Admiral Nelson had been off the city on the noon of this very day; and proposed to the Turks to anchor in the port, by way of securing it against us; but as his proposal was not accepted, he stood on for Cyprus; while we, profiting by his errors, and turning even his stupidity to...
Napoleon said this during his retreat from Russia. On Dec. 5, 1812, at Smorgoni, he left the remains of his straggling army under the command of his brother-in-law,Joachim Murat(who also soon abandoned the troops), and hurried ahead towards Paris. On Dec. 10, the emperor’s sleigh ...
Napoleon complained to Paoli that his troops had been ‘absolutely denuded of all which was necessary for a campaign; they marched without tents, without uniforms, without cloaks and with no artillery train.’He added that it was only ‘the hope of success’that had sustained them. 45 It ...
Napoleon begins a retreat in October across the snow-covered plains. The retreat from Moscow is one of the great disasters of military history. Of the some 600,000 troops who had set out with Napoleon’s Grand Army in June, fewer than 10,000 men fit for combat remained with his main fo...
In 1812 Murat took part in Napoleon’s Russian campaign and once more distinguished himself at Borodino; but, left in charge of the shattered Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow, he abandoned it to try to save his kingdom of Naples. In 1813 he wavered between loyalty to Napoleon and...