Napoleon: The Russian Campaign (2015): Season 1, Episode 2 - La Bérézina - full transcript
In 1811, Napoleon controls Europe,
from the Mediterranean
to the Niemen River.
He's counting on Russian support
to fight the British.
But Alexander doesn't
approve of Napoleon's
expansionist strategy,
and irrespective
of their treaties,
allows the British
access to his ports.
For Napoleon, Russia's behaviour
makes it an enemy of France.
Caulaincourt, his closest advisor,
tries to convince
him not to embark
on another devastating campaign,
but Napoleon will
hear nothing of it.
In June 1812,
the Grande Armee crosses
the Nieman River
and enters Russian territory
in a declaration of war.
Napoleon's aim is a
lightning campaign.
Alexander chooses
to avoid conflict,
and allows the Grande
Armee to invade his land.
General Kutuzov is named
supreme commander
of the Russian army.
The French continue
their march on Moscow
in the intense heat,
but the Russian
strip the land bare
as part of a scorched
Earth policy.
Ill health and desertions
decimate the Grande Armee.
Despite his victory at
the Battle of Borodino,
also called the
Battle of La Moskova,
Napoleon cannot
annihilate his enemy.
The Grande Armee arrives
in a deserted Moscow.
The city's governor,
Count Rostopchin,
has decided to burn it down
to leave nothing to the French.
Get down.
The Russians are
willing to do anything
to destroy the Grande Armee.
The artillery's in place.
The cavalry, too.
Larry Bourgierre tells me
the stables are burning,
and the fire may
spread to the arsenal.
Four hundred crates of gunpowder?
The slightest spark
could blow the lot.
We don't have a moment to lose.
We have to leave the Kremlin.
I am the first sovereign for
more than two centuries
to have conquered this fortress.
There is no question.
This isn't about retreating,
it's about keeping you safe.
The fire spreads,
and it's impossible to predict
where or when it will stop.
But Napoleon wants to prove
his determination to the czar.
Savages.
Burning their city like this.
This is not how a war is fought.
The results of the fire in
Moscow were impressive.
More than sixty percent of
the wooden constructions
in the city burned down.
For six days, the
flames are fanned
by the wind, and destroy
the university library,
palace, and theatres.
They reduce countless wooden
constructions to ashes,
houses, warehouses,
shops, and churches.
The governor of Moscow,
Count Rostopchin,
writes to his wife,
"By the time you
receive this letter,
Moscow will be reduced to ashes.
Forgive me."
Rostopchin undoubtedly
was responsible
for the fire of Moscow,
and he actually ordered
a number of his junior officials
to set fire in various
places in the city.
It is based on the idea
that you will deprive the enemy
of accommodation, comfort,
and you will also persuade him
that this is a war to the death.
The fires in Moscow
were a catastrophe
for Alexander I.
Later on, he would say that
it was a fundamental element.
He said, "The fires in
Moscow lit up my soul."
It was a real trauma for him.
In abandoning Moscow,
Alexander loses the support
of the Russian people
and starts to doubt his generals.
Devastated, he confides
in his favourite sister,
the Grand Duchess,
Caterina Pavlovna.
Alexander...
How could you allow the Corsican
to take residence up in Moscow?
Kutuzov led me to
believe that our armies
triumphed in Borodina,
he tricked me, and...
You weren't responsible, brother.
I didn't want to
listen to Kutuzov.
I was just giving in to
the general consensus.
They are accusing you of betraying
the honour of the country.
And, ruining the people.
All the classes are united now
in their condemnation of you.
I don't have the skills.
Stop doubting yourself.
I am badly advised, badly served,
and facing an adversary who has
the whole of Europe
at his disposal.
Do you intend to
abandon your empire
to this scoundrel?
If that monster, who
wanted to marry me,
to whom you almost
promised my hand?
Don't worry.
I will refuse any
negotiation with him
while there is a
single French soldier
present on imperial soil.
And if my dynasty
ever ceases to reign,
I will grow a beard.
I will go and eat potatoes
in deepest Siberia,
because I love potatoes.
Gradually, the czar ends up laying
the blame on the
French for the fires,
in an attempt to reunite
the population.
The fires in Moscow
were a new catalyst
in terms of the resistance
of the Russian people
because these invaders had
taken over the historic
capitol of mother Russia
and set it on fire.
So long as Napoleon didn't succeed
in doing that,
Alexander would fight,
and there was no reason
for him to make peace
just because Napoleon
had got to Moscow.
And he knew that the longer
Napoleon stayed in Moscow
the more difficult the French
position would become.
Torrential rain eventually
quenches the fires.
In the heart of this wasted city,
Napoleon is cradling illusions
that the czar will beg for
mercy and ask for peace
and that it will only
be a matter of days.
There's no question of weakening.
The arsonists are arrested
in their hundreds
and escorted to the scaffold.
Convicts, middle class
bourgeoisie, Russian policemen.
Most of them plead innocence,
but the order is given
to kill with bayonets
those who attempt to run away.
Sergeant Borgogne remembers,
"Until Moscow, I had always
been a fairly carefree person
who was above the
problems burdening us.
It seemed that the more danger
in suffering there was,
the more there needed to
be glory and honour."
The majority of
accounts and stories
from soldiers who
arrived in Moscow
describe scenes of pillage.
After the fires,
Napoleon left people
to their own devices.
He allowed the city
to be pillaged,
and his soldiers amassed
a wide range of objects,
including antiques,
jewellery, and paintings.
There was meat to be found,
vegetables and drink,
and there were a lot
of stories that showed
that the soldiers who were allowed
to break into the cellars
of the Moscow bourgeoisie,
found plenty of alcohol there,
emerging completely incapable of
doing their jobs as soldiers.
Day eight in Moscow,
and no news of Alexander.
Napoleon finds a way
to contact him.
Sir, Captain Yakovlev.
Ah, Captain.
I hear your family is one of
the most respectable in the city,
and that you tried to run away,
but you didn't have time.
You are well informed.
In exchange of illicit passe
for you, your mistress,
and your child,
would you please
deliver this letter
to your sovereign.
I cannot guarantee that he will
agree to read it.
Do your best.
The emperor hopes to push the czar
into an honourable capitulation.
Alexander, my brother,
I am a peace loving man.
It's not with pleasure
that I am camped here.
I miss my wife and son,
and I wish you no harm.
But those who serve you are only
seeking personal glory.
I am convinced that if
nobody comes between us,
our former friendship
will soon return,
and all this unhappiness
will be over.
He thinks I am being influenced
by my entourage.
It is I and I alone who
refuses to grant him peace.
You didn't know that
I gave an order
to not embark under
any circumstances
on any negotiations
with Bonaparte?
Your majesty, I am
but the messenger.
Take him to the Peter
and Paul Fortress,
where he can await a
verdict for treason.
I was forced to do it.
For Alexander I,
signing a peace treaty
would probably have
been a suicide mission.
He would have been removed
from the throne and replaced,
and Alexander I knew
that very well.
The czar was categorical.
Not only did he not
want to negotiate,
but he didn't even want anyone
to speak with the
French emissaries
on his behalf.
And above all, Napoleon considered
that having taken the
historic capitol of Russia,
he had won the war,
and now it was just
down to threshing out
the peace treaty.
While he wait for
Alexander to capitulate,
Napoleon manages French
affairs from Moscow.
He also organises the daily
lives of his soldiers
to keep them busy and
to lift their spirits.
As such, he reopens the
French theatre in Moscow,
but only for the troops
stationed in the city.
With Moscow having been largely
destroyed by the fire,
the majority of the soldiers
have to camp out in the suburbs.
Outside the city walls,
they are much more
exposed to the enemy,
and are attacked by partisans,
helped by armed women and peasants
determined to support their
fathers and husbands
and to avenge their
brothers and sons.
In terms of the partisans,
there's only one
thing you can say.
They were army brigades made
up of cossacks and hussars.
It was the biggest force that had
ever fought the French.
The cossacks came
from the south of the country
and formed communities
of free men.
They had preserved
a certain autonomy
and used unusual tactics
inherited from the
people of the steppes.
They were used to
harass the enemy,
attack its flanks and rear guard,
and damage communication
lines night and day.
These tens of
thousands of cossacks
inspired terror in their enemies,
and wore down their spirits
like diabolical apparitions.
Alexander still refuses to answer.
What ridiculous stubbornness.
He will regret this.
I'm sending you back to St.
Petersberg, Caulaincourt.
You will see the
emperor Alexander,
and you will make peace.
- He knows you.
- He will refuse to see me.
He knows that time is on his side.
Winter is coming.
Oh, stop with the winter.
The fall is milder here than in...
Don't count on it, sir.
Winter will come, and
in the state we're in,
it will hit us like a bomb.
Continue.
We need to re-equip the army.
We need sheepskins, gloves,
hats, fur-lined boots.
The things one needs for winter.
I'm listening.
Many of our men have
already perished
between the Nieman
River and La Moskova.
And believe me, we
are lacking so much.
We haven't prepared the
winter horseshoes,
so how will they man it,
with the artillery,
with the diseased and wounded.
The weather is still good.
Let us profit from it,
and leave Moscow.
Leaving Moscow would
be admitting defeat.
I understand your scruples
about meeting Alexander,
while Russia is so devastated.
If that's the case,
go and see Kutuzov.
He will not give in either.
Well, then, I'll send Lorentzen,
and he will have the honour
of having made peace,
and of having saved the crown
of your friend Alexander.
You're dismissed, Caulaincourt.
There is no question
of a Russian capitulation.
In sending the Marquis of
Lauriston to negotiate
with General Kutuzov,
Napoleon hopes above
all to save face,
and save his troops.
Like Caulaincourt before him,
Louriston had been the French
ambassador in St. Petersberg.
The emperor, my master,
would have liked
to handled Moscow like
Vienna and Berlin.
But in setting it ablaze,
your compatriots have destroyed
the work of several centuries.
We have never made
war in this way.
Our soldiers are not arsonists.
Unfortunately, the people
are convinced of the contrary.
For the Russians, this
war is as devastating
as a Tartar invasion.
You cannot compare
Napoleon to Genghis Khan.
Oh, you're right.
Genghis Khan was never
so disrespectful
as to turn our
churches into stables.
Your peasants have demonstrated
extreme cruelty towards
their prisoners.
They scored them, and
impale them alive.
Their ferocity is contrary
to the rules of war, and...
Is our regular army
also so dishonourable?
No, but...
Alas, I cannot control the serfs.
They need to be
completely re-educated.
Let us at least organise
an exchange of prisoners.
The emperor sincerely
desires to put an end
to this quarrel between two
such generous nations.
Let us find a compromise.
A compromise?
Do you want me to be
damned by posterity?
This war cannot go on any longer.
Let us try to conclude
an armistice.
Oh, I am absolutely forbidden
from speaking that word.
Three times, Alexander refused
to enter into negotiations,
and it paid off.
A battle-weary Napoleon was forced
on the 19th of October
to announce his withdrawal.
Napoleon is not a complete idiot.
He can add it up the realities
of military logistics.
And he knows what
will happen to him
if he stays in Moscow
over the winter
and all of his horses die,
as they undoubtedly will.
And he imagines, again, not
entirely realistically,
what might happen in
Paris if the emperor
is cut off from his
capitol for four months
at the other end of Europe.
In his last letter
from the Kremlin,
the emperor announces his retreat.
This letter reveals
a man overwhelmed.
He had arrived in Moscow
at the top of his power,
but he is leaving in
a weakened state.
It is the start of an
unstoppable decline.
Nobody had ever seen
him express himself
with such emotion,
even when he talked of his love
for the empress or his son.
Moscow has floored him.
The Grande Armee prepares
to leave the city.
Among us, there was a young
and attractive person,
who it was said belonged to one
of Moscow's first families.
In a moment of madness,
she had become involved
with one of our superior officers,
and in another, bigger,
moment of madness,
she followed him in the retreat.
The fatal convoy.
A ragtag caravan of all
kinds of vehicles,
stuffed with the most
unlikely bounty.
Whole bookcases of
beautiful volumes.
Old masters rolled up for
easier transportation.
Despite the premonition
of misery they bear,
each is carrying their
share of the spoils,
along with several pounds
of sugar, rice,
biscuits, and liquor,
to head off the
future deprivation.
Behind the fighters
come the non-combatants
of the Grande Armee,
ambulance drivers,
engineers, blacksmiths,
bakers, furriers, cooks,
women and children,
all of whom have also profited
from their stay in Moscow.
The presence of the non-combatants
mingling with the rear guard
will soon prove to be
a terrible handicap.
Kutuzov's strategy is,
in a way, simple.
He believes that the
climate will help
to destroy the French army.
He knows that his cossacks,
backed by regular light cavalry,
will force the French army
to stay on the roads,
make it impossible for
the French to forage,
and therefore doom most
of them to starvation.
And that was no doubt
Kutuzov's masterstroke,
obliging him to retrace his steps,
and, indeed, a few days
after leaving Moscow,
the soldiers were crossing
the battlefields of Borodino
that nobody had had
the time to clean up.
The remains of the
Battle of Borodino.
"We wondered what had been
the point of this victory,"
writes Sergeant Bourgoine.
"This battle already celebrated
by the number of victims
whose lives it took."
As far as the eye could see,
there was an almighty stench,
with legs, arms, and heads
poking out of the Earth.
The rain had left open graves.
There is nothing more pitiful
than all those dead,
who had barely kept
their human form,
52 days after the battle.
Grande Armee doctor Heinrich
von Russ remembers,
"Everywhere we camped,
or on the road,
when the wounded needed to get
down from their transport
or to redo their bandages,
they were abandoned
by cruel cooks,
arrogant women with their
newly-found riches,
or merciless brothers in arms.
I saw some of them
moaning and begging
for help on the road."
Like Armonde de Caulaincourt
had sadly predicted,
the winter arrives without
warning in early November.
Temperatures fall below
20 degrees Celsius.
The horses have not
been shod for ice,
and as a result, every
movement makes them slip,
and they become exhausted.
The loads in the waggons
need to be lightened,
forcing the Grande Armee
to off-load their booty.
Moscow is already little
more than a distant memory.
I think the Grande Armee was
not prepared for the winter
because Napoleon never
expected to fight
a winter campaign.
Studies have shown that a
combination of three factors,
exhaustion, stress, and cold,
wreak havoc on a
soldier's metabolism.
So much so that if they receive
the equivalent of
500 calories a day,
their body can only
absorb a fraction.
The harassment tactics
of the Russians,
combined with the weather
and rationing of supplies,
therefore accelerates the
onset of malnutrition,
amplifies the famine, and
multiplies the number
of those dying of hunger.
From the start, he
expected to defeat
the Russian army
within two months.
That was the whole
logic of his strategy.
But he gets drawn into
a longer campaign.
On the ground, the
men are freezing.
They're so hungry that
they slit open the bellies
of abandoned horses,
collect their blood,
and cook it for food.
The Russians profit from
this terrible situation
to attack their prey.
The Grande Armee falls apart,
while in Paris, the balance
of power is shifting.
On the night of the 23rd
of October in Paris,
General Malet and a few of his men
go to the prefecture, cease the
Minister of Police, Savary,
and take him to La Force Prison.
Malet and his accomplices then go
to the high command in Plasvandeux
without encountering the
slightest resistance.
Malet has spread a rumour
that the emperor has been
killed at the gates of Moscow.
He wants to set up a
provisional government
and put an end to the war.
The emperor's popularity
in Paris is waning.
When Napoleon hears of this
attempt at a coup d'etat,
he only has one thing in mind.
I must return to Paris now.
I cannot allow emotions
to spiral out of control.
Even if this business
only lasted a few hours,
there are always wise men to
continue the work of fools.
You cannot return to
France before your army.
They were ready to sound
the death knell in Sanroc
to announce my demise,
and nobody even
thought to designate
Marie-Louis as regent.
And I have a son, a successor.
But they have forgotten
him, Caulaincourt.
They have forgotten
the King of Rome.
While Napoleon thinks
about returning home,
the massacre continues
on the ground.
In mid-November,
only 4200 men remain
of the 104,000 who left Moscow.
The others have
perished from hunger,
exhaustion and disease,
or deserted,
some of the stragglers
falling into the hands
of cossack detachments,
and others dying in combat.
Smolensk is no longer
very far away.
Napoleon had hoped to
pass more to the south,
on the richer lands that
hadn't been touched,
where they might find food.
But he was prevented
from doing this
by the Russian army,
which forced him to return
the way he had come,
via Smolensk.
They all hoped to find food
and fodder for the
horses in Smolensk,
thanks to the levies imposed
on the local population.
The survivors believed that
the end of their hardships
is close.
In Smolensk, Napoleon had
given orders for provisions,
so the men would have something
to eat when they arrived.
But the troops he had left
there had already started
on these reserves,
which meant that
there wasn't enough
to fulfil the needs of
the returning army.
It's a huge disappointment.
Starving and weakened,
the Grande Armee
has to leave Smolensk.
It's but a shadow of
what it once was,
and the cossacks profit
from this vulnerability
to attack its flanks.
This constant harassment
forces Napoleon
to keep his surviving
troops on a route
that has been stripped bare.
As for Kutuzov, he has
80,000 men in pursuit,
and is getting dangerously
close to Napoleon's position.
He's supported in the north
by General Wittgenstein
who has 40,000 troops,
and is preparing
to bear down on the middle
of the French army,
while General Chichikov completes
the Russian encircling
of the French with 27000
troops and a hundred cannon
upstream of the Berezina River.
The noose is tightening,
especially as Chichikov
has taken a key position.
He's controlling the
only crossing point
of the Berezina River,
the bridge at Borozov.
The Grande Armee is exhausted,
and its numbers are reducing
a little more each day.
The wind is like a razor blade,
cutting to the marrow.
The ice seals their eyelids,
and their fingers stick to
the metal of their guns.
It makes their legs as
fragile as alabaster.
The joints in their feet and hands
break at the slightest pressure,
yet, they feel no pain.
To remove the clothes
of the fallen,
one cannot wait until their
bodies are frozen stiff.
More than one finds
himself stripped
before breathing his last.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"Exhausted by this inhuman march,
I left the ranks and joined
up with a few soldiers.
I had one potato left to eat.
In a fit of selfishness for
which I never forgave myself,
I didn't share it with my friends,
who were dying of hunger.
But, it was frozen solid.
My teeth slid across it,
unable to take a bite.
I was taken by an
overwhelming desire
to sleep, but I knew
it would be fatal.
I had to move, march,
and stay awake,
so I went back on my way."
Bourgogne's disoriented by the
blizzard and the darkness.
The snow covers his footprints.
He marches like this until dawn,
looking for his regiment.
He can no longer feel his limbs,
nor the rats gnawing at him.
At dawn, he discovers the
remains of a convoy,
and the hope of finding
something to eat,
something to keep him alive
for a few more hours
on this miserable Earth.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"One has to have felt the
rage of hunger to understand.
We would have eaten the
devil, had he been cooked.
Hatred mingles with compassion,
but the Russian soldiers
are also deprived.
A prisoner means one
more mouth to feed.
Choices have to be made.
As the troops progressed,
they left behind the
stragglers and the sick,
who were immediately
taken prisoner.
The prisoners' fates varied
depending on their circumstances.
Those who were lucky enough,
if you can put it like that,
to be handed over
to the regular army
were escorted east, to stop
them returning to fight.
Others met an even worse fate.
They had everything
taken from them,
and were turned over to
village communities,
who often put them to death.
Alexander is shocked
by these revelations,
and does everything he can
to forbid such practises,
promising a reward for
soldiers and peasants
who hand prisoners over
to a civil authority
to have them locked up.
But the abuse of prisoners
isn't just limited
to the Russians.
In Smolensk, 600 Russian prisoners
considered unable to march
are executed by the French.
Alexander's getting impatient.
He knows the endgame is coming.
The Berezina is his one chance,
and he gives his men the
order to capture Napoleon.
The Battle of the Berezina
is a battle that
made a real impact
on Napoleon's campaign.
The name refers to a river,
which was an obstacle
for Napoleon's army,
and Kutuzov thought that the
Berezina would be the obstacle
that would enable him
to surround Napoleon
and seize his army.
The army that came from Moscow
approached the Berezina River
and hoped to cross it at
a place called Borosov,
where there was a bridge.
Under orders from Napoleon,
Marshal Udino boldly swoops
upon the town of Borisov,
capturing it without difficulty.
But, the Russians have
burned the bridge,
destroying the Grande
Armee's only route
over the Berezina,
and out of Kutuzov's
pincer movement.
They need another route urgently.
One of Marshal Udino's units,
lost on the other bank,
comes across a peasant
soaked up to his armpits.
They deduce there must be a place
where the river can
be forded nearby.
They interrogate the
peasant, who tells them
that it is nearby the
village of Studyanka,
eight miles north of Borizov.
But Napoleon is not the only one
to understand the
strategic importance
of the bridge at Borizov.
Chichikov is defending
the west bank
with 30,000 men and
a hundred cannon.
At the same time, Kutuzov
is coming up behind
the Napoleonic forces
with his 80,000 troops,
and he asks General Wittgenstein
to complete the circle
with a 30,000 strong force.
But Napoleon predicts
their charade.
Udino and Mutto, you
will discretely advance
your troops toward Studyanka.
When night falls, you will
build two bridges there,
one for the artillery and waggons,
and the other for the
infantry and cavalry.
But sir, if we...
Wait, Lorensten.
At the same time, here,
downstream from Borizov,
visible to the enemy,
we will rebuild the bridge there.
But, contrary to what the
Russians will think,
we won't use it,
and while Chichikov concentrates
most of his troops here,
our troops will cross
the river here,
in Studyanka.
The apparently helpless situation
of the Grande Armee
did nothing to disturb
the emperor's serenity.
"Everyone else was in a
panic," writes Caulaincourt,
"but Napoleon was
bigger than that.
Hope intoxicated him more
than the most terrible setback
could drag him down."
Napoleon had the great
idea of using a decoy,
which, in fact, worked very well.
Because he ordered Borisov
to be retaken by the French,
and ordered a lot of ostentatious
construction in Borisov
to make the Russians think
he was going to cross there.
But, at night,
secretly, in the dark,
he ordered the transfer
of his men to begin,
in the wake of Eblais'
bridge builders,
who were in charge
of the construction
of the two famous
bridges at Studyanka.
If Napoleon's army cannot
cross the Berezina,
they have no choice
but to surrender.
France's fate hangs
in the balance.
Napoleon goes to the
riverbank several times
to observe the fires
in the Russian camp.
Their number and
density reassure him
that his plan is working.
The Russians think that
the main crossing point
will be in Borizov,
but Studyanka is only a
couple hours march away
for a trained army.
The risk of being
caught and attacked
remains very real.
The Western bank of the
Berezina at Studyanka
must be protected.
Napoleon orders the fifty members
of General Corpinoux's cavalry
to swim across the river.
Each horse also carries an
infantryman on its neck.
Four hundred soldiers
join the brave cavalrymen
on makeshift rafts.
There is a constant back-and-forth
between the two banks.
In parallel, the weakened Russian
forces of General Cornilov
are crushed by fifty cannon
being directly
commanded by Napoleon.
The Western bank is soon cleared.
Two hours later, they start
to instal the uprights.
General Eblaix leads the way,
throwing himself
into the icy water.
Eblaix's heroic bridge-builders
remove their clothes
and get down to work,
ignoring the huge blocks of
ice floating in the river.
These blocks are as
sharp as blades,
making their task
particularly dangerous.
The bridge builders are up to
their shoulders in the water
installing the uprights.
Many lives are lost,
abandoned to the current.
They are soon replaced
by other brave men.
By the end of the morning,
the infantry bridge is complete.
By one p.m., Udino's
troops are crossing
the newly constructed bridge.
In a hurry to reinforce
the western bank,
they hasten across the
wobbly construction.
By four p.m., the second
bridge is completed
beside the first.
By the evening, almost
ten thousand soldiers
have crossed the
bridge and reached
the west bank of the river.
Night falls, and they must take
advantage of the darkness.
Waggons and cannon are
brought across the river.
The bridge vibrates and
three times gives way,
failing to support the weight.
The loyal bridge builders
jump back in the water
to repair or replace
the broken parts.
It's a race against time,
and the temperature is -30 degrees
as they fix the bridge
in under three hours.
Napoleon and his general staff
cross to the west bank later on,
continuing to encourage
the never-ending
flow across the bridge.
This morning, Napoleon's
orders were clear:
only ordered army
troops were to cross.
The rest, hawkers, stragglers,
and non-combatants,
are roughly pushed back.
After several days of
solitary marching,
Sergeant Bourgogne
eventually meets up
again with his companions.
He joins non-combatants
and stragglers
who have been waiting
since the previous day
to cross the bridge.
One witness wrote, "Those
who entered Russia
to fight barbarism and
introduce civilisation
are now nothing more than debris,
pathetic ghosts."
During the night of
the 27th of November,
something incredible happens.
There's virtually nobody
pushing to cross the bridge.
The way across is clear.
But an exhausted and
feverish Bourgogne
is asleep beside a fire.
At dawn, he is woken
by cannon fire.
He then understands that to be
in with a chance of survival,
he absolutely must
cross the bridge.
Better die from a cannonball
than from cold or hunger.
At 7 a.m., completely alone,
he gets up, takes his gun,
and without saying
a word to anyone,
goes towards the bridge.
His limbs are frozen, his
bones as fragile as glass,
making walking
extremely difficult.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"I saw women demonstrating
admirable courage,
tolerating pain.
Some even put men to shame,
men who did not know how
to tolerate adversity
with bravery and resignation.
I crossed the Borozino River
on a totally deserted bridge.
When I reached the other side,
I saw on my right a large
shack made from planks.
It was there where the
emperor had slept,
and where he still was."
Bourgogne reaches the west
bank and joins his comrades,
but little does he know
that four hours later,
the nightmare would
begin all over again.
On the same side of the river,
General Chichikov and 27,000
men are swooping down
on Udino's troops.
The fight is a terrible one.
Udino must remain in control
of the western bank at all costs,
it being a vital crossing point.
At the same moment,
on the east bank,
General Wittgenstein is
leading 40,000 soldiers
to attack Marshal
Victor's 10,000 troops,
As the rear guard has
stayed near to Studyanka,
Napoleon's army is trapped.
It is panic on the eastern bank.
In the middle of the
fighting and cannon fire,
thousands of stragglers
and non-combatants
who have been waiting for two days
race pell mell onto the ramps
leading to the bridges.
Terrified men, women and children
are shot down by cannon fire,
trampled by horses, or fall
from the slippery
wooden structures.
Grande Armee surgeon Baron
de Laree remembers:
"The horror was everywhere.
The strongest killed the weakest,
who were crushed beneath
the feet of the crowd.
The air was filled
with terrible screams.
A few managed to swim across,
but others drowned, and more still
were trapped by the
floating blocks of ice."
The ferocious fighting
continues until 11 p.m.,
to the sound of cannon and gunfire
in a terrible snowstorm.
At the end of one exhausting
day, heavy with loss,
the Russian armies
are pushed back,
and Napoleon controls both
sides of the Berazina.
At the Battle of Berazina,
Napoleon took a decision
as head of the army.
It was the only
option open to him.
He wanted to save his army
and continue his
military campaign.
The stragglers did not want to
cross the bridges at night,
and the Russians were coming,
so he gave the order
to burn the bridges.
During the night,
General Eblais urges
the survivors on the
east bank to cross
the last bridge that
could still be crossed.
Eblais was a remarkable man.
By that, I mean he was
devoted to his cause,
extremely devoted to the emperor,
but at the same time, he was
a deeply humane person,
and when Napoleon gave him the
order to burn the bridges,
he knew very well what that meant.
It meant that thousands
of people would be left
to the violence of the cossacks.
The fatal command,
burn the bridges.
Seeing the cossacks approaching,
General Eblais accepts
that he must do it,
but he is sick at heart.
In the first flames,
there is a mad scramble
to cross the bridge.
The stragglers are running
all over the place.
A disordered and
confused crowd of people
stumbles around.
12,000 stragglers
and non-combatants
and around 3,000 fighters
are desperately
fighting to survive.
As seen by the powerless
spectators on the right bank,
this is a spectacle of
horror and suffering.
It's a free-for-all,
these unfortunate souls
caught between two evils,
cornered by the cossacks who
are not giving an inch,
and trapped by the
flaming bridges.
There is no way forward
and no way back.
In the rush, the bridge collapses.
Men, women and
children are consumed
by flames or drowned
in the icy water.
The death toll is catastrophic.
Kutuzov missed his
chance at the Berazina.
7,000 of Napoleon's soldiers
and 2,000 of his officers,
his imperial guard, his
marshals, and his high command
manage to escape three Russian
armies of many more men.
Napoleon had lost no battles,
but he had lost his
entire campaign.
More than 600,000 were gone,
either dead or taken
prisoner in Russia.
That was the result
of this campaign.
In fact, for the Russians,
the Battle of Berazina
was a failure,
because they wanted
to capture Napoleon.
The Battle of the Berazina
is both a disaster
for the French army and a victory,
indeed, in many ways,
its proudest moment.
Of course, thousands of French
soldiers die at the Berazina,
but what really matters
is that the core
of the French army escapes,
and by the core of the
French army I mean
its generals, its staff officers,
its vital professional cadre.
Napoleon was able to put together
a very formidable
new army in 1813.
So, it was a French
victory of a sort.
On the 5th of November,
day 48 of the retreat,
Napoleon, who can no
longer not knowing
what is happening in the capitol,
takes the decision
to return to Paris.
He orders Caulaincourt
to accompany him.
In ten days and ten nights,
they reach Germany.
After crossing the
duchy of Warsaw,
they stop over in Germany.
Incognito, they hope.
As soon as I'm back in Paris
I'll reassure my people
and explain to them the
reasons for our battles.
Caulaincourt.
The events have proven
you right, Caulaincourt,
but I did not lead this
campaign like some Don Quixote
in search of adventures. No.
The only difference between
me and other sovereigns
is that problems
stand in their way,
whereas I like to overcome them,
especially when the rewards
are grand and noble,
worthy of me and the nation.
If it hadn't been for the weather,
the Russians would
have capitulated.
Look, our disasters
were limited to a week.
We stayed a week too
long in Moscow,
but nothing is over.
We'll prove ourselves yet.
Do you not think we should...
I know what you think
of me, Caulaincourt.
But I have no more ambition.
I'm too old for it. Believe
me. I yearn to rest.
But I want to finish my oeuvre.
Convinced the innkeeper
is deliberately
holding them up,
Caulaincourt fears an ambush.
Three days later, Napoleon
enters the Tourlouries.
Meanwhile, the Grande Armee
continues to beat a retreat
through the snowy,
marshy, and icy forests.
Still pursued and harassed
by the cossacks and
Kutuzov's troops.
The French population had
no doubts about Napoleon
after 1812.
In fact, it didn't doubt
Napoleon right until the end,
until 1814.
This is in part down to Napoleon
being relatively popular.
He was extremely popular, even,
but in particular, the
people really trusted him.
He was, after all, a
man who had spent
the last twelve years
winning every battle
he fought.
So, people thought that in Russia,
he'd slipped up because
of the winter,
despite it not only being
down to the winter,
and that the emperor
would fix everything.
The Russia campaign
marked the start
of the decline of
the First Empire.
Two years later, the English
would win the battle of Waterloo,
and France would be reduced
to its pre-1790 frontiers.
However, it was the start
of a new era for Russia,
which found a new place
as a major global power.
A year later and
this patriotic war
had helped Russia forge
a national identity,
that was celebrated by
writers and musicians alike.
Being used to success
cost us dear in Russia.
We had never learnt
to beat a retreat.
During this long debacle,
the emperor was as unsure and
undecided on the first day
as he was on the last.
Fate had so often smiled upon him
that he was never able to believe
it might betray him.
If you count the survivors
from the Battle of the Berazina,
and the troops stationed
in Lithuania,
fewer than 30,000 cross
back over the Nieman River.
30,000 out of 500,000
six months earlier.
More than 200,000 soldiers
from the Grande Armee
died in combat, from the cold,
from hunger, or from sickness.
More than 150,000
were taken prisoner.
On the Russian side,
the losses were set
at 300,000 dead,
half of whom were
killed in combat.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"The Battle of the
Berazina was not the end
of our struggle.
I was taken prisoner
a short time later.
The Russians decided
to send us east,
towards Siberia.
My unlucky companions
thought it better
to be held captive
and fed potatoes
than to die free men from
cold or hunger on the march.
But I pointed out to them
that it would be much better
to escape their clutches.
Several thousand of us died
before reaching Siberia.
Other accepted the czar's offer
to take Russian nationality
and settle in this land they
had been asked to conquer.
As for me, I eventually
managed to escape,
and in the spring of 1813
I arrived back in France.
from the Mediterranean
to the Niemen River.
He's counting on Russian support
to fight the British.
But Alexander doesn't
approve of Napoleon's
expansionist strategy,
and irrespective
of their treaties,
allows the British
access to his ports.
For Napoleon, Russia's behaviour
makes it an enemy of France.
Caulaincourt, his closest advisor,
tries to convince
him not to embark
on another devastating campaign,
but Napoleon will
hear nothing of it.
In June 1812,
the Grande Armee crosses
the Nieman River
and enters Russian territory
in a declaration of war.
Napoleon's aim is a
lightning campaign.
Alexander chooses
to avoid conflict,
and allows the Grande
Armee to invade his land.
General Kutuzov is named
supreme commander
of the Russian army.
The French continue
their march on Moscow
in the intense heat,
but the Russian
strip the land bare
as part of a scorched
Earth policy.
Ill health and desertions
decimate the Grande Armee.
Despite his victory at
the Battle of Borodino,
also called the
Battle of La Moskova,
Napoleon cannot
annihilate his enemy.
The Grande Armee arrives
in a deserted Moscow.
The city's governor,
Count Rostopchin,
has decided to burn it down
to leave nothing to the French.
Get down.
The Russians are
willing to do anything
to destroy the Grande Armee.
The artillery's in place.
The cavalry, too.
Larry Bourgierre tells me
the stables are burning,
and the fire may
spread to the arsenal.
Four hundred crates of gunpowder?
The slightest spark
could blow the lot.
We don't have a moment to lose.
We have to leave the Kremlin.
I am the first sovereign for
more than two centuries
to have conquered this fortress.
There is no question.
This isn't about retreating,
it's about keeping you safe.
The fire spreads,
and it's impossible to predict
where or when it will stop.
But Napoleon wants to prove
his determination to the czar.
Savages.
Burning their city like this.
This is not how a war is fought.
The results of the fire in
Moscow were impressive.
More than sixty percent of
the wooden constructions
in the city burned down.
For six days, the
flames are fanned
by the wind, and destroy
the university library,
palace, and theatres.
They reduce countless wooden
constructions to ashes,
houses, warehouses,
shops, and churches.
The governor of Moscow,
Count Rostopchin,
writes to his wife,
"By the time you
receive this letter,
Moscow will be reduced to ashes.
Forgive me."
Rostopchin undoubtedly
was responsible
for the fire of Moscow,
and he actually ordered
a number of his junior officials
to set fire in various
places in the city.
It is based on the idea
that you will deprive the enemy
of accommodation, comfort,
and you will also persuade him
that this is a war to the death.
The fires in Moscow
were a catastrophe
for Alexander I.
Later on, he would say that
it was a fundamental element.
He said, "The fires in
Moscow lit up my soul."
It was a real trauma for him.
In abandoning Moscow,
Alexander loses the support
of the Russian people
and starts to doubt his generals.
Devastated, he confides
in his favourite sister,
the Grand Duchess,
Caterina Pavlovna.
Alexander...
How could you allow the Corsican
to take residence up in Moscow?
Kutuzov led me to
believe that our armies
triumphed in Borodina,
he tricked me, and...
You weren't responsible, brother.
I didn't want to
listen to Kutuzov.
I was just giving in to
the general consensus.
They are accusing you of betraying
the honour of the country.
And, ruining the people.
All the classes are united now
in their condemnation of you.
I don't have the skills.
Stop doubting yourself.
I am badly advised, badly served,
and facing an adversary who has
the whole of Europe
at his disposal.
Do you intend to
abandon your empire
to this scoundrel?
If that monster, who
wanted to marry me,
to whom you almost
promised my hand?
Don't worry.
I will refuse any
negotiation with him
while there is a
single French soldier
present on imperial soil.
And if my dynasty
ever ceases to reign,
I will grow a beard.
I will go and eat potatoes
in deepest Siberia,
because I love potatoes.
Gradually, the czar ends up laying
the blame on the
French for the fires,
in an attempt to reunite
the population.
The fires in Moscow
were a new catalyst
in terms of the resistance
of the Russian people
because these invaders had
taken over the historic
capitol of mother Russia
and set it on fire.
So long as Napoleon didn't succeed
in doing that,
Alexander would fight,
and there was no reason
for him to make peace
just because Napoleon
had got to Moscow.
And he knew that the longer
Napoleon stayed in Moscow
the more difficult the French
position would become.
Torrential rain eventually
quenches the fires.
In the heart of this wasted city,
Napoleon is cradling illusions
that the czar will beg for
mercy and ask for peace
and that it will only
be a matter of days.
There's no question of weakening.
The arsonists are arrested
in their hundreds
and escorted to the scaffold.
Convicts, middle class
bourgeoisie, Russian policemen.
Most of them plead innocence,
but the order is given
to kill with bayonets
those who attempt to run away.
Sergeant Borgogne remembers,
"Until Moscow, I had always
been a fairly carefree person
who was above the
problems burdening us.
It seemed that the more danger
in suffering there was,
the more there needed to
be glory and honour."
The majority of
accounts and stories
from soldiers who
arrived in Moscow
describe scenes of pillage.
After the fires,
Napoleon left people
to their own devices.
He allowed the city
to be pillaged,
and his soldiers amassed
a wide range of objects,
including antiques,
jewellery, and paintings.
There was meat to be found,
vegetables and drink,
and there were a lot
of stories that showed
that the soldiers who were allowed
to break into the cellars
of the Moscow bourgeoisie,
found plenty of alcohol there,
emerging completely incapable of
doing their jobs as soldiers.
Day eight in Moscow,
and no news of Alexander.
Napoleon finds a way
to contact him.
Sir, Captain Yakovlev.
Ah, Captain.
I hear your family is one of
the most respectable in the city,
and that you tried to run away,
but you didn't have time.
You are well informed.
In exchange of illicit passe
for you, your mistress,
and your child,
would you please
deliver this letter
to your sovereign.
I cannot guarantee that he will
agree to read it.
Do your best.
The emperor hopes to push the czar
into an honourable capitulation.
Alexander, my brother,
I am a peace loving man.
It's not with pleasure
that I am camped here.
I miss my wife and son,
and I wish you no harm.
But those who serve you are only
seeking personal glory.
I am convinced that if
nobody comes between us,
our former friendship
will soon return,
and all this unhappiness
will be over.
He thinks I am being influenced
by my entourage.
It is I and I alone who
refuses to grant him peace.
You didn't know that
I gave an order
to not embark under
any circumstances
on any negotiations
with Bonaparte?
Your majesty, I am
but the messenger.
Take him to the Peter
and Paul Fortress,
where he can await a
verdict for treason.
I was forced to do it.
For Alexander I,
signing a peace treaty
would probably have
been a suicide mission.
He would have been removed
from the throne and replaced,
and Alexander I knew
that very well.
The czar was categorical.
Not only did he not
want to negotiate,
but he didn't even want anyone
to speak with the
French emissaries
on his behalf.
And above all, Napoleon considered
that having taken the
historic capitol of Russia,
he had won the war,
and now it was just
down to threshing out
the peace treaty.
While he wait for
Alexander to capitulate,
Napoleon manages French
affairs from Moscow.
He also organises the daily
lives of his soldiers
to keep them busy and
to lift their spirits.
As such, he reopens the
French theatre in Moscow,
but only for the troops
stationed in the city.
With Moscow having been largely
destroyed by the fire,
the majority of the soldiers
have to camp out in the suburbs.
Outside the city walls,
they are much more
exposed to the enemy,
and are attacked by partisans,
helped by armed women and peasants
determined to support their
fathers and husbands
and to avenge their
brothers and sons.
In terms of the partisans,
there's only one
thing you can say.
They were army brigades made
up of cossacks and hussars.
It was the biggest force that had
ever fought the French.
The cossacks came
from the south of the country
and formed communities
of free men.
They had preserved
a certain autonomy
and used unusual tactics
inherited from the
people of the steppes.
They were used to
harass the enemy,
attack its flanks and rear guard,
and damage communication
lines night and day.
These tens of
thousands of cossacks
inspired terror in their enemies,
and wore down their spirits
like diabolical apparitions.
Alexander still refuses to answer.
What ridiculous stubbornness.
He will regret this.
I'm sending you back to St.
Petersberg, Caulaincourt.
You will see the
emperor Alexander,
and you will make peace.
- He knows you.
- He will refuse to see me.
He knows that time is on his side.
Winter is coming.
Oh, stop with the winter.
The fall is milder here than in...
Don't count on it, sir.
Winter will come, and
in the state we're in,
it will hit us like a bomb.
Continue.
We need to re-equip the army.
We need sheepskins, gloves,
hats, fur-lined boots.
The things one needs for winter.
I'm listening.
Many of our men have
already perished
between the Nieman
River and La Moskova.
And believe me, we
are lacking so much.
We haven't prepared the
winter horseshoes,
so how will they man it,
with the artillery,
with the diseased and wounded.
The weather is still good.
Let us profit from it,
and leave Moscow.
Leaving Moscow would
be admitting defeat.
I understand your scruples
about meeting Alexander,
while Russia is so devastated.
If that's the case,
go and see Kutuzov.
He will not give in either.
Well, then, I'll send Lorentzen,
and he will have the honour
of having made peace,
and of having saved the crown
of your friend Alexander.
You're dismissed, Caulaincourt.
There is no question
of a Russian capitulation.
In sending the Marquis of
Lauriston to negotiate
with General Kutuzov,
Napoleon hopes above
all to save face,
and save his troops.
Like Caulaincourt before him,
Louriston had been the French
ambassador in St. Petersberg.
The emperor, my master,
would have liked
to handled Moscow like
Vienna and Berlin.
But in setting it ablaze,
your compatriots have destroyed
the work of several centuries.
We have never made
war in this way.
Our soldiers are not arsonists.
Unfortunately, the people
are convinced of the contrary.
For the Russians, this
war is as devastating
as a Tartar invasion.
You cannot compare
Napoleon to Genghis Khan.
Oh, you're right.
Genghis Khan was never
so disrespectful
as to turn our
churches into stables.
Your peasants have demonstrated
extreme cruelty towards
their prisoners.
They scored them, and
impale them alive.
Their ferocity is contrary
to the rules of war, and...
Is our regular army
also so dishonourable?
No, but...
Alas, I cannot control the serfs.
They need to be
completely re-educated.
Let us at least organise
an exchange of prisoners.
The emperor sincerely
desires to put an end
to this quarrel between two
such generous nations.
Let us find a compromise.
A compromise?
Do you want me to be
damned by posterity?
This war cannot go on any longer.
Let us try to conclude
an armistice.
Oh, I am absolutely forbidden
from speaking that word.
Three times, Alexander refused
to enter into negotiations,
and it paid off.
A battle-weary Napoleon was forced
on the 19th of October
to announce his withdrawal.
Napoleon is not a complete idiot.
He can add it up the realities
of military logistics.
And he knows what
will happen to him
if he stays in Moscow
over the winter
and all of his horses die,
as they undoubtedly will.
And he imagines, again, not
entirely realistically,
what might happen in
Paris if the emperor
is cut off from his
capitol for four months
at the other end of Europe.
In his last letter
from the Kremlin,
the emperor announces his retreat.
This letter reveals
a man overwhelmed.
He had arrived in Moscow
at the top of his power,
but he is leaving in
a weakened state.
It is the start of an
unstoppable decline.
Nobody had ever seen
him express himself
with such emotion,
even when he talked of his love
for the empress or his son.
Moscow has floored him.
The Grande Armee prepares
to leave the city.
Among us, there was a young
and attractive person,
who it was said belonged to one
of Moscow's first families.
In a moment of madness,
she had become involved
with one of our superior officers,
and in another, bigger,
moment of madness,
she followed him in the retreat.
The fatal convoy.
A ragtag caravan of all
kinds of vehicles,
stuffed with the most
unlikely bounty.
Whole bookcases of
beautiful volumes.
Old masters rolled up for
easier transportation.
Despite the premonition
of misery they bear,
each is carrying their
share of the spoils,
along with several pounds
of sugar, rice,
biscuits, and liquor,
to head off the
future deprivation.
Behind the fighters
come the non-combatants
of the Grande Armee,
ambulance drivers,
engineers, blacksmiths,
bakers, furriers, cooks,
women and children,
all of whom have also profited
from their stay in Moscow.
The presence of the non-combatants
mingling with the rear guard
will soon prove to be
a terrible handicap.
Kutuzov's strategy is,
in a way, simple.
He believes that the
climate will help
to destroy the French army.
He knows that his cossacks,
backed by regular light cavalry,
will force the French army
to stay on the roads,
make it impossible for
the French to forage,
and therefore doom most
of them to starvation.
And that was no doubt
Kutuzov's masterstroke,
obliging him to retrace his steps,
and, indeed, a few days
after leaving Moscow,
the soldiers were crossing
the battlefields of Borodino
that nobody had had
the time to clean up.
The remains of the
Battle of Borodino.
"We wondered what had been
the point of this victory,"
writes Sergeant Bourgoine.
"This battle already celebrated
by the number of victims
whose lives it took."
As far as the eye could see,
there was an almighty stench,
with legs, arms, and heads
poking out of the Earth.
The rain had left open graves.
There is nothing more pitiful
than all those dead,
who had barely kept
their human form,
52 days after the battle.
Grande Armee doctor Heinrich
von Russ remembers,
"Everywhere we camped,
or on the road,
when the wounded needed to get
down from their transport
or to redo their bandages,
they were abandoned
by cruel cooks,
arrogant women with their
newly-found riches,
or merciless brothers in arms.
I saw some of them
moaning and begging
for help on the road."
Like Armonde de Caulaincourt
had sadly predicted,
the winter arrives without
warning in early November.
Temperatures fall below
20 degrees Celsius.
The horses have not
been shod for ice,
and as a result, every
movement makes them slip,
and they become exhausted.
The loads in the waggons
need to be lightened,
forcing the Grande Armee
to off-load their booty.
Moscow is already little
more than a distant memory.
I think the Grande Armee was
not prepared for the winter
because Napoleon never
expected to fight
a winter campaign.
Studies have shown that a
combination of three factors,
exhaustion, stress, and cold,
wreak havoc on a
soldier's metabolism.
So much so that if they receive
the equivalent of
500 calories a day,
their body can only
absorb a fraction.
The harassment tactics
of the Russians,
combined with the weather
and rationing of supplies,
therefore accelerates the
onset of malnutrition,
amplifies the famine, and
multiplies the number
of those dying of hunger.
From the start, he
expected to defeat
the Russian army
within two months.
That was the whole
logic of his strategy.
But he gets drawn into
a longer campaign.
On the ground, the
men are freezing.
They're so hungry that
they slit open the bellies
of abandoned horses,
collect their blood,
and cook it for food.
The Russians profit from
this terrible situation
to attack their prey.
The Grande Armee falls apart,
while in Paris, the balance
of power is shifting.
On the night of the 23rd
of October in Paris,
General Malet and a few of his men
go to the prefecture, cease the
Minister of Police, Savary,
and take him to La Force Prison.
Malet and his accomplices then go
to the high command in Plasvandeux
without encountering the
slightest resistance.
Malet has spread a rumour
that the emperor has been
killed at the gates of Moscow.
He wants to set up a
provisional government
and put an end to the war.
The emperor's popularity
in Paris is waning.
When Napoleon hears of this
attempt at a coup d'etat,
he only has one thing in mind.
I must return to Paris now.
I cannot allow emotions
to spiral out of control.
Even if this business
only lasted a few hours,
there are always wise men to
continue the work of fools.
You cannot return to
France before your army.
They were ready to sound
the death knell in Sanroc
to announce my demise,
and nobody even
thought to designate
Marie-Louis as regent.
And I have a son, a successor.
But they have forgotten
him, Caulaincourt.
They have forgotten
the King of Rome.
While Napoleon thinks
about returning home,
the massacre continues
on the ground.
In mid-November,
only 4200 men remain
of the 104,000 who left Moscow.
The others have
perished from hunger,
exhaustion and disease,
or deserted,
some of the stragglers
falling into the hands
of cossack detachments,
and others dying in combat.
Smolensk is no longer
very far away.
Napoleon had hoped to
pass more to the south,
on the richer lands that
hadn't been touched,
where they might find food.
But he was prevented
from doing this
by the Russian army,
which forced him to return
the way he had come,
via Smolensk.
They all hoped to find food
and fodder for the
horses in Smolensk,
thanks to the levies imposed
on the local population.
The survivors believed that
the end of their hardships
is close.
In Smolensk, Napoleon had
given orders for provisions,
so the men would have something
to eat when they arrived.
But the troops he had left
there had already started
on these reserves,
which meant that
there wasn't enough
to fulfil the needs of
the returning army.
It's a huge disappointment.
Starving and weakened,
the Grande Armee
has to leave Smolensk.
It's but a shadow of
what it once was,
and the cossacks profit
from this vulnerability
to attack its flanks.
This constant harassment
forces Napoleon
to keep his surviving
troops on a route
that has been stripped bare.
As for Kutuzov, he has
80,000 men in pursuit,
and is getting dangerously
close to Napoleon's position.
He's supported in the north
by General Wittgenstein
who has 40,000 troops,
and is preparing
to bear down on the middle
of the French army,
while General Chichikov completes
the Russian encircling
of the French with 27000
troops and a hundred cannon
upstream of the Berezina River.
The noose is tightening,
especially as Chichikov
has taken a key position.
He's controlling the
only crossing point
of the Berezina River,
the bridge at Borozov.
The Grande Armee is exhausted,
and its numbers are reducing
a little more each day.
The wind is like a razor blade,
cutting to the marrow.
The ice seals their eyelids,
and their fingers stick to
the metal of their guns.
It makes their legs as
fragile as alabaster.
The joints in their feet and hands
break at the slightest pressure,
yet, they feel no pain.
To remove the clothes
of the fallen,
one cannot wait until their
bodies are frozen stiff.
More than one finds
himself stripped
before breathing his last.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"Exhausted by this inhuman march,
I left the ranks and joined
up with a few soldiers.
I had one potato left to eat.
In a fit of selfishness for
which I never forgave myself,
I didn't share it with my friends,
who were dying of hunger.
But, it was frozen solid.
My teeth slid across it,
unable to take a bite.
I was taken by an
overwhelming desire
to sleep, but I knew
it would be fatal.
I had to move, march,
and stay awake,
so I went back on my way."
Bourgogne's disoriented by the
blizzard and the darkness.
The snow covers his footprints.
He marches like this until dawn,
looking for his regiment.
He can no longer feel his limbs,
nor the rats gnawing at him.
At dawn, he discovers the
remains of a convoy,
and the hope of finding
something to eat,
something to keep him alive
for a few more hours
on this miserable Earth.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"One has to have felt the
rage of hunger to understand.
We would have eaten the
devil, had he been cooked.
Hatred mingles with compassion,
but the Russian soldiers
are also deprived.
A prisoner means one
more mouth to feed.
Choices have to be made.
As the troops progressed,
they left behind the
stragglers and the sick,
who were immediately
taken prisoner.
The prisoners' fates varied
depending on their circumstances.
Those who were lucky enough,
if you can put it like that,
to be handed over
to the regular army
were escorted east, to stop
them returning to fight.
Others met an even worse fate.
They had everything
taken from them,
and were turned over to
village communities,
who often put them to death.
Alexander is shocked
by these revelations,
and does everything he can
to forbid such practises,
promising a reward for
soldiers and peasants
who hand prisoners over
to a civil authority
to have them locked up.
But the abuse of prisoners
isn't just limited
to the Russians.
In Smolensk, 600 Russian prisoners
considered unable to march
are executed by the French.
Alexander's getting impatient.
He knows the endgame is coming.
The Berezina is his one chance,
and he gives his men the
order to capture Napoleon.
The Battle of the Berezina
is a battle that
made a real impact
on Napoleon's campaign.
The name refers to a river,
which was an obstacle
for Napoleon's army,
and Kutuzov thought that the
Berezina would be the obstacle
that would enable him
to surround Napoleon
and seize his army.
The army that came from Moscow
approached the Berezina River
and hoped to cross it at
a place called Borosov,
where there was a bridge.
Under orders from Napoleon,
Marshal Udino boldly swoops
upon the town of Borisov,
capturing it without difficulty.
But, the Russians have
burned the bridge,
destroying the Grande
Armee's only route
over the Berezina,
and out of Kutuzov's
pincer movement.
They need another route urgently.
One of Marshal Udino's units,
lost on the other bank,
comes across a peasant
soaked up to his armpits.
They deduce there must be a place
where the river can
be forded nearby.
They interrogate the
peasant, who tells them
that it is nearby the
village of Studyanka,
eight miles north of Borizov.
But Napoleon is not the only one
to understand the
strategic importance
of the bridge at Borizov.
Chichikov is defending
the west bank
with 30,000 men and
a hundred cannon.
At the same time, Kutuzov
is coming up behind
the Napoleonic forces
with his 80,000 troops,
and he asks General Wittgenstein
to complete the circle
with a 30,000 strong force.
But Napoleon predicts
their charade.
Udino and Mutto, you
will discretely advance
your troops toward Studyanka.
When night falls, you will
build two bridges there,
one for the artillery and waggons,
and the other for the
infantry and cavalry.
But sir, if we...
Wait, Lorensten.
At the same time, here,
downstream from Borizov,
visible to the enemy,
we will rebuild the bridge there.
But, contrary to what the
Russians will think,
we won't use it,
and while Chichikov concentrates
most of his troops here,
our troops will cross
the river here,
in Studyanka.
The apparently helpless situation
of the Grande Armee
did nothing to disturb
the emperor's serenity.
"Everyone else was in a
panic," writes Caulaincourt,
"but Napoleon was
bigger than that.
Hope intoxicated him more
than the most terrible setback
could drag him down."
Napoleon had the great
idea of using a decoy,
which, in fact, worked very well.
Because he ordered Borisov
to be retaken by the French,
and ordered a lot of ostentatious
construction in Borisov
to make the Russians think
he was going to cross there.
But, at night,
secretly, in the dark,
he ordered the transfer
of his men to begin,
in the wake of Eblais'
bridge builders,
who were in charge
of the construction
of the two famous
bridges at Studyanka.
If Napoleon's army cannot
cross the Berezina,
they have no choice
but to surrender.
France's fate hangs
in the balance.
Napoleon goes to the
riverbank several times
to observe the fires
in the Russian camp.
Their number and
density reassure him
that his plan is working.
The Russians think that
the main crossing point
will be in Borizov,
but Studyanka is only a
couple hours march away
for a trained army.
The risk of being
caught and attacked
remains very real.
The Western bank of the
Berezina at Studyanka
must be protected.
Napoleon orders the fifty members
of General Corpinoux's cavalry
to swim across the river.
Each horse also carries an
infantryman on its neck.
Four hundred soldiers
join the brave cavalrymen
on makeshift rafts.
There is a constant back-and-forth
between the two banks.
In parallel, the weakened Russian
forces of General Cornilov
are crushed by fifty cannon
being directly
commanded by Napoleon.
The Western bank is soon cleared.
Two hours later, they start
to instal the uprights.
General Eblaix leads the way,
throwing himself
into the icy water.
Eblaix's heroic bridge-builders
remove their clothes
and get down to work,
ignoring the huge blocks of
ice floating in the river.
These blocks are as
sharp as blades,
making their task
particularly dangerous.
The bridge builders are up to
their shoulders in the water
installing the uprights.
Many lives are lost,
abandoned to the current.
They are soon replaced
by other brave men.
By the end of the morning,
the infantry bridge is complete.
By one p.m., Udino's
troops are crossing
the newly constructed bridge.
In a hurry to reinforce
the western bank,
they hasten across the
wobbly construction.
By four p.m., the second
bridge is completed
beside the first.
By the evening, almost
ten thousand soldiers
have crossed the
bridge and reached
the west bank of the river.
Night falls, and they must take
advantage of the darkness.
Waggons and cannon are
brought across the river.
The bridge vibrates and
three times gives way,
failing to support the weight.
The loyal bridge builders
jump back in the water
to repair or replace
the broken parts.
It's a race against time,
and the temperature is -30 degrees
as they fix the bridge
in under three hours.
Napoleon and his general staff
cross to the west bank later on,
continuing to encourage
the never-ending
flow across the bridge.
This morning, Napoleon's
orders were clear:
only ordered army
troops were to cross.
The rest, hawkers, stragglers,
and non-combatants,
are roughly pushed back.
After several days of
solitary marching,
Sergeant Bourgogne
eventually meets up
again with his companions.
He joins non-combatants
and stragglers
who have been waiting
since the previous day
to cross the bridge.
One witness wrote, "Those
who entered Russia
to fight barbarism and
introduce civilisation
are now nothing more than debris,
pathetic ghosts."
During the night of
the 27th of November,
something incredible happens.
There's virtually nobody
pushing to cross the bridge.
The way across is clear.
But an exhausted and
feverish Bourgogne
is asleep beside a fire.
At dawn, he is woken
by cannon fire.
He then understands that to be
in with a chance of survival,
he absolutely must
cross the bridge.
Better die from a cannonball
than from cold or hunger.
At 7 a.m., completely alone,
he gets up, takes his gun,
and without saying
a word to anyone,
goes towards the bridge.
His limbs are frozen, his
bones as fragile as glass,
making walking
extremely difficult.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"I saw women demonstrating
admirable courage,
tolerating pain.
Some even put men to shame,
men who did not know how
to tolerate adversity
with bravery and resignation.
I crossed the Borozino River
on a totally deserted bridge.
When I reached the other side,
I saw on my right a large
shack made from planks.
It was there where the
emperor had slept,
and where he still was."
Bourgogne reaches the west
bank and joins his comrades,
but little does he know
that four hours later,
the nightmare would
begin all over again.
On the same side of the river,
General Chichikov and 27,000
men are swooping down
on Udino's troops.
The fight is a terrible one.
Udino must remain in control
of the western bank at all costs,
it being a vital crossing point.
At the same moment,
on the east bank,
General Wittgenstein is
leading 40,000 soldiers
to attack Marshal
Victor's 10,000 troops,
As the rear guard has
stayed near to Studyanka,
Napoleon's army is trapped.
It is panic on the eastern bank.
In the middle of the
fighting and cannon fire,
thousands of stragglers
and non-combatants
who have been waiting for two days
race pell mell onto the ramps
leading to the bridges.
Terrified men, women and children
are shot down by cannon fire,
trampled by horses, or fall
from the slippery
wooden structures.
Grande Armee surgeon Baron
de Laree remembers:
"The horror was everywhere.
The strongest killed the weakest,
who were crushed beneath
the feet of the crowd.
The air was filled
with terrible screams.
A few managed to swim across,
but others drowned, and more still
were trapped by the
floating blocks of ice."
The ferocious fighting
continues until 11 p.m.,
to the sound of cannon and gunfire
in a terrible snowstorm.
At the end of one exhausting
day, heavy with loss,
the Russian armies
are pushed back,
and Napoleon controls both
sides of the Berazina.
At the Battle of Berazina,
Napoleon took a decision
as head of the army.
It was the only
option open to him.
He wanted to save his army
and continue his
military campaign.
The stragglers did not want to
cross the bridges at night,
and the Russians were coming,
so he gave the order
to burn the bridges.
During the night,
General Eblais urges
the survivors on the
east bank to cross
the last bridge that
could still be crossed.
Eblais was a remarkable man.
By that, I mean he was
devoted to his cause,
extremely devoted to the emperor,
but at the same time, he was
a deeply humane person,
and when Napoleon gave him the
order to burn the bridges,
he knew very well what that meant.
It meant that thousands
of people would be left
to the violence of the cossacks.
The fatal command,
burn the bridges.
Seeing the cossacks approaching,
General Eblais accepts
that he must do it,
but he is sick at heart.
In the first flames,
there is a mad scramble
to cross the bridge.
The stragglers are running
all over the place.
A disordered and
confused crowd of people
stumbles around.
12,000 stragglers
and non-combatants
and around 3,000 fighters
are desperately
fighting to survive.
As seen by the powerless
spectators on the right bank,
this is a spectacle of
horror and suffering.
It's a free-for-all,
these unfortunate souls
caught between two evils,
cornered by the cossacks who
are not giving an inch,
and trapped by the
flaming bridges.
There is no way forward
and no way back.
In the rush, the bridge collapses.
Men, women and
children are consumed
by flames or drowned
in the icy water.
The death toll is catastrophic.
Kutuzov missed his
chance at the Berazina.
7,000 of Napoleon's soldiers
and 2,000 of his officers,
his imperial guard, his
marshals, and his high command
manage to escape three Russian
armies of many more men.
Napoleon had lost no battles,
but he had lost his
entire campaign.
More than 600,000 were gone,
either dead or taken
prisoner in Russia.
That was the result
of this campaign.
In fact, for the Russians,
the Battle of Berazina
was a failure,
because they wanted
to capture Napoleon.
The Battle of the Berazina
is both a disaster
for the French army and a victory,
indeed, in many ways,
its proudest moment.
Of course, thousands of French
soldiers die at the Berazina,
but what really matters
is that the core
of the French army escapes,
and by the core of the
French army I mean
its generals, its staff officers,
its vital professional cadre.
Napoleon was able to put together
a very formidable
new army in 1813.
So, it was a French
victory of a sort.
On the 5th of November,
day 48 of the retreat,
Napoleon, who can no
longer not knowing
what is happening in the capitol,
takes the decision
to return to Paris.
He orders Caulaincourt
to accompany him.
In ten days and ten nights,
they reach Germany.
After crossing the
duchy of Warsaw,
they stop over in Germany.
Incognito, they hope.
As soon as I'm back in Paris
I'll reassure my people
and explain to them the
reasons for our battles.
Caulaincourt.
The events have proven
you right, Caulaincourt,
but I did not lead this
campaign like some Don Quixote
in search of adventures. No.
The only difference between
me and other sovereigns
is that problems
stand in their way,
whereas I like to overcome them,
especially when the rewards
are grand and noble,
worthy of me and the nation.
If it hadn't been for the weather,
the Russians would
have capitulated.
Look, our disasters
were limited to a week.
We stayed a week too
long in Moscow,
but nothing is over.
We'll prove ourselves yet.
Do you not think we should...
I know what you think
of me, Caulaincourt.
But I have no more ambition.
I'm too old for it. Believe
me. I yearn to rest.
But I want to finish my oeuvre.
Convinced the innkeeper
is deliberately
holding them up,
Caulaincourt fears an ambush.
Three days later, Napoleon
enters the Tourlouries.
Meanwhile, the Grande Armee
continues to beat a retreat
through the snowy,
marshy, and icy forests.
Still pursued and harassed
by the cossacks and
Kutuzov's troops.
The French population had
no doubts about Napoleon
after 1812.
In fact, it didn't doubt
Napoleon right until the end,
until 1814.
This is in part down to Napoleon
being relatively popular.
He was extremely popular, even,
but in particular, the
people really trusted him.
He was, after all, a
man who had spent
the last twelve years
winning every battle
he fought.
So, people thought that in Russia,
he'd slipped up because
of the winter,
despite it not only being
down to the winter,
and that the emperor
would fix everything.
The Russia campaign
marked the start
of the decline of
the First Empire.
Two years later, the English
would win the battle of Waterloo,
and France would be reduced
to its pre-1790 frontiers.
However, it was the start
of a new era for Russia,
which found a new place
as a major global power.
A year later and
this patriotic war
had helped Russia forge
a national identity,
that was celebrated by
writers and musicians alike.
Being used to success
cost us dear in Russia.
We had never learnt
to beat a retreat.
During this long debacle,
the emperor was as unsure and
undecided on the first day
as he was on the last.
Fate had so often smiled upon him
that he was never able to believe
it might betray him.
If you count the survivors
from the Battle of the Berazina,
and the troops stationed
in Lithuania,
fewer than 30,000 cross
back over the Nieman River.
30,000 out of 500,000
six months earlier.
More than 200,000 soldiers
from the Grande Armee
died in combat, from the cold,
from hunger, or from sickness.
More than 150,000
were taken prisoner.
On the Russian side,
the losses were set
at 300,000 dead,
half of whom were
killed in combat.
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"The Battle of the
Berazina was not the end
of our struggle.
I was taken prisoner
a short time later.
The Russians decided
to send us east,
towards Siberia.
My unlucky companions
thought it better
to be held captive
and fed potatoes
than to die free men from
cold or hunger on the march.
But I pointed out to them
that it would be much better
to escape their clutches.
Several thousand of us died
before reaching Siberia.
Other accepted the czar's offer
to take Russian nationality
and settle in this land they
had been asked to conquer.
As for me, I eventually
managed to escape,
and in the spring of 1813
I arrived back in France.