THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
Two mighty and ambitious potentates never fully trust one another.
Under all the shows of diplomatic affection, there remains a thick
rind of reserve or fear. Especially must that be so with men who
spring from a fierce untamed stock. Despite the training of Laharpe,
Alexander at times showed the passions and finesse of a Boyar. And who
shall say that the early Jacobinism and later culture of Napoleon was
more than a veneer spread all too thinly over an Italian _condottiere_
of the Renaissance age? These men were too expert at wiles really to
trust to the pompous assurances of Tilsit and Erfurt. De Maistre tells
us that Napoleon never partook of Alexander's repasts on the banks of
the Niemen. For him Muscovite cookery was suspect.
Amidst the glories of Erfurt, Oudinot saw an incident that revealed
the Czar's hidden feelings. During one of their rides, the Emperors
were stopped by a dyke, which Napoleon's steed refused to take;
accordingly the Marshal had to help it across; but the Czar, proud of
his horsemanship, finally cleared the obstacle with a splendid bound,
though at the cost of a shock which broke his sword-belt. The sword
fell to the ground, and Oudinot was about to hand it to Alexander,
when Napoleon quickly said: "Keep that sword and bring it to me
later": then, turning to the Czar, he added: "You have no objection,
Sire?" A look of surprise and distrust flashed across the Czar's
features; but, resuming his easy bearing, he gave his assent. Later in
the day, Napoleon sent his own sword to Alexander, and thus came off
easily best from an incident which threatened at first to throw him
into the shade. The affair shows the ready wit and mental superiority
of the one man no less than the veiled reserve and uneasiness of the
other.
At the close of 1809, Alexander confessed his inner feeling to
Czartoryski. Napoleon, he said, was a man who would not scruple to use
any means so long as he gained his end: his mental strength was
unquestioned: in the worst troubles he was cool and collected: his
fits of passion were only meant to intimidate: his every act was the
result of calculation: it was absurd to say that his prodigious
exertions would drive him mad: his health was splendid and was equal
to any effort provided that he had eight hours' sleep every day. The
impression left on the ex-Minister was that Alexander understood his
ally thoroughly and _feared him greatly_.[243]
A few days later came Napoleon's request for the hand of the Czar's
sister, a request which Alexander declined with many expressions of
goodwill and regret. What, then, was his surprise to find that, before
the final answer had been returned, Napoleon was in treaty for the
hand of an Austrian Archduchess.[244] This time it was for him to feel
affronted. And so this breathless search for a bride left sore
feelings at both capitals, at Paris because the Czar declined
Napoleon's request, at St. Petersburg because the imperial wooer was
off on another scent before the first had given out.
Alexander's annoyance was increased by his ally's doubtful behaviour
about Poland. After the recent increase of the Duchy of Warsaw he had
urged Napoleon to make a declaration that "the Kingdom of Poland shall
never be re-established." This matter was being discussed side by side
with the matrimonial overtures; and, after their collapse, Napoleon
finally declined to give this assurance which Alexander felt needful
for checking the rising hopes of Poles and Lithuanians. The utmost the
French Emperor would do was to promise, _in a secret clause_, that he
would never aid any other Power or any popular movement that aimed at
the re-establishment of that kingdom.[245] In fact, as the Muscovite
alliance was on the wane, he judged it bad policy to discourage the
Poles, who might do so much for him in case of a Franco-Russian war.
He soon begins to face seriously the prospect of such an event. At the
close of 1810 he writes that the Russians are intrenching themselves
on the Dwina and Dniester, which "shows a bad spirit."
But the great difficulty is Russia's imperfect observation of the
Continental System. He begs the Czar to close his ports against
English ships: 600 of them are wandering about the Baltic, after being
repulsed from its southern shores, in the hope of getting into Russian
harbours. Let Alexander seize their cargoes, and England, now at her
last gasp, must give in. Five weeks later he returns to the charge. It
is not enough to seize British ships; the hated wares get in under
American, Swedish, Spanish, and Portuguese, _even under French flags_.
Of the 2,000 ships that entered the Baltic in 1810, not one was really
a neutral: they were all charged with English goods, with false papers
and _forged certificates of origin manufactured in London_.[246] Any
other unit among earth's millions would have been convinced of the
futility of the whole enterprise, now that his own special devices
were being turned against him. It was not enough to conquer and
enchain the Continent. Every customs officer must be an expert in
manufactures, groceries, documents, and the water-marks of paper, if
he was to detect the new "frauds of the neutral flags."
But Napoleon knew not the word impossible--"a word that exists only in
the dictionary of fools." In fact, his mind, naturally unbending, was
now working more and more in self-made grooves. Of these the deepest
was his commercial warfare; and he pushed on, reckless of Europe and
reckless of the Czar. In the middle of December he annexed the North
Sea coast of Germany, including Oldenburg. The heir to this duchy had
married Alexander's sister, whose hand Napoleon had claimed at Erfurt.
The duke, it is true, was offered the district of Erfurt as an
indemnity; but that proposal only stung the Czar the more. The
deposition of the duke was not merely a personal affront; it was an
infraction of the Treaty of Tilsit which had restored him to his
duchy.
A fortnight later, when as yet he knew not of the Oldenburg incident,
Alexander himself broke that treaty.[247] At the close of 1810 he
declined to admit land-borne goods on the easy terms arranged at
Tilsit, but levied heavy dues on them, especially on the _articles de
luxe_ that mostly hailed from France. Some such step was inevitable.
Unable to export freely to England, Russia had not money enough to buy
costly French goods without disordering the exchange and ruining her
credit. While seeking to raise revenue on French manufactures, the
Czar resolved to admit on easy terms all colonial goods, especially
American. English goods he would shut out as heretofore; and he
claimed that this new departure was well within the limits of the
Treaty of Tilsit. Far different was Napoleon's view: "Here is a great
planet taking a wrong direction. I do not understand its course at
all."[248] Such were his first words on reading the text of the new
ukase. A fatalistic tone now haunts his references to Russia's policy.
On April 2nd he writes: "If Alexander does not quickly stop the
impetus which has been given, he will be carried away by it next year;
and thus war will take place in spite of him, _in spite of me_, in
spite of the interests of France and Russia.... It is an operatic
scene, of which the English are the shifters." What madness! As if
Russia's craving for colonial wares and solvency were a device of the
diabolical islanders.[249] As if his planetary simile were anything
more than a claim that he was the centre of the universe and his will
its guiding and controlling power.
Nevertheless, Russia held on her way. In vain did Alexander explain to
his ally the economic needs of his realm, protest his fidelity to the
Continental System, and beg some consideration for the Duke of
Oldenburg. It was evident that the Emperor of the West would make no
real concession. In fact, the need of domination was the quintessence
of his being. And Maret, Duc de Bassano, who was now his Foreign
Minister, or rather, we should say, the man who wrote and signed his
despatches, revealed the psychological cause of the war which cost the
lives of nearly a million of men, in a note to Lauriston, the French
ambassador at St. Petersburg. Napoleon, he wrote, cared little about
interviews or negotiations unless the movements of his 450,000 men
caused serious concern in Russia, recalled her to the Continental
System as settled at Tilsit, and "brought her back to the state of
inferiority in which she was then."[250]
This was, indeed, the gist of the whole question. Napoleon saw that
Alexander was slipping out of the leading strings of Tilsit, and that
he was likely to come off best from that bargain, which was intended
to confirm the supremacy of the Western Empire. For both potentates
that treaty had been, at bottom, nothing more than a truce. Napoleon
saw in it a means of subjecting the Continent to his commercial code,
and of preparing for a Franco-Russian partition of Turkey. The Czar
hailed it as a breathing space wherein he could reorganize his army,
conquer Finland, and stride towards the Balkans. The Erfurt interview
prolonged the truce; for Napoleon felt the supreme need of stamping
out the Spanish Rising and of postponing the partition of Turkey which
his ally was eager to begin. By the close of 1811 both potentates had
exhausted all the benefits likely to accrue from their alliance.[251]
Napoleon flattered himself that the conquest of Spain was wellnigh
assured, and that England was in her last agonies. On the other hand,
Russia had recovered her military strength, had gained Finland and
planted her foot on the Lower Danube, and now sought to shuffle off
Napoleon's commercial decrees. In fine, the monarch, who at Tilsit had
figured as mere clay in the hands of the Corsican potter, had proved
himself to be his equal both in cunning and tenacity. The seeming dupe
of 1807 now promised to be the victor in statecraft.
Then there was the open sore of Poland. The challenge, on this
subject, was flung down by Napoleon at a diplomatic reception on his
birthday, August 15th, 1811. Addressing the Russian envoy, he
exclaimed: "I am not so stupid as to think that it is Oldenburg which
troubles you. I see that Poland is the question: you attribute to me
designs in favour of Poland. I begin to think that you wish to seize
it. No: if your army were encamped on Montmartre, I would not cede an
inch of the Warsaw territory, not a village, not a windmill." His
fears as to Russia's designs were far-fetched. Alexander's sounding of
the Poles was a defensive measure, seriously undertaken only after
Napoleon's refusal to discourage the Polish nationalists. But it
suited the French Emperor to aver that the quarrel was about Poland
rather than the Continental System, and the scene just described is a
good specimen of his habit of cool calculation even in seemingly
chance outbursts of temper. His rhapsody gained him the ardent support
of the Poles, and was vague enough to cause no great alarm to Austria
and Prussia.[252]
On the next day Napoleon sketched to his Ministers the general plan of
campaign against Russia. The whole of the Continent was to be
embattled against her. On the Hapsburg alliance he might well rely.
But the conduct of Prussia gave him some concern. For a time she
seemed about to risk a war _à outrance_, such as Stein, Fichte, and
the staunch patriots of the Tugendbund ardently craved. Indeed,
Napoleon's threats to this hapless realm seemed for a time to portend
its annihilation. The King, therefore, sent Scharnhorst first to St.
Petersburg and then to Vienna with secret overtures for an alliance.
They were virtually refused. Prudence was in the ascendant at both
capitals; and, as will presently appear, the more sagacious Prussians
soon came to see that a war, in which Napoleon could be enticed into
the heart of Russia, might deal a mortal blow at his overgrown Empire.
Certainly it was quite impossible for Prussia to stay the French
advance. A guerilla warfare, such as throve in Spain, must surely be
crushed in her open plains; and the diffident King returned
Gneisenau's plan of a rising of the Prussian people against Napoleon
with the chilling comment, "Very good as poetry."
Thus, when Napoleon wound up his diplomatic threats by an imperious
summons to side with him or against him, Frederick William was fain to
abide by his terms, sending 20,000 troops against Russia, granting
free passage to Napoleon's army, and furnishing immense supplies of
food and forage, the payment of which was to be settled by some future
arrangement (February, 1812). These conditions seemed to thrust
Prussia down to the lowest circle of the Napoleonic Inferno; and great
was the indignation of her patriots. They saw not that only by
stooping before the western blast could Prussia be saved. To this
topic we shall recur presently, when we treat of the Russian plan of
campaign.
Sweden was less tractable than Napoleon expected. He had hoped that
the deposition of his personal enemy, Gustavus IV., the enthronement
of a feeble old man, Charles XIII., and the choice of Bernadotte as
heir to the Swedish crown, would bring that land back to its
traditional alliance with France. But, on accepting his new dignity,
Bernadotte showed his customary independence of thought by refusing to
promise that he would never bear arms against France--a refusal that
cost him his principality of Ponte Corvo. He at once adopted a forward
Scandinavian policy; and, as the Franco-Russian alliance waned, he
offered Swedish succour to Napoleon if he would favour the acquisition
of Norway by the Court of Stockholm.
The Emperor had himself mooted this project in 1802, but he now
returned a stern refusal (February 25th, 1811), and bade Sweden
enforce the Continental System under pain of the occupation of Swedish
Pomerania by French troops. Even this threat failed to bend the will
of Bernadotte, and the Swedes preferred to forego their troublesome
German province rather than lose their foreign commerce. In the
following January, Napoleon carried out his threat, thereby throwing
Sweden into the arms of Russia. By the treaty of March-April, 1812,
Bernadotte gained from Alexander the prospect of acquiring Norway, in
return for the aid of Sweden in the forthcoming war against Napoleon.
This was the chief diplomatic success gained by Alexander; for though
he came to terms with Turkey two months later (retaining Bessarabia),
the treaty was ratified too late to enable him to concentrate all his
forces against the Napoleonic host that was now flooding the plains of
Prussia.[253]
The results of this understanding with the Court of Stockholm were
seen in the Czar's note presented at Paris at the close of April. He
required of Napoleon the evacuation of Swedish Pomerania by French
troops and a friendly adjustment of Franco-Swedish disputes, the
evacuation of Prussia by the French, the reduction of their large
garrison at Danzig, and the recognition of Russia's right to trade
with neutrals. If these terms were accorded by France, Alexander was
ready to negotiate for an indemnity for the Duke of Oldenburg and a
mitigation of the Russian customs dues on French goods.[254] The
reception given by Napoleon to these reasonable terms was unpromising.
"You are a gentleman," he exclaimed to Prince Kurakin, "--and yet you
dare to present to me such proposals?--You are acting as Prussia did
before Jena." Alexander had already given up all hope of peace. A week
before that scene, he had left St. Petersburg for the army, knowing
full well that Napoleon's cast-iron will might be shivered by a mighty
blow, but could never be bent by diplomacy.
On his side, Napoleon sought to overawe his eastern rival by a display
of imposing force. Lord of a dominion that far excelled that of the
Czar in material resources, suzerain of seven kingdoms and thirty
principalities, he called his allies and vassals about him at Dresden,
and gave to the world the last vision of that imperial splendour which
dazzled the imagination of men.
It was an idle display. In return for secret assurances that he might
eventually regain his Illyrian provinces, the Emperor Francis had
pledged himself by treaty to send 30,000 men to guard Napoleon's flank
in Volhynia. But everyone at St. Petersburg knew that this aid, along
with that of Prussia, was forced and hollow.[255] The example of Spain
and the cautious strategy of Wellington had dissolved the spell of
French invincibility; and the Czar was resolved to trust to the
toughness of his people and the defensive strength of his boundless
plains. The time of the Macks, the Brunswicks, the Bennigsens was
past: the day of Wellington and of truly national methods of warfare
had dawned.
Yet the hosts now moving against Alexander bade fair to overwhelm the
devotion of his myriad subjects and the awful solitudes of his
steppes. It was as if Peter the Hermit had arisen to impel the peoples
of Western and Central Europe once more against the immobile East.
Frenchmen to the number of 200,000 formed the kernel of this vast
body: 147,000 Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine followed the
new Charlemagne: nearly 80,000 Italians under Eugène formed an Army of
Observation: 60,000 Poles stepped eagerly forth to wrest their
nation's liberty from the Muscovite grasp; and Illyrians, Swiss, and
Dutch, along with a few Spaniards and Portuguese, swelled the Grand
Army to a total of 600,000 men. Nor was this all. Austria and Prussia
sent their contingents, amounting in all to 50,000 men, to guard
Napoleon's flanks on the side of Volhynia and Courland. And this
mighty mass, driven on by Napoleon's will, gained a momentum which was
to carry its main army to Moscow.
After reviewing his vassals at Dresden, and hurrying on the
arrangements for the transport of stores, Napoleon journeyed to the
banks of the Niemen. On all sides were to be seen signs of the passage
of a mighty host, broken-down carts, dead horses, wrecked villages,
and dense columns of troops that stripped Prussia wellnigh bare. Yet,
despite these immense preparations, no hint of discouragement came
from the Czar's headquarters. On arriving at the Niemen, Napoleon
issued to the Grand Army a proclamation which was virtually a
declaration of war. In it there occurred the fatalistic remark:
"Russia is drawn on by fate: her destinies must be fulfilled."
Alexander's words to his troops breathed a different spirit: "God
fights against the aggressor."
Much that is highly conjectural has been written about the plans of
campaign of the two Emperors. That of Napoleon may be briefly stated:
it was to find out the enemy's chief forces, divide them, or cut them
from their communications, and beat them in detail. In other words, he
never started with any set plan of campaign, other than the
destruction of the chief opposing force. But, in the present instance,
it may be questioned whether he had not sought by his exasperating
provocations to drive Prussia into alliance with the Czar. In that
case, Alexander would have been bound in honour to come to the aid of
his ally. And if the Russians ventured across the Niemen, or the
Vistula, as Napoleon at first believed they would,[256] his task would
doubtless have been as easy as it proved at Friedland. Many Prussian
officers, so Müffling asserts, believed that this was the aim of
French diplomacy in the early autumn of 1811, and that the best reply
was an unconditional surrender. On the other hand, there is the fact
that St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at Berlin, assured that
Government, on October 29th, that his master did not wish to destroy
Prussia, but laid much stress on the supplies which she could furnish
him--a support that would enable the Grand Army to advance on the
Niemen _like a rushing stream_.
The metaphor was strangely imprudent. It almost invited Prussia to
open wide her sluices and let the flood foam away on to the sandy
wastes of Lithuania; and we may fancy that the more discerning minds
at Berlin now saw the advantage of a policy which would entice the
French into the wastes of Muscovy. It is strange that Napoleon's
Syrian adage, "Never make war against a desert," did not now recur to
his mind. But he gradually steeled himself to the conviction that war
with Alexander was inevitable, and that the help of Austria and
Prussia would enable him to beat back the Muscovite hordes into their
eastern steppes. For a time he had unquestionably thought of
destroying Prussia before he attacked the Czar; but he finally decided
to postpone her fate until he had used her for the overthrow of
Russia.[257]
After the experiences of Austerlitz and Friedland, the advantages of a
defensive campaign could not escape the notice of the Czar. As early
as October, 1811, when Scharnhorst was at St. Petersburg, he discussed
these questions with him; and not all that officer's pleading for the
cause of Prussian independence induced Alexander to offer armed help
unless the French committed a wanton aggression on Königsberg. Seeing
that there was no hope of bringing the Russians far to the west,
Scharnhorst seems finally to have counselled a Fabian strategy for the
ensuing war; and, when at Vienna, he drew up a memoir in this sense
for the guidance of the Czar.[258]
Alexander was certainly much in need of sound guidance. Though
Scharnhorst had pointed out the way of salvation, a strategic tempter
was soon at hand in the person of General von Phull, an uncompromising
theorist who planned campaigns with an unquestioning devotion to
abstract principles. Untaught by the catastrophes of the past,
Alexander once more let his enthusiasm for theories and principles
lead him to the brink of the abyss. Phull captivated him by setting
forth the true plan of a defensive campaign which he had evolved from
patient study of the Seven Years' War. Everything depended on the
proper selection of defensive positions and the due disposition of the
defending armies. There must be two armies of defence, and at least
one great intrenched camp. One army must oppose the invader on a line
near, or leading up to, the camp; while the other army must manoeuvre
on his rear or flanks. And the camp must be so placed as to stretch
its protecting influence over one, or more, important roads. It need
not be on any one of them: in fact, it was better that it should be
some distance away; for it thus fulfilled better the all-important
function of a "flanking position."
Such a position Phull had discovered at Drissa in a curve of the River
Dwina. It was sufficiently far from the roads leading from the Niemen
to St. Petersburg and to Moscow efficiently to protect them both.
There, accordingly, he suggested that vast earthworks should be
prepared; for there, at that artificial Torres Vedras, Russia's chief
force might await the Grand Army, while the other force harassed its
flank or rear.[259]
Napoleon had not probed this absurdity to its inmost depths: but he
early found out that the Russians were in two widely separated armies;
and this sufficed to decide his movements and the early part of the
campaign. Having learnt that one army was near Vilna, and the other in
front of the marshes of the Pripet, he sought to hold them apart by a
rapid irruption into the intervening space, and thereafter to destroy
them piecemeal. Never was a visionary theory threatened by a more
terrible realism. For Napoleon at midsummer was mustering a third of a
million of men on the banks of the Niemen, while the Russians, with
little more than half those numbers as yet available for the
fighting-line, had them spread out over an immense space, so as to
facilitate those flanking operations on which Phull set such
store.[260]
On the morn of June 23rd, three immense French columns wound their way
to the pontoon bridges hastily thrown over the Niemen near Kovno; and
loud shouts of triumph greeted the great leader as the vanguard set
foot on Lithuanian soil. No Russians were seen except a few light
horsemen, who galloped up, inquired of the engineers why they were
building the bridges, and then rode hastily away. During three days
the Grand Army filed over the river and melted away into the sandy
wastes. No foe at first contested their march, but neither were they
met by the crowds of downtrodden natives whom their fancy pictured as
thronging to welcome the liberators. In truth, the peasants of
Lithuania had no very close racial affinity to the Poles, whose
offshoots were found chiefly among the nobles and the wealthier
townsfolk. Solitude, the sultry heat of a Russian mid-summer, and
drenching thunderstorms depressed the spirits of the invaders. The
miserable cart tracks were at once cut up by the passage of the host,
and 10,000 horses perished of fatigue or of disease caused by the rank
grass, in the fifty miles' march from the Niemen to Vilna.
The difficulties of the transport service began at once, and they were
to increase with every day's march. With his usual foresight, Napoleon
had ordered the collection of immense stores of all kinds at Danzig,
his chief base of supplies. Two million pairs of boots were required
for the wear and tear of a long campaign, and all preparations were on
the same colossal scale. In this connection it is noteworthy that no
small proportion of the cloaks and boots came from England, as the
industrial resources of the Continent were wholly unequal to supplying
the crusaders of the Continental System.
A great part of those stores never reached the troops in Russia. The
wherries sent from Danzig to the Niemen were often snapped up by
British cruisers, and the carriage of stores from the Niemen entailed
so frightful a waste of horseflesh that only the most absolute
necessaries could keep pace with the army in its rapid advance. The
men were thus left without food except such as marauding could extort.
In this art Napoleon's troops were experts. Many miles of country were
scoured on either side of the line of march, and the Emperor, on
reaching Vilna, had to order Ney to send out cavalry patrols to gather
in the stragglers, who were committing "horrible devastations" and
would "fall into the hands of the Cossacks."
At Vilna the Grand Army met with a more cheering reception than
heretofore. Deftly placing his Polish regiments in front and chasing
the retiring Russians beyond the town, Napoleon then returned to find
a welcome in the old Lithuanian capital. The old men came forth clad
in the national garb, and it seemed that that province, once a part of
the great Polish monarchy, would break away from the empire of the
Czars and extend Napoleon's influence to within a few miles of
Smolensk.[261] The newly-formed Diet at Warsaw also favoured this
project: it constituted itself into a general confederation, declared
the Kingdom of Poland to be restored, and sent a deputation to
Napoleon at Vilna begging him to utter the creative words: "Let the
Kingdom of Poland exist." The Emperor gave a guarded answer. He
declared that he loved the Poles, he commended them for their
patriotism, which was "the first duty of civilized man," but added
that only by a unanimous effort could they now compel their enemies to
recognize their rights; and that, having guaranteed the integrity of
the Austrian Empire, he could not sanction any movement which would
disturb its remaining Polish provinces.
This diplomatic reply chilled his auditors. But what would have been
their feelings had they known that the calling of the Diet at Warsaw,
and the tone of its address to Napoleon; had all been sketched out
five weeks before by the imperial stage manager himself? Yet such was
the case.
The scene-shifter was the Abbé de Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, whom
Napoleon sent as ambassador to Warsaw, with elaborate instructions as
to the summoning of the Diet, the whipping-up of Polish enthusiasm,
the revolutionizing of Russian Poland, and the style of the address to
him. Nay, his passion for the regulation of details even led him to
inform the ambassador that the imperial reply would be one of praise
of Polish patriotism and of warning that Polish liberty could only be
won by their "zeal and their efforts." The trickery was like that
which he had played upon the Poles shortly before Eylau. In effect, he
said now, as then: "Pour out your blood for me first, and I will do
something for you." But on this occasion the scenic setting was more
impressive, the rush of the Poles to arms more ardent, the diplomatic
reply more astutely postponed, and the finale more awful.[262]
Still, the Poles marched on; but their devotion became more
questioning. The feelings of the Lithuanians were also ruffled by
Napoleon's reply to the Polish deputies: nor were they consoled by his
appointment of seven magnates to regulate the affairs of the districts
of Lithuania, under the ægis of French commissioners, who proved to be
the real governors. Worst of all was the marauding of Napoleon's
troops, who, after their long habituation to the imperial maxim that
"war must support war," could not now see the need of enduring the
pangs of hunger in order that Lithuanian enthusiasm might not cool.
[Illustration: CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA]
Meanwhile the war had not progressed altogether as he desired. His aim
had been to conceal his advance across the Niemen, to surprise the two
chief Russian armies while far separated, and thus to end the war on
Lithuanian soil by a blow such as he had dealt at Friedland. The
Russian arrangements seemed to favour his plan. Their two chief
arrays, that led by the Czar and by General Barclay de Tolly, some
125,000 strong north of Vilna, and that of Prince Bagration mustering
now about 45,000 effectives, in the province of Volhynia, were
labouring to carry out the strategy devised by Phull. The former was
directly to oppose the march of Napoleon's main army, while the
smaller Russian force was to operate on its flanks and rear. Such a
plan could only have succeeded in the good old times when war was
conducted according to ceremonious etiquette; it courted destruction
from Napoleon. At Vilna the Emperor directed the movements that were
to ensnare Bagration. Already he had urged on the march of Davoust,
who was to circle round from the north, and the advance of Jerome
Bonaparte's Westphalians, who were bidden to hurry on eastwards from
the town of Grodno on the Upper Niemen. Their convergence would drive
Bagration into the almost trackless marshes of the Pripet, whence his
force would emerge, if at all, as helpless units.
Such was Napoleon's plan, and it would have succeeded but for a
miscalculation in the time needed for Jerome's march. Napoleon
underrated the difficulties of his advance or else overrated his
brother's military capacity. The King of Westphalia was delayed a few
days at Grodno by bad weather and other difficulties; thus Bagration,
who had been ordered by the Czar to retire, was able to escape the
meshes closing around him by a speedy retreat to Bobruisk, whence he
moved northwards. Napoleon was enraged at this loss of a priceless
opportunity, and addressed vehement reproaches to Jerome for his
slowness and "small-mindedness." The youngest of the Bonapartes
resented this rebuke which ignored the difficulties besetting a rapid
advance. The prospect of being subjected to that prince of martinets,
Davoust, chafed his pride; and, throwing up his command, he forthwith
returned to the pleasures of Cassel.
By great good fortune, Bagration's force had escaped from the snares
strewn in its path by the strategy of Phull and the counter-moves of
Napoleon. The fickle goddess also favoured the rescue of the chief
Russian army from imminent peril at Drissa. In pursuance of Phull's
scheme, the Czar and Barclay de Tolly fell back with that army towards
the intrenched camp on the Dwina. But doubts had already begun to
haunt their minds as to the wisdom of Phull's plans. In fact, the bias
of Barclay's nature was towards the proven and the practical. He came
of a Scottish family which long ago had settled in Livonia, and had
won prosperity and esteem in the trade of Riga. His ancestry and his
early surroundings therefore disposed him to the careful weighing of
evidence and distrust of vague theories. His thoroughness in military
organization during the war in Finland and his unquestioned probity
and open-mindedness, had recently brought him high into favour with
the Czar, who made him War Minister. He had no wide acquaintance with
the science of warfare, and has been judged altogether deficient in a
wide outlook on events and in those masterly conceptions which mark
the great warrior.[263] But nations are sometimes ruined by lofty
genius, while at times they may be saved by humdrum prudence; and
Barclay's common sense had no small share in saving Russia.
Two months before the Grand Army passed the Niemen, he had expressed
the hope that God would send retreat to the Russian armies; and we may
safely attribute to his influence with the Czar the timely order to
Bagration to desist from flanking tactics and beat a retreat while yet
there was time. That portion of Phull's strategy having signally
failed, Alexander naturally became more suspicious about the Drissa
plan; and during the retirement from Vilna, he ordered a survey of the
works to be made by Phull's adjutant, a young German named Clausewitz,
who was destined to win a name as an authority in strategy. This
officer was unable conscientiously to present a cheering report. He
found the camp deficient in many respects. Nevertheless, Alexander
still clung to the hope of checking the French advance before these
great intrenchments.
On his arrival there, on July 8th, this hope also was dashed. Michaud,
a young Sardinian engineer, pointed out several serious defects in
their construction. Barclay also protested against shutting up a large
part of the defending army in a camp which could easily be blockaded
by Napoleon's vast forces. Finally, as the Russian reserves stationed
there proved to be disappointingly weak both in numbers and
efficiency, the Czar determined to evacuate the camp, intrust the sole
command to Barclay, and retire to his northern capital. It is said
that, before he left the army, the Grand Duke Constantine, a friend of
the French cause, made a last effort to induce him to come to terms
with Napoleon, now that the plan of campaign had failed. If so,
Alexander repelled the attempt. Pride as a ruler and a just resentment
against Napoleon prevented any compromise; and probably he now saw
that safety for himself and ruin for his foe lay in the firm adoption
of that Fabian policy of retreat and delay, which Scharnhorst had
advocated and Barclay was now determined to carry out.
Though still hampered by the intrigues of Constantine, Bennigsen, and
other generals, who hated him as a foreigner and feigned to despise
him as a coward, Barclay at once took the step which he had long felt
to be necessary; he ordered a retreat which would bring him into touch
with Bagration. Accordingly, leaving Wittgenstein with 25,000 men to
hold Oudinot's corps in check on the middle Dwina, he marched
eastwards towards Vitepsk. True, he left St. Petersburg open to
attack; but it was not likely that Napoleon, when the summer was far
spent, would press so far north and forego his usual plan of striking
at the enemy's chief forces. He would certainly seek to hinder the
junction of the two Russian armies, as soon as he saw that this was
Barclay's aim. Such proved to be the case. Napoleon soon penetrated
his design, and strove to frustrate it by a rapid move from Vilna
towards Polotsk on Barclay's flank, but he failed to cut into his line
of march, and once more had to pursue.
Despite the heavy shrinkage in the Grand Army caused by a remorseless
rush through a country wellnigh stripped of supplies, the Emperor
sought to force on a general engagement. He hoped to catch Barclay at
Vitepsk. "The whole Russian army is at Vitepsk--we are on the eve of
great events," he writes on July 25th. But the Russians skilfully
withdrew by night from their position in front of that town, which he
entered on July 28th. Chagrined and perplexed, the chief stays a
fortnight to organize supplies and stores, while his vanguard presses
on to envelop the Russians at Smolensk. Again his hopes revive when he
hears that Barclay and Bagration are about to join near that city. In
fact, those leaders there concluded that strategic movement to the
rear which was absolutely necessary if they were not to be overwhelmed
singly. They viewed the retreat in a very different light. To the
cautious Barclay it portended a triumph long deferred, but sure: while
the more impulsive Muscovite looked upon the constant falling back as
a national disgrace.
The feelings of the soldiery also forbade a spiritless abandonment of
the holy city of the Upper Dnieper that stands as sentinel to Russia
Proper. On these feelings Napoleon counted, and rightly. He was now in
no haste to strike: the blow must be crushing and final. At last he
hears that Davoust, the leader whose devotion and methodical
persistence merit his complete trust, has bridged the River Dnieper
below the city, and has built ovens for supplying the host with bread.
And having now drawn up troops and supplies from the rear, he pushes
on to end the campaign.
Barclay was still for retreat; but religious sentiment and patriotism
bade the defenders stand firm behind those crumbling walls, while
Bagration secured the line of retreat. The French, ranged
around on the low hills which ring it on the south, looked for an easy
triumph, and Napoleon seems to have felt an excess of confidence. At
any rate, his dispositions were far from masterly. He made no serious
effort to threaten the Russian communications with Moscow, nor did he
wait for his artillery to overwhelm the ramparts and their defenders.
The corps of Ney, Davoust, and Poniatowski, with Murat's cavalry and
the Imperial Guard posted in reserve, promised an easy victory, and
the dense columns of foot moved eagerly to the assault. They were
received with a terrific fire. Only after three hours' desperate
fighting did they master the southern suburbs, and at nightfall the
walls still defied their assaults. Yet in the meantime Napoleon's
cannon had done their work. The wooden houses were everywhere on fire;
a speedy retreat alone could save the garrison from ruin; and amidst a
whirlwind of flame and smoke Barclay drew off his men to join
Bagration on the road to Moscow (August 17th).
Once more, then, the Russian army had slipped from Napoleon's grasp,
though this time it dealt him a loss of 12,000 in killed or wounded.
And the momentous question faced him whether he should halt, now that
summer was on the wane, or snatch under the walls of Moscow the
triumph which Vilna, Vitepsk, and Smolensk had promised and denied. It
is stated by that melodramatic narrator, Count Philip Ségur, that on
entering Vitepsk, the Emperor exclaimed: "The campaign of 1812 is
ended, that of 1813 will do the rest." But the whole of Napoleon's
"Correspondence" refutes the anecdote. Besides, it was not Napoleon's
habit to go into winter quarters in July, or to rest before he had
defeated the enemy's main army.[264]
At Smolensk the question wore another aspect. Napoleon told Metternich
at Dresden that he would not in the present year advance beyond
Smolensk, but would organize Lithuania during winter and advance again
in the spring of 1813, adding: "My enterprise is one of those of which
the solution is to be found in patience." A policy of masterly
inactivity certainly commended itself to his Marshals. But the desire
to crush the enemy's rear drew Ney and Murat into a sharp affair at
Valutino or Lubino: the French lost heavily, but finally gained the
position: and the hope that the foe were determined to fight the
decisive battle at Dorogobuzh lured Napoleon on, despite his earlier
decision.[265] Besides, his position seemed less hazardous than it was
before Austerlitz. The Grand Army was decidedly superior to the united
forces of Barclay and Bagration. On the Dwina, Oudinot held the
Russians at bay; and when he was wounded, his successor, Gouvion St.
Cyr, displayed a tactical skill which enabled him easily to foil a
mere fighter like Wittgenstein. On the French right flank, affairs
were less promising; for the ending of the Russo-Turkish war now left
the Russian army of the Pruth free to march into Volhynia. But, for
the present, Napoleon was able to summon up strong reserves under
Victor, and assure his rear.
With full confidence, then, he pressed onwards to wrest from Fortune
one last favour. It was granted to him at Borodino. There the Russians
made a determined stand. National jealousy of Barclay, inflamed by his
protracted retreat, had at last led to his being superseded by
Kutusoff; and, having about 110,000 troops, the old fighting general
now turned fiercely to bay. His position on the low convex curve of
hills that rise behind the village of Borodino was of great strength.
On his right was the winding valley of the Kolotza, an affluent of the
Moskwa, and before his centre and left the ground sloped down to a
stream. On this more exposed side the Russians had hastily thrown up
earthworks, that at the centre being known as the Great Redoubt,
though it had no rear defences.
Napoleon halted for two days, until his gathering forces mustered some
125,000 men, and he now prepared to end the war at a blow. After
surveying the Russian position, he saw Kutusoff's error in widely
extending his lines to the north; and while making feints on that
side, so as to prevent any concentration of the Muscovite array, he
planned to overwhelm the more exposed centre and left, by the assaults
of Davoust and Poniatowski on the south, and of Ney's corps and
Eugène's Italians on the redoubts at the centre. Davoust begged to be
allowed to outflank the Russian left; but Napoleon refused, perhaps
owing to a fear that the Russians might retreat early in the day, and
decided on dealing direct blows at the left and centre. As the 7th of
September dawned with all the splendour of a protracted summer, cannon
began to thunder against the serried arrays ranged along the opposing
slopes, and Napoleon's columns moved against the redoubts and woods
that sheltered the Muscovite lines. The defence was most obstinate.
Time after time the smaller redoubts were taken and retaken; and
while, on the French right centre, the tide of battle surged up and
down the slope, the Great Redoubt dealt havoc among Eugène's Italians,
who bravely but, as it seemed, hopelessly struggled up that fatal
rise.
Then was seen a soul-stirring sight. Of a sudden, a mass of
Cuirassiers rushed forth from the invaders' ranks, flung itself
uphill, and girdled the grim earthwork with a stream of flashing steel
There, for a brief space, it was stayed by the tough Muscovite lines,
until another billow of horsemen, marshalled by Grouchy and Chastel,
swept all before it, took the redoubt on its weak reverse, and
overwhelmed its devoted defenders.[266] In vain did the Russian
cavalry seek to save the day: Murat's horsemen were not to be denied,
and Kutusoff was at last fain to draw back his mangled lines, but
slowly and defiantly, under cover of a crushing artillery fire.
Thus ended the bloodiest fight of the century. For several hours 800
cannon had dealt death among the opposing masses; the Russians lost
about 40,000 men, and, whatever Napoleon said in his bulletins, the
rents in his array were probably nearly as great. He has been censured
for not launching his Guard at the wavering foe at the climax of the
fight; and the soldiery loudly blamed its commander, Bessières, for
dissuading his master from this step. But to have sacrificed those
veterans to Russian cannon would have been a perilous act.[267] His
Guard was the solid kernel of his army: on it he could always rely,
even when French regulars dissolved, as often happened after long
marches, into bands of unruly marauders; and its value was to be found
out during the retreat. More fitly may Napoleon be blamed for not
seeking earlier in the day to turn the Russian left, and roll that
long line up on the river. Here, as at Smolensk, he resorted to a
frontal attack, which could only yield success at a frightful cost.
The day brought little glory to the generals, except to Ney, Murat,
and Grouchy. For his valour in the _mêlée_, Ney received the title of
Prince de la Moskwa.
A week before this Pyrrhic triumph, Napoleon had heard of a terrible
reverse to French arms in Spain. His old friend, Marmont, who had won
the Marshal's baton after Wagram, measured his strength with
Wellington in the plains of Leon with brilliant success until a false
move near Salamanca exposed him to a crushing rejoinder, and sent his
army flying back towards Burgos. Madrid was now uncovered and was
occupied for a time by the English army (August 13th). Thus while
Napoleon was gasping at Moscow, his brother was expelled from Madrid,
until the recall of Soult from Andalusia gave the French a superiority
in the centre of Spain which forced Wellington to retire to Ciudad
Rodrigo. He lost the fruits of his victory, save that Andalusia was
freed: but he saved his army for the triumphant campaign of 1813. Had
Napoleon shown the like prudence by beating a timely retreat from
Moscow, who can say that the next hard-fought fights in Silesia and
Saxony would not have once more crowned his veterans with decisive
triumph?
As it was, the Grand Army toiled on through heat, dust, and the smoke
of burning villages, to gain peace and plenty at Moscow. But when, on
September the 14th, the conqueror entered that city with his vanguard,
solitude reigned almost unbroken. A few fanatics, clinging to the
tradition that the Kremlin was impregnable, idly sought to defend it;
but troops, officials, nobles, merchants, and the great mass of the
people were gone, and the military stores had been burnt or removed.
Rostopchin, the governor, had released the prisoners and broken the
fire engines. Flames speedily burst forth, and Bausset, the Prefect of
Napoleon's Palace, affirms that while looking forth from the Kremlin
he saw the flames burst forth in several districts in quick
succession; and that a careful examination of cellars often proved
them to be stored with combustibles, vitriol in one case being
swallowed by a French soldier who took it for brandy! If all this be
true, it proves that the Muscovites were determined to fire their
capital. But their writers have as stoutly affirmed that the fires
were caused by French and Polish plunderers.[268] Three days later,
the powers of the air and the demons of drink and frenzy raged
uncontrolled; and Napoleon himself barely escaped from the whirlwinds
of flame that enveloped the Kremlin and nearly scorched to death the
last members of his staff. For several hours the conflagration was
fanned by an equinoctial gale, and when, on the 20th, it died down,
convicts or plunderers kindled it anew.
Yet the army did not want for shelter, and, as Sergeant Bourgogne
remarks, if every house had been gutted there were still the caves and
cellars that promised protection from the cold of winter. The real
problem was now, as ever, the food-supply. The Russians had swept the
district wellnigh bare; and though the Grand Army feasted for a
fortnight on dainties and drink, yet bread, flour, and meat were soon
very scarce. In vain did the Emperor seek to entice the inhabitants
back; they knew the habits of the invaders only too well; and despite
several distant raids, which sometimes cost the French dear, the
soldiery began to suffer.
October wore on with delusive radiance, but brought no peace. Soon
after the great conflagration at Moscow, Napoleon sent secret and
alluring overtures to Alexander, offering to leave Russia a free hand
in regard to Turkey, inclusive of Constantinople, which he had
hitherto strictly reserved, and hinting that Polish affairs might also
be arranged to the Czar's liking.[269] But Alexander refused tamely to
accept the fruits of victory from the man who, he believed, had burnt
holy Moscow, and clung to his vow never to treat with his rival as
long as a single French soldier stood on Russian soil. His resolve
saved Europe. Yet it cost him much to defy the great conqueror to the
death: he had so far feared the capture of St. Petersburg as to
request that the Cronstadt fleet might be kept in safety in
England.[270] But gradually he came to see that the sacrifice of
Moscow had saved his empire and lured Napoleon to his doom. Kutusoff
also played a waiting game. Affecting a wish for peace, he was about
secretly to meet Napoleon's envoy, Lauriston, when the Russian
generals and our commissioner, Sir R. Wilson, intervened, and required
that it should be a public step. It seems likely, however, that
Kutusoff was only seeking to entrap the French into barren
negotiations; he knew that an answer could not come from the banks of
the Neva until winter began to steal over the northern steppes.
Slowly the truth begins to dawn on Napoleon that Moscow is not _the
heart of Russia_, as he had asserted to De Pradt that it was.
Gradually he sees that that primitive organism had no heart, that its
almost amorphous life was widespread through myriads of village
communes, vegetating apart from Moscow or Petersburg, and that his
march to the old capital was little more than a sword-slash through a
pond.[271] Had he set himself to study with his former care the real
nature of the hostile organism, he would certainly never have ventured
beyond Smolensk in the present year. But he had now merged the thinker
in the conqueror, and--sure sign of coming disaster--his mind no
longer accurately gauged facts, it recast them in its own mould.
By long manipulation of men and events, it had framed a dogma of
personal infallibility. This vice had of late been growing on him
apace. It was apparent even in trifles. The Countess Metternich
describes how, early in 1810, he persisted in saying that Kaunitz was
her brother, in spite of her frequent disclaimers of that honour; and,
somewhat earlier, Marmont noticed with half-amused dismay that when
the Emperor gave a wrong estimate of the numbers of a certain corps,
no correction had the slightest effect on him; his mind always
reverted to the first figure. In weightier matters this peculiarity
was equally noticeable. His clinging to preconceived notions, however
unfair or burdensome they were to Britain, Prussia, or Austria, had
been the underlying cause of his wars with those Powers. And now this
same defect, burnt into his being by the blaze of a hundred victories,
held him to Moscow for five weeks, in the belief that Russia was
stricken unto death, and that the facile Czar whom he had known at
Tilsit would once more bend the knee. An idle hope. "I have learnt to
know him now," said the Czar, "Napoleon or I; I or Napoleon; we cannot
reign side by side." Buoyed up by religious faith and by his people's
heroism, Alexander silently defied the victor of Moscow and rebuked
Kutusoff for receiving the French envoy.
At last, on October 18th, the Russians threw away the scabbard and
surprised Murat's force some forty miles south of Moscow, inflicting a
loss of 3,000 men. But already, a day or two earlier, Napoleon had
realized the futility of his hope of peace and had resolved to
retreat. The only alternative was to winter at Moscow, and he judged
that the state of French and Spanish affairs rendered such a course
perilous. He therefore informed Maret that the Grand Army would go
into winter quarters between the Dnieper and the Dwina.[272]
There is no hint in his letters that he anticipated a disastrous
retreat. The weather hitherto had been "as fine as that at
Fontainebleau in September," and he purposed retiring by a more
southerly route which had not been exhausted by war. Full of
confidence, then, he set out on the 19th, with 115,000 men, persuaded
that he would easily reach friendly Lithuania and his winter quarters
"before severe cold set in." The veil was rudely torn from his eyes
when, south of Malo-Jaroslavitz, his Marshals found the Russians so
strongly posted that any further attack seemed to be an act of folly.
Eugène's corps had suffered cruelly in an obstinate fight in and
around that town, and the advice of Berthier, Murat, and Bessières was
against its renewal. For an hour or more the Emperor sat silently
gazing at a map. The only prudent course now left was to retreat north
and then west by way of Borodino, _over his devastated line of
advance_.[273] Back, then, towards Borodino the army mournfully
trudged (October 26th):
"Everywhere (says Labaume) we saw wagons abandoned for want of
horses to draw them. Those who bore along with them the spoils of
Moscow trembled for their riches; but we were disquieted most of
all at seeing the deplorable state of our cavalry. The villages
which had but lately given us shelter were level with the ground:
under their ashes were the bodies of hundreds of soldiers and
peasants.... But most horrible was the field of Borodino, where we
saw the forty thousand men, who had perished there, yet lying
unburied."
For a time, Kutusoff forbore to attack the sore-stricken host; but,
early in November, the Russian horse began to infest the line of
march, and at Viasma their gathering forces were barely held off: had
Kutusoff aided his lieutenants, he might have decimated his famished
foes.
Hitherto the weather had been singularly mild and open, so much so
that the superstitious peasants looked on it as a sign that God was
favouring Napoleon. But, at last, on November the 6th, the first storm
of winter fell on the straggling array, and completed its miseries.
The icy blasts struck death to the hearts of the feeble; and the puny
fighting of man against man was now merged in the awful struggle
against the powers of the air. Drifts of snow blotted out the
landscape; the wandering columns often lost the road and thousands
forthwith ended their miseries. Except among the Old Guard all
semblance of military order was now lost, and battalions melted away
into groups of marauders.
The search for food and fuel became furious, even when the rigour of
the cold abated. The behaviour of Bourgogne, a sergeant in the
Imperial Guard, may serve to show by what shifts a hardy masterful
nature fought its way through the wreckage of humanity around: "If I
could meet anybody in the world with a loaf, I would make him give me
half--nay, I would kill him so as to get the whole." These were his
feelings: he acted on them by foraging in the forest and seizing a pot
in which an orderly was secretly cooking potatoes for his general.
Bourgogne made off with the potatoes, devoured most of them
half-boiled, returned to his comrades and told them he had found
nothing. Taking his place near their fire, he scooped out his bed in
the snow, lay under his bearskin, and clasped his now precious
knapsack, while the others moaned with hunger. Yet, as his narrative
shows, he was not naturally a heartless man: in such a situation man
is apt to sink to the level of the wolf. The best food obtainable was
horseflesh, and hungry throngs rushed at every horse that fell,
disputing its carcass with the packs of dogs or wolves that hung about
the line of march.[274]
Smolensk was now the thought dearest to every heart; and, buoyed with
the hope of rest and food, the army tottered westwards as it had
panted eastwards through the fierce summer heats with Moscow as its
cynosure. The hope that clung about Smolensk was but a cruel mirage.
The wreck of that city offered poor shelter; the stores were exhausted
by the vanguard; and, to the horror of Eugène's Italians, men swarmed
out of that fancied abode of plenty and pounced on every horse that
stumbled to its doom on the slippery banks of the Dnieper. With
inconceivable folly, Napoleon, or his staff, had provided no means for
roughing the horses' shoes. The Cossacks, when they knew this,
exclaimed to Wilson: "God has made Napoleon forget that there was a
winter here."
Disasters now thickened about the Grand Army. During his halt at
Smolensk (November 9th-14th), Napoleon heard that Victor's force on
the Dwina had been worsted by the Russians, and there was ground for
fearing that the Muscovite army of the Ukraine would cut into the line
of retreat. The halt at Smolensk also gave time for Kutusoff to come
up parallel with the main force, and had he pressed on with ordinary
speed and showed a tithe of his wonted pugnacity, he might have
captured the Grand Army and its leader. As it was, his feeble attack
on the rearguard at Krasnoe only gave Ney an opportunity of showing
his dauntless courage. The "bravest of the brave" fought his way
through clouds of Cossacks, crossed the Dnieper, though with the loss
of all his guns, and rejoined the main body. Napoleon was greatly
relieved on hearing of the escape of this Launcelot of the Imperial
chivalry. He ordered cannon to be fired at suitable intervals so as to
forward the news if it were propitious; and on hearing their distant
boomings, he exclaimed to his officers: "I have more than 400,000,000
francs in the cellars of the Tuileries, and would gladly have given
the whole for the ransom of my faithful companion in arms."[275]
Far greater was the danger at the River Beresina. The Russian army of
the south had seized the bridge at Borisoff on which Napoleon's safety
depended, and Oudinot vainly struggled to wrest it back. The
Muscovites burnt it under his eyes. Such was the news which Napoleon
heard at Bobr on November 24th. It staggered him; for, with his usual
excess of confidence, he had destroyed his pontoons on the banks of
the Dnieper; and now there was no means of crossing a river, usually
insignificant, but swollen by floods and bridged only by half-thawed
ice. Yet French resource was far from vanquished. General Corbineau,
finding from some peasants that the river was fordable three leagues
above Borisoff, brought the news to Oudinot, who forthwith prepared to
cross there. Napoleon, coming up on the 26th, approved the plan, and
cheeringly said to his Marshal, "Well, you shall be my locksmith and
open that passage for me."[276]
To deceive the foe, the Emperor told off a regiment or two southwards
with a long tail of camp-followers that were taken to be an army. And
this wily move, harmonizing with recent demonstrations of the
Austrians on the side of Minsk, convinced the Muscovite leader that
Napoleon was minded to clasp hands with them.[277] While the Russians
patrolled the river on the south, French sappers were working, often
neck deep in the water, to throw two light bridges across the stream
higher up. By heroic toil, which to most of them brought death, the
bridges were speedily finished, and, as the light of November 26th was
waning Oudinot's corps of 7,000 men gained a firm footing on the
homeward side. But they were observed by Russian scouts, and when on
the next day Napoleon and other corps had struggled across, the enemy
came up, captured a whole division, and on the morrow strove to hurl
the invaders into the river. Victor and the rearguard staunchly kept
them at bay; but at one point the Russian army of the Dwina
temporarily gained ground and swept the bridges and their approaches
with artillery fire.
Then the panic-stricken throngs of wounded and stragglers, women and
camp-followers, writhed and fought their way until the frail planks
were piled high with living and dead. To add to the horrors, one
bridge gave way under the weight of the cannon. The rush for the one
remaining bridge became yet more frantic and the day closed amidst
scenes of unspeakable woe. Stout swimmers threw themselves into the
stream, only to fall victims to the ice floes and the numbing cold. At
dawn of the 29th, the French rearguard fired the bridge to cover the
retreat. Then a last, loud wail of horror arose from the farther bank,
and despair or a loathing of life drove many to end their miseries in
the river or in the flames.
Such was the crossing of the Beresina. The ghastly tale was told once
more with renewed horrors when the floods of winter abated and laid
bare some 12,000 corpses along the course of that fatal stream. It
would seem that if Napoleon, or his staff, had hurried on the
camp-followers to cross on the night of the 27th to the 28th, those
awful scenes would not have happened, for on that night the bridges
_were not used at all_. Grosser carelessness than this cannot be
conceived; and yet, even after this shocking blunder, the devotion of
the soldiers to their chief found touching expression. When he was
suffering from cold in the wretched bivouac west of the river,
officers went round calling for dry wood for his fire; and shivering
men were seen to offer precious sticks, with the words, "Take it for
the Emperor."[278]
On that day Napoleon wrote to Maret that possibly he would leave the
army and hurry on to Paris. His presence there was certainly needed,
if his crown was to be saved. On November 6th, the day of the first
snowstorm, he heard of the Quixotic attempt of a French republican,
General Malet, to overthrow the Government at Paris. With a handful of
followers, but armed with a false report of Napoleon's capture in
Russia, this man had apprehended several officials, until the scheme
collapsed of sheer inanity.[279] "How now, if we were at Moscow,"
exclaimed the Emperor, on hearing this curious news; and he saw with
chagrin that some of his generals merely shrugged their shoulders.
After crossing the Beresina, he might hope that the worst was over and
that the stores at Vilna and Kovno would suffice for the remnant of
his army. The cold for a time had been less rigorous. The behaviour of
Prussia and Austria was, in truth, more important than the conduct of
the retreat. Unless those Powers were kept to their troth, not a
Frenchman would cross the Elbe.
At Smorgoni, then, on December the 5th, he informed his Marshals that
he left them in order to raise 300,000 men; and, intrusting the
command to Murat, he hurried away. His great care was to prevent the
extent of the disaster being speedily known. "Remove all strangers
from Vilna," he wrote to Maret: "the army is not fine to look upon
just now." The precaution was much needed. Frost set in once more, and
now with unending grip. Vilna offered a poor haven of refuge. The
stores were soon plundered, and, as the Cossacks drew near, Murat and
the remnant of the Grand Army decamped in pitiable panic. Amidst ever
deepening misery they struggled on, until, of the 600,000 men who had
proudly crossed the Niemen for the conquest of Russia, only 20,000
famished, frost-bitten, unarmed spectres staggered across the bridge
of Kovno in the middle of December. The auxiliary corps furnished by
Austria and Prussia fell back almost unscathed. But the remainder of
that mighty host rotted away in Russian prisons or lay at rest under
Nature's winding-sheet of snow.[280]
* * * * *