Through Russian Snows
G. A. Henty

Atlantic Book London 1966

stan dobry minus

str. 159

format 11 x 18 cm

waga 220 g

Exasperated with Czar Alexander’s duplicity, Napoleon moved on Moscow with a 500,000 man army. He defeated the Russians at Borodino and marched triumphantly into the deserted capital in September of 1812. There the French waited for five weeks for the Czar’s capitulation, a surrender which never came. Three-fourths of the city burnt down, the French supplies ran low, and the agonizing march home began. The ice and snow of winter, starvation, and the Cossack raiders decimated the Grand Armee and less than one fifth of the original invasion force survived. General Winter had defeated Napoleon as it had Charles XII, and as it would do to Hitler 130 years later.
Henty gives us two brothers as heroes, Frank and Julian Wyatt from Weymouth. Julian, through some fault of his own, is carried to France by smugglers and ends up in a French prison. Given the opportunity to fight for France in Germany, Julian agrees and is off to the invasion of Russia where he sees combat at Smolensk and Borodino and faces the horrible retreat from Moscow. In the midst of the terror and death of the march, he rescues a child of a Russian nobleman and is suitably rewarded. Brother Frank obtains a commission in the army in England, learns Russian, fights a duel, and is sent on detached service to Russia as aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Wilson. The brothers meet in St. Petersburg, exchange stories and return to England where prosperity and vindication await.