Journal of Napoleon Bonaparte

Russia, 1812

July 28, 1812 – Vitebsk

The sun blazes, but the victories feel hollow.

We have marched a thousand miles without a decisive battle. The Russians retreat endlessly, like smoke slipping through clenched fists. I offer them glory. They answer with scorched fields and empty villages. My men grow thinner, slower, quieter. Discipline fades in the heat and distance.

And yet I press forward. I must. To stop is to admit doubt, and doubt is more fatal than frost.

September 7, 1812 – Borodino

At last, they stood and fought.

Borodino was carnage — a butcher’s work. We attacked all day under cannon fire so thick it painted the air black. The Russians would not break. They died where they stood, in heaps. My guard watched in reserve, silent, grim. They saw what I saw: a victory measured only in bodies.

We took the field, but not their will.

Kutuzov retreats again. Always backward, like time itself. I have won the battle. But I feel no triumph.

September 14, 1812 – Moscow

Moscow is ours. But it is a city without a soul.

We entered expecting majesty. Instead, we found silence. No emissaries. No keys to the city. Just wind and the creak of empty doors.

Then the fires began.

Not one blaze, but hundreds — set with purpose, with fury. The flames swallowed palaces, churches, entire districts. I watched the skyline burn from the Kremlin, the orange glow dancing like mockery.

They would rather destroy their holy city than let me claim it.

I understand now: this is not a campaign. It is a ritual sacrifice — and we are the offering.

October 19, 1812 – The Retreat Begins

I have given the order.

We are leaving Moscow.

No peace, no glory, no triumph. Only frost biting at our heels and silence in every direction. We carry what we can. Ammunition. Bread. Memories. The rest we abandon.

The army bleeds not from wounds, but from cold, from hunger, from despair. Horses die by the thousands. Men sleep in snow and do not wake.

Every step westward is paid in flesh.

November 26, 1812 – Beresina River

Disaster compounds disaster.

The bridges are not ready. The enemy is closing. I order my engineers to build with ice at their feet and death at their backs. The river swells with corpses and cannon alike.

Some crossed. Thousands did not.

There is no longer a Grande Armée. Only fragments. Survivors. Ghosts wrapped in rags and silence. I no longer ride in command, but in witness.

December 5, 1812 – Smorgoni

I depart tonight, secretly, by sleigh.

I leave the army behind — what remains of it. Murat will command what’s left. I must return to Paris before word of this ruin reaches the capital ahead of me.

My hands shake from more than cold.

Russia has not defeated me. I defeated myself — through pride, through blindness, through the refusal to stop walking into the fire.

What remains now is not victory, but survival.

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