THE RETREAT FROM RUSSIA[44]
[Footnote 44: References as in the preceding chapter. Also:
Cathcart: Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany, 1812
to 1813. Clausewitz: Der Feldzug von 1812 in Russland, der
Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von
1814 in Frankreich. Combe: Memoires sur les campagnes de
Russie 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France 1814 et 1815. Jomini:
Precis politique et militaire des campagnes de 1812 a 1814.
Labaume: Relation circonstanciee de la campagne de Russie.
Gentz: Oesterreichs Theilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen. Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jahre 1813-1815, nach
Aufzeichnungen von F. von Gentz, nebst einem Anhang:
"Briefwechsel zwischen dem Fuersten Schwarzenberg und
Metternich." Porter: A Narrative of the Campaign in Russia in
1812. Segur: Histoire de Napoleon et de la grande armee
pendant l'annee 1812. Gourgaud: Napoleon et la grande armee
en Russie, ou examen critique de l'ouvrage de M. le C^te Ph.
de Segur. Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier. Wilson: Private
diary of travels, personal services and public events during
mission and employment with the European armies in the
campaigns of 1812, 1813 and 1814; ed. by his nephew, H.
Murray. Wolseley: The Decline and Fall of Napoleon.]
State of Napoleon's Mind -- Destruction Imminent -- The Affair at
Wiazma -- Kutusoff's Timidity -- Napoleon's Despair -- Arrival at
Smolensk -- The Army Reorganized -- Napoleon's Daring at Krasnoi
-- Ney's Great Feat -- Sufferings of the Army -- The Russian Plan
-- Tchitchagoff's Capture of Borrissoff.
For nine days the retreat went steadily on. Mortier came in on October
twenty-seventh; Davout was assigned to keep the rear. Napoleon was no
longer seen on horseback; sometimes he drove, but generally he trudged
among the men, to all outward appearance as spiritless as any one. To
Junot he wrote that he had taken his decision in consequence of the
cold and in order to provide for his wounded from the depot at
Mozhaisk. There was as yet no severe cold, and there was a far shorter
road to Smolensk. The writer's mind was chaotic, confusing what he
knew soon would be with present realities. His maps were worthless,
and clinging to experience, he showed none of his accustomed
venturesomeness. The well-worn summer uniforms of his men were no
protection even against the coolness of autumn nights. What a prospect
when winter's cold should come! It was enough to stun even a Napoleon.
But the present was bad enough, and momentarily grew worse. The road
was lined with charred ruins and devastated fields, and the waysides
were dotted with groups of listless, desperate soldiers who fell out
and sank on the ground as the straggling ranks of their comrades
tramped on. Skirting the battle-field of Borodino, the marching
battalions looked askance on the ghastly heaps of unburied corpses;
but the wounded survivors were dragged from field hospitals and other
cavernous shelters to be carried onward with the departing army. They
were a sight which in some cases turned melancholy into madness. In
order to transport them the wagons were lightened by throwing the
spoils of Moscow into the pond at Semlino. On the thirtieth despatches
of grave import reached the Emperor informing him that Schwarzenberg
had retreated behind the Bug, leaving an open road from Brest for
Tchitchagoff's veterans to attack the right flank of the columns
flying from Moscow. Victor, learning of Napoleon's straits, had left
fifteen thousand men in Smolensk, and was advancing to join Saint-Cyr
on the Dwina in order to assure the safety of the main army from that
side. To him came the dismal news that Wittgenstein had resumed the
offensive against Saint-Cyr, and that the line of attack on the French
left was as open from the north as was that on the other side from the
south. Davout's rear-guard was steadily disintegrating under hardships
and before the harassing attacks of the Russian riders under Platoff.
Partizan warfare was assuming alarming dimensions. In a single swoop
two thousand French recruits under Baraguey d'Hilliers had been made
prisoners, and similar events were growing all too frequent. In
consequence of these crushing discouragements the whole army was
rearrayed. "We must march as we did in Egypt," ran the order: "the
baggage in the middle, as densely surrounded as the road will permit,
with a half battalion in front, a half battalion behind, battalions
right and left, so that when we face we can fire in every direction."
Ney's corps was then assigned to the place of danger in the rear--a
place he kept with desperate gallantry until he earned the title
"bravest of the brave."
The early promise of substantially reinforcing Kutusoff's army had not
been fulfilled. The fanatic zeal at first displayed soon effervesced,
the new levies were untrustworthy, and the long marches of the
Russians told almost as terribly upon them as the retreat did upon
their enemies. Kutusoff's army therefore, though available for
defense, was a poor weapon for attack, especially when the object was
a French army under the dreaded Napoleon. The Russian commander was
only half-hearted in his pursuit; and when, having taken the short cut
which was unknown to his enemy, his van came in contact with the
French line at Wiazma on November third, the Russian soldiers had
little heart to fight. The circumstances offered every chance for a
powerful if not a decisive blow on the flying column from flank and
rear; but the onset was feeble, the commander-in-chief held back his
main force in anxious timidity, and a second time the opportunity was
lost for annihilating the retreating foe, now reduced in number to
about sixty thousand. Napoleon was far away on the front when Kutusoff
attacked, and the battle was conducted on the French side by the
marshals in consultation with Eugene and Poniatowski. The rear-guard
was momentarily severed from the line, but these two generals wheeled
and fiercely attacked the advancing Russians, engaging all within
reach until Davout was able to evade the melee and rejoin the main
army.
The French lost about four thousand, the Russians about half as many.
Neither of the two armies had any courage to renew the struggle next
morning, and each kept its way as best it could, both of them
exhausted, both shrinking hourly in vigor and numbers. Kutusoff's
conduct both at Malojaroslavetz and at Wiazma has been explained by
his fixed resolution to leave the destruction of the invaders to his
gaunt allies, want and winter. If, however, as was possible at either
place, he had annihilated the retreating army, this might have been
the last Napoleonic war, since it was not for a new army that the
Emperor of the French appealed to his people, but for something quite
different; namely, men to recruit the old one. As it was, Napoleon
first learned of the conflict at Wiazma on the fourth, and
contemplated a movement which might lead his pursuers into an ambush.
But he found the three columns which had been engaged so pitifully
disintegrated that he gave up in despair--a feeling heightened when,
for the first time, snowflakes came ominously fluttering through the
frosty air.
The weary march was therefore resumed, and there was some semblance of
order in it, although Ney wrote Berthier that already on the fourth
there were without exaggeration four thousand men of the grand army
who refused to march in rank. The number was increasing daily. On the
sixth Napoleon was informed that Victor, having effected a junction
with Saint-Cyr, had checked Wittgenstein in a series of gallant
struggles, but that step by step the two divisions had been driven
back until now they were only thirty miles distant, having abandoned
the line of the Dwina, including the depot of Vitebsk. "Seize the
offensive; the safety of the army depends on it," was Napoleon's
desperate reply. Terrible as this news was to the general, it was
eclipsed in horror for the Emperor by the accounts he received at the
same time from Paris describing Malet's conspiracy, a movement to
overthrow the Empire based on the false rumor of his own death. "And
Napoleon II, did no one think of him?" he cried in anguish. Grand
army, reputation, personal prestige--all these he might lose and
survive; but to lose France, that were ruin indeed.
That night a heavy frost fell; then, and no sooner, did the relentless
severity of the Russian winter begin. This is proved by Napoleon's
famous twenty-ninth bulletin, and by the journal of Castellane, the
aide-de-camp who made the final copy of it; in spite of assertions put
forth later to sustain the legend of an army conquered by the
elements, the autumn had dallied far beyond its time. Next day the
weary march began again; scarcely a word escaped the Emperor. He was
pale, but his countenance gave no sign of panic; there was merely a
grim, persistent silence. The enemy hung on flank and rear, harassing
the demoralized column until it was more like a horde than an army.
With numbed limbs and in the gnawing misery of bitter cold, the French
straggled on. Men and horses died by the score; the survivors cut
strips of carrion wherewith to sustain life, and desperately pressed
forward, for all who left the highway fell into the enemy's hands. In
some bivouacs three hundred died overnight; there are statements in
the papers of officials which seem to indicate that in the struggle
for life the weaker often perished at the hands of their own comrades.
The half-crazed, frost-bitten, disorderly soldiers of the French van
reached Smolensk on the ninth, and on the thirteenth the remnants of
the rear, with many stragglers, came up and encamped. The heroes of
the hour were Eugene and Ney. Ney's division had well-nigh vanished in
their glory. Fighting without fear, and dying undaunted, they had
saved the moiety of the grand army which reached Smolensk; the other
half had perished by the way. Eugene had taken a long circuit, but his
division had lost fewer and was less demoralized than those of his
colleagues. Murat's recklessness in fighting the Cossacks had resulted
in the loss of nearly all his horses; his men arrived on foot.
The scenes in Smolensk were shameful. At first the garrison shut the
gates in the very faces of the human wolves who clamored for food and
shelter. Discipline having been restored, the guard was admitted. The
stores were ample for a fortnight's rations to all survivors; but the
ravening mob could not be restrained, and the distribution was so
irregular that precious supplies were tumbled into the streets; in the
end it was discovered that the guard had secured sustenance for a
fortnight, while the line had scarcely sufficient for a week. The sick
and wounded were, however, housed and made fairly comfortable. These
nauseating tumults over, the Emperor seemed to regain much of his
bodily vigor, and with it returned his skill and ingenuity: stragglers
were reincorporated into regiments; supply-wagons were destroyed in
large numbers and the horses assigned to the artillery, many of the
guns being abandoned so that the service of the remainder might be
more efficient; the army was rearrayed in four divisions, under the
Emperor, Eugene, Davout, and Ney respectively; and the French made
ready to leave Smolensk with a bold front. Napoleon's contempt for his
enemy was matched only by their palpitating fear of him. Most men
would have abandoned hope in such a crisis. Napoleon was fertile not
merely in strategic expedients, but in devices for realizing his
plans. Accordingly he arranged that the four columns should move on
parallel lines toward Lithuania, a day's march distant from each
other, he with six thousand of the guard in the van; Ney, taking the
other four thousand to strengthen his own line, was to keep the rear.
The movement began on the twelfth, that is, before the last stragglers
had come in; on the fourteenth Napoleon took his departure; and three
days later, on the seventeenth, the towers of the ramparts having been
blown up, the last of the newly ordered ranks marched out. The sick
and wounded had found shelter in houses adjacent to the walls; many
were killed by the explosions, the rest were abandoned to the foe and
found humane treatment. Disorderly and mutinous French soldiers
remained in considerable numbers to plunder; these were for the most
part caught by the entering Russians, and inhumanly done to death. In
all these days the cold had not abated, and at times the thermometer
marked fifteen degrees below zero.
The further line of retreat was through Krasnoi, Borrissoff, and
Minsk, the Emperor expecting Schwarzenberg, reinforced by fourteen
thousand German recruits, to cover the crossing of the Beresina at
Borrissoff. The Russians followed doggedly on their parallel line of
pursuit, harassing the French rear and flanks. On the fifteenth their
van came in touch with Napoleon's division near Krasnoi almost as he
himself passed, and their artillery opened fire. The balls yelled as
they sped by, and there was great excitement. Lebrun called attention
to the fact as if it were remarkable. "Bah!" said Napoleon, as he
pressed forward; "bullets have been flying about our legs these twenty
years." He well knew that his anxious foe would not seriously attack
him and his guard; but, justly considering that the case would be
different in regard to his rear, he halted to await their arrival.
Early on the morning of the seventeenth he sent out a reconnoitering
party, as if about to wheel and give battle; Kutusoff, who for the
moment was considerably inferior in numbers, fell instantly into the
snare, and drawing back his van, as Napoleon had foreseen and desired,
made ready for battle.
Eugene and Davout were within reach, but Ney's position was terrible:
he was only then leaving Smolensk. Was he to be left to his fate?
Around and behind his six thousand troops were swarming almost as many
stragglers; and on the eighteenth the Russians, in spite of their
momentary halt, threw forward their van with the hope of cutting off
his hampered and sore-pressed division. But the short delay had been
precious: Ney rose to the occasion, and on the nineteenth crossed the
Dnieper over the ice, hoping to follow the right bank westward and
rejoin the main army at Orcha. This was one of his most daring feats,
perhaps his most brilliant deed of arms. Summoned by a flag of truce
to surrender, he replied: "A marshal of the Empire has never
surrendered!" Platoff and the Cossacks were hard on his heels; but
fighting and marching throughout the weary, bitter day, at night the
undaunted marshal found himself in touch with Eugene, who had turned
out on the highway from Vitebsk to Orcha to meet him. When, on the
twentieth, they effected a junction, Ney had only eight hundred men in
the ranks with him; perhaps two thousand more were trudging behind in
disorder.
On the eighteenth a thaw had set in; it had begun to rain, the crust
broke under the men's feet, and the roads were lines of icy clods. The
soldiers had no foot-gear but rags; every step was an agony, and
thousands who had so far endured now gave up, and flung away their
guns and equipments. There were not more than twenty-five thousand
regularly marching. Already on the previous day the guard had shown
signs of demoralization. The Emperor alone seemed impassive. For days
he had shared the common hardships; clad in a long Polish coat of
marten fur, a stout birch staff in his hand, without a sign of either
physical or nervous exhaustion he had marched silently for long
distances among his suffering men. If we picture him standing at
Krasnoi, weighing how long he dared to brave an enemy which if
consolidated and hurled upon his lines would have annihilated them, we
must feel that collapse was prevented then only by his nerve and by
the terror of his name. Once more he threw the influence of his
presence into the scale, and, stepping before the guard on this
dreadful day, he said simply: "You see the disorganization of my army.
In unhappy infatuation most of the soldiers have thrown away their
guns. If you follow this dangerous example no hope remains." The state
of the men was, if possible, worse than ever; in fact, it was
indescribable. Night after night they had bivouacked in the snow. What
with the wet, the dazzling glitter, and the insufficient food,--for at
best they had only a broth of horse-flesh thickened with flour,--some
were attacked with blindness, some with acute mania, and some with a
prostrating insensibility. Those who now remained in the ranks were
clad in rags and scarcely recognizable as soldiers. It seemed,
therefore, as if such an appeal could only awaken an echo in an empty
vault; but such was the French character that, desperate as were the
circumstances, the cry was heard. The response was grim and sullen,
but the call was not in vain; and reaching Orcha on the nineteenth,
there was still an army. As yet, however, there was no news of Ney.
The sky seemed dark and the prospect blank when it was learned that
both Victor and Schwarzenberg had been steadily thrown back. The
Russian plan was for Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff to drive in the
extreme left and right divisions respectively of Napoleon's attenuated
line, and then to concentrate at Borrissoff and attack the main French
army retreating before Kutusoff. So far the various parts of this
scheme had been successfully executed. Borrissoff and its bridge were
still in possession of a Polish regiment; but the garrison was very
small, and could not repulse the attack of the converging Russian
columns or of any portion of them. It behooved Napoleon, therefore, to
move swiftly if his few remaining troops were to cross the Beresina in
safety. It was in this frightful dilemma that Ney at last appeared.
Said Napoleon, when the news was brought to him: "If an hour ago I had
been asked for the three millions I have in the Tuileries vaults as
the price of this event, I would have handed them over." The marshal's
presence was in itself a splendid encouragement.
Purchasing such stores as Jewish contractors offered, abandoning the
heavy pontoons, and hitching the horses to a few field-pieces found in
the park, the undaunted Emperor sent orders to both Victor and
Oudinot, enjoining them to make forced marches and meet him at
Borrissoff. On the twenty-first, amid the slush, mud, and broken cakes
of crust, he started his own army on a swift despairing rush for that
crucial point. It was too late; that very day Tchitchagoffs van, after
a stubborn and bloody struggle, occupied the town and captured the
all-important bridge. The thaw had opened the river, and its
overflowing stream, more than sixty yards in width, was full of
floating ice. To the Russians it seemed as if Napoleon were already
taken in their snare, and Tchitchagoff issued a general order that all
captives below medium stature should be brought to him. "He is short,
stout, pale; has a short, thick neck, and black hair," ran his
description of the "author of Europe's miseries." By a special decree
of the Czar, all the French prisoners of war were kindly treated, each
being furnished with warm clothing at an expense of about twenty
dollars.