rvation, cold and exhaustion. The
Russians did not appear. There was no need. They had a new ally--the
wolves! No one could stop to pick up an exhausted soldier; it was all
that any man could do to keep up himself. Half the officers were on
foot. The cannons were abandoned. When a horse died, the regiment ate
him and staggered on.

"The Cossacks now began to add their terrors to those of the wolves. If
a small detachment straggled out of the blinding snow, unseen until that
time would come a rush of the furious and valiant horsemen of the
steppes, and the detachment, hungry and exhausted, would be cut to
pieces. They fought with heroic courage, but no man can fight the
Weather.

"Smolensk was reached on the return march, with the wreck of the French
army, now only fifty thousand strong. The skeletons of four hundred
thousand men lay on the Russian plains. Near a place called Krasnoi, the
Russian army suddenly appeared and a battle was fought. Napoleon
commanded with his old-time mastery and succeeded in breaking through
the Russian lines, but he had to leave Marshal Ney with six thousand men
behind him. Ney performed wonders, and with his tiny force also broke
through the Russian army, but when the French resumed their flight, Ney
had only eight hundred men. The rear-guard alone lost five thousand at
that place.

"The French Army had now reached the marshes, but the Weather was
fighting for Russia. Just at this time, a sudden and unexpected thaw set
in, making the marsh a morass. The Russians, well-provisioned, circled
around the French army, and again came in front of them at a river
called the Beresina. Waist-deep in that icy current, with masses of
floating ice being carried down by the sudden thaw, with a huge Russian
army on the opposite bank, the French soldiers fought for their homeward
way. Winter was before, winter behind, the Russians on the barrier. Yet
the French fought on and crossed the Beresina with marvellous courage,
the Russian strategy, meanwhile, sacrificing comparatively few men. The
Beresina was crossed, but when the Russians were finally swept aside and
the French passed through, less than nine thousand men answered the roll
call. Forty thousand had been lost between Smolensk and the Beresina.

"The thaw was followed by another terrible period of cold. The retreat
of the army became a fearful rout. Napoleon, himself, fell a victim to
the panic, and deserting his troops to Murat, spurred for Fr