Excerpt:
When the retreating French Army and its allies reached the banks of the ice-filled Berezina River on the 23rd of November, 1812, they discovered their sole means of escape blocked by the smoldering ruins of the Borisov bridge. On the opposite bank lay a Russian force under Admiral Pavel Vasil'evich Chichagov, sent there specifically to cut off the French retreat from Russia. But with ingenuity born of desperation, French Engineer Jean-Baptiste Éblé and four hundred pontonniers managed to quietly build two new bridges using materials taken from nearby houses. Only days before this the French Army's Commander-in-Chief, Napoleon Bonaparte, had ordered all sixty boats of the army bridging train to be burned along with all other "nonessential" gear. General Éblé protested the decision at the time and discretely ordered two wagons of charcoal and six wagons of tools to be spared. He also assigned each of his men to carry a tool and some cramp irons. The Berezina bridges would be built using only these hand-tools, during the winter, for an army on the verge of disintegration.
Annotation:
This page, one of many articles on the "War Times Journal" website, tells the story of the impromptu bridges built over the Berezina River by retreating French forces in 1812. Though author James Burbeck does not adequately contextualize the incident within the Napoleonic Wars, his article provides a detailed description of the construction and the events that followed. The site also includes a computer simulation of the footbridge, a painting of French troops and families crossing the river, a map of the region, a copy of a letter from a French Major General to Éblé, and a brief list of recommended reading.