The Retreat

From the author of The Battle: A novel that brings French history to life as Napoleon moves in on Russia-where the ultimate test awaits. The French army stands at the gates of Moscow. Exhausted and demoralized, Napoleon's men are a mere fraction of the four-hundred-thousand-strong force that crossed the river Niemen in the summer, just three months earlier. Still, the sight of this famous city feels like a triumph and a chance, at last, to enjoy a conqueror's spoils. The emperor expects to be met by city elders bearing tokens of surrender, but no one appears-Moscow has been evacuated. Napoleon, oblivious to the predicament before him, sends to Paris for comic novels and imagines that it is only a matter of time before Tsar Alexander sues for peace . . .