Napoleon at the Berezina

Bridging the Berezina

by Robert Markham

While Napoleon kept Tchichagov busy, General Eble was given the task of building two bridges over the Berezina. Each bridge would be more than 300 feet long. One would handle the infantry and would be lighter construction, while the bridge handling the wheeled vehicles and cavalry would be sturdier with moss and straw on top to cut down on the amount of vibrations. Eble's 400 men began the work on the 25th. They constructed 23 trestles for each bridge, using timbers from houses at Studianka and Weselowoo. Then, beginning on the morning of the 26th, they began the arduous task of building the bridges. Wading into the near-freezing water, they drove the trestles into the muddy riverbed.

Working in water that at times reached up to their necks, the sappers rapidly constructed the bridges. By 1 p.m. of the 26th, the first French bridge (the infantry one) was finished. Three hours later, the wagon bridge, 200 yards downstream from the other bridge, was completed. By that time, the French army had begun to cross with Oudinot's foot troops crossing first. They spread out to protect the bridgehead, along with a troop of Polish lancers that had crossed the river on two rafts. The token defense of the Cossacks at Brillowo was quickly dealt with and the bridgehead was secured. By evening, the much-reduced corps of Davout and Eugene had crossed.

Unfortunately, the wagon bridge was proving to be a problem. After a few hours of service, the bridge began to buckle under the heavy weight of the carriages and wagons crossing. Sappers; entered the freezing waters and after a few hours had succeeded in making the bridge usable again. At 2 a.m., the bridge collapsed under the weight and vibrations of the vehicles. This time, the sappers took four hours to repair the bridge.

By noon of the 27th, Napoleon and the Guard had crossed the bridge to the west bank. Only Victor remained on the east bank, along with the 30,000 stragglers that were beginning to clog the approaches to the bridge. With luck, the entire force would be across the river by the 29th.

But what of the Russian forces? Tchichagov was still failing to react on the 26th, but by the 28h he started to probe the French bridgehead. Part of the delay had been Tchiihagov's lack of initiative. Rather than boldly act on the situation at hand, he had sent a courier to Kutusov for orders. Wittgenstein had advanced on the 27th to Borissow and had then turned toward Studianka.

On the morning of the 28th, he had captured Partouneaux's division that had been fighting a rear-guard action against the Russians.

By midday on the 28th, fighting raged on both banks of the Berezina. At Brillowo, Oudinot in charge of the II and III Corps with the Guard in reserve fought against the Advanced Guard of Tchichagov's army. At 8 a.m., the initial Russian attack focused on Oudinot's corps. At first, the French and Swiss gave ground, with many of the disbanded troops taking flight and fragmenting Oudinot's reserve. Oudinot himself was wounded.

Ney stepped in to rally the II Corps and with his troops as the reserve, he launched a counter-attack, relying on Doumerc's Cuirassiers to make the final charge against Russian infantry in squares. This charge left the Russians in disarray with over 2,000 Russians sabred and captured. But there was a high price to pay for such glory, and Doumerc's cavalry was decimated and no longer an effective force. The Russian assault had been stopped in its tracks by Neys quick reaction, and against superior numbers the French II Corps held its position for the rest of the day. Casualties were high but the bridgehead and French survival were secure .

On the other bank, Victor was also under heavy fire from Wittgenstein's army. Victor with support from artillery on the other bank maintained his position throughout the day. Hopelessly outnumbered, Victor's Corps faced disaster throughout the day, but valiantly held on. The troops from Baden and Poland distinguished themselves with their perseverance and ferocity. After a day of heavy fighting, Victor finally given the order to retreat across the Berezina at 9 p.m. of the 28th.

During the day, the question of whether to burn the bridges had been asked numerous times, but Napoleon had refused to destroy the bridges until Victor moved across. Ney, in particular, had been an advocate of destroying the bridges and moving on. The situation on the other bank was rapidly getting out of control as more and more stragglers congested the bridge entrances in huddled masses. This became even more chaotic as the Russian artillery began lobbing in shells. When Victor was finally ordered across on the 28th, he faced entrances that were blocked with broken vehicles, dead and dying animals and people -- "a perfect mountain of corpses" according to one observer, and "a scene from Dante's Inferno" according to another- and a throng of people too frightened to cross or even move.

Eble and his engineers were once again given an important task, this time to carve a path through this mass to extricate Victor. Eble's men began to hack a path through the morass, using the corpses as a wall to keep the stragglers back. By one a.m. on the 29th, Victor's troops had successfully crossed the bridges, except for a small detachment used to cover the rear. They were ordered to retreat at dawn. Eble was given orders to destroy the bridges at 8 a.m., but he would delay that until 8:30.

The reason for the delay was the army of stragglers that had not crossed. Over 30,000 had gathered at the bridges, but for the most part had not attempted to cross on either of the nights that the bridges had been up. With hysteria rising, even those that made it across were faced with many bitter challenges. Between the failure again of the wagon bridge, the footbridge was overwhelmed with people rushing and pushing, as well as vehicles attempting to use the footbridge. Even making it onto the bridges required climbing over the bodies of men and horses.

With no handrails, people were forced off the bridge and into the river by the surging mass of humanity that struggled to cross the bridge. Human beings fell wounded into the river, bobbed up for a moment among the ice floes, and then disappeared as others fell onto them, pushing them underneath.

Said one chronicler, "Every one consulted his own safety alone, and sought to make his own passage good by trampling under foot, or hurling into the river, whatever and whoever impeded his progress."

Many horrific scenes were recalled by the survivors of this onslaught, but perhaps none more horrific than that of, with the bridges finally set on fire, people attempting to rush through the flames before the bridges totally collapsed. Then, with the army watching from the other bank, the Cossacks swept down on the mass, cutting wide swaths through the men, women, and children that remained.

Napoleon at the Berezina 1812

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