Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians and of compelling them to give battle, pushed onward by forced marches; the supplies were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from exhaustion owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger.[9] On the arrival of Napoleon in Witebst, of Schwarzenberg in Volhynia, of the Prussians before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland have been organized, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace, and incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at Smolensko,[10] whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter--in which General Deroy, formerly distinguished for his services in the Tyrol, was killed--at Poloczk with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general, while Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathering to his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensko across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the Russian empire.