apoleon en Russie.]

Success and Failure -- The Struggle with Summer Heat -- Napoleon
at Vitebsk -- The Russians Over-confident -- The Fight at
Smolensk -- Technical Victory and Real Defeat -- Napoleon's Fatal
Decision -- The Russians at Borodino -- The Battle Array --
Napoleon's Victory -- Russian Efforts to Burn Moscow.

When Napoleon left Dresden his force was so disposed that the Russians
could not tell whether he meant to strike from north or south, and
accordingly they divided theirs, Barclay de Tolly, with a hundred and
twenty-seven thousand men, standing before Vilna; Bagration, with
sixty-six thousand, ensconcing himself behind the swamps of the upper
Pripet in Volhynia. Barclay, hoping to strike a sharp, swift blow, and
open the campaign with a moral victory, was soon convinced of the
danger, and called in Bagration, who was to be replaced by an
auxiliary force. But before the long Russian line could be drawn
together Napoleon struck the first decisive blow. Disposing his army
in echelon, with beautiful precision he suddenly turned against the
enemy's right, crossed the Niemen, and seized Vilna. This turned the
Russian flank, and Barclay fell back to the fortified camp which had
been established at Drissa in order to cover St. Petersburg. If, then,
Jerome's division had promptly advanced from Grodno, Bagration would
have been cut off and annihilated. The plan failed, partly because
Napoleon did not superintend its operation in person, partly because
Davout did not cooeperate with sufficient alertness, but chiefly
through Jerome's ignorance, slowness, and self-assertion. Bagration
turned back, and, descending the Dnieper, placed himself beyond
pursuit. For a moment Napoleon contemplated a junction of Ney and
Eugene against Barclay, but the former had pushed on to seize
Duenaburg, and was out of reach. This scheme, like the other, came to
naught; Bagration, by a long, painful detour, was able to establish
communication with Drissa, and seemed likely to effect a junction with
Barclay on the road to Smolensk. As in these movements both the
Russian commanders had lost many men, there would be only a hundred
and twenty thousand in their united force, a beggarly showing in view
of the two years' preparation necessary to bring it together.
Consternation reigned in the Russian camp. The Czar could raise no
money, Drissa was painfully inadequate as a bulwark, and the people
grew desperate. T