COLD WINTERS. 141 



effective use could have been made of a corps of horse- 

 marines. 



The winter of 1798-99 was very cold, but not so ex- 

 ceptionally cold in England as on the Continent. The Seine 

 was completely frozen over from the 29th of December to 

 the 1 9th of January, from the Pont de la Tournelle to the 

 Pont Royal. Farther east the cold was much greater. The 

 Meuse was frozen over so thickly that carriages could cross 

 it, and at the Hague and at Rotterdam fairs were held on 

 the river. A regiment of dragoons starting from Mayence, 

 crossed the Rhine upon the ice. 



The winter of 1812-13 was exceeding cold in November, 

 December and January. It was this unusually early and 

 bitter winter which occasioned the destruction of Napo- 

 leon's army in Russia, and the eventual overthrow of his 

 power. (For no one who considers his achievements during 

 the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 can doubt that, had the 

 army with which he invaded Russia been at his command, 

 he would have foiled all the efforts of combined Europe 

 against him.) The cold became very intense in Russia after 

 the yth of November. On the i7th the thermometer fell 

 to 15 degrees below zero, according to Larrey, who carried 

 a thermometer suspended from his button hole. The re- 

 treat from Moscow began on the i8th, Napoleon leaving the 

 still burning city on the i9th, and the evacuation being com- 

 plete on the 23rd. Everything seemed to conspire against 

 Napoleon and his army. During the march to Smolensk 

 snow fell almost incessantly. Even the only intermission of 

 the cold during the retreat caused additional disaster. On 

 the 1 8th of November, Russian troops had crossed the 

 frozen Dwina with their artillery. A thaw begun on the 

 24th, but continued only for a short time ; * so that from the 

 26th to the 29th the Beresina contained numerous blocks of 

 ice, but yet was not so frozen over as to afford a passage to 

 the French troops.' It was to this circumstance that the 

 terribly disastrous nature of the passage of the Beresina must 

 mainly be attributed. 



