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 behavior
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 theaters.
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 favorite 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 honor 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.
(speaking in foreign language)
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 honor."
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, jewelry, 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 honorable 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 organizes the daily lives of his soldiers
to keep them busy and to lift their spirits.
As such, he reopens the French theater 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 honor 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.
(speaking in foreign language)
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 dishonorable?
No, but...
Alas, I cannot control the serfs.
They need to be completely reeducated.
Let us at least organize 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 wagons 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 rumor
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 fulfill 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.
(speaking in foreign language)
Sergeant Bourgogne remembers,
"One has to have felt the rage of hunger to understand.
We would have eaten the devil, had he been cooked.
(speaking in foreign language)
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 practices,
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 wagons,
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 Napleon.
The Western bank is soon cleared.
Two hours later, they start to install 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.
Wagons 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 civilization
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 cannonfire.
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 cannonfire,
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 cannonfire,
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.
(speaking in foreign language)
Convinced the innkeeper is deliberately
holding them up,
Caulaincourt fears an ambush.
(speaking in foreign language)
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 learned 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.