Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne: 1812-1813

In the summer of 1812, Napoleon led an enormous army across the Neman and into Russia. By the time the survivors recrossed the Berezina that November, only a small fraction of those men were still fit for duty. Adrien Bourgogne, a French soldier who had already served through campaigns in Poland, Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal, was among those who marched east. His memoir follows the long road from Portugal to Moscow, where the French won their battles and took the city, only to find that victory brought little relief. Supplies dwindled, winter closed in, and the emperor's army began a painful retreat through snow-covered country, hounded by Cossack raiders. Bourgogne records how hunger, cold and exhaustion worked on his comrades, and how far ordinary soldiers were pushed to stay alive. It is a close, personal view of a disaster that changed the course of the Napoleonic Wars.