Retreat from Russia and the Berezina

Forced back along the devastated Smolensk road, the army disintegrated under cold, hunger and Cossack raids; the horses died, the artillery was abandoned. From 26 to 29 November, Éblé's pontoon engineers threw two bridges over the Berezina and saved the core of the army at the cost of thousands of stragglers. Of nearly six hundred thousand men engaged, a few tens of thousands recrossed the Niemen.