Star.
London, England, 1817-09-13 00:00:00

RU StIV

From " Siet.4 el the Afilifary aid Avis. .f Rdssits,"
jut published by RIDGWAY.

Never was there any campaign in modern history,
where each adversary bad such frequent opportuni-
ties to obtain certain .victory. and Assure tosst de-
struction to the attacked, without any risk, and
scarcely any loss to the aggressor.
Fluctuation .•f councils, at the instant of operation,
caused the evacuation of the expensive entreii:lseJ
camp of Dr iessa, &c. and the relinquishment of tile
extensive country between the Nicinen and Dnieper,
or B:iristh.•nes, •Imost without a conflict.

After the battles of Smolensk (in which the Poles 1
greatly distinguished themselves by their daring
lodgment in the s..burbs), and the voluntary ream.-
lion of that city. on which the enemy haJ nit made the
slightest impression to oblige the surrender, nor any
movement which necessitated the retreat of the su
porting army, the Russian force, embarrassed in
A
cress road with six hundred pieces of cannon and the
passage i.f a river, had not been able to gain the
Moscow high road. and deploy nut of a narrow defile,
in which it was moving with difficulty, when a part
of the French army, having already crossed the
riser*, approached that point or outlet of the pass
which alone permitted the debonchement t of the
Russian column : the Duke of Abraiites (Junta)
paused, when within halt a mile, afforded time to the
'Russians to bring up some scaueied detachments to
the point of danger t. who maintained the position in 1,
spite of all succeeding efforts, and this lost, as Ni.
polean truly said, gi the most propitious moment of
his (the Duke's, and, it may be added, of
.Napo-
leon'sy life."
•
At B irodinO, is at Waterloo, lines were opposed
to lines, man to man, and the rppeal was made to
each individual soldier's courage: the issue depended
upon the exertion of power rather than the delicacy
et manoeuvre or the caprices of fortune ; the example
of the Chiefs, the charge, the storm, the repulse, and
the stand, were the only tactics ; the cross fire of
cannon the only operations of strategy. Bit after a
retreat, necessitated by the loss of dr: battery which
commanded the whole left and part of the centre of
the position; after the capture of Moscow, accom-
panied with transactions and events of the deepest in-
terest, of which the world is still ignorant, when for
twelve days the Russian army was revolving round
the smoking ruins of their capital, to regain the Ka..
ldga road, disconnected in line of march, embarrassed
with every possible incurubrance §, and checked by
every sptcies of impediment ; in this situatton, the
alumns presented a Hank to the concentrated French
army, and offered them an infallible victory.
After the battle of Marioslawitz, so glorious to
Prince Eugene and his Italian army, without being
prejiiicial to the honour of the Russian troops en-
gaged (for the grand army, although within three
miles at ten in the morning, was pertinaciously kepi
from affording any succour until four in the after-
noon); it Napoleon had, on the second day, pushed
on his advanced guard, instead of making an oblique
movement to regain the Moscow and Smolensk road,l
the whole Russian army, hi obedience to its orders
already given, would have retired kehind the Oka,
and left a rich country. and a secure line of march in
.whatsoever direction Napoleon might choose to re-
enter Poland.
_

On the other hand, at the battle of Tarrutina, prior
to that of Marioslawitz, where Murat (as he stated in
his report, under the presumption of a tacit suspen-
sion of hostilities) Unwed himself to be surprised, not
a usan of his aria; could have escaped, if the opera-
tions under General Beningsen, who had pierced five
points of his line of communication, had been sup-
ported actively by the sixty thousand men, moving
in parade order. within cannon shot.
At Weismar. where, for a long day, Milerado-
witch, with one corps,encunntered and finally obtained

• The corps of —,„..R..ratia.--6.n, having 'seeped by most extraord-
nary exertions, and some fortune, from the army under Davoust,
defeated to Worm' him, had been stationed at this passer., and
received au order to retire on Dorogebesch, without a corps being
instructed, as wee intended, to replace his corps, and cover the
operation of the obligee march.
t 'them le no English military term equally expressive ; It
" taming out of the mouth."
f The The Duke of Wertemburg, uncle to Alesatider,_by
exertioin on this occa-100, was theught to have cootributed very
much to the safety of the Russian army; whilst the valour of
Prince Eugene of Wurtembeig hie nephew, who coinnunded eA

corps, on ail occasions added ttTini ho. mir.
Front Smolensk the whole poputatnin of the country, alien,
Ito be abandoned by the troupes Put their women, children, in:d
peismlpal tents in their c.irta vif which tact* peasant has a: lea
one), and joined the colunms, adJing, in the cuutusiou and the
*Ws. army at last became a wandering nation.

considerable success oVer thee• r. 40 of P inch
army, whilst the main Russian army aat bitonaqued
within hearing even of the fire or the sm ill arms,
and not distant four hours march fat in!Sntry-.-the
French array might have been ruioe,r,
At Krasnow, where the Russia:. army, tine lion-
dred and ten thousand strong, 11114t$ posted, with *
powerful cavalry and artillery, drawn up in battle
array. and remained quiet spectators of th.. French
army filing along its front for twenty.four hours,
until alarm the rear of its rear-guard was re.iring 4;
the war might have been terminated.
Beningsen.Strogonuff, and Gallitzin, indeed. when
they did ereasnence the attack, did so becaus- they
would nn longer abstain from the assault of a mil-
l‘hich had never been occupied but by an irmy
withoutiavalry that cool t leave the roadt —an array
without 1 gun that could be drawn, except aith the
aid of men, up the slightest ascent t and w.,11 an in-
Itatry, which from want of ammunition wa- unable
to engage in a protracted combat ; whose horns were
already half frozen, and whom famine had reduced
so as to excite thi expressive indignation of a Cossack
—u Is it not a shame to see these skeletons walking
away from their gravest"
At this memorable KrAshilw, where, on the third
day, Ney fought combat which, from ihe fury of
the attack, and intrepidity of the defence, might be
called " the combat-of heroes"—from which fi Id the
same Marshal withdrew his gallant remnant, tra-
versing an unknown country, passing the lliristlieness
and rejoining Napoletios, notwithstanding the whole
Russian army had been halted';, and posted t • re.
sist his column and intercept his retreat—a judicious
disposition, without relinquishing the pursuit of Na-
oleon's army, would have rendered the capture of
the whole corps inevitable.
At the Berezina—where Napoleon. reinforced by
Oudinot, found only a corps of eighteen thousand
men under Tch,eliapo w to guard. a river line so thirty
miles, until Wiagenstien arrived to contribute to the
diwisters which ensued, and join in an on, emitting poor.
suit; where Tchich igow presented a force by dies.
beying instructions to proceed on Ingumen, undee
the conviction that Napoleon was moving in that di-
rection ; where not one soldier of the grand Russian
army arrived uutil two days after the pAW•ge had
b.-en effected; here again, as on former occasions,
if proper use had been made of the advantages which
superiority of Liar total force, positions, nature, the
state of the eirmy, and the zeal and courage of the
Itnssian officers and soldiers off:red. and a tri:h in
many instances, lortunitely for the honour of their
arms, could not be restrained, not a solitary
dual of the whole French army could have escaped.
The Russian army under Kutusow, strict), in the
commencement of the pursuit, bad amounted to one •
hundred and twenty thousand effective men, could
only array thirty-five thousand¶ on the frontier of,
the Duchtot Warsaw, to wirer' shattered force were
opposed more than as many comparatively fresh
troops under an Austrian General, in a friendly
cciumry. and where every man was a soldier. 4 iCIU•
S,V.! of several thousand Poles, who had escaped' from
the sum of the grand French army, and who alone,
of all the corps sal which that army was .composed,
conducted back their artillery—a memorial of their
discipline as well as courage. •
Wittgenstein's and Tchichagovi's corps did not
amount to twenty-five thousand men ; but the oppor-
tune defection of General Yorke, with, about font.
teen thousand rrussians, lett them opposed to only
the remnant of the French army under Murat, a:id
ti..e wink ins of the Vistula, which had been largely
teintorced by the fugitives from Russia—Deltaic
alone containing this ty-five thonsaild men, weal
fever occasioned the subsequent mortalty, which re.
duced them to little more than ten thousand at the
period of the capiaulation.
Murat could .111% wished to have assembled forty
thousand men, whent•consbining his operations
the Austrians at Warsaw, Russia must have wen
her armies, or rather the skeletons of her armies. re.
trograde to the Niemen. Such had been the destruc-
tion, even amongst the Russians, that a reinforce-
ment of ten thousand men, which had marched for
Wilna, arrived only with. fifteen hundred; and of
them seven hundred were next day in the hospitals,
or rather the charnel-houses of that city a.

TLe opinion of Murat WAS overrtikd, while the
Austrian General, to the aston:Lhment and disap.
point:nent of the inhabitants, by orders from Vienna
to sign the propo,e4l convention, abandoned the duchy
and city of Warsaw.
The Vistula was passed, and the main Russian
army, reduced by farther sickness and exertion, mut-
tered only eighteen thousand men, when the campaign
was closed by the occupation of Kalish.

• floe had been some part:3l setio.is of detached corps before
the French troops hied *to their positioa, bat nu salad op,.
rains.
t It had hedged ceased to be cavalry—the horses could scarcely
ctawL
The road was fun of ravines, the sides of which were silp-
pety as glAssi and in' thew ravines the French pas were dui •
dined.
§ Napaieoo, hissrins cf the action before Ney appeared, said,
"I would gave the ten minions in in/ trei.sury for Ms safety."
j An halt, %hien enabled' leapokoa to pass the Dorlaheres
ana her situ. _

if These were many companies without a single mans and
many battalions with inn so many as tifty. •
a In the ho pitals of Walla there were left 'above 17,C4/0 deid
and dying, frozen and freezing. 11111 e bodice of the hornier, inha
rt, served to atop the cavities in windows, 11..0re, and wails • hi.:
In one of the corridors of the Great Convent, above 1500 bodies
were riled asp t rinsverstly, at pigs of lead or iron. When-the:*
were finally rennwbd on sledges to be blunt, the most extraordi-
nary figures were presumes! by tho variety of their attitudes, for
none seem to have been Inseam in a composed state; each hard In
the last mum in the direction given to h:5 thubi; even the eyes
retained the last exprrosion, tither tit ilteger, pain, or intr.-ay. In
the roads, men were Collected rnand :he bunting :JIM of the cot-
tages, watch a mad spirit co .!estruction ha I fired, picking acrd
eatang the burnt birdies of fellow-awn ; wLit• thon,atidsnl ;:nre..s
tre MO3Uliag agoiaT, v.ith their fizsb and hocked to
satisfy the craving. to a that knew yu ply. In many cf
r sheds, men, ly direr, had leaped on Near frozeit
.wean carcasses, which hc.trtit L; by :he coMoi,uttica:iuli of ...t-
-wat heat, had nibtl...d the dl two aNI iLe deli 1 Ir. os c r... .t
putrrfatnion. • • *