FROM THE NIEMEN TO THE BEREZINA

1. INTRODUCTION

.... "The Russian campaign", "the Moscow tragedy", "the beginning of the decline", "The march to Eternity" - how much has been written and told about this campaign! Both in the Western countries and, of course, in Russia, from the memoirs of witnesses, bare military reports, splashes of courage and cheerfulness like the champagne verses by famous poet, hussar and partisan, Denis Davidov, to the rows of solid volumes of military historical research.

However, only a small portion of this huge number of Russian sources is well-known all over the world. The main part of it is practically unknown outside Russia.

Emperor Napoleon

It is said Russia is a land of mysteries for foreigners. Perhaps this is true, because it is often an enigma for us Russians too.

Napoleon and Russia...two opposites, poles apart, approaching each other with great strength. Their meeting, a tragedy for both of them. It is a paradox, Just one more of the great number of Russian paradoxes.

Today Russia has thrown off the yoke of communism and is trying, without much success yet, to build a democracy, or at least what is called "democracy" by those who talk much about it here. The fatal and changeable last ten years bring back the words of Russian writer, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, in his book "Napoleon" written in 1917:

" Democracy is a rather bad paradise; but he who had been in hell knows a bad paradise is better than hell. And a little freedom of democracy in comparison with the absolute slavery of communism, or the icy circle of Dante's Underworld or the cold of the interplanetary space, is a freshness of a spring morning."

Maybe nowadays the Russian people, who were in the hell of communism, know elements of Napoleon unknown to the Europeans. Elements impossible to learn from forty thousand books.

1812 and 1917, the years of the beginning and the end... Perhaps without the first there wouldn't be the second...

Napoleon wrote, "I would declare the freedom for serfs in Russia". If he had accomplished this perhaps there would not have been the Russian revolution, the Russian Underworld..."

This book contains selected material dealing with the main events of the campaign of 1812 in Russia. We did not want to make our own historical research or a monograph. Rather, we have intended to show the events of the war of 1812 as described in Russian sources by Russian authors. Sources published in Russia at different times - rare in the Western countries, many of them published here in English for the first time.

Emperor Alexander I

This book is a chronology of the main events of the war of 1812 with descriptions of battles, maps and schemes, color illustrations, portraits of Generals, some statistical data, parts of memoirs of witnesses and other pertinent material. We tried to give a complete and objective account as possible of all events - free of Soviet pseudo-patriotism as in "People's war cudgel".

There is a lot written about causes of the war between Napoleon and Russia in 1812. Voluminous works give the analyses of many political, economical, fatal and other reasons, from the reasonable and logical to the sometimes absurd. However, we'll try to be most objective and not to lean towards any of these. and just stick to the facts; confining ourselves to describing the events of the war.

One little note: please remember that the old (Julian) calendar was used in Russia before 1917, but in this book we show the dates by the current (Gregorian) calendar. The Julian dates are shown in brackets.

This book is for anyone wanting to know more about the Napoleonic Wars, Russian History, Russian military historical sources, and war-gaming.

So, dear friends, the first page of our book and that distant June of 1812 on the banks of the frontier river, the Niemen, AWAIT YOU.

Our Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to Mr.Nat Hooper of Oxford, Arkansas,USA, Mr. John Stallaert and Mrs. Nancy Wood from Canada for their assistance in creation this book.
We'll be very happy if you find this book interesting and useful.
Helen and Nick Mozak
Belgorod,Russia, October,2000
e-mail: programmist@ntsbel.ru