[NAPOLEON'S RETREAT FROM MOSCOW.]

A map exhibiting the retreat of the French Army from Moscow to Paris.

London, R. Bowyer, 20 February 1815. 480 x 320 mm, engraved map; a good copy. A detailed map illustrating the retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from Moscow in the winter of 1812. It was drawn by L. Hebert, a mapmaker employed in the British Army’s Quarter Master General’s Office, and engraved by W. Milton for An illustrated record of important events in the annals of Europe (London, 1815).‘The retreat from Moscow has become a byword for misery, privation and slaughter, as the Grande Amée was hounded into extinction by a combination of marauding Cossacks, the collapse of the army’s morale and the rigours of the oncoming winter, bringing snow and freezing temperatures. On 24 October Eugène’s part of the Grande Armée was mauled at Maloyaroslavets, and by the time Smolensk was reached much of the army was a straggling mass of fugitives. At Kranyi (16–17 November) Kutuzov cut off part of the army; Napoleon retraced his steps and dragged it free, but the retreat stumbled on, to the River Berezina. This was crossed on 26–28 November on two ramshackle bridges, with the few formed elements of the Grande Armée desperately holding off the constant Russian attacks. Thousands were left on the Russian bank when the bridges collapsed, to be massacred by the Cossacks. The survivors staggered to the Niemen, where the Russian pursuit halted; to all practical purposes, the Grande Armée was totally annihilated’ (Haythornthwaite, The Napoleonic sourcebook pp. 44–47).

• GBP 275.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: T2913

• bookseller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)