The grenadiers expressed their assent and gave promises of good conduct.
All surviving old grenadiers remained in the ranks, not one of them had
disbanded. Of the 6 thousand who had crossed the Niemen, about 3,500
survived, the others had succumbed to fatigue or frost, very few had fallen
in battle.
The disbanded soldiers of the rest of the army, having in view another long
march, with great sufferings to endure, were not disposed to change their
ways. They now needed a long rest, safety, and abundance, to make them
recognize military discipline again. The order to distribute rations among
those who had rallied around the flag could not be kept up for more than a
few hours. The magazines were pillaged, as they had been pillaged at
Smolensk. The forty-eight hours' stay at Orscha was utilized for rest and
to nourish a few men and the horses.
In these days Napoleon was as indefatigable as he ever had been as young
Bonaparte. His proclamation of the 19th. did not remain quite unheeded even
among the disbanded, but, on the march again, the nearer they came to the
Beresina the more pronounced became the lack of discipline. In the
following description I avail myself of the classical work of Thiers'
"Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire."
The only bridge over the Beresina, at Borisow, had been burned by the
Russians. It was as by miracle that General Corbineau met a Polish peasant
who indicated a place--near the village Studianka--where the Beresina could
be forded by horses.
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