We commit our fate into your hands, and implore the protection of the most august Caesar." Having largely recruited his armies with brave Poles, who fancied him both a Solon and Caesar, Napoleon now moved forwards.

General Bennigsen found himself under the necessity of abandoning first the line of the Vistula, and then that of the Bug, and, the French still advancing in numbers not to be resisted by his division, at length threw himself behind the river Wkra, where Kaminskoy, the Russian commander-in-chief, and three other divisions of the army, had by this time taken their ground.

On the 23rd of December Napoleon reached and crossed the Wkra, and Kaminskoy ordered his whole army to fall back upon the line of the Niemen.

Bennigsen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, and both sustaining with imperturbable patience and gallantry the severity of a march through probably the very worst roads in Europe, and of frequent skirmishes with their pursuers.

But the minor divisions of D'Anrep and Bexhouden retreated without keeping up the requisite communications with either Bennigsen or Galitzin, and consequently suffered considerably, though the matter was grossly exaggerated in the French bulletins.
Bennigsen, in spite of Kaminskoy's orders to retreat at all hazards, made a stand, and a most gallant one at Pultusk.