Napoleon himself superintended and hastened the work. At twenty different
places along the Vistula he had the grinding done unceasingly, distributing
the flour thus obtained among the corps and expediting its transport by
every possible means. He even invented new measures for this purpose, among
which the well-known formation of battalions of cattle, an immense rolling
stock destined to follow the columns to serve twofold: for transportation
of provisions, and finally as food.

With the beginning of June these supreme preparations had been made or
seemed to have been made. In the lands through which the troops were to
march before they reached the Niemen, the spring had done its work; there
was abundance of forage.

Napoleon had impatiently awaited this time during ten months of secret
activity.

It was the hope of Russia and the fear of those Frenchmen who understood
the Russian climate that the campaign would drag into the winter.

Russians already told of the village blacksmith who laughed when he was
shown a French horseshoe which had been found on the road, and said: "Not
one of these horses will leave Russia if the army remains till frost sets
in!" The French horseshoes had neither pins nor barbed hooks, and it would
be impossible for horses thus shod to draw cannons and heavy wagons up and
down hill over frozen and slippery roads.

The annihilation of the Grand Army is not to be attributed to the cold and
the fearful conditions on the retreat from Moscow alone, the army was in
reality annihilated before it reached Russia, as we shall see by the