Fortunately for the French general, night and a thick mist enabled him to cross the river to the left bank, and thus to effect a retreat, which Steingel was unable to prevent. But besides the disasters of the loss of the camp, and of the important place of Polotsk, which the Russians occupied on the 20th October, discord broke out between the Bavarian General Wrede and St. Cyr. When the latter was wounded, the command naturally devolved in course upon the Bavarian; but the other French generals refused to submit to this substitution, and St. Cyr was obliged, in spite of his wounds, to continue to act as commander-in-chief. Wrede, in the meanwhile, assumed an independence of movement quite unusual in an auxiliary general, who was acting with a French maréchal; and, separating altogether from St. Cyr, fell back upon Vileika, near Wilna, and withdrew himself from action entirely. The French division must have been cut off, had not Victor, who was then lying at Smolensk with a covering army of 25,000 men, received, as lately mentioned, Napoleon's orders, despatched on the 6th November, to advance and reinforce St. Cyr, who thus became once more superior to Witgenstein. Victor was under orders, however, to run no unnecessary risk, but to keep as far as possible on the defensive; because it was to this army, and that under Schwartzenberg, that Napoleon in a great measure trusted to clear the way for his retreat, and prevent his being intercepted ere he gained the Polish frontiers. But when Witgenstein, even in the presence of Victor, took Witepsk, and began to establish himself on the Dwina, Napoleon caused Oudinot, as a more enterprising soldier, to replace the Duke of Belluno; and ordered Eugene to move from Wiazma to Dowkhowtchina, for the purpose of reinforcing that army. Eugene's march, as we have formerly shown, was rendered useless, by his misfortune at crossing the river Wop; and he was compelled to move towards Smolensk, where he arrived in a most dilapidated condition. In the meantime, Witgenstein received reinforcements, and not only kept Oudinot in complete check, but gradually advanced towards Borizoff, and threatened at that town, which lay directly in the course of Napoleon's retreat, to form a junction with the army of the Danube, which was marching northward with the same purpose of co-operation, and to the movements of which we have now to direct the reader's attention.