Napoleonic troops reburied in Vilnius

The remains of 18 soldiers from Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée were reburied in Lithuania yesterday almost 200 years after the siege of Moscow failed and the men were forced to flee westwards in the freezing cold.

French and Lithuanian officials, diplomats and soldiers attended the reburial in Vilnius. A mass reburial of 3,500 Napoleonic soldiers took place in 2003, but these men were found elsewhere. The soldiers had retreated 700 miles after Napoleon's attempt to conquer Russia failed in 1812.