THREE:Napoleon now called up his auxiliary forces from Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria, and from all the Confederation of the Rhine, as well as new battalions from France, and advanced against the Russians. In the first place, the French, who had completed the subjugation of the Prussian states east of the Oder, pushed forward towards Poland, to attack the Russian general, Benningsen, who advanced to Warsaw, and occupied it in conjunction with the Prussians. Benningsen, however, finding the Prussians few and dispirited, fell back beyond the Vistula, and Murat, at the head of the French vanguard, entered Warsaw on the 28th of November. He was soon after joined there by Buonaparte, and Warsaw being put into a state of defence, the French army advanced to the Vistula and the Bug, in spite of the lateness of the season. Benningsen again retreated behind the Wkra, where he united his forces with those of Generals Buxhowden and Kaminskoi. Kaminskoi took the supreme command. When Napoleon arrived at the Wkra on the 23rd of December, he formed his army into three divisions, and forced the passages of the river. Kaminskoi fell back behind the Niemen, and the French pursued him, committing some injury on him. This trifling advantage Napoleon converted, in his bulletins to Paris, into the rout and general defeat of the Russians. It was true that the Russians were destitute of stores, having applied to Britain for money, and obtained only eighty thousand pounds. They fought, therefore, under great disadvantages, against an army furnished with everything. Notwithstanding, Benningsen, who was by far the most vigorous of their generalsfor Kaminskoi was fast falling into lunacyposted himself strongly behind Pultusk, his right led by Barclay de Tolly, and his left by Ostermann. Kaminskoi ordered Benningsen to retreat, but he refused, and stood his ground. At first Tolly was driven back by Lannes and Davoust, but Benningsen converted this disadvantage into a ruse, ordering Tolly to continue his retreat, till the French were drawn on, so that he could bring down his left wing on them. This he did with such effect that he killed and wounded nearly eight thousand of them, having, however, himself five thousand killed and wounded. Lannes and five other generals were amongst the wounded. The French seized the opportunity of darkness to retreat with such speed, that the next morning not a trace of them could be seen near Pultusk. Prince Galitzin fought another division of the French the same day at Golynim, and with the same success. Had Benningsen had the chief command, and brought down the whole united Russian army on Napoleon, the victory must have been most decisive; as it was, it taught the French that they had different troops to Prussians or Austrians to contend with. They drew off, and went into winter quarters at Warsaw and the towns to the eastward. The chief command of the Russian army was now conferred on Benningsen, and so far from Buonaparte having, as he boasted, brought the war to a close with the year, we shall find Benningsen, at the head of ninety thousand men, soon forcing him into a winter campaign.
