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This map from the West Point Atlas depicts
the situation on 21 November and route of the French retreat from
Maloyaroslavets with Russian parallel advance. Napoleon's main army was
stretched over 60 miles along the main road from Moscow to Minsk via Smolensk.
He reached Vyazma on 31 October. The first snow fell on 4 November, well after
the retreat had begun. Up until then the weather had been excellent. Napoleon
reached Smolensk on 9 November still with 50,000 troops, by which time
Wittgenstein had already captured the supply base at Vitebsk, pushing Victor's
recruits south. Napoleon finally ordered Dombrovski to secure Minsk, but too
late to stop Admiral Chichagov. But Napoleon then sent his remaining units
westward piecemeal over a 5 day departure period. On 15 November Napoleon drove
the Russians off at Krasny (just west of Smolensk) but Eugene was caught by
Miloradovich in a defile east of the village on the 16th. On the 17th Napoleon
turned back to deliver a blow against Kutusov and free his straggling rear
guards. Meanwhile Chichagov took Minsk on the 16th. This was due partly to a
failure of Bronkovski, who retreated to Borisov. Once again, on the 21st,
Bronkovski failed, when Chichagov took Borisov with its critical bridge over
the Berezhina. By then Dombrovski's attempt to regain the bridge was too late.
During this time Oudinot and Victor were trying to hold Wittgenstein back. The
map shows the march of Corbineau's cavalry brigade (on far left side) from
Wrede at Glubokoye to Studenka. It was at this time that Corbineau, fortunately
for Napoleon, was shown the critical ford at Studenka. Napoleon (apparently
thinking he still had control of the Borisov bridge) burned his remaining
pontoon bridge train at Orsha (his engineers fortunately salvaged the iron work
and tools). Napoleon left Orsha on the 21st as shown, now with only 25,000
effectives. He was in the middle of three converging Russian armies each of
which outnumbered him.
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