Smolensk

Context

Since crossing the Niemen in June, the Grande Armée had been pursuing two Russian armies that slipped away and could not be lastingly separated. Barclay de Tolly and Bagration finally managed to join at Smolensk, a fortress town on the upper Dnieper protected by a six-kilometre brick wall built in the early seventeenth century.

Forces

France: about 50,000 men engaged out of the 175,000 still available, the corps of Ney, Davout and Poniatowski.

Russia: about 30,000 men engaged in the defence of the city, out of 130,000 present in the region.

Course of the battle

On 16 and 17 August the assaults broke on the suburbs and the wall; French artillery set them alight. The Russians defended the city house by house without ever accepting the open-field battle Napoleon was seeking, then evacuated it by night in good order on the 18th.

The army entered empty ruins: the wooden suburbs had almost entirely disappeared and, of thirty thousand inhabitants, a few thousand remained.

Consequences

It was at Smolensk that Napoleon hesitated for the last time: winter there, on a solid base, or march on Moscow. He chose Moscow. Three months later the retreat came back through, and the stores accumulated in the city, which were meant to save the army, were plundered within hours by men who no longer had units.