#OTD 210 years ago, on November 26, 1812, the last major battle of the Patriotic War of 1812 between the Russian army and the retreating army of Napoleon began on the Berezina River (the right tributary of the Dnieper). The Russian commanders’ plan was to cut off the enemy’s retreat.
The plan included launching a simultaneous and decisive offensive with all forces deployed on the flanks of the main Russian army in order to defeat the troops guarding Napoleon’s rear and cut off his retreat to the west. At the same time, the main Russian army group led by Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov was to pursue the Grande Armée of the Emperor of France Napoleon from the east.
By the end of the three-day battle, Napoleon realised that his artillery and supply train were beyond saving. Less than half of the 85,000-90,000 men were eventually transported to the right bank of the Berezina. Russian troops surrounded the French General Louis Partouneaux’s division (some 4,000 men) in the vicinity of Borisov and forced them to surrender. In total, according to historians, the losses of the French army reached ~50,000 men, including those who drowned in the river, died in the stampede at the crossings, froze to death and were taken prisoner.
The Battle of Berezina broke the Emperor of France. Less than two weeks after the battle ended, Napoleon abandoned his guard and fled to Paris. Only a few dozen thousands of the 500,000 strong army that invaded Russia in June 1812 managed to leave our country six months later.
It was after Berezina that the French realised the scale of their defeat in Russia. The elimination of what Napoleon once called his “grand” army shocked the people of France so deeply that the expression “C'est la Bérézina” (this is Berezina) became idiomatic in the French language to denoting a complete failure, collapse, or catastrophe. No less important were the impressions of the survivors, that radically changed how other Europeans perceived that war.
