Ney.
In the beginning of May, 1812, the great army of Napoleon arrived at the
frontier of Poland, whence it proceeded by forced and most tiresome marches
to the river Niemen, which forms the boundary between Lithuania and Poland,
arriving at the borders of the river in the middle of June.
An immense body of soldiers (500,000) met near the city of Kowno, crossed
the Niemen on pontoons, and formed, under the eyes of the Emperor, in
endless battle line on the other side.
The forced march continued day and night over the sandy soil of Poland. The
tropical heat during the day and the low temperature at night, the frequent
rainstorms from the north, the camping on bare and often wet ground, the
ever increasing want of pure water and fresh provisions, the immense masses
of dust, which, cloudlike, hung over the marching columns--all these
difficulties put together had sapped the strength of the soldiers already
at the beginning of the campaign. Many were taken sick before they reached
the Niemen.
The march through Lithuania was hastened as much as the march through
Poland. Provisions became scarcer all the time, meat from cattle that had
suffered from starvation and exhaustion was for a long time the soldiers'
only food.
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