these young recruits are hardly able to endure the long marches, and that
the heat will be too much for them. In Dresden, Murat had vainly asked
for furlough. Now, in Danzig, he and Berthier and Rapp are dining with
the Emperor in gloomy silence. Napoleon, emerging from his thoughts of
world conquest, suddenly asks Rapp: “How far is it from Danzig to Cadiz?”
Rapp is bold enough to answer: “Too far, Sire!” Thereupon the master
rejoins:
“I can see, gentlemen, that you no longer have any taste for fighting.
The king of Naples would rather be back in his pretty kingdom; Berthier
would like to be playing the sportsman in Grosbois; Rapp would fain be
enjoying the sweets of Parisian life!”
The marshals answer never a word, for they will not deny that it is so.
But that it should be so, is a new experience for Emperor Napoleon.
[Illustration: Napoleon as Emperor. Bust by Houdon, Musée de Dijon.
(Photograph by J. E. Bulloz, Paris.)]
When he reaches the Memel, the symbolic significance of the Russian
frontier captivates his imagination to such an extent that he is the
first to cross the river, and he gallops several miles eastward before
returning slowly to the bridge. Well, he is over now, and this time,
in very truth, he has crossed the Rubicon. At his nod, three armies
advance into the interior of Poland. The main army is under his immediate
command, the second being commanded by Eugene, and the third by Jerome.
Why does he venture to entrust a whole army to the leadership of this
amateur (who made such a fool of himself in the last war), even with the
safeguard of veteran generals as advisers? Napoleon thinks he can risk
it. The enemy has at most three hundred thousand men.
Where is the enemy? In two armies, led by Barclay de Tolly and Bagration.
They are somewhere in Lithuania, far away, and the total force is only
one hundred and seventy thousand. Napoleon’s overestimate of the strength
of his opponents was a disastrous error, for if he had himself had
fewer mouths to feed, he would have had a much better chance of getting
adequate supplies for his soldiers. Why is he so keen on superiority of
numbers? General Bonaparte was used, with forty thousand men, to defeat
an enemy that greatly outnumbered him, his method being to crush one wing
of the foe after another. The cumbrous multitude he has collected for the
present campaign is symptomatic of his own increasing age, and of the
lust for power which makes him pile up weight, instead of equipping the
spirit with wings. Is he no longer the commander of the days of Rivoli?
In a sense, he is still that commander, for, even with this gigantic
array of troops, he will be a victorious invader. His first army will
march from Tilsit upon Vilna, to take up a position between the Russian
detachments, so that his second and third armies can separately defeat
the enemy. But the Russian distances weaken his influence. Upon a front
of such vast extent, he cannot show himself everywhere. Those who command
under him are too independent of one another (Davoust and Murat nearly
fight a duel), and yet they are too dependent upon him. Never did he
suffer more than in this campaign from the lack of speedy means of
communication. His was the central brain in all his undertakings, so that
a telegraph would have been far more useful to him than to his opponents.
The Russians are aware of their own weakness. Neither of the two
commanders ventures to stand firm. Both of them withdraw before the
invaders, at first without any mutual understanding, to get into touch
later, far in the rear. These are not the tactics of inspired leaders.
Though the Russians do the right thing, it is merely because they are
afraid of the forces that outnumber theirs, and because they dread the
great name of Napoleon. They are but instruments in the hands of fate.
For a time, the Emperor pauses in his advance. In Vilna, he says: “If
Monsieur Barclay imagines that I am going to run after him to the Volga,
he is making a great mistake. We will follow him to Smolensk and the
Dvina, where a good battle will provide us with quarters.... It would
certainly be destruction were we to cross the Dvina this year. I shall go
back to Vilna, spend the winter there, send for a troupe from the Théâtre
Français, and another to play opera. We shall finish off the affair next
May, unless peace is made during the winter.”
News from the outer world is satisfactory. At length the United States
has declared war on England, and has gained some victories at sea. In
England the opposition, which wants peace, is gathering strength. Even in
Spain things are not going so badly. Forward! A good battle!
But where is the enemy? The Emperor goes scouting, accompanied by only
one officer; there is no trace of the Russians. Uneasiness grows. Since
the invaders are marching light, and therefore too quickly, part of the
army, on bad roads and amid heat and rainstorms, gets separated from its
commissariat, upon which everything depends. In Vilna he fails to find
the tsar, though Alexander has been there just before. At this moment,
news is brought that the supplies are delayed, for the commissariat
wagons have stuck fast in a morass, and the vessels that are bringing
other supplies have run aground in the river; moreover, ten thousand
horses have perished, through gorging themselves upon rank grass. The
shortage cannot be hidden from the troops, who scatter through the town,
and plunder so recklessly that there will be no supplies left for the
next comers.
The Emperor can get nothing from the inhabitants of this land either by
threats or cajoleries; and yet he detests rapine, which leads to chaos.
The Lithuanians note that even now he has not granted the Poles the
promised kingdom. They do not hail him as a liberator, as the people
of Lombardy had done long years before. They give no help; they give
nothing; they are hardly willing to accept in payment the forged rouble
notes, millions of which he has had printed in Paris. They pray.
What is to be done? Now is the time to win over the tsar. He writes: “All
that has taken place is out of keeping with Your Majesty’s character,
and with the personal consideration you have sometimes shown me in
the past.... When I crossed the Memel, I had it in mind to send you
an adjutant, as I have always done in previous campaigns.” But, since
the tsar had refused to receive his last envoy, “I realised that the
invisible providence whose power and dominion I recognise would decide
this matter, as he had decided so many others.... Nothing, therefore, is
left but to conclude with the request that you will remain convinced of
the steadfastness of my kindly feelings towards you.”
Before writing this long and unctuous letter, in which nothing is genuine
except the perplexity and the faith in destiny, he has had a conversation
with a captured general who is to convey the missive. The way in which
the Emperor hectors the prisoner, smacks of comic opera: “What does
the tsar expect from this war? I have seized one of his best provinces
without firing a shot, and neither of us knows what we are quarrelling
about!” Then, as his way was, he spent an hour or more pointing out the
Russians’ mistakes, asking why they had not defended Vilna, and talking
to this captive just as if he had been berating one of his own generals
in Spain. “Are you not ashamed of yourselves?” is the burden of his
song. He waxes enthusiastic about the Poles, whom as a rule he frankly
despises; but now it suits him to make much of their contempt for death.
He says that he has thrice as many soldiers as the tsar, and much more
money, so that he will be able to carry on the war for three years. These
falsehoods are uttered in simulated anger, which he allows to flash out
by fits and starts. The Russian meets bluff with bluff, saying that in
Muscovy they have made preparations for a five years’ campaign. But now
the turn has come for one of the Emperor’s bursts of frankness, in words
suited to the ears of this officer blown him by a chance wind, but of
course designed to impress the tsar, to whom they will be reported.
“I am the man of calculations. When I was in Erfurt, my reckonings
convinced me that it would suit my book better to walk hand in hand with
you Russians, instead of quarrelling with you. We might still have been
good friends.... Then the tsar made peace with me, when his country
wanted war; now he makes war on me, when his country wants peace. It
puzzles me that so distinguished a man can have anything to do with such
persons as some of his present advisers.... How can any one make war
through a council of war? If at two in the morning a good idea enters
my mind, in a quarter of an hour I have issued my orders, and half an
hour later my outposts are executing it. But what happens among you?”
Napoleon shows the prisoner a letter from the Russian general staff
which his men have intercepted. “You can take it with you, for it will
while away the tedium of your journey.... Tell the tsar I pledge him my
word that five hundred and fifty thousand men have already crossed the
Vistula. But I am a man of calculations, not a man of passion. I am still
willing to enter into negotiations. What a glorious reign he might have
had, if he had not broken with me!”
The general is alarmed by this flood of confessions. But in the evening,
when he dines with the Emperor and three of the marshals, he is placed on
an entirely different footing, for the Emperor proceeds to cross-question
him like an explorer eager for information.
“Have you any Kirghiz regiments?”
“No, but we are making experiments with Bashkirs and Tartars, who are
very like the Kirghiz.”
“Is it true that when the tsar was in Vilna, he went to tea every day
with a pretty lady there? Let me see, what was her name?”
“The tsar is courtly to every lady.”
“Is it true that Baron vom Stein dined with the tsar?”
“All persons of note were invited to dinner.”
“How can the tsar tolerate such a man as Stein at his table! Does he
think the fellow can be fond of him? Angels and devils cannot be good
companions.... What is the population of Moscow? How many houses? How
many churches?... Why are there such a lot of churches?”
“Because our people are very pious.”
“Nobody is pious nowadays. Which is the shortest way to Moscow?”
“All roads lead to Rome, Sire. You can choose your own route to Moscow.
Charles XII. marched by way of Pultava.”
At this mischievous answer, the Emperor thought fit to turn the
conversation. As for the general, he had wit enough to report in St.
Petersburg that Napoleon was extremely nervous.
This nervousness increases mile after mile. The Emperor tries to join
battle, but the Russians evade the issue. Barclay, who is waiting for a
junction with Bagration, retreats aimlessly; Bagration does not come,
for he believes that he is facing, not Jerome, but the main body of the
invaders. Still, Bagration retreats. Jerome, who ought to follow him
up, is too slow in his movements, so that Davoust, who is waiting for
a junction with Jerome, has to let the enemy slip. The Emperor, in a
rage, cashiers Jerome (who retires in dudgeon to Cassel), and gives the
command to Davoust. Too late! His fondness for Jerome, the braggart, has
cost him the chance of a decisive battle. As difficulties increase, the
Emperor redoubles the pace of his advance; but as the tempo is quickened,
the difficulties are redoubled. There is no means, now, of providing
for the army. The retreating Russians burn their storehouses. No bread,
no vegetables, nothing but meat. Dysentery breaks out. The horses eat
the thatch from the roofs, and collapse in great numbers, so that their
corpses line the road. During this advance in which there are no battles,
the Bavarian leader estimates the losses of his corps at nine hundred men
a day.
What is Paris saying?
Very little news comes to hand; hardly a word even from the empress. It
seems as if the couriers were already being cut off. But here is a report
from the Tuileries, written by the governess, to let him know how the
child is getting on. He rejoins: “I hope to hear from you soon that the
last four teeth have been cut. I have seen to it that the nurse shall get
everything she needs. You can assure her of this.”
See the Emperor in the sun-parched steppe; before him rises the smoke
of the burning villages he has yet to reach, behind him the stench of
decomposing bodies. The strange food and the unaccustomed heat lead to
a recurrence of his attacks of gastric spasm; he can no longer bear to
ride, and, since wheeled traffic is constantly coming to grief, he
covers great distances on foot, accompanied by the whole of his staff,
pursued by the thought: Where is the fight to take place? Couriers arrive
less frequently, and, when they do come, bring no news calculated to
interest him in his present state of nervous tension. Yet here he is,
pacing up and down within his tent; and the pen of his secretary, instead
of, as usual, ordering masses of men to move from one place to another,
hastens over the paper to record the master’s concern about the four
teeth which are still lacking to an infant in a forlorn palace twelve
hundred miles away. Soon the Emperor will be in Vitebsk. How far is it
thence to Paris?
“Too far, Sire,” is re-echoed from unseen lips.
At last! We’ve got him! There stands Barclay, held in check for the
moment by Murat! He thinks to escape to Smolensk on the morrow; such are
the tidings! The hour has struck. But the Emperor is ill, irresolute.
With unwonted consideration, he does not wish his exhausted army to
go straight from the heat of the march into the heat of battle; with
unwonted caution, he wishes to collect more troops than he really needs
before beginning the attack, in order that the battle may be “another
Austerlitz.” He waits till morning.
The Russian laughs. Under cover of the morning mists, he makes good his
retreat; and when the air clears not a trace of the foe is to be seen,
nor can a guess be made as to the direction he has taken. At midday the
Emperor returns from the search, flings his sword on the table, and
exclaims:
“Here I remain. Let us rally our forces. The campaign of the year ’12 is
at an end.” When Murat urges him to continue the forward march, Napoleon
answers: “In ’13 I shall be at Moscow; in ’14 at St. Petersburg. This war
will last three years!”
It is time that the scattered army should be reorganised. Nearly a third
of the forces has been struck off the lists, although no battle has taken
place; the country has devoured them. Where are the auxiliaries—the
Prussians under Macdonald, the Austrians under Schwarzenberg? Trustworthy
news is lacking. Too far! What a country! How is one to pass the weary
hours when there is no fighting? Wait? In Cairo there were a hundred
men of science in his train, and the country was full of unsolved
riddles.—The following letter bears witness to a sense of boredom the
Emperor has not known since the days of his lieutenancy:
“Send us some entertaining books,” the secretary writes to the librarian
in Paris. “If there are some good novels, new or old, which the Emperor
has not read, or memoirs pleasantly written, we should be most grateful;
for time hangs so heavily on our hands in this place.”
Can we not see him standing in front of his tent in his old green coat?
He takes one pinch of snuff after another, and from time to time looks
through his telescope across the plain. Then a grenadier approaches
with a paper in his hand; the Emperor reads it, puts it away; the two
secretaries gaze dumbly from the gloom of the tent, like two tamed
animals awaiting the nod of their tamer. Rustam sits apart Turk fashion;
for him alone is the weather never too hot. All movement is paralysed,
activity is stopped, one can go neither forward nor backward. Napoleon
calls towards the tent: “Méneval! Order some novels!”
News comes at last: England has secured a treaty with the tsar and with
the Spanish regent. This arouses the Emperor: he sees in it the birth
of a fresh coalition; perhaps, even, encirclement. Must he really lie
up here till Europe rises against him or goes to sleep? Over there is
Smolensk. The two Russian armies have doubtless by now met in the town.
That is where the real Russia begins: surely they will not evacuate and
burn the old town of the Blessed Virgin, as they have been doing in the
Polish and Lithuanian wilderness! Should victory be achieved at Smolensk,
then the march on Moscow or St. Petersburg can be undertaken at will.
He questions his generals. Many of them utter words of warning. But the
Emperor replies: “Russia cannot continue this sacrifice of her towns.
Alexander can only begin negotiations after there has been a big battle.
No blood has yet been spilled. Even if I have to march as far as the holy
city of Moscow, I am determined to force a fight and win!”
At last the two Russian armies have effected a junction; they plan a
systematic retreat, preceded by a stubborn resistance; wave after wave of
the weary French army breaks against the walls of Smolensk. The veterans
think of Acre, thirteen years gone by.... In the end, the town falls,
but it falls amid the flames; a heap of ruins is all that is left in the
victor’s hands. Is the Emperor beginning to understand the moral strength
of this people? Can he not see that day by day its mood becomes more
fanatical, that it would rather burn its ancient holy things than leave
them to the enemy? There remains nothing for a starving army to plunder.
The Emperor, indeed, is in sorry plight. King Lear upon the heath. Power
crumbles in fragments from his body; every gesture melts in the air; from
afar the laughter of the rational world comes echoing, to be lost in the
void. An end must be made. A second message is sent to the tsar. No use
writing, for that last letter from Vilna has remained unanswered. Once
more a captured general is ushered into his presence, and once more the
Emperor’s secret meditations are unveiled. In conclusion he says:
“Can you write to the tsar? No? Still, you can write to your brother
at headquarters and tell him what I am saying to you. You will greatly
oblige me if you tell him that you have seen me and that I have charged
you to write to him. He would do me a real service if he himself would
let the tsar know, or get the grand duke to do it for him, that my
greatest wish is to conclude peace.... What are we fighting for? Of
course, if you were the English, that would be a different matter!
But the Russians have done nothing to me. You want to buy coffee and
sugar cheaply? Very well. That can be arranged. But do you fancy it
will be easy to beat me? Then get your council of war to consider the
situation; if it thinks the Russians can achieve a victory, choose your
battle-ground.... Otherwise I shall be compelled to take Moscow, and, in
spite of every precaution, I shall perhaps not be able to save it from
destruction. A capital which has been in the possession of the enemy, is
like a woman who has lost her honour.... What do you think? If the tsar
wishes to conclude peace, surely none will oppose him?”
As a young lieutenant, as a young general, he had never asked a favour;
he could not; he knew only how to command. Even to kings he wrote in the
tone of a commander, and the word “please” had only twice passed his lips
during the course of this last decade: the first time, when he asked the
pope to anoint him emperor; the second time, when he besought Francis of
Habsburg for his daughter’s hand. Yet to-day, what a tone! What thoughts
must be passing through the captive’s mind at the moment when his sword
is given back to him!—Can this be the master of the world? Has he not
begged me, a poor man, begged me and my brother, to do him a service? How
came these things to be? Has he no other messenger? Coffee and sugar are
to blame, it seems, for the fact that an army of hundreds of thousands
of men is perishing in my land! And, as though the whole thing were some
brilliant game of chess, the master player sends his challenge, while
Little Mother Russia is suffering and weeping, and sees one of her cities
after the other go up in flames, and the images of her saints reduced to
ashes!
The letter to the captive general’s brother is duly written, passes
Berthier’s censorship, is delivered—but is never answered. The Emperor is
beside himself with rage: he passes through a period in which he makes
impulsive and vacillating decisions. When Rapp asks whether the army is
to go forward or to retreat, Napoleon answers: “The wine is poured out;
it must be drunk to the last drop. I am for Moscow.... Too long have I
played the emperor; it is time I became the general once more.” The eyes
of the officer light up as he recognises the old ring in the voice!—We
are at the beginning of September.
On the sacred soil of the heath near Borodino, Kutusoff, Barclay’s
successor, must at length put up a fight. The armies now are of equal
strength: this is the game the Emperor proposed. No one sleeps, for
to-morrow, to-morrow at last, the battle will be joined! Then will golden
Moscow lie at our feet, and all our troubles will be at an end. In the
middle of the night, a courier arrives from Paris. The Emperor, bending
over his maps, asks if there is anything urgent to attend to. Silently
his secretary hands him a dispatch from Spain: Wellington has gained a
decisive victory over Marmont in the fight near Salamanca. The Emperor
reads the report, makes no comment, and resumes his interrupted work. At
the eastern extremity of Europe, at the point where it loses itself in
the Asiatic wastes, in a few hours he is to vanquish the Russians. This
is no time to trouble his mind as to the significance of the victory of
the detested Briton at the southern extremity of Europe. Day has dawned.
To-day, as every day, the guards call the salute: “Vive l’Empereur!”
He shows them his son’s picture, which the courier that night had brought
him from Paris. There they stand, the old war-dogs, never dreaming
that France has been beaten in Spain, but admiring the portrait of the
beautiful boy who is their leader’s very own son. When the picture is
brought back to the tent, the Emperor says, speaking like a poet: “Hide
it away. He is too young to look upon a battle-field.”
In fierce fighting, on this day of Borodino, salient points are taken,
lost, and retaken. The guards shout. They want to decide the issue, here,
on the Moskva, as they have so often done before. His generals beseech
him to order the advance, and his intimates urge him to action, but he
will not give the word. For the first time, when the fight is on, he
will not stir from his place. He is feverish, panting for breath, racked
with a cough, and his legs are swelled. He sits motionless on his horse,
and cannot make up his mind to order the advance of the guards, although
the fate of the day seems to hang on it. “Suppose there should be another
battle to-morrow? What men shall I have left to fight it with?” At night
the Russians withdraw. Next day, when the fallen are counted on the
field, they number seventy thousand dead or half-dead—more than in any of
his previous battles. The Emperor exclaims:
“Fortune is a strumpet. I have often said so. Now the truth is coming
home to me.”
But the way to Moscow is open. Half a million men had been chosen for the
invasion. One hundred thousand of them are still following him, when,
from an elevation, with his back towards the setting sun, he first sees
the city of a thousand cupolas, and upon the hill in its centre that
fragment of the East, the Kremlin. Napoleon, as he gazes at the sight, is
filled with weariness rather than with exultation, and he says in a low
tone:
“Moscow! It is time!”
V
“Where are the keys of the city? Why are not the mayor and corporation
here to hand them over?”