_Napoleon determines to return to Paris--He leaves Smorgoni on 5th
December--reaches Warsaw on the 10th--Curious Interview with the
Abbé de Pradt--Arrives at Dresden on the 14th--and at Paris on the
18th, at midnight--Dreadful State of the Grand Army, when left by
Napoleon--Arrive at Wilna, whence they are driven by the Cossacks,
directing their flight upon Kowno--Dissensions among the French
Generals--Cautious Policy of the Austrians under
Schwartzenberg--Precarious state of Macdonald--He retreats upon
Tilsit--D'Yorck separates his Troops from the French--Macdonald
effects his retreat to Königsberg--Close of the Russian expedition,
with a loss on the part of the French of 450,000 Men in Killed and
Prisoners--Discussion of the Causes which led to this ruinous
Catastrophe._
When the army of Buonaparte was assembled on the other side of the
Beresina, they exhibited symptoms of total disorganisation. The village
of Brilowau, where they halted on the night of their passage, was
entirely pulled down, that the materials might supply camp-fires; and a
considerable part of Buonaparte's headquarters was included in the same
fate, his own apartment being with difficulty saved from the soldiery.
They could scarcely be blamed for this want of discipline, for the night
was deadly cold; and of the wet and shivering wretches who had been
immersed in the icy river, many laid their heads down never to raise
them more.
On the 29th November, the Emperor left the fatal banks of the Beresina,
at the head of an army more disorganised than ever; for few of Oudinot's
corps, and scarcely any belonging to Victor's, who were yet remaining,
were able to resist the general contagion of disorder. They pushed on
without any regular disposition, having no more vanguard, centre, or
rear, than can be ascribed to a flock of sheep. To outstrip the Russians
was their only desire, and yet numbers were daily surprised by the
partisans and Cossacks. Most fortunately for Napoleon, the precaution of
the Duke of Bassano had despatched to the banks of the Beresina a
division of French, commanded by General Maison, who were sufficient to
form a rear-guard, and to protect this disorderly and defenceless mass
of fugitives. Thus they reached Malodeczno on the 3d December.[222]
Here Buonaparte opened to his chief confidants his resolution to leave
the army, and push forward to Paris. The late conspiracy of Mallet had
convinced him of the necessity of his presence there.[223] His remaining
with an army, which scarce had existence in a military sense, could be
of no use. He was near Prussia, where, from reluctant allies, the
inhabitants were likely to be changed into bitter enemies. He was
conscious of what he had meditated against the King of Prussia, had he
returned victorious, and judged from his own purposes the part which
Frederick was likely to adopt, in consequence of this great reverse in
his fortunes.
This resolution being adopted, Napoleon announced that preparations for
his departure should be made at Smorgoni, intending to remain at
Malodeczno till he should be joined by General Maison with the
rear-guard, which was left a day's march behind the main body. He now
waited until it should close up with him. They came at last, but with
Tschaplitz and the Russians at their heels. Intense cold (the
thermometer being twenty degrees below zero) prevented any thing more
than skirmishes between them.
[Sidenote: SMORGONI--SETS OUT FOR PARIS.]
On the 5th December, Buonaparte was at Smorgoni, where he again received
a welcome reinforcement, being joined by Loison, advancing at the head
of the garrison of Wilna, to protect his retreat to that place, and
whose opportune assistance gave a new rear-guard, to supply that
commanded by Maison, which the war and weather had already rendered as
incapable of effectual service as those whom they had protected from the
banks of the Beresina to Smorgoni. Loison had orders to take in his turn
this destructive duty, for which purpose he was to remain a day's march,
as usual, behind the mass of what had been the army.
The order of the march to Wilna thus arranged, Napoleon determined on
his own departure. Three sledges were provided; one of which was
prepared to carry him and Caulaincourt, whose title the Emperor proposed
to assume while travelling incognito, although their figures were
strikingly dissimilar, the Duke of Vicenza being a tall, raw-boned,
stiff-looking man. In a general audience, at which were present the King
of Naples, the viceroy, Berthier, and the maréchals, Napoleon announced
to them that he had left Murat to command the army, as generalissimo. He
talked to them in terms of hope and confidence. He promised to check the
Austrians and Prussians in their disposition for war, by presenting
himself at the head of the French nation, and 1,200,000 men;--he said he
had ordered Ney to Wilna, to re-organise the army, and to strike such a
blow as should discourage the advance of the Russians;--lastly, he
assured them of winter-quarters beyond the Niemen. He then took an
affectionate and individual farewell of each of his generals, and,
stepping into his traineau, a lively emblem of the fishing-boat of
Xerxes, he departed from Smorgoni at the late hour of ten at night.[224]
With what feelings this extraordinary man left the remains of the army,
we have no means even of guessing. His outward bearing, during his
extreme distresses, had been in general that of the utmost firmness; so
that such expressions of grief or irritation, as at times broke from
him, were picked up and registered by those who heard them, as curious
instances of departure from his usual state of composure. To preserve
his tranquillity, he permitted no details to be given him of the want
and misery with which he was surrounded. Thus, when Colonel d'Albignac
brought news of Ney's distresses, after the battle of Wiazma, he stopped
his mouth by saying sharply, "He desired to know no particulars." It was
of a piece with this resolution, that he always gave out orders as if
the whole Imperial army had existed in its various divisions, after
two-thirds had been destroyed, and the remainder reduced to an
undisciplined mob. "Would you deprive me of my tranquillity?" he said
angrily to an officer, who thought it necessary to dwell on the actual
circumstances of the army, when some orders, expressed in this manner,
had been issued. And when the persevering functionary persisted to
explain--thinking, perhaps, in his simplicity, that Napoleon did not
know that which in fact he only was reluctant to dwell upon--he
reiterated angrily, "I ask you, sir, why you would deprive me of my
tranquillity?"[225]
It is evident, that Napoleon must have known the condition of his army
as well as any one around him; but, to admit that he was acquainted with
that which he could not remedy, would have been acknowledging a want of
power inconsistent with the character of one, who would willingly be
thought rather the controller than the subject of Fate. Napoleon was
none of those princes mentioned by Horace, who, in poverty and exile,
lay aside their titles of majesty, and language of authority. The
headquarters of Smorgoni, and the residences of Porto Ferrajo and Saint
Helena, can alike bear witness to the tenacity with which he clung not
only to power, but to the forms and circumstance attendant upon
sovereignty, at periods when the essence of that sovereignty was either
endangered or lost. A deeper glance into his real feelings may be
obtained from the report of the Abbé de Pradt, which is well worth
transcribing.[226]
After narrowly escaping being taken by the Russian partisan Seslawin, at
a hamlet called Youpranoui, Napoleon reached Warsaw upon the 10th
December. Here the Abbé de Pradt, then minister of France to the Diet of
Poland, was in the act of endeavouring to reconcile the various rumours
which poured in from every quarter, when a figure like a spectre,
wrapped in furs, which were stiffened by hoar-frost, stalked into his
apartments, supported by a domestic, and was with difficulty recognised
by the ambassador as the Duke of Vicenza.
[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH DE PRADT.]
"You here, Caulaincourt?" said the astonished prelate.--"And where is
the Emperor?"--"At the hôtel d'Angleterre, waiting for you."--"Why not
stop at the palace?"--"He travels incognito."--"Do you need any
thing?"--"Some Burgundy or Malaga."--"All is at your service--but
whither are you travelling?"--"To Paris."--"To Paris! But where is the
army?"--"It exists no longer," said Caulaincourt, looking
upwards.--"And the victory of the Beresina--and the 6000
prisoners?"[227]--"We got across, that is all--the prisoners were a few
hundred men, who have escaped. We have had other business than to guard
them."
His curiosity thus far satisfied, the Abbé de Pradt hastened to the
hotel. In the yard stood three sledges in a dilapidated condition. One
for the Emperor and Caulaincourt, the second for two officers of rank,
the third for the Mameluke Rustan and another domestic. He was
introduced with some mystery into a bad inn's bad room, where a servant
wench was blowing a fire made of green wood. Here was the Emperor, whom
the Abbé de Pradt had last seen when he played King of Kings among the
assembled sovereigns of Dresden. He was dressed in a green pelisse,
covered with lace and lined with furs, and, by walking briskly about the
apartment, was endeavouring to obtain the warmth which the chimney
refused. He saluted "Monsieur l'Ambassadeur," as he termed him, with
gaiety. The abbé felt a movement of sensibility, to which he was
disposed to give way, but, as he says, "The poor man did not understand
me." He limited his expressions of devotion, therefore, to helping
Napoleon off with his cloak. To us, it seems that Napoleon repelled the
effusions of the Bishop of Maline's interest, because he did not choose
to be the object either of his interest or his pity. He heard from his
minister, that the minds of the inhabitants of the grand duchy had been
much changed since they had been led to despair of the regeneration of
their country; and that they were already, since they could not be free
Polanders, studying how to reconcile themselves with their former
governors of Prussia. The entrance of two Polish ministers checked the
ambassador's communications. The conversation was maintained from that
moment by Napoleon alone; or rather he indulged in a monologue, turning
upon the sense he entertained that the failure of his Russian expedition
would diminish his reputation, while he struggled against the painful
conviction, by numbering up the plans by which he might repair his
losses, and alleging the natural obstacles to which he had been obliged
to succumb. "We must levy 10,000 Poles," he said, "and check the advance
of these Russians. A lance and a horse are all that is necessary.--There
is but a single step betwixt the sublime and the ridiculous."[228] The
functionaries congratulated him on his escape from so many dangers.
"Dangers!" he replied; "none in the world. I live in agitation. The more
I bustle the better I am. It is for Kings of Cockaigne to fatten in
their palaces--horseback and the fields are for me.--From the sublime to
the ridiculous there is but a single step--Why do I find you so much
alarmed here?"
"We are at a loss to gather the truth of the news about the army."
"Bah!" replied the Emperor; "the army is in a superb condition. I have
120,000 men--I have beat the Russians in every action--they are no
longer the soldiers of Friedland and Eylau. The army will recruit at
Wilna--I am going to bring up 300,000 men--Success will render the
Russians fool-hardy--I will give them battle twice or thrice upon the
Oder, and in a month I will be again on the Niemen--I have more weight
when on my throne, than at the head of my army.--Certainly I quit my
soldiers with regret; but I must watch Austria and Prussia, and I have
more weight seated on my throne than at the head of my army. All that
has happened goes for nothing--a mere misfortune, in which the enemy can
claim no merit--I beat them every where--they wished to cut me off at
the Beresina--I made a fool of that ass of an admiral"--(He could never
pronounce the name Tchitchagoff)--"I had good troops and cannon--the
position was superb--500 toises of marsh--a river"----This he repeated
twice, then run over the distinction in the 29th bulletin between men of
strong and feeble minds, and proceeded. "I have seen worse affairs than
this--At Marengo I was beaten till six o'clock in the evening--next day
I was master of Italy--At Essling, that archduke tried to stop me--He
published something or other--My army had already advanced a league and
a half--I did not even condescend to make any disposition. All the world
knows how such things are managed when I am in the field. I could not
help the Danube rising sixteen feet in one night--Ah! without that,
there would have been an end of the Austrian monarchy. But it was
written in Heaven that I should marry an archduchess." (This was said
with an air of much gaiety.) "In the same manner, in Russia, I could not
prevent its freezing. They told me every morning that I had lost 10,000
horses during the night. Well, farewell to you!" He bade them adieu five
or six times in the course of the harangue, but always returned to the
subject. "Our Norman horses are less hardy than those of the
Russians--they sink under ten degrees of cold (beneath zero.) It is the
same with the men. Look at the Bavarians; there is not one left. Perhaps
it may be said that I stopped too long at Moscow; that may be true, but
the weather was fine--the winter came on prematurely--besides, I
expected peace. On the 5th October, I sent Lauriston to treat. I thought
of going to St. Petersburgh, and I had time enough to have done so, or
to have gone to the south of Russia, or to Smolensk. Well, we will make
head at Wilna; Murat is left there. Ha, ha, ha! It is a great political
game. Nothing venture, nothing win--It is but one step from the sublime
to the ludicrous. The Russians have shown they have character--their
Emperor is beloved by his people--they have clouds of Cossacks--it is
something to have such a kingdom--the peasants of the crown love their
government--the nobility are all mounted on horseback. They proposed to
me to set the slaves at liberty, but that I would not consent to--they
would have massacred every one. I made regular war upon the Emperor
Alexander, but who could have expected such a blow as the burning of
Moscow? Now they would lay it on us, but it was in fact themselves who
did it. That sacrifice would have done honour to ancient Rome."
He returned to his favourite purpose of checking the Russians, who had
just annihilated his grand army, by raising a large body of Polish
lancers, to whom, as things stood, it would have been difficult to have
proposed any adequate motive for exertion. The fire went out, and the
counsellors listened in frozen despair, while, keeping himself warm by
walking up and down, and by his own energies, the Emperor went on with
his monologue; now betraying, in spite of himself, feelings and
sentiments which he would have concealed; now dwelling upon that which
he wished others to believe; and often repeating, as the burden of his
harangue, the aphorism which he has rendered immortal, concerning the
vicinity of the sublime and the ludicrous.
His passage through Silesia being mentioned, he answered in a doubtful
tone, "Ha, Prussia?" as if questioning the security of that route. At
length he decided to depart in good earnest; cut short the respectful
wishes for the preservation of his health with the brief assurance, that
he "could not be in better health were the very devil in him;" and threw
himself into the humble sledge which carried Cæsar and his fortunes. The
horses sprung forward, nearly overturning the carriage as it crossed the
courtyard gate, and disappeared in the darkness. Such is the lively
account of the Abbé de Pradt, who declares solemnly, that on taxing his
memory to the utmost, he accuses himself of neither want of accuracy nor
forgetfulness. Napoleon does not deny that such a long conversation took
place, but alleges that the abbé has caricatured it. In the meanwhile,
he said he scratched an order for Monsieur l'Ambassadeur to return
immediately to Paris;[229] which, considering what had happened in
Russia, and was about to happen in Poland, could not but be a most
welcome mandate, especially as it was likely to be soon enforced by the
lances of the Cossacks.
[Sidenote: NAPOLEON LEAVES WARSAW.]
Napoleon continued to pass on with as much speed as possible. He said,
when at St. Helena, that he was nigh being arrested in Silesia.[230]
"But the Prussians," he said, "passed the time in consulting which they
ought to have employed in action. They acted like the Saxons, of whom
Charles XII. said gaily, when he left Dresden, 'They will be
deliberating to-day whether they should have arrested me yesterday.'" If
such an idea was entertained by any one, it may have been by some of the
Tugend-Bund, who might think it no crime to seize on one who made
universal liberty his spoil. But we do not believe that Frederick ever
harboured the thought, while he continued in alliance with France.
Meanwhile, Napoleon continued his journey in secrecy, and with rapidity.
On the 14th December he was at Dresden, where he had a long private
conference with the good old King, who did not feel his gratitude to the
Emperor, as a benefactor, abated by his accumulated misfortunes. The
interview--how different from their last--was held in the hotel where
Buonaparte alighted, and where Augustus came to visit him incognito. On
the 18th, in the evening, he arrived at Paris, where the city had been
for two days agitated by the circulation of the Twenty-ninth Bulletin,
in which the veil, though with a reluctant hand, was raised up to show
the disasters of the Russian war.
It may not be thought minute to mention, that Napoleon and his attendant
had difficulty in procuring admittance to the Tuileries at so late an
hour. The Empress had retired to her private apartment. Two figures
muffled in furs entered the anteroom, and one of them directed his
course to the door of the Empress's sleeping chamber. The lady in
waiting hastened to throw herself betwixt the intruder and the entrance,
but, recognising the Emperor, she shrieked aloud, and alarmed Maria
Louisa, who entered the anteroom. Their meeting was extremely
affectionate, and showed, that, amidst all his late losses, Napoleon had
still domestic happiness within his reach.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DREADFUL STATE OF GRAND ARMY.]
We return to the grand army, or rather to the assemblage of those who
had once belonged to it, for of an army it had scarce the semblance
left. The soldiers of the Imperial Guard, who had hitherto made it their
pride to preserve some degree of discipline, would, after the departure
of Napoleon, give obedience to no one else. Murat, to whom the chief
command had been delegated, seemed scarcely to use it, nor when he did
was he obeyed. If Ney, and some of the Maréchals, still retained
authority, they were only attended to from habit, or because the
instinct of discipline revived when the actual battle drew near. They
could not, however, have offered any effectual defence, nor could they
have escaped actual slaughter and dispersion, had it not been for
Loison's troops, who continued to form the rear-guard, and who, never
having been on the eastern side of the fatal Beresina, had, amid great
suffering, still preserved sufficient discipline to keep their ranks,
behave like soldiers, and make themselves be respected, not only by the
Cossacks, but by Tschaplitz, Witgenstein, and the Russians detached
from the main army, who followed them close, and annoyed them
constantly. The division of Loison remained like a shield, to protect
the disorderly retreat of the main body.
Still, some degree of order is so essential to human society, that, even
in that disorganised mass, the stragglers, which now comprehended almost
the whole army, divided into little bands, who assisted each other, and
had sometimes the aid of a miserable horse, which, when it fell down
under the burden of what they had piled on it, was torn to pieces and
eaten, while life was yet palpitating in its veins. These bands had
chiefs selected from among themselves. But this species of union, though
advantageous on the whole, led to particular evils. Those associated
into such a fraternity, would communicate to none save those of their
own party, a mouthful of rye-dough, which, seasoned with gunpowder for
want of salt, and eaten with a bouillé of horse-flesh, formed the best
part of their food. Neither would they permit a stranger to warm himself
at their fires, and when spoil was found, two of these companies often,
especially if of different countries, fought for the possession of it;
and a handful of meal was a sufficient temptation for putting to death
the wretch who could not defend his booty. The prisoners, it is said
(and we heartily wish the fact could be refuted,) were parked every
night, without receiving any victuals whatever, and perished, like
impounded cattle, from want of food, cold, and the delirious fury which
such treatment inspired. Among these unfortunates some became cannibals,
and the same horrible reproach has been cast on the French
themselves.[231]
To enhance misfortunes so dreadful, the cold, which had been for some
time endurable, increased on the 6th December to the most bitter degree
of frost, being twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees below zero. Many
dropped down and expired in silence, the blood of others was determined
to the head by the want of circulation; it gushed at length from eyes
and mouth, and the wretches sunk down on the gory snow, and were
relieved by death. At the night bivouacs, the soldiers approached their
frozen limbs to the fire so closely, that, falling asleep in that
posture, their feet were scorched to the bone, while their hair was
frozen to the ground. In this condition they were often found by the
Cossacks, and happy were those upon whom the pursuers bestowed a thrust
with the lance to finish their misery. Other horrors there were, which
are better left in silence. Enough has been said to show, that such a
calamity, in such an extent, never before darkened the pages of history.
In this horrible retreat, 20,000 recruits had joined the army since
crossing the Beresina, where, including the corps of Oudinot and Victor,
they amounted to 80,000 men. But of this sum of 80,000 men, one-half
perished betwixt the Beresina and the walls of Wilna.[232]
In such a plight did the army arrive at Wilna, where great provision had
been made for their reception. The magazines were groaning with plenty,
but, as at Smolensk, the administrators and commissioners, terrified for
their own responsibility, dared not issue provisions to a disorderly
mob, who could neither produce authority for drawing rations, nor give a
regular receipt. The famished wretches fell down in the streets before
the magazines, and died there, cursing with their latest breath the
ill-timed punctiliousness of office, which refused to starving men the
morsel that might have saved their lives. In other places of the town,
stores both of provision and liquor were broken open by the desperate
soldiery, plundered and wasted. Numbers became intoxicated, and to
those, as they sunk down in the street, death came before sobriety. The
sick who went to the hospitals found them crowded, not only with the
dying, but with the dead, whose corpses were left to freeze or to
putrefy on the stairs and in the corridors, and sometimes in the
apartments of those who yet survived. Such were the comforts of Wilna,
from which so much had been hoped.
Still, however, some of the citizens, moved by pity or terror, or from
desire of gain (for many soldiers had still about their persons some
remnants of the spoils of Moscow,) were willing to give lodging and food
to these exhausted phantoms, who begged such relief sometimes with
furious threats and imprecations, sometimes in the plaintive tone of men
ready to perish. Distributions began also to be made at the public
stores; and men who for long had not eat a morsel of bread, or reposed
themselves upon any better lair than the frozen earth, or under any
other canopy save that of the snow-fraught sky, deemed it Paradise to
enjoy the most common household comforts, of which we think so little
while we enjoy them, yet are miserable when they are abridged or
withdrawn. Some wept for joy at receiving an ordinary loaf of bread, and
finding themselves at liberty to eat it, seated, and under a roof.
On a sudden the repast, which seemed earnest of a return to safety and
to social life, was disturbed by a distant cannonade, which came nigher
and nigher--then by the fire of musketry--at length by their own drums
beating to arms in the streets. Every alarm was in vain; even the
Imperial Guard no longer attended to the summons. The soldiers were
weary of their lives, and it seemed as if they would have been contented
to perish like the Jews in the wilderness, with their food betwixt their
teeth. At length the distant hourra, and the nearer cry of Cossacks!
Cossacks! which for some time had been their most available signal for
marching, compelled them to tear themselves from their refreshment, and
rush into the street. There they found their rear-guard and Loison,
although they had been reinforced by the body of Bavarians commanded by
Wrede, who had been left on the verge of Volhynia, hurrying into the
town in disorder like men defeated, and learned that they had been
driven back by Witgenstein, with Platoff and other partisan leaders, who
had followed them up to the gates.
[Sidenote: WILNA--KOWNO.]
Wilna, besides the immense magazines belonging to the French army,
contained a vast deposit of wealth and property, which had been left
there in the advance upon Moscow, and, in particular, a quantity of
treasure belonging to Napoleon. The town, though open, might have been
made good till the magazines were destroyed and the baggage removed; but
such was the confusion of the moment, that the Russians forced their way
into the town by one access, whilst the French left it by another,
directing their flight upon Kowno, with the most valuable part of their
baggage, or such as could be most speedily harnessed. The inhabitants of
the town, the lower orders that is, and particularly the Jews, now
thought of propitiating the victors by butchering the wretches whom they
had received into their houses; or, at best, stripping and thrusting
them naked into the streets. For this inhumanity the Jews are said to
have been afterwards punished by the Russians, who caused several of
them to be hanged.
Meanwhile, the flying column had attained a hill and defile, called
Ponari, when the carriages became entangled, and at length one of the
treasure-waggons being overturned, burst, and discovered its contents.
All shadow of discipline was then lost; and, as if to anticipate the
Russians, the French soldiers themselves fell upon the baggage, broke
open the wains, and appropriated their contents. The Cossacks rode up
during the fray, and so rich was the booty, that even they were content
to plunder in company, suspending for the instant their national
animosity, where there seemed wealth enough for all, and no time to lose
in fighting. Yet it is said that the privates of the Imperial Guard
displayed a rare example of honour and discipline. The Count de Turenne,
having beaten off the Cossacks who pressed in, distributed the private
treasure of Napoleon among his guard, the individuals of which
afterwards restored them. "Not a single piece of money," says Ségur,
"was lost." This, however, must be partly imagination; for many of the
guard fell after this, and the Cossacks, who became their executors,
could have had little idea of making restitution.
It is not worth while to trace further the flight of this miserable body
of wanderers. They arrived at length at Kowno, the last town of Russian
Poland, Ney alone endeavouring to give them some military direction and
assistance, while they were at every instant deserting him and
themselves. At Kowno, it seems that about 1000 men were still under
arms, about twenty times that number in total dispersion. The pursuit
of the Russians appeared to cease after the fugitives had recrossed the
Niemen on the ice; they did not choose to push the war into Prussia.
At Gumbinnen, the remaining maréchals and commanders held a council, in
which Murat gave way to the stifled resentment he had long entertained
against his brother-in-law. He had been displeased with Napoleon, for
not severely repressing the insolence with which, as he conceived, he
had been treated by Davoust, and at another time by Ney; and he openly
inveighed against his relative as a madman, upon whose word no reliance
was to be placed. In these moments of anger and mutiny, Murat blamed
himself for rejecting the proposals of the English. Had he not done so,
he said, he might still have been a great king, like the sovereigns of
Austria and Russia. "These kings," answered Davoust, bitterly, "are
monarchs by the grace of God, by the sanction of time, and the course of
custom. But you--you are only a king by the grace of Napoleon, and
through the blood of Frenchmen. You are grossly ungrateful, and as such
I will denounce you to the Emperor."[233] Such was this strange scene,
of which the maréchals were silent witnesses. It served to show how
little unity there was in their councils when the Master Spirit ceased
to preside among them.
From Gumbinnen the French went to show their miseries at Königsberg.
Every where they were coldly, yet not coarsely, treated by the
Prussians, who had before felt their oppression, but did not consider
them in their present state as becoming objects of vengeance. At
Königsberg they learnt the fate of their two extreme wings, which was of
a nature to close all hopes.
On the right of the French original line of advance, Schwartzenberg had
no sooner learned that the Emperor was totally defeated, and his army
irretrievably dispersed, than, in the quality of a mere auxiliary, he
thought himself no longer entitled to hazard a single Austrian life in
the quarrel. There was an armistice concluded between the Austrians and
Russians, by the terms of which they agreed to manœuvre as at a game
of chess, but not to fight. Thus, when the Russians should gain such a
position, as in actual war would have given them an advantage, the
Austrians were under the engagement to retreat; and the campaign
resembled nothing so much as a pacific field-day, in which two generals
in the same service venture upon a trial of skill. Schwartzenberg, by
his manœuvres, protected the French corps under Regnier as long as
possible, obtained good terms for Warsaw, and gained for Regnier three
days advantage, when at last he ceased to cover the place. Having thus
protected his allies to the last, he retired into the Austrian
territories; and although Regnier was finally overtaken and surprised at
Khalish, it could not be imputed to Schwartzenberg's desertion of him,
but to his own making too long a halt to protect some Polish depôts.
The relics of Regnier's army, such at least as fled into the Austrian
territories, were well received there, and afterwards restored to their
own banners. Still the alliance with Austria, which in one sense had
cost Napoleon so dear, was now dissolved, and his right wing totally
dissipated by the defection of his allies. On the left wing matters had
no better, or rather, they had a much worse appearance.
[Sidenote: PRECARIOUS STATE OF MACDONALD.]
During the eventful six months of the Russian campaign, Macdonald, who
commanded the left wing, had remained in Courland, with an army of about
30,000 men, of whom 22,000 were Prussians, the rest Germans of different
countries. It would seem that Napoleon had been averse from the
beginning to employ these unwilling auxiliaries upon any service where
their defection might influence the other parts of his army. Yet they
behaved well upon several occasions, when Macdonald had occasion to
repel the attacks and sallies of the numerous garrison of Riga, and
their active exertions enabled him to save the park of heavy artillery
destined for the siege of that place, which had almost fallen into the
hands of the Russian general Lewis, at Mittau, on the 29th of September.
But on this occasion, though having every reason to be pleased with the
soldiers, Macdonald saw room to suspect their leader, D'Yorck, of
coldness to the French cause. That officer was, indeed, engaged in a
service which at heart he detested. He was one of the Tugend-Bund, so
often mentioned, an ardent Prussian patriot, and eager to free his
native country from a foreign yoke. He therefore eagerly watched for a
plausible opportunity when he might, without dishonour, disunite his
forces from those of the French maréchal.
About the beginning of December, the situation of Macdonald became
precarious. Nothing was heard on every side, save of the rout and
disasters of the French grand army, and the maréchal anxiously expected
orders for a retreat while it was yet open to him. But such was the
confusion at the headquarters after the Emperor's departure, that
neither Murat nor Berthier thought of sending the necessary authority to
Macdonald; and when they did, though the order to retreat might have
reached him in five days, it was ten days on the road.
He commenced his retreat upon Tilsit, his vanguard consisting of
Massenbach's Prussian division, chiefly cavalry, he himself following
with the Bavarians, Saxons, &c., and D'Yorck bringing up the rear with
15,000 Prussians, the residue of that auxiliary army. In this order,
with the Prussians divided into two corps, and his own posted between
them, as if to secure against their combining, the maréchal marched on
in sufficient anxiety, but without complaint on his side, or
difficulties on that of the Prussian general. But when the maréchal,
upon 28th January, arrived at Tilsit, which was in the line of their
retreat, and had sent forward the cavalry of Massenbach as far as
Regnitz, the troops of D'Yorck in the rear had detached themselves so
far that Macdonald was obliged to halt for them. He sent letters to
D'Yorck, pressing him to come up--he sent to the cavalry of Massenbach
in the van, commanding them to return. From D'Yorck came no answer. At
Regnitz, the French general, Bachelu, who had been sent to act as
adjutant-general with Massenbach's corps, could find no obedience. The
colonels of the Prussian cavalry objected to the weather, and the state
of the roads; they would not give the order to sound to horse; and when
the horses were at length reluctantly ordered out and produced, the
soldiers were equally restive, they would not mount. While the Prussian
troops were in this state of mutiny, a Russian emissary was heard to
press them to deliver up the Frenchman; but the soldiers, though
resolved to leave Bachelu, would not betray him. The proposal shocked
their feelings of honour, and they mounted and marched back to Tilsit,
to restore Bachelu to Macdonald's army. But their purpose was unchanged.
As at Regnitz they had refused to mount their horses, so at Tilsit they
refused to alight. At length they were prevailed upon to dismount and
retire to their quarters, but it was only a feint; for, shortly after
they were supposed asleep, the Prussians mounted in great silence, and,
with Massenbach and their officers at their head, marched off to join
their countrymen under D'Yorck.
That general had, now and for ever, separated his troops from the
French. Upon 30th December, he had concluded an armistice with the
Russian general, Dibbeitsch. By this agreement, the Prussian troops were
to be cantoned in their own territories, and remain neutral for two
months; at the end of that period, if their king so determined, they
should be at liberty to rejoin the French troops. Both D'Yorck and
Massenbach wrote to Macdonald, announcing their secession from his army.
D'Yorck contented himself with stating, that he cared not what opinion
the world might form on his conduct, it was dictated by the purest
motives--his duty to his troops and to his country. Massenbach expressed
his respect and esteem for General Macdonald, and declared, that his
reason for leaving him without an interview, was the fear he felt that
his personal regard for the Maréchal might have prevented his obeying
the call of duty.
Thus did a Prussian general first set the example of deserting the cause
in which he served so unwillingly--an example which soon spread fast and
far. It was a choice of difficulties on D'Yorck's side, for his zeal as
a patriot was in some degree placed in opposition to the usual ideas of
soldierly honour. But he had not left Macdonald till the Maréchal's
safety, and that of the remainder of his army, was in some measure
provided for. He was out of the Russian territory, and free, or nearly
so, from Russian pursuit. D'Yorck had become neutral, but not the enemy
or his late commander.
Here the question arises, how long were the Prussians to be held bound
to sacrifice their blood for the foreigners, by whom they had been
conquered, pillaged, and oppressed; and to what extent were they bound
to endure adversity for those who had uniformly trampled on them during
their prosperity? One thing, we believe, we may affirm with certainty,
namely, that D'Yorck acted entirely on his own responsibility, and
without any encouragement, direct or indirect, from his sovereign. Nay,
there is room to suppose, that though the armistice of Taurogen was
afterwards declared good service by the King of Prussia, yet D'Yorck was
not entirely forgiven by his prince for having entered into it. It was
one of the numerous cases, in which a subject's departing from the
letter of the sovereign's command, although for that sovereign's more
effectual service, is still a line of conduct less grateful than
implicit obedience. Upon receiving the news, Frederick disavowed the
conduct of his general, and appointed Massenbach and him to be sent to
Berlin for trial. But the officers retained their authority, for the
Prussian army and people considered their sovereign as acting under the
restraint of the French troops under Augereau, who then occupied his
capital.
Macdonald, with the remains of his army, reduced to about 9000 men,
accomplished his retreat to Königsberg after a sharp skirmish.
[Sidenote: CLOSE OF THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION.]
And thus ended the memorable Russian expedition, the first of Napoleon's
undertakings in which he was utterly defeated, and of which we scarce
know whether most to wonder at the daring audacity of the attempt, or
the terrific catastrophe. The loss of the grand army was total, and the
results are probably correctly stated by Boutourlin as follows:--
Slain in battle, 125,000
Died from fatigue, hunger, and the severity of the
climate, 132,000
Prisoners, comprehending 48 generals, 3000 officers,
and upwards of 190,000 men, 193,000
--------
Total, 450,000
The relics of the troops which escaped from that overwhelming disaster,
independent of the two auxiliary armies of Austrians and Prussians, who
were never much engaged in its terrors, might be about 40,000 men, of
whom scarcely 10,000 were Frenchmen.[234] The Russians, notwithstanding
the care that was taken to destroy these trophies, took seventy-five
eagles, colours, or standards, and upwards of 900 pieces of cannon.
Thus had the greatest military captain of the age, at the head of an
innumerable array, rushed upon his gigantic adversary, defeated his
army, and destroyed, or been the cause of the destruction of his
capital, only to place himself in a situation where the ruin of nearly
the whole of his own force, without even the intervention of a general
action, became the indispensable price of his safe return.
[Sidenote: CAUSES OF THE CATASTROPHE.]
The causes of this total and calamitous failure lay in miscalculations,
both moral and physical, which were involved in the first concoction of
the enterprise, and began to operate from its very commencement. We are
aware that this is, with the idolaters of Napoleon, an unpalatable view
of the case. They believe, according to the doctrine which he himself
promulgated, that he could be conquered by the elements alone. This was
what he averred in the twenty-ninth bulletin. Till the 6th November he
stated that he had been uniformly successful. The snow then fell, and in
six days destroyed the character of the army, depressed their courage,
elated that of the "despicable" Cossacks, deprived the French of
artillery, baggage, and cavalry, and reduced them, with little aid from
the Russians, to the melancholy state in which they returned to Poland.
This opinion Napoleon wished to perpetuate in a medal, on which the
retreat from Moscow is represented by the figure of Eolus blowing upon
the soldiers, who are shown shrinking from the storm, or falling under
it. The same statement he always supported; and it is one of those
tenets which his extravagant admirers are least willing to relinquish.
Three questions, however, remain to be examined ere we can subscribe to
this doctrine.--I. Does the mere fall of snow, nay, a march through a
country covered with it, necessarily, and of itself, infer the extent of
misfortune here attributed to its agency?--II. Was not the possibility
of such a storm a contingency which ought in reason to have entered into
Napoleon's calculations?--III. Was it the mere severity of the
snow-storm, dreadful as it was, which occasioned the destruction of
Buonaparte's army; or, did not the effects of climate rather come in to
aid various causes of ruin, which were inherent in this extravagant
expedition from the very beginning, and were operating actively, when
the weather merely came to their assistance?
On the first question it is needless to say much. A snow, accompanied
with hard frost, is not necessarily destructive to a retreating army.
The weaker individuals must perish, but, to the army, it affords, if
they are provided for the season, better opportunities of moving than
rainy and open weather. In the snow, hard frozen upon the surface, as it
is in Russia and Canada, the whole face of the country becomes a road;
and an army, lightly equipped, and having sledges instead of wains, may
move in as many parallel columns as they will, instead of being
confined, as in moist weather, to one high-road, along which the
divisions must follow each other in succession. Such an extension of the
front, by multiplying the number of marching columns, must be
particularly convenient to an army which, like that of Napoleon, is
obliged to maintain itself as much as possible at the expense of the
country. Where there are only prolonged columns, following each other
over the same roads, the marauders from the first body must exhaust the
country on each side; so that the corps which follow must send their
purveyors beyond the ground which has been already pillaged, until at
length the distance becomes so great, that the rearward must satisfy
themselves with gleaning after the wasteful harvest of those who have
preceded them. Supposing six, eight, or ten columns marching in parallel
lines upon the same front, and leaving an interval betwixt each, they
will cover six, eight, or ten times the breadth of country, and of
course supply themselves more plentifully, as well as much more easily.
Such columns, keeping a parallel front, can, if attacked, receive
reciprocal aid by lateral movements more easily than when assistance
must be sent from the van to the rear of one long moving line; and the
march being lateral on such occasions, does not infer the loss of time,
and other inconveniences inferred by a counter-march from the front to
support the rear. Lastly, the frost often renders bridges unnecessary,
fills ravines, and makes morasses passable; thus compensating, in some
degree, to a marching army, for the rigorous temperature to which it
subjects them.
But, 2dly, It may be asked, if frost and snow are so irresistible and
destructive in Russia, as to infer the destruction of whole armies, why
did not these casualties enter into the calculations of so great a
general entering on such an immense undertaking? Does it never snow in
Russia, or is frost a rare phenomenon there in the month of November? It
is said that the cold weather began earlier than usual. This, we are
assured, was not the case; but, at any rate, it was most unwise to
suffer the safety of an army, and an army of such numbers and
importance, to depend on the mere chance of a frost setting in a few
days sooner or later.[235]
The fact is, that Napoleon, whose judgment was seldom misled save by the
ardour of his wishes, had foreseen, in October, the coming of the frost,
as he had been aware, in July, of the necessity of collecting sufficient
supplies of food for his army, yet without making adequate provision
against what he knew was to happen, in either case. In the 22d bulletin,
it is intimated, that the Moskwa, and other rivers of Russia, might be
expected to be frozen over about the middle of November, which ought to
have prepared the Emperor for the snow and frost commencing five or six
days sooner; which actually took place. In the 26th bulletin, the
necessity of winter-quarters is admitted, and the Emperor is represented
as looking luxuriously around him, to consider whether he should choose
them in the south of Russia, or in the friendly country of Poland. The
weather is then stated to be fine, "but on the first days of November
cold was to be expected. Winter-quarters, therefore, must be thought
upon; the cavalry, above all, stand in need of them."
It is impossible that he, under whose eye, or by whose hand, these
bulletins were drawn up, could have been surprised by the arrival of
snow on the 6th November. It was a probability foreseen, though left
unprovided for.
Even the most ordinary precaution, that of rough-shoeing the horses of
the cavalry and the draught-horses, was totally neglected; for the
bulletins complain of the shoes being smooth. This is saying, in other
words, that the animals had not been new-shod at all; for French horses
may be termed always rough-shod, until the shoes are grown old and worn
smooth through use. If, therefore, frost and snow be so very dangerous
to armies, Napoleon wilfully braved their rigour, and by his want of due
preparations, brought upon himself the very disaster of which he
complained so heavily.
Thirdly, Though unquestionably the severity of the frost did greatly
increase the distress and loss of an army suffering under famine,
nakedness, and privations of every kind, yet it was neither the first,
nor, in any respect, the principal, cause of their disasters. The reader
must keep in remembrance the march through Lithuania, in which, without
a blow struck, Napoleon lost 10,000 horses at once, and nearly 100,000
men, when passing through a country which was friendly. Did this loss,
which happened in June and July, arise from the premature snow, as it
has been called, of the 6th of November? No, surely. It arose from what
the bulletin itself describes as "the uncertainty, the distresses, the
marches and counter-marches of the troops, their fatigues and
sufferances;" to the system, in short, of forced marches, by which,
after all, Napoleon was unable to gain any actual advance. This cost him
one-fourth, or nearly so, of his army, before a blow was struck. If we
suppose that he left on both his flanks, and in his rear, a force of
100,000 men, under Macdonald, Schwartzenberg, Oudinot, and others, he
commenced the actual invasion of Russia Proper with 200,000 soldiers. A
moiety of this large force perished before he reached Moscow, which he
entered at the head of less than 100,000 men. The ranks had been thinned
by fatigue, and the fields of battle and hospitals must answer for the
remainder. Finally, Napoleon left Moscow on the 19th October, as a place
where he could not remain, and yet from which he saw no safe mode of
exit. He was then at the head of about 120,000 men; so much was his army
recruited by convalescents, the collection of stragglers, and some
reserves which had been brought up. He fought the unavailing though most
honourably sustained battle of Malo-Yarowslavetz; failed in forcing his
way to Kalouga and Toula; and, like a stag at bay, was forced back on
the wasted and broken-up road to Smolensk by Borodino. On this road was
fought the battle of Wiazma, in which the French loss was very
considerable; and his columns were harassed by the Cossacks at every
point of their march, and many thousands of prisoners were taken. Two
battles so severely fought, besides the defeat of Murat and constant
skirmishes, cost the French, in killed and wounded, (and every wounded
man was lost to Napoleon,) not less than 25,000 men; and so far had the
French army been diminished.
This brought him to the 6th November, until which day not a flake had
fallen of that snow to which all his disasters are attributed, but which
in fact did not commence until he had in a great measure experienced
them. By this time also, his wings and reserves had undergone severe
fighting and great loss, without any favourable results. Thus, wellnigh
three-fourths of his original army were destroyed, and the remnant
reduced to a most melancholy and disorderly condition, before
commencement of the storm to which he found it afterwards convenient to
impute his calamities. It is scarcely necessary to notice, that when the
snow did begin to fall, it found Napoleon not a victor, but a fugitive,
quitting ground before his antagonists, and indebted for his safety, not
to the timidity of the Russians, but to the over-caution of their
general. The Cossacks, long before the snow-tempest commenced, were
muttering against Koutousoff for letting these skeletons, as they called
the French army, walk back into a bloodless grave.
When the severe frost came, it aggravated greatly the misery, and
increased the loss, of the French army. But Winter was only the ally of
the Russians; not, as has been contended, their sole protectress. She
rendered the retreat of the grand army more calamitous, but it had
already been an indispensable measure; and was in the act of being
executed at the lance-point of the Cossacks, before the storms of the
north contributed to overwhelm the invaders.
What, then, occasioned this most calamitous catastrophe? We venture to
reply, that a moral error, or rather a crime, converted Napoleon's
wisdom into folly; and that he was misled, by the injustice of his
views, into the great political, nay, military errors, which he acted
upon in his attempt to realize them.[236]
We are aware there are many who think that the justice of a quarrel is
of little moment, providing the aggressor has strength and courage to
make good what his adversary murmurs against as wrong. With such
reasoners, the race is uniformly to the swift, and the battle to the
strong; and they reply to others with the profane jest of the King of
Prussia, that the Deity always espouses the cause of the most powerful.
But the maxim is as false as it is impious. Without expecting miracles
in this later age, we know that the world is subjected to moral as well
as physical laws, and that the breach of the former frequently carries
even a temporal punishment along with it. Let us try by this test the
conduct of Napoleon in the Russian war.
The causes assigned for his breach with Russia, unjust in their essence,
had been put upon a plan of settlement; yet his armies continued to bear
down upon the frontiers of the Russian Empire; so that to have given up
the questions in dispute, with the French bayonets at his breast, would
have been on the part of Alexander a surrender of the national
independence. The demands of Napoleon, unjust in themselves, and
attempted to be enforced by means of intimidation, it was impossible for
a proud people, and a high-spirited prince, to comply with. Thus the
first act of Buonaparte went to excite a national feeling, from the
banks of the Boristhenes to the wall of China, and to unite against him
the wild and uncivilized inhabitants of an extended empire, possessed by
a love to their religion, their government, and their country, and
having a character of stern devotion, which he was incapable of
estimating. It was a remarkable characteristic of Napoleon, that when he
had once fixed his opinion, he saw every thing as he wished to see it,
and was apt to dispute even realities, if they did not coincide with his
preconceived ideas. He had persuaded himself, that to beat an army and
subdue a capital, was, with the influence of his personal ascendency,
all that was necessary to obtain a triumphant peace. He had especially a
confidence in his own command over the minds of such as he had been
personally intimate with. Alexander's disposition, he believed, was
perfectly known to him; and he entertained no doubt, that by beating his
army, and taking his capital, he should resume the influence which he
had once held over the Russian Emperor, by granting him a peace upon
moderate terms, and in which the acknowledgment of the victor's
superiority would have been the chief advantage stipulated. For this he
hurried on by forced marches, losing so many thousands of men and horses
in Lithuania, which an attention to ordinary rules would have saved from
destruction. For this, when his own prudence, and that of his council,
joined in recommending a halt at Witepsk or at Smolensk, he hurried
forward to the fight, and to the capture of the metropolis, which he had
flattered himself was to be the signal of peace. His wishes were
apparently granted. Borodino, the bloodiest battle of our battling age,
was gained--Moscow was taken--but he had totally failed to calculate the
effect of these events upon the Russians and their emperor. When he
expected their submission, and a ransom for their capital, the city was
consumed in his presence; yet even the desertion and destruction of
Moscow could not tear the veil from his eyes, or persuade him that the
people and their prince would prefer death to disgrace. It was his
reluctance to relinquish the visionary hopes which egotism still induced
him to nourish, that prevented his quitting Moscow a month earlier than
he did. He had no expectation that the mild climate of Fontainbleau
would continue to gild the ruins of Moscow till the arrival of December;
but he could not forego the flattering belief, that a letter and
proposal of pacification must at last fulfil the anticipations which he
so ardently entertained. It was only the attack upon Murat that finally
dispelled this hope.
Thus a hallucination, for such it may be termed, led this great soldier
into a train of conduct, which, as a military critic, he would have been
the first to condemn, and which was the natural consequence of his deep
moral error. He was hurried by this self-opinion, this ill-founded trust
in the predominance of his own personal influence, into a gross neglect
of the usual and prescribed rules of war. He put in motion an immense
army, too vast in numbers to be supported either by the supplies of the
country through which they marched, or by the provisions they could
transport along with them. And when, plunging into Russia, he defeated
her armies and took her metropolis, he neglected to calculate his line
of advance on such an extent of base, as should enable him to
consolidate his conquests, and turn to real advantage the victories
which he attained. His army was but precariously connected with
Lithuania when he was at Moscow, and all communication was soon
afterwards entirely destroyed. Thus, one unjust purpose, strongly and
passionately entertained, marred the councils of the wise, and rendered
vain the exertions of the brave. We may read the moral in the words of
Claudian,
"Jam non ad culmina rerum
Injustos crevisse queror; tolluntur in altum,
Ut lapsu graviore ruant."
CLAUDIAN, _in Rufinum_, Lib. i., v. 21.
FOOTNOTES:
[222] "For a long time we had had no news from France; we were ignorant
of what was going on in the grand duchy; we were informed of it at
Malodeczno. Napoleon received nineteen despatches at once."--RAPP, p.
249.
[223] The reader will find the details of this singular attempt in the
succeeding chapter.
[224] "Napoleon passed through the crowd of his officers, who were drawn
up in an avenue as he passed, bidding them adieu merely by forced and
melancholy smiles; their good wishes, equally silent, and expressed only
by respectful gestures, he carried with him. He and Caulaincourt shut
themselves up in a carriage; his Mameluke and Wakasowitch, captain of
his guard, occupied the box; Duroc and Lobau followed in a
sledge."--SÉGUR, tom. ii., p. 337.
[225] Ségur, tom. ii., p. 320.
[226] Histoire de l'Ambassade dans le Grand Duché de Varsovi, en 1812,
p. 207.
[227] This alludes to exaggerated reports circulated by Marat, Duke of
Bassano, then residing at Wilna, of a pretended victory obtained by
Napoleon, at the passage at Studzianka.--S.
[228] "Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas?"
[229] "He certainly had a long conversation with me, which he
misrepresents, as might be expected; and it was at the very moment when
he was delivering a long prosing speech, which appeared to me a mere
string of absurdity and impertinence, that I scrawled on the corner of
the chimney-piece the order to withdraw him from his embassy, and to
send him as soon as possible to France; a circumstance which was the
cause of a good deal of merriment at the time, and which the abbé seems
very desirous of concealing."--NAPOLEON, _Las Cases_, tom. ii., p. 94.
[230] "In Silesia, Napoleon was very nearly taken prisoner by the
Prussians; and at Dresden, he only escaped a plot for his seizure,
because Lord Walpole, who was at Vienna, dared not give the
signal."--FOUCHÉ, tom. ii., p. 117.
[231] Ségur, tom. ii., p. 341.
[232] Ségur, tom. ii., p. 351.
[233] Ségur, tom. ii., p. 371.
[234] "Of 400,000 men in arms, who had crossed the Niemen, scarcely
30,000 repassed that river five months afterwards, and of those
two-thirds had not seen the Kremlin."--FOUCHÉ, tom. ii., p. 118.
[235] "Sir Walter takes great pains to prove that the extraordinary
severity of the winter was not the principal cause of this frightful
catastrophe. He is facetious about the snow, to which he believes, or
pretends to believe, that the twenty-ninth bulletin attributes the
disaster; whereas, it was not the snow alone, but a cold of thirty
degrees below zero. And have we not often known, in the severe winters
of the north of France, where the cold is slight in comparison with that
of Russia--travellers to perish under the snow? How then can it be
denied that the extreme severity of the winter was the cause of the
disaster?"--LOUIS BUONAPARTE.
[236] "Sir Walter Scott has not, in this outrage against Napoleon, the
merit of novelty: and what is more painful, French writers have been
guilty of repeating the ridiculous accusation. What! he who threw
himself upon his gigantic adversary at the head of an innumerable army,
and conducted it six hundred leagues from his country; who defeated all
the armies of his enemy--burned his capital, or was the cause of its
destruction--had such a man lost his senses? The expedition to Russia,
according to common rules, was ill-judged and rash, and the more so when
undertaken without the basis of Poland; and when we consider the
formation of the grand army, composed of so many different nations, and
that Napoleon persisted in the project in spite of all obstacles, and
the disapprobation of the majority of his greatest generals, we are
astonished how he succeeded in invading a great portion of the vast
territory of Russia, and penetrated as far as the capital of that
empire. Whatever his enemies may assert, had it not been for the
extraordinary havoc of the winter, the grand army would have returned to
the frontiers of Poland, established itself on that line, and menaced
the Russian empire anew, and in a more definitive manner, during the
following campaign."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 86.