Vitebsk

“ What will the world think when it learns that, what with the sick and those who have fallen behind or disappeared, I have lost a third of my army? I must dazzle the eyes of the nations with the glamour of a brilliant success—the laurels of victory will cover a multitude of losses.”
Napoleon began to find at last that Vitebsk promised nothing but misfortune and loss, with all the discomforts and anxieties of standing on the defensive; while Moscow on the other hand offered the most signal advantages—provisions, money contributions, glory, and, last but not least, peace! ”

“ The heat was overpowering, and men dropped from the ranks as rapidly as though on a field of battle. At Vitebsk the army was inspected, and the emperor was alarmed at the rapid decrease in his forces. Some of the divisions had lost more than a fourth of their men, in every corps the ranks were depleted, and reinforcements already had to be set on the march.
Onward they went, here and there bringing the Russians to bay in a minor engagement, but nowhere meeting them in numbers. ”

“ DVINSK, the official name since 1893 of Dünaburg, a town and fortress of western Russia, in the government of Vitebsk, 162 m. by rail N.W. of the city of Vitebsk, on the right bank of the Dvina (Düna) , in 55° 53′ N. and 26° 23′ E., and at the intersection of two main railway lines—Riga-Smolensk and Vilna-St Petersburg. It is the chief strategic position for the defence of the Dvina. It consists of four portions—the main town, or fortress, the old suburb, the new suburb, and on the left bank of the river the village of Griva. ”

“ Witness, would you please point out the location of the villa and the forest with respect to the Smolensk-Vitebsk highway? Did the estate cover a large area?
AHRENS: My sketch is on a scale of 1 to 100,000 and is drawn from memory. I estimate, therefore, that the graves were situated 200 to 300 meters directly west of the road to our Dnieper Castle, and 200 to 300 meters south of the Smolensk-Vitebsk road so that the Dnieper Castle lay a further 600 meters away.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat that?
AHRENS: South of the Smolensk-Vitebsk highway, approximately 15 kilometers west of Smolensk. ”

“ Wittgenstein was already at Vitebsk, and thence advanced on Borissov on the Beresina, where Buonaparte hoped to cross; whilst Tchitchagoff, who had joined Tormasoff, and thus raised their force to sixty thousand men, had driven the Austrians, under Schwarzenberg, back on the Bug, and had taken Minsk on the very day that Napoleon marched out of Smolensk. At the same time Kutusoff, with the grand army of Russia, was marching in a parallel line on the left flank of the Emperor, ready to fall on him whenever he was reduced to extremities by the other converging Russian forces. ”

“ Two of Raievski’s infantry regiments, which had been the worst sufferers at Saltanovka, had been sent into the interior to recruit. The deduction under these headings may be fairly estimated at 4500 men. Wittgenstein’s corps and the reserves from Drissa and Dünaburg were on July 12th over 28,500 strong. The total effective of the Russian First and Second Armies early in August was therefore 154,000, showing a deficiency since June of 38,000 men. The fighting round Mohilev and Vitebsk had scarcely cost more than 6000 or 7000 men, and 5000 is a high estimate for losses in the rear-guard actions. ”

“ Finally, however, Phull was induced to give way, and it was decided, just in time, to evacuate Drissa. The 1st Corps was ordered to cover the St. Petersburg road, and on July 14th the rest of the army began its march for Vitebsk.
The French advanced troops were already almost on the Düna. On the 13th Oudinot with Legrand’s division made a somewhat unnecessary demonstration against the bridge-head of Dünaburg. On the night of the 14-15th Wittgenstein bridged the Düna and sent across a detachment under Kulnev, which surprised St. ”

“ I gave him the letter, and decided to come back and see M. Constant another time. But the next day, July 16, we left the town, at ten o'clock in the evening, going towards Borisow, and on the 27th we reached Witebsk, where we encountered Russians. We took up our position on a height above the town. The enemy occupied hills to right and left.
The cavalry, commanded by Murat, had already made several charges. Just as we arrived we saw 200 Voltigeurs of the 9th Regiment, who had ventured too far, met by a portion of the Russian cavalry, which had just been repulsed. ”

“ The chief accusation brought against Vitberg, even by those who never doubted his honesty, was this, that he had accepted the post of director of the works. As an artist without experience, and a young man ignorant of finance, he should have been content with his position as architect. This is true.
It is easy to sit in one’s chair and condemn Vitberg for this. But he accepted the post just because he was young and inexperienced, because nothing seemed hard when once his plans had been accepted, because the Tsar himself offered him the post, encouraged him, and supported him. ”

“ Without faith and without special circumstances, it was hard to build anything with life about it. All modern churches are misfits and pretentious anachronisms, like those angular Gothic churches with which the English ornament their towns and offend every artistic eye.
§4 But the circumstances in which Vitberg drew his plans, his own personality, and the Emperor’s temperament, all these were quite exceptional.
The war of 1812 had a profound effect upon men’s minds in Russia, and it was long after the liberation of Moscow before the general emotion and excitement subsided. ”

“ Rabbi?"
"It is a ridiculous story, Witebski. There, tell me, do you know Saul
Ezofowich's grandson?"
"Which of them?" asked Eli. "Saul has many grandsons."
"What is his name?" asked the nobleman, half-turning his head toward
Jankiel.
"Meir, Meir, that worthless fellow!"
Witebski nodded his head as a sign that he understood.
"Well," he said, with an indulgent smile, "I would not quite call him a worthless fellow. He is young, and will mend; he is hot-headed though."
"What! a little wrong here?" laughed the gentleman, pointing to his forehead. ”

“ Leaving him to howl, Weisspriess procured the loan of a horse from a colonel of cavalry at the Buon Consiglio barracks, and mounted an hour before dawn, followed by Wilhelm. He reached Cles in time to learn that Vittoria and her party had passed through it a little in advance of him. Breakfasting there, he enjoyed the first truly calm cigar of many days. Gendarmes whom he had met near the place came in at his heels. They said that the party would positively be arrested, or not allowed to cross the Monte Pallade. The passes to Meran and Botzen, and the road to Trent, were strictly guarded. ”

“ Your words could do much if you only would—"
"But I will not," interrupted Witebski in a determined voice and with clouded brow. "I am rich and live in peace with everybody;" and lowering his voice, he added: "If I began to peer into people's secrets and thwarted them, I should be neither rich nor live in peace with anybody, and things would, not go so well with me as they are going now."
"Reb!" said Meir, "I am glad that everything is prospering with you: but I should not care for prosperity if it were the result of wrong-doing." ”

“ His line of defence was already traced upon his maps; the siege-equipage was proceeding towards Riga; the left of the army would rest on that strong place; hence, proceeding to Dünabourg and Polotsk, it would maintain a menacing defensive. Witepsk, so easy to fortify, and its woody heights, would serve as an entrenched camp for the centre. Thence, towards the south, the Berezina and its marshes, covered by the Boristhenes, supply no other passage but a few defiles; a very few troops would be sufficient to guard them. ”

“ Every news is credible in Vitold's case, for he is a man different altogether from others, and surely the keenest of all lords in Christendom. When he needs to extend his dominion toward Russia, he makes peace with the Germans; and when he has done what he planned, he takes the Germans again by the forelock! They cannot manage either him, or that suffering Jmud land. One time he takes it away from them, another time he gives it, and not only gives it, but helps them to crush it. ”

“ Our chronicle of this first day of motoring includes a brief glimpse of Wittenberg, where Luther burned the Papal Bull and thus kindled the flame of the Reformation. After Wittenberg came Leipzig, famed as the home of immortal Baedeker. One cannot ride far in Germany without encountering a city counting its population by the hundred thousand. This wealth of population explains in part how Prussia, only a generation ago so agricultural, could have changed so quickly into a vast workshop; there has always been a plentiful supply of labor. ”

“ Lyubomirski, Vitovski, and others tried to dissuade Charnyetski from that undertaking. “It would be well,” said they, “to take such a considerable town, and we might injure the Swedes greatly; but how are we to take it? We have no infantry, siege guns we have not; it would be hard for cavalry to attack walls.”
“But do our peasants,” asked Charnyetski, “fight badly as infantry? If I had two thousand such as Mihalko, I would take not only Sandomir, but Warsaw.” ”

“ His reply was, that Wittgenstein occupied a height which entirely commanded that miry country; that it would be necessary for us to tack about, within his sight and within his reach, by following the windings and turnings of the road, in order to ascend to the Russian camp; that thus our column of attack would be long exposed to their fire, first its left and then its right flank; that this position was therefore unapproachable in front, and that to turn it, it would be necessary to retrograde towards Witepsk, and take too long a circuit. ”

“ Vithold left an only daughter, Anastasia, who was given in marriage to Basil, Duke of Muscovy, and was named Sophia. She was the mother of Vasiley, father of the great Ivan, and grandfather of Vasiley, prince of the Russians, to whom I was sent as ambassador.
Moreover, Kestud was thrown into prison by his brother Olgird, and died miserably. Vithold also, than whom Lithuania has never produced a greater man, and who took the name of Alexander at his baptism, died in 1430. Olgird, son of Gedemin, amongst other sons whom he had by his wife Maria, a Christian princess of Tver, had Jagelon. ”

“ There was a gleam of impatience in Witebski's eyes. "Ah, Meir! what an obstinate fellow you are, wanting to force your elders to do or hear things they do not want to! Well, I forgive you, and now let me go and bring the young woman."
Meir barred the way
"Reb," he said, "I will not let you go before you have heard me. I have no one else to go to; everybody is occupied with business or visitors. You alone, Reb, have time."
He stopped, because the merchant laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder ”

“ But they breathed more freely, relieved from the weight of a great apprehension, when they perceived on the crest of the ravine, at the branching-off of the roads to Petersburgh and Moscow, nothing but a band of cossacks, who immediately fled by those two roads. Having neither prisoners nor inhabitants, nor spies, the ground was, as at Witepsk, the only thing they could interrogate. But the enemy had left as many traces in one direction as in the other, so that the marshal paused in uncertainty between the two until mid-day. ”

“ It was settled that the Lithuanian Catholics should receive the rights and privileges of the Polish schliachta; and that the representatives of the two countries should unite in a common diet to elect the Kings of Poland and the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, and decide important affairs. Vitovt soon had differences with his own subjects: the Jmouds, so refractory under the Teutonic rule, were pagans and Lithuanians at heart. They hated Catholicism and the Polish domination. They rose and expelled the monks. Vitovt could only govern them by force. ”

“ Now I shall take my daughter to Wilno and marry her to a great nobleman."
It was about noon when Meir left Witebski's house, pursued by the curses and scoldings of its mistress and the gentle remonstrances and conciliatory words of Eli. The fair was now in full swing. The large market square was full of vehicles of all kinds, animals and people, that it seemed as if nobody could pass or find room any longer. In one part of the square where the crowd was less dense, close by the wall of a large building, sat an old man surrounded by baskets of all shapes and sizes. It was Abel Karaim. ”

“ In other words, two social systems and two kinds of government were confronted at Horodlo,—the Russo-Lithuanian on one side, and the Polish on the other. Vitold’s aim in church matters was to rend the church union of Russia, to separate the western provinces of Moscow. ”

“ But I think if a man be honest himself, he ought not to look indifferently upon other people's villainy; and if he do not prevent it when he can, it is as bad as if he had done it himself. I have heard that a great wrong is going to be done by an Israelite to an innocent man. I can do nothing to prevent it, and I am looking for somebody who might be able to save this innocent man from a great calamity."
Here a loud and jovial laugh quite unexpectedly interrupted Meir's speech, and Witebski patted him playfully on the shoulder. ”