Hitherto its retreat had been unopposed, the Russian army having been unwilling or unable to head the French and compel them to force a passage by the sword; and being in possession of Oreza, it passed the river Dnieper at that town without opposition. But Admiral Tchitchagoff, the general in command of the Moldavian army, which was opposed to the Austrians on the south–eastern end of the French base of operation, finding them slack and unenterprising in the cause of an ally, or master rather, to whom in truth they owed little good will, left merely a division in the duchy of Warsaw to observe their movements, and himself marched upon Minsk and Borizoff, to cut off Napoleon’s retreat. At the latter town there was a bridge over the Beresina, the place itself being on the eastern bank, and on the possession of the town and command of the bridge depended the means of crossing that river. Tchitchagoff however, owing to some mistake of the French general opposed to him, had taken that town, and though afterwards expelled, had made the bridge impassable in his retreat. It was necessary, therefore, to seek a passage elsewhere, and a place above Borizoff, called Studzianka, was selected, where the river was only fifty–five fathoms across. The chance seemed desperate, for the opposite heights were occupied by six thousand Russians, and bridges were to be built, and the army was to defile across them under their fire; but desperate as it was, this seemed their only hope, and Napoleon quitting the highway plunged into the thick pine–woods which border the Beresina, to conceal his march. The joy of the army may well be imagined, when, in traversing these forests, they met the division of Victor, of fifty thousand men, in good order, which had been employed in checking Wittgenstein upon the western flank. “They were ignorant of our disasters, which had been carefully hidden even from their chiefs. So that when, instead of a grand victorious column returning from Moscow, they saw behind Napoleon nothing but a train of squalid spectres, covered with rags, with women’s pelisses, pieces of carpet, or squalid cloaks scorched red and burnt into holes by the fires, their feet wrapped up in tatters of all sorts, they stopped in terror. They saw with affright these poor fleshless soldiers file past, with faces like the grave, bristled with ghastly beards, without arms, without shame, marching in disorder with downcast heads, eyes fixed on the earth, and silent like a troop of captives.”[215] So contagious was this spectacle, that on the first day two corps of Victor’s army fell into the same state of disorganization.