Thirdly, Though unquestionably the severity of the frost did greatly increase the distress and loss of an army suffering under famine, nakedness, and privations of every kind, yet it was neither the first, nor, in any respect, the principal, cause of their disasters. The reader must keep in remembrance the march through Lithuania, in which, without a blow struck, Napoleon lost 10,000 horses at once, and nearly 100,000 men, when passing through a country which was friendly. Did this loss, which happened in June and July, arise from the premature snow, as it has been called, of the 6th of November? No, surely. It arose from what the bulletin itself describes as "the uncertainty, the distresses, the marches and counter-marches of the troops, their fatigues and sufferances;" to the system, in short, of forced marches, by which, after all, Napoleon was unable to gain any actual advance. This cost him one-fourth, or nearly so, of his army, before a blow was struck. If we suppose that he left on both his flanks, and in his rear, a force of 100,000 men, under Macdonald, Schwartzenberg, Oudinot, and others, he commenced the actual invasion of Russia Proper with 200,000 soldiers. A moiety of this large force perished before he reached Moscow, which he entered at the head of less than 100,000 men. The ranks had been thinned by fatigue, and the fields of battle and hospitals must answer for the remainder. Finally, Napoleon left Moscow on the 19th October, as a place where he could not remain, and yet from which he saw no safe mode of exit. He was then at the head of about 120,000 men; so much was his army recruited by convalescents, the collection of stragglers, and some reserves which had been brought up. He fought the unavailing though most honourably sustained battle of Malo-Yarowslavetz; failed in forcing his way to Kalouga and Toula; and, like a stag at bay, was forced back on the wasted and broken-up road to Smolensk by Borodino. On this road was fought the battle of Wiazma, in which the French loss was very considerable; and his columns were harassed by the Cossacks at every point of their march, and many thousands of prisoners were taken. Two battles so severely fought, besides the defeat of Murat and constant skirmishes, cost the French, in killed and wounded, (and every wounded man was lost to Napoleon,) not less than 25,000 men; and so far had the French army been diminished.