The difficulties of the transport service began at once, and they were to increase with every day’s march.  With his usual foresight, Napoleon had ordered the collection of immense stores of all kinds at Danzig, his chief base of supplies.  Two million pairs of boots were required for the wear and tear of a long campaign, and all preparations were on the same colossal scale.  In this connection it is noteworthy that no small proportion of the cloaks and boots came from England, as the industrial resources of the Continent were wholly unequal to supplying the crusaders of the Continental System.

A great part of those stores never reached the troops in Russia.  The wherries sent from Danzig to the Niemen were often snapped up by British cruisers, and the carriage of stores from the Niemen entailed so frightful a waste of horseflesh that only the most absolute necessaries could keep pace with the army in its rapid advance.  The men were thus left without food except such as marauding could extort.  In this art Napoleon’s troops were experts.  Many miles of country were scoured on either side of the line of march, and the Emperor, on reaching Vilna, had to order Ney to send out cavalry patrols to gather in the stragglers, who were committing “horrible devastations” and would “fall into the hands of the Cossacks.”

At Vilna the Grand Army met with a more cheering reception than heretofore.  Deftly placing his Polish regiments in front and chasing the retiring Russians beyond the town, Napoleon then returned to find a welcome in the old Lithuanian capital.  The old men came forth clad in the national garb, and it seemed that that province, once a part of the great Polish monarchy, would break away from the empire of the Czars and extend Napoleon’s influence to within a few miles of Smolensk.[261] The newly-formed Diet at Warsaw also favoured this project:  it constituted itself into a general confederation, declared the Kingdom of Poland to be restored, and sent a deputation to Napoleon at Vilna begging him to utter the creative words:  “Let the Kingdom of Poland exist.”  The Emperor gave a guarded answer.  He declared that he loved the Poles, he commended them for their patriotism, which was “the first duty of civilized man,” but added that only by a unanimous effort could they now compel their enemies to recognize their rights; and that, having guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian Empire, he could not sanction any movement which would disturb its remaining Polish provinces.

This diplomatic reply chilled his auditors.  But what would have been their feelings had they known that the calling of the Diet at Warsaw, and the tone of its address to Napoleon; had all been sketched out five weeks before by the imperial stage manager himself?  Yet such was the case.