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The battle of the Berezina was the last relative French success of the Russian campaign of 1812, and saw the remnants of Napoleon’s Grand Armee cross the Berezina River, the last major natural barrier standing between them and relative safety outside Russia.
We start with an overview of the 1812 campaign, covering the reasons for the outbreak of war, Napoleon’s advance to Moscow, the occupation of the city, and the disasterous retreat from Moscow. We then look at the chief commanders on each side (or at least a selection of the leaders, given the scale of the fighting). Interestingly Napoleon isn’t one of the French leaders covered, presumably on the grounds that he is far too well known. The Opposing Plans section largely focuses on the Russian plans – Napoleon’s plan was fairly simple after all.. Here we see one of the reasons the French were able to escape – each Russian commander appears to have had different plans – the Tsar wanted to crush Napoleon, Kutuzov didn’t want to entirely eliminate French power, while many of the more junior commanders were also rivals, who didn’t want to support their colleagues.
The fighting around the Berezina is best seen as a series of connected battles, some on the east bank and some of the west bank. Each of these clashes get their own section here, so we look at the disaster that befell Partouneux’s division on the east bank, and the fighting at Brili/ Stakhov on the west bank that helped keep the French escape route open.
At the time the battle of the Berezina was seen as one of Napoleon’s great triumphs. An outnumbered, frozen army, surrounded by much larger Russian forces, had managed to cross the Berezina, after the army’s surviving engineers and sappers had heroically built two bridges over the river, fight off Russian attacks on both banks, and escape west. Napoleon’s performance during this battle was highly regarded, although much of the credit went to Eble and his engineers, most of whom died while building and maintaining the two bridges across the river. As this book clearly proves, Napoleon was massively aided by the disjointed Rusian performance. Kutuzov, the Russian commander in chief, is shown to have been unwilling to completely destroy Napoleon’s power, and the main Russian army, under his command, played no significant part in the fighting, despite having followed the French all the way from Moscow. Wittgenstein, whose army was close by, performed very poorly. Admiral Chichagov, who commanded the largest Russian contingent, was taken in by French attempts to hide where they were crossing the river, but otherwise did his best, but with little support
This is a good account of this complex series of battles, helping to explain why Napoleon’s badly battered army was able to escape from a trap that really should have destroyed it.
Chapters
Origins of the Campaign
Chronology
Opposing Commanders
Opposing Forces
Opposing Plans
The Campaign
Aftermath
Author: Alexander Mikaberidze
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 96
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2022