Napoleon finished reading the first batch of selected reports and pushed them aside before leaning back on his bench and rubbing his eyes. There had been no sleep the night before. The first troops had crossed the Niemen in the early hours, followed by the engineers who immediately began construction of the three pontoon bridges over which the main thrust of the Grand Army was to pass, a quarter of a million men, under the Emperor’s direct control. To the north, another army of eighty thousand Bavarians and Italians under Napoleon’s stepson Prince Eugène was advancing to cover the left flank of the main force. On the right flank, heading towards the south of the Pripet marshes, was another army of seventy thousand men drawn from a variety of German states, as well as a contingent of Poles, commanded by Prince Jérôme. Their task was to force General Bagration east, and prevent him from linking up with the main Russian army. Still to the west of the Niemen were the last two formations of the invading army. Marshal Victor was in charge of the reserves, a hundred and fifty thousand men, ready to be sent forward to replace the losses of Napoleon’s army. Behind Victor marched Marshal Augereau with sixty thousand men, tasked with guarding the supply depots to be established in the wake of the army, and keep the lines of communication with Warsaw and thence to Paris open. Even though Napoleon was commanding the largest army that Europe had ever seen, he was also the ruler of an empire and needed to ensure that messages continued to flow to and from his capital city. Ahead of the entire army rode Marshal Murat’s cavalry screen, nearly twenty thousand men, probing ahead of the army, searching for the enemy while at the same time preventing enemy scouts from observing the advance of the French armies.

Napoleon lowered his hands and turned to Berthier. ‘Still no sign of Bagration’s army?’

‘No, sire.’ Berthier shook his head. ‘Nothing in the reports so far.’

‘Hm.’ Napoleon shut his eyes again and concentrated his mind on visualising the disposition of the French columns snaking across the Russian frontier. The fact that Murat’s cavalry had not fallen in with any of the enemy’s outposts was strange, unless General Bagration was already retreating, in which case it was vital to discover the direction he was taking.

‘Sire.’ Berthier broke into his thoughts.

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a new message here from Davout. His cavalry scouts captured some stragglers from Bagration’s army. It seems that they began to march north two weeks ago.’

Napoleon blinked his eyes open and sat up.‘North? Pass me the map.’