" Already though there was a food shortage and 5,000 horses died from being fed green rye. 100 guns and 500 ammunition wagons had to be abandoned. Barclay fell back as planned but when he reached the camp in Drissa he found that it was too small and would be difficult to defend. Napoleon meanwhile was traveling through the gap between the two Russian armies and was marching toward Vitebsk. There Napoleon was 280 miles from his main camp but there was no decisive battle to be fought which was the basis of his plan and he was also already far beyond the reach of his supply train. He was faced with many problems at this time. The wagons carrying the supplies were built for hard roads and were not appropriate for traveling across the Russian terrain. Half of the horses the army began with were already sick or dead and the infantry were not in good condition. At this point Napoleon had two options. He could wait at Vitebsk for a battle or he could continue traveling seeking a battle. Napoleon himself wanted to go on looking for a fight but his many officers advised him not to. On August 8th though, Cossacks attacked some French cavalry at Inkovo. This was more than enough to convince Napoleon that the Russians wanted a fight. He decided to continue the advance, going deeper into Russian territory. When he reached Smolensk Napoleon had almost succeeded in forcing a major battle with Barclay and Bagration. Barclay was held under a lot of pressure from the senior officers to stop retreating. Finally, Barclay agreed to counter-attack Napoleon with the First and Second Armies from Smolensk. The tension between Bagration and Barclay was high, thereby creating coordination problems. At Smolensk, Barclay's army was anxiously guarding the city's right side. Napoleon though swung around to the Russian's left side, crossed the Dnieper River and attacked the city from the south. A courageous rearguard action by a group of 9,500 Russian soldiers under General Neverovsky gained enough time for the First and Second Western Armies to unite in the city and hear Barclay's command.
