Augereau cleared his throat. ‘Sire, we cannot attack. Equally we cannot retreat.The men’s morale is low enough as it is. If we turn from the enemy now we risk a general breakdown in discipline. If the enemy pursue us, we’re finished. We must hold our position, for a day at least. While the men recover.’

Several of the other senior officers nodded and Napoleon considered the matter as he rubbed the bristles on his chin. There seemed to be little choice. ‘Very well, then. The army stands to for the night, in case the enemy mount an attack. When dawn comes, Ney’s corps will open an assault on the enemy’s flank.The entire Imperial Guard will move up to the centre of the line and attempt to break through the Russian position. That’s the best we can hope for, gentlemen. Return to your commands to await orders.You are dismissed.’

Before the sun rose over the battlefield, a pale orange disc against a grey sky, Napoleon’s fears for the losses incurred by the Grand Army were borne out as the last of the strength returns reached headquarters.There had been over twenty thousand casualties, nearly a third of the army. By the gathering light of the dawn the battlefield looked like an open-air slaughterhouse. A vast expanse of corpses, individual and heaped, men and horses, marked the passage of Augereau’s ill-fated advance, the Russian counter-attack, and Murat’s charge. The bodies had frozen in the night and the cold had claimed the lives of many of those who had lain wounded on the field.

At first light the French outposts had reported no sign of the Russians and now cavalry patrols reported that the enemy army had pulled back during the night and was retreating to the east.As Napoleon inspected the battlefield in the company of his marshals he could see that his men had reached the end of their endurance. As he approached, they rose sullenly to their feet, and when their officers called on them to cheer their Emperor there were few cries of‘Long live the Emperor!’ and many more calls of ‘Long live peace!’ instead.

Napoleon’s expression was fixed in a cold fury as he passed on and his staff eyed him anxiously as they approached the small hillock where the square of French infantrymen had perished the day before. As they stood on its crest, surrounded by thousands of stiffening bodies, Ney shook his head. ‘What a massacre. And without result.’

Napoleon rounded on him. ‘Enough! We have won a victory here. The enemy are in full retreat and left us in possession of the battlefield.’

‘Battlefield?’ Ney spoke wearily. ‘This is no battlefield, sire. It is the graveyard of the Grand Army.’