The weather soon dealt Blücher a crushing blow.
The southern side of Rosstock Mountain was heavily iced over. That nearly vertical wall of ice, dozens of meters high, was simply impossible to climb.
Inside Blücher's tent, the officers all hung their heads, their faces bleak.
After a long while, Hotze finally said, "How about... we return toward Schwyz and have it out with the French..."
All the officers looked up, their eyes filled with opposition.
In the Prussian Army's current state, forget fighting—the French only needed to delay them for another ten days or so, and their soldiers would be too hungry to lift their guns.
Blücher stared fixedly at the map and shook his head. "No, we're not going to Schwyz..."
The officers had just begun to breathe a sigh of relief when their commander continued, "We'll head east, pass through Panix Pass, and return to Venice by way of Chur."
Everyone in the tent went pale, and they began wondering whether it might be better to fight the French after all. At least they could surrender to the French, whereas Panix Pass was known as "the most perilous pass in the Alps."
That damned place stood 2,438 meters above sea level, blanketed in snow year-round. Along the way were often narrow paths barely half a meter wide; one careless step, and they would plunge off a cliff.
Especially now that winter had arrived, the cold there could freeze a man to death.
"General, this is too dangerous..."
An officer had barely gotten halfway through his sentence when Blücher cut him off. "We must leave this place alive!"
He knew perfectly well that if he lost these 56,000 soldiers under his command, Prussia's military strength would fall to the bottom ranks among the great powers of the European Continent.