multitude heaped upon the bank pell-mell with the horses and carriages,
formed there a most alarming encumbrance. It was about the middle of the
day that the first Russian balls fell into the midst of this chaos, and
they were the signal of universal despair.
Then it was, as in all cases of extremity, that the real dispositions of
men exhibited themselves without disguise, and actions were witnessed,
some of them the most base, and others the most noble and even sublime.
In accordance with their character, some furious and determined, with
sword in hand, cleared for themselves a horrible passage. Others, still
more cruel, opened a way for their wagons by driving them without mercy
over the crowds of unfortunate persons who stood in their way, and
crushed them to death. Their detestable avarice made them sacrifice
their companions in misfortune to the preservation of their baggage.
Others again, seized with a pusillanimous terror, wept, supplicated, and
sank under the influence of a passion which completed the exhaustion of
their strength. Some were observed (and these were principally the sick
and wounded) who, renouncing life, went aside, and, resigned to their
fate, sat themselves down, gazing with a fixed and motionless eye on the
snow which was shortly to be their winding-sheet.
Numbers of those who started first among this crowd of desperadoes,
missing the bridge, attempted to scale it by the sides, but the greater
part were pushed into the river. There were seen women in the midst of
the stream and among the masses of floating ice, with their children in
their arms, raising them by degrees as they felt themselves sinking, and
when completely submerged, their stiffened arms still holding them above
the water.
In the midst of this horrible disorder, the artillery bridge gave way
and broke down. The column entangled in this narrow passage in vain
attempted to retrograde. The crowds which were following behind,
ignorant of the calamity, and not hearing the cries of those before
them, kept urging them on until they pushed them into the gulf, into
which they in their turn were precipitated.
Every one then attempted to pass by the other bridge. A great number of
large ammunition wagons, heavy carriages and cannon crowded to it from
all parts. Pressed on by their drivers and carried rapidly along over a
rough and unequalled declivity, in the midst of masses of men, they
ground to pieces the poor wretches who were unfortunate enough to get
between them, until at length the greater part, furiously encountering
each other, were overturned, killing in their fall those who were around
them. Multitudes pressed against these obstacles, and becoming entangled
among them, were thrown down, and crushed to pieces by other multitudes
as they successively stumbled upon them.
Thus these miserable creatures were rolling one upon the other, and
nothing was heard but cries of rage and of anguish. In this frightful
confusion, those who were trodden and crushed under the feet of their
companions, struggling to lay hold of them with their nails and teeth,
were, like so many enemies, trampled upon without mercy.
Among them were wives and mothers, calling in tones of distraction upon
their husbands and their children, from whom they had been separated but
a moment before, never again to be united. Stretching out their arms,
they entreated to be allowed to pass in order to rejoin them: but they
were hurried backward and forward with the crowd, until at length,
overcome by the pressure, they sank without being so much as noticed.
Amid the howling of a violent tempest, the discharge of cannon, the
whistling of balls, the explosion of shells, vociferations, groans, and
frightful oaths, this infuriated crowd heard not the cries of the
victims it was swallowing up.
The more fortunate gained the bridge by scrambling over heaps of
wounded, of women and children thrown down and half suffocated, whom
they again trampled beneath their feet in their attempts to reach it.
When at last they reached the narrow defile, they fancied that they were
safe; but the fall of a horse, or the breaking or displacing of a plank,
again arrested everything.
There was also at the outlet of the bridge, on the other side, a morass,
into which many horses and carriages had sunk, a circumstance which
greatly embarrassed and retarded the entrance. Then it was that, in that
infuriated column, crowded together, on a single plank of safety, there
arose a terrible struggle, in which the weakest least fortunately
situated were plunged into the river by their more powerful or more
successful comrades. The latter, without so much as turning their
heads, and hurried along by the instinct of self-preservation, pushed on
towards the goal with unabated fury, regardless of the imprecations of
rage and despair uttered by their companions or officers whom they had
thus sacrificed.
But, on the other hand, how many noble instances there were of devotion!
and why are time and space denied me to relate them? Soldiers, and even
officers, harnessed themselves to sledges, to snatch from that fatal
bank their sick or wounded comrades. Farther off, and out of reach of
the crowd, were seen soldiers, motionless and watching over their dying
commanders, who had confided themselves to their care: in vain did the
latter conjure them to think only of their own preservation; they
refused; and sooner than abandon their expiring leaders, resolved to
take their chance of slavery or death.
Above the first passage, where young Lauriston had thrown himself into
the river, in order more promptly to execute the orders of Napoleon, a
little boat, carrying a mother and her two children, was upset and sank
under the ice: an artilleryman, who, like the others, was struggling on
the bridge to open a passage for himself, observed the accident, and all
at once, unmindful of his own life, he threw himself into the river, and
by great exertion succeeded in saving one of the three victims. It was
the youngest of the two children: the poor little thing kept calling for
his mother in tones of despair, when the brave artilleryman was heard
telling him "not to cry; that he had not rescued him from the water only
to desert him on the bank; that he should want for nothing; and that he
would be his father and his family."
The night of the 28th added to all these calamities. Its darkness was
insufficient to conceal from the artillery of the Russians its miserable
victims. Amid the snow, which covered everything, the course of the
river, the black mass of men, horses, and carriages, and the noise
proceeding from them, were enough to enable the enemy's artillerymen
unerringly to direct their fire.
At about nine o'clock in the evening their desolation became complete,
when Victor commencing his retreat, his divisions opened for themselves
a passage through these despairing wretches, whom they had till then
been protecting. A rear guard, however, having been left, the multitude,
benumbed with cold, or still anxious to preserve their baggage, refused
to avail themselves of the last night for crossing to the opposite
shore. In vain were their wagons set fire to, in order to tear them from
them; it was only the appearance of daylight which brought them again,
but too late, to the entrance of the bridge, which they once more
besieged. At half past eight in the morning, seeing the Russians
approaching, General Eble set fire to it by Napoleon's orders; then
those who were left on the eastern side of the river "realized that they
had lost their last chance."
A multitude of wagons and of cannon, several thousand men and women, and
some children, were thus abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen
wandering in desolate troops on the borders of the river. Some plunged
into it in order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the
pieces of ice which were floating along; and some there were who threw
themselves headlong upon the timbers of the burning bridge, which,
sinking under them, exposed them at the same time to the horrors of a
twofold death. Shortly after, the bodies of many of these unfortunate
creatures, wedged in the ice, were seen collecting against the trestles
of the bridge. The rest awaited the Russians. The Russian general did
not show himself upon the heights until an hour after Eble's departure;
and without having gained a victory, he reaped all the fruits of one.
Napoleon remained till the last moment on these melancholy banks, near
the ruins of Brilowa, unsheltered and at the head of his guard,
one-third of which was destroyed by the storm. During the day they stood
to their arms, and were drawn up in order of battle; at night they
bivouacked in a square round their leader; and there the old grenadiers
incessantly kept feeding their fires. They sat on their knapsacks, with
their elbows planted upon their knees, and their hands supporting their
heads; slumbering in this manner, doubled upon themselves, that one limb
might warm the other, and that they might feel less the emptiness of
their stomachs.
About these bivouacs were collected men of all classes, of all ranks, of
all ages; ministers, generals, administrators. Among them was remarked
an elderly nobleman of by-gone days, when light and brilliant graces
held sovereign sway. This general officer of sixty was seen sitting on
the snow-covered trunk of some tree, occupying himself with unruffled
gayety every morning in adjusting the details of his toilet: in the
midst of a hurricane he had his hair elegantly dressed, and powdered
with the nicest care, amusing himself in this manner with all our
calamities, and with the fury of the elements which assailed him.
Near him were officers of scientific corps, still finding subjects for
discussion. Imbued with the spirit of an age which a few discoveries
have encouraged to hope for explanations of everything, these
individuals, amid the acute sufferings we were enduring from the north
wind, were seeking to divine the cause of its unvarying direction. The
theory was advanced that, since his departure for the antarctic pole,
the sun, by heating the southern hemisphere, had rarefied all its
currents of air, elevated them, and left on the surface of that zone a
vacuum, into which the currents of air of ours, which were lower on
account of being more dense, were violently rushing. That thus the
northern pole, loaded with these denser vapors, which had been
collecting and cooling since the preceding summer, was discharging them
by an impetuous and icy current, which swept over the Russian territory,
and stiffened or destroyed everything it encountered in its course.
Others of these officers were remarking with curious attention the
regular six-sided crystallization of each one of the flakes of snow
which covered their garments.
The phenomena of the simultaneous appearance of several distinct images
of the sun, reflected to the eye by means of the icy particles suspended
in the atmosphere, was also a subject for observation, and several times
momentarily diverted their thoughts from their sufferings.
Sec. 22. Napoleon abandons the Grand Army and sets out for Paris.
On the 29th the emperor quitted the banks of the Berezina, pushing on
before him the crowd of disbanded soldiers, and marching with the ninth
corps, which was already disorganized. The day before, the second and
ninth corps and Dombrowski's division presented a total of fourteen
thousand men; and now, with the exception of about six thousand, they
had no longer any form of division, brigade, or regiment.
Night, hunger, cold, the fall of many of their officers, the loss of the
baggage on the other side of the river, the example of such a number of
runaways, and the much more revolting sight of the wounded abandoned on
both sides of the river, and left weltering in despair on the snow,
which was dyed with their blood: everything, in short, contributed to
discourage them; and they were now confounded with the mass of disbanded
men who had come from Moscow.
The whole still formed sixty thousand men, but without the least order
or unity. All marched pell-mell, cavalry, infantry, artillery, French
and Germans: there was no longer either wing or centre. The artillery
and carriages drove on through this tumultuous crowd with no other
instructions than to proceed as rapidly as possible.
On the 3d of December Napoleon arrived in the morning at
Malodeczno,[176] which was the last point where the Russian general,
Tchitchakoff was likely to get the start of him. Some provisions were
found there, the forage was abundant, the day beautiful, the sun bright,
and the cold bearable. There also the couriers, who had been so long
kept back, arrived all at once. The Poles were immediately directed
onward to Warsaw through Olita, and the dismounted cavalry by Merecz to
the Niemen; while the rest of the army was to follow the high road,
which they had again regained.
Up to that time Napoleon seemed to have entertained no idea of quitting
his army. But about the middle of that day he suddenly informed Daru and
Duroc of his determination to set off immediately for Paris.
Daru did not see the necessity of it. He objected "that the
communication with France was again opened, and the most dangerous
crisis passed; and that at every retrograde step he would now be meeting
the re-enforcements sent him from Paris and from Germany." The emperor's
reply was, "that he no longer felt himself sufficiently strong to leave
Prussia between him and France. And besides, what necessity was there
for his remaining at the head of a routed army? Murat and Eugene would
be sufficient to direct it, and Ney to cover its retreat.
"His return to France had become indispensable, in order to secure her
tranquillity and to summon her to arms; to take measures there for
keeping the Germans steady in their fidelity to him; and, finally, to
return with fresh and adequate forces to the assistance of his Grand
Army.
"But, in order to effect these objects, it was necessary that he should
travel alone over four hundred leagues of the territories of his allies:
and that he might do so without danger, his resolution should be there
unforeseen, his passage unknown, and the rumor of his disastrous retreat
still uncertain; that he would, in short, precede the news of it, and
anticipate the effect it might produce on them, and the defections to
which it might give rise. He had, therefore, no time to lose, and the
moment for his departure had already arrived."
Such were the motives assigned by Napoleon; and General Caulaincourt
immediately received orders secretly to prepare for his departure. The
rendezvous was fixed at Smorgoni,[177] and the time the night of the 5th
of December.
When Napoleon reached Smorgoni all the marshals were summoned. As they
successively entered, he took each one aside in private, and first of
all secured their approbation of his plan, gaining some by his
arguments, and others by confidential communications.
His manner was kind and flattering to them all; and afterward, having
assembled them at his table, he complimented them for their brilliant
actions during the campaign. As to himself, the only confession he made
of his temerity was couched in these words: "If I had been born to the
throne, if I had been a Bourbon, it would have been easy for me not to
have committed any faults."
When their interview was over, he made Prince Eugene read to them his
twenty-ninth bulletin; after which, declaring aloud what he had confided
to each of them privately, he told them "that he was about to depart
that very night with Duroc, Caulaincourt and Lobau, for Paris; that his
presence there was indispensable for France as well as for the remains
of his unfortunate army. It was there only that he could take measures
for keeping the Austrians and Prussians in check. These nations would
certainly pause before they declared war against him, when they saw him
at the head of the French nation, and a fresh army of twelve hundred
thousand men."
He added, that "he had ordered Ney to proceed to Wilna, there to
reorganize the army; that Rapp would second him, and afterward go to
Dantzic, Lauriston to Warsaw, and Narbonne to Berlin; that his own guard
would remain with the army; but that it would be necessary to strike a
blow at Wilna, and stop the enemy there. There they would find
re-enforcements, provisions, and ammunition of all sorts; that afterward
they would go into winter quarters on the other side of the Niemen; and
that he hoped the Russians would not pass the Vistula before his
return."
He said, in concluding, "I leave the King of Naples to command the army.
I hope that you will yield him the same obedience that you would to
myself, and that the greatest harmony will prevail among you."
As it was now ten o'clock at night, he rose, affectionately pressed
their hands, embraced them all--and departed.
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 escort at first consisted only of Poles, afterwards of the
Neapolitans of the Royal Guard. This corps consisted of between six and
seven hundred men when it left Wilna to meet the emperor: it perished
almost entirely in that short passage, though the winter was its only
adversary. That very night the Russians surprised and afterward
abandoned a town through which the escort had to pass; and Napoleon was
within an hour of falling into that affray.
He met the Duke of Bassano at Miedniki, a village about thirty miles
west of Smorgoni. His first words to him were "that he had no longer an
army; that for several days past he had been marching in the midst of a
troop of disbanded men, wandering to and fro in search of subsistence;
that they might still be rallied by giving them bread, shoes, clothing,
and arms; but that the duke's military administration had anticipated
nothing, and his orders had not been executed." But upon Murat replying,
by showing him a statement of the immense stores of provisions and
clothing collected at Wilna, he exclaimed "that he gave him fresh life;
that he would forthwith give him an order to transmit to Murat and
Berthier, to halt for eight days in that capital, there to rally the
army, and infuse into it sufficient heart and strength to continue the
retreat less deplorably."
The remainder of Napoleon's journey was effected without molestation. He
went round Wilna by its suburbs, crossed Wilkoski, where he exchanged
his carriage for a sleigh, and stopped during the 10th at Warsaw, to ask
the Poles for a levy of ten thousand Cossacks, and to promise them that
he would speedily return at the head of three hundred thousand men. From
thence he rapidly traversed Silesia,[178] visited Dresden and its
monarch, and finally reached Paris, where he suddenly made his
appearance on the 19th of December, two days after the arrival of his
twenty-ninth bulletin.
From Malo-jaroslavetz to Smorgoni, this master of Europe had been no
more than the general of a dying and disbanded army; from Smorgoni to
the Rhine he was an unknown fugitive, travelling through a hostile
country; beyond the Rhine he again found himself the master and the
conqueror of Europe. A brief blast of the gale of prosperity once more
and for the last time swelled his sails.
Meanwhile, his generals, whom he left at Smorgoni, approved of his
departure, and, far from being discouraged, placed all their hopes in
it. The army had now only to flee; the road was open, and the Russian
frontier at a very short distance. They were getting within reach of a
re-enforcement of eighteen thousand men, all fresh troops, of a great
city, and immense magazines. Murat and Berthier, abandoned to
themselves, fancied they were quite competent to direct the flight. But
in the midst of such frightful disorder, it required a Napoleon for a
rallying-point, and he had just disappeared. In the mighty chasm which
he left, Murat was scarcely perceptible.
It was then but too clearly seen that a great man is not to be replaced;
either that the pride of his followers can no longer stoop to obey
another, or that, having always thought of, foreseen, and ordered
everything himself, he had formed good instruments, skilful lieutenants,
but no commanders.
The very first night a general refused to obey. The marshal who
commanded the rear guard was almost the only one who returned to the
royal headquarters. Three thousand men of the Old and the Young Guard
were still there. This was the whole of the Grand Army, and of that
gigantic body there remained nothing but the head. But at the news of
Napoleon's departure, these veterans, spoiled by the habit of being
commanded only by the conqueror of Europe, being no longer supported by
the honor of serving him, and scorning to act as guards to another, gave
way in their turn, and voluntarily fell into disorder.
Henceforward there was no longer fraternity in arms; there was an end to
all society, to all ties; the excess of misery had completely brutified
them. Hunger, devouring hunger, had reduced these unfortunate men to
that brutal instinct of self-preservation which constitutes the sole
understanding of ferocious animals, and which is ready to sacrifice
everything to itself; nature, wild and barbarous around them, seemed to
have communicated to them all its savageness. The strongest despoiled
the weakest; they rushed about the dying, and frequently waited not for
their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have fancied you saw a
famished pack of hounds: they surrounded him, they tore him to pieces,
and quarrelled among themselves for his remains like ravenous dogs.
The greater number, however, preserved sufficient moral strength to
provide for their own safety without injuring others; but this was the
last effort of their virtue. If either leader or comrade fell by their
side or under the wheels of the cannon, in vain did they call for
assistance, in vain did they invoke the names of a common country, a
common religion, and a common cause; they could not even obtain a
passing look. The merciless cold of the climate had passed into their
comrades' hearts: its rigor had contracted their feelings no less than
their features. With the exception of a few of the commanders, all were
absorbed by their sufferings, and terror left no room for compassion.
There were a few, however, who still stood firm, as it were, against
both heaven and earth: these protected and assisted the weakest; but
their number was deplorably small.
Sec. 23. Sufferings of the Grand Army after Napoleon's departure. Arrival
at Wilna.
On the 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky
exhibited a more dreadful appearance. Icy particles were seen floating
in the air, and the birds fell stiff and frozen to the earth. The
atmosphere was motionless and silent: it seemed as if everything in
nature which possessed life and movement, even the wind itself, had been
seized, chained, and, as it were, congealed by a universal death. Not a
word or a murmur was then heard: there was nothing but the gloomy
silence of despair, and the tears which proclaimed it.
We crept along in the midst of this empire of death like doomed spirits.
The dull and monotonous sound of our steps, the cracking of the frost,
and the feeble groans of the dying, were the only interruptions to this
doleful and universal silence. Anger and imprecations there were none,
nor anything which indicated a remnant of warmth; scarcely was strength
enough left to utter a prayer; and most of the men fell without even
complaining, either from weakness or resignation, or because people
complain only when they look for kindness, and fancy they are pitied.