Though a thaw was setting in this brought little relief to the sufferings of the _Grande Armée_. Snow fell heavily, and the fatigue of tramping through it was enormous, while the damp foggy weather told almost as heavily upon the men as the bitter cold of previous days. The horses appear to have completely broken down, when after some kind of rest they had to resume the road. The artillery of the Guard, the best appointed of the army, took 22 hours to cover the first 13 miles out of Smolensk, and on reaching Krasnoï 12 of the 24 horse guns had to be abandoned. Half of Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry remnant were dismounted in 2 days, while divisions abandoned and destroyed their reserve parks wholesale, being utterly unable to get them through the broken country west of Smolensk. The ravine of the Lossmina, east of Krasnoï, was one of the most fatal to the trains; guns, waggons and vehicles of every kind were literally heaped together to the east of it, where the road passed through a defile. Eugène left Smolensk on the 15th, but it was difficult to get the worn-down troops and their fatal incubus of non-combatants away from the town, and the 4th Corps by evening had only reached Lubna, about 7 or 8 miles on the road to Krasnoï. On the 16th it continued its march, harassed all the way by clouds of Cossacks. On the afternoon of the 16th it found its way barred by Miloradovich, Kutuzov on the same day reaching Chilova. Napoleon appears at last to have awakened to the necessity of uniting his scattered columns, and remained at Krasnoï in order to allow the 4th, 1st and 3rd Corps to close up. Davout on this day left Smolensk with 4 divisions, and Zayonczek arrived at Dubrovna. The shattered relics of the _Grande Armée_ were thus scattered on a line of 60 miles. Even if the Poles and Junot be discounted, owing to their small numbers, the main force was spread over 30 miles of road, while Kutuzov, with his whole army, seriously reduced but in fine heart and fair condition, lay close to its head.