Napoleon, with all his Guard was wandering about on the plain,
because, alerted by the sound of gunfire, the Emperor had
hurriedly left the chateau where he was installed some two
leagues from Golymin, with the intention of joining us by
marching as the crow flies in the direction of the fires. But the
ground was so soaked, the plain so intersected by bogs and the
weather so awful, that it took him all night to make those two
leagues, and he did not arrive on the field of battle until the
fighting was long over.
On the same day as the fight at Golymin, Marshal Lannes, with no
more than twenty thousand men, attacked at Pultusk some forty
thousand Russians who were retreating, and inflicted immense
losses on them without being able to stop them, so great was
their superiority in numbers.
For the Emperor to have been able to pursue the Russians it would
have required a frost to harden the ground which, on the
contrary, was now so soft and sodden that one sank in at every
step, and several men, notably the batman of an officer in 7th
Corps, were drowned with their horses in the mud. It had now
become impossible to move the artillery and to venture further
into this unknown territory; besides which the troops lacked food
and even boots, and they were extremely tired. These
considerations decided Napoleon to place the whole army in
cantonment in front of the Vistula, from the outskirts of Warsaw
to the gates of Danzig. The soldiers, billeted in the villages,
were at last sheltered from the weather, received some rations
and were able to repair their equipment.
The Emperor returned to Warsaw to prepare for a new campaign.
The divisions of Augereau's corps were spread in the villages
around Plock, if one can give that name to a confused heap of
lowly shacks, inhabited by unwashed Jews; but almost all the
so-called towns in Poland are built like this and have similar
inhabitants. The landowners, great and small, live in the country
where they employ their peasants to cultivate their estates.
The marshal was lodged in Christka, a sort of chateau built of
wood, as was customary in the country. He found in this manor
some reasonable accommodation, while the aides-de-camp settled
wherever they could in the rooms and barns. As for me, by
ferreting around I found in the gardener's quarters a fairly good
room with a fireplace; I settled in there with two friends, and
leaving to the gardener and his family their very unsavoury beds,
we made some out of planks and straw, on which we were very
comfortable.
Chap. 33.
We celebrated at Christka the new year of 1807, which was very
nearly the last year of my life. It, however, began very
pleasantly for me, since the Emperor, who had not shown any
favour to Augereau's staff during the Austerlitz campaign, fully
repaired this oversight by heaping us with rewards. Colonel
Albert was promoted to brigadier-general, Major Massy to
lieutenant-colonel of the 44th Line regiment; several
aides-de-camp were decorated; and finally the lieutenants, Bro,
Mainville, and I, were made captains. This promotion gave me more
than usual pleasure, since I had done nothing remarkable to earn
it, and I was only twenty-four years old. Marshal Augereau, when
he gave us our brevets of captain, said to Mainville, Bro, and
me, "Let's see which of you three is the first to become a
colonel." It was in fact I, who six years later commanded a
regiment, while my comrades were still only captains: it is also
true that in this period I had been wounded six times!
Once we had taken up winter quarters the enemy did the same,
opposite to us but a considerable distance away. The Emperor
expected that they would let us pass the winter in peace;
however, our rest lasted only for a month; this sufficed but was
not really enough.
The Russians, seeing the ground covered by snow and hardened by a
very sharp frost, thought that this frigid weather would give the
men from the north a great advantage over those from the south,
unaccustomed to the severe cold. They resolved therefore to
attack us, and in order to do this they moved, screened by the
immense forest which lay between us, the greater part of the
troops who faced us before Warsaw, down to the lower Vistula,
opposite the cantonments of Bernadotte and Ney, whom they hoped
to surprise and overrun by weight of numbers before the Emperor
with the other army corps could come to their aid. But Bernadotte
and Ney put up a stiff resistance, and the Emperor had sufficient
time to mount an attack with a considerable force on the enemy
rear who, seeing themselves at risk of being cut off from their
operational base, retreated towards Konigsberg (Kaliningrad). We
had therefore, on the 1st of February, to quit our billets where
we were reasonably comfortable, and restarting the war, to go and
sleep in the snow.
At the head of the central column, commanded by the Emperor in
person, was Prince Murat's cavalry, then came Marshal Soult's
corps, supported by that of Augereau, finally came the Imperial
Guard. Marshal Davout's corps marched on the right flank of this
huge column, and Marshal Ney's on the left. Such an agglomeration
of troops heading for the same place soon strips the countryside
of whatever food supplies are available, so we suffered much from
hunger; only the Guard had wagons which carried food for
distribution, the other corps lived on whatever they could find,
that is to say they lacked practically everything.
I am not going to give any details of the actions which preceded
the battle of Eylau, because Augereau's corps, which was in the
second line, took no part in these various contacts, of which the
most important occurred at Mohrungen, Bergfried, Guttstadt, and
Valtersdorf. But at last, before the little town of Landsberg,
the Russians, who had been chased for a week with a sword at
their backs, decided to halt and make a stand. To do this, they
placed eight elite battalions in an advantageous position, their
right bounded by a village by the name of Hoff, their left by a
thick wood, and their centre protected by a very steep-sided
ravine, which could be crossed only by a narrow bridge. Eight
cannons were placed in front of this line.
When the Emperor arrived opposite this position, he did not think
it necessary to wait for the infantry of Marshal Soult, which was
still several leagues behind, and attacked the Russians with some
regiments of light cavalry who, dashing bravely over the bridge,
crossed the ravine; but, assailed by gunfire and grapeshot, our
squadrons were driven back in disorder into the gulch, from which
they emerged with much difficulty. The Emperor, seeing the light
cavalry repulsed, replaced them by a division of Dragoons, whose
attack, received in the same manner as before, had a similar
outcome. The Emperor then ordered the advance of General
D'Hautpoul's terrible Cuirassiers, who crossed the bridge under a
hail of grapeshot and fell on the Russian line with such ferocity
that they literally flattened it. There then ensued the most
frightful butchery; the Cuirassiers, enraged at the losses
suffered by their comrades of the Hussars and Dragoons, almost
entirely exterminated the eight Russian battalions, All were
either killed or captured! The battlefield was a scene of horror.
Never has a cavalry charge had such a devastating result. The
Emperor demonstrated his satisfaction with the Cuirassiers by
embracing their general before the whole division. General
D'Hautpoul exclaimed, "To show myself worthy of this honour, I
shall dedicate my life to your majesty." He kept his word, for
the next day he was killed on the battlefield of Eylau. What an
epoch! And what men!
The enemy army which, from a plateau beyond Landsberg, had
witnessed the destruction of its rearguard, retired promptly
towards Eylau, and we took possession of Landsberg. On the 7th
February the Russian commander-in-chief, Benningsen, having
decided to give battle, concentrated his army around Eylau,
mainly in positions between us and the town. Murat's cavalry and
Soult's infantry took these positions after fierce fighting, for
the Russians held tenaciously to Ziegelhof, which dominates
Eylau, as they wanted to make it the centre point of their line
for the battle on the following day; but they were forced to
retreat from the town. Night seemed to have put an end to this
fighting, the prelude to the coming general action, when a
fusillade of shots rang out in the streets of Eylau.
I know that military authors who have written about this
campaign, claim that Napoleon ordered an attack because he did
not want the town to remain in Russian hands; but I am sure that
they are mistaken, and for the following reason:--
When the head of Marshal Augereau's column, coming down the road
from Landsberg, drew near to Ziegelhof, the marshal climbed onto
the plateau where the Emperor was already stationed, and I
actually heard Napoleon say to Augereau, "It has been suggested
to me that we should take Eylau this evening; but, apart from the
fact that I don't like fighting at night, I do not wish to push
my centre too far forward before the arrival of Davout on my
right flank and Ney on my left. So I am going to wait for them
until tomorrow on this plateau which, furbished with artillery,
will provide a fine position for our infantry; then, when Davout
and Ney are in the line, we shall march, together, against the
enemy." Having said this, the Emperor ordered his bivouac to be
set up at the foot of the Ziegelhof, and his guard to encamp
around it.
But while Napoleon was explaining his plans to Marshal Augereau,
who greatly approved of his prudence, the staff of the imperial
palace, coming from Landsberg with their baggage and servants,
arrived at our outposts, which were at the gates of Eylau,
without anyone telling them to stop at Ziegelhof. These
employees, used to seeing the imperial quarters very well
guarded, and not having been warned that they were almost on top
of the Russians, were interested only in selecting a good lodging
for their master, and they set themselves up in the post-house,
where they unpacked their equipment, stabled their horses, and
began to cook. In the midst of these preparations they were
attacked by a Russian patrol and would have been captured had it
not been for the intervention of the guard which always
accompanied the Emperor's baggage. At the sound of this outbreak
of firing, the troops who were in position at the gates of the
town ran to the rescue of Napoleon's equipment, which was already
being pillaged by the Russian soldiers. The Russian generals,
thinking that the French were attempting to seize Eylau, sent
reinforcements to their side, and so a sanguinary battle was
fought in the streets of the town, which ended up in our hands.
Although this attack had not been ordered by the Emperor, he saw
no reason not to profit by it, and he set himself up in the Eylau
post-house. The Guard and Soult's troops occupied the town which
was surrounded by Murat's cavalry. Augereau's troops were
positioned in Zehen, a little hamlet in which we hoped to find
some provisions, but the Russians had taken everything with them
as they withdrew, so that our unhappy regiment, which had
received no rations for eight days, had to make do with some
potatoes and water. The equipment of the staff having been left
at Landsberg, our supper was not as good as that of the soldiers,
for we had no potatoes. Eventually, on the morning of the 8th,
when we were about to mount our horses, one of the marshal's
servants brought him some bread, and he, always generous, shared
it out amongst his aides-de-camp. After this frugal meal, which
for several of us was to be our last, the corps moved to the post
to which it had been assigned by the Emperor.
In accordance with the plan which I explained when I started
these memoirs, I shall not weary you with too detailed a
description of the various phases of this terrible battle of
Eylau, but will limit myself to the principal events.
On the morning of the 8th, the position of the two armies was as
follows. The Russians had their left at Serpallen, their centre
in front of Auklapen and their right at Schmoditten. They were
awaiting the arrival of eight thousand Prussians, who were
expected to go to Althoff where they would form the extreme right
wing. The enemy's front line was protected by five hundred
artillery pieces, of which a third at least were of large
calibre. The French situation was much less favourable, since
their two wings had not yet arrived. The Emperor had, at the
start of the action, only a part of the force with which he had
expected to do battle. Marshal Soult's corps was placed on the
right and left of Eylau, the Guard in the town itself, and
Augereau's corps between Eylau and Rothenen, opposite Serpellen.
The enemy formed almost a semicircle about us, and the two armies
occupied a terrain in which there were numerous ponds covered by
snow, which neither side could see.
Neither Marshal Davout, who should have been on our right,
towards Molwitten, nor Marshal Ney, who should have been on our
left around Althoff, had yet appeared, when at daybreak, about
eight in the morning, the Russians began the attack by a violent
cannonade to which our gunners, though fewer in numbers, replied.
Though fewer, they had the advantage, however of being much
better trained than the Russians, and also of directing their
fire at masses of men who had no cover, while the Russian
cannon-balls mainly hit the walls of Eylau and Rothenen. Soon a
strong enemy column advanced with the intention of capturing the
town; it was vigourously repelled by the Guard and Marshal
Soult's troops. At this moment, the Emperor heard, with much
pleasure, that from the top of the church tower could be seen
Davout's men arriving via Molwitten and marching towards
Serpallen, from where they expelled the Russians and drove them
back to Klein-Sausgarten.
The Russian commander, Benningsen, seeing his left beaten and his
rear menaced by the audacious Davout, resolved to crush him, and
directed the greater part of his force against him. It was then
that Napoleon, with the object of preventing this movement by
creating a diversion against the enemy centre, ordered Augereau
to attack, although he foresaw the difficulties of this
operation.
There are on the field of battle, circumstances when one must
sacrifice some troops in order to preserve the great majority and
ensure victory. General Corbineau, the Emperor's aide-de-camp,
was killed by a cannon shot near to us while bringing to Marshal
Augereau the order to advance. The marshal passed between Eylau
and Rothenen and led his two divisions boldly against the enemy
centre, and already the 14th Line regiment who made up our
advance guard had seized the position which the Emperor had
ordered to be taken and held at all costs, when the guns which
formed a semi-circle about Augereau hurled out a storm of ball
and grape-shot of hitherto unprecedented ferocity. In an instant,
our two divisions were pulverised under this rain of iron!
General Desjardins was killed and General Heudelet gravely
wounded; however, they stood firm until the corps having been
almost entirely destroyed, the remnants were compelled to retire
to the cemetery of Eylau, with the exception of the 14th, who
almost entirely surrounded by the enemy, remained on the little
hill which they had occupied. The situation was made even worse
by a gale of wind which blew a heavy snowfall into our faces, and
reduced visibility to about fifteen paces, so that several French
batteries opened fire on us, as well as the Russians. Marshal
Augereau was wounded by a bullet.
The devotion of 7th Corps, however, produced a good result, for,
relieved by our attack, Marshal Davout was able not only to
maintain his position, but to take Klein-Sausgarten and even push
his advance-guard as far as Kuschitten, in the enemy's rear.
Then, in an attempt to deliver a knock-out blow, Napoleon
despatched, between Eylau and Rothenen, the squadrons commanded
by Murat. This terrifying mass fell on the Russian centre,
overwhelming them, cutting them down with their sabres and
throwing them into the greatest confusion. The valiant General
D'Hautpoul was killed at the head of his Cuirassiers, as was
General Dahlmann, who had succeeded General Morland in the
command of the Chasseurs of the Guard. The success of our cavalry
allowed us to carry the day. Eight thousand Prussians, escaped
from pursuit by Marshal Ney, and arriving at Althoff, tried to
mount a new attack by advancing, one does not quite know why, on
Kuschitten instead of Eylau, but Davout drove them off, and the
arrival of Ney's corps at Schmoditten towards the end of the day,
made Benningsen fear that his line of communication would be cut,
and so he ordered a retreat in the direction of Konigsberg,
leaving the French masters of the horrible battlefield covered
with dead and dying. Since the invention of gunpowder one has not
seen such a terrible effect, for in relation to the numbers
engaged at Eylau, in comparison to all the battles, ancient or
modern, the proportion of losses was highest. The Russians had
twenty-five thousand casualties, and although the figure for
French losses has been given as ten thousand, it is my belief
that it was at least twenty thousand. A total of forty-five
thousand men, of whom more than half died!
Augereau's corps was almost entirely destroyed. Out of fifteen
thousand combatants under arms at the beginning of the action,
there remained by evening only three thousand, under the command
of Lieutenant colonel Massy: the marshal, all the generals and
all the colonels had been either killed or wounded.
It is difficult to understand why Benningsen, knowing that Davout
and Ney had not yet arrived, did not take advantage of their
absence to attack Eylau at daybreak with the numerous troops of
the centre of his army, instead of using precious time in
bombarding us; for his superior strength would certainly have
made him master of the town before the arrival of Davout, and the
Emperor would then have regretted having moved so far forward
instead of consolidating his position on the plateau of Ziegelhof
and awaiting the arrival of his flank forces, as he had intended
the evening before.
The day after the battle the Emperor followed the Russians to the
gates of Konigsberg; but that town was fortified and it was
thought unwise to attack it with troops weakened by a sanguinary
battle, and what is more, almost all the Russian army was in
Konigsberg and the surrounding country.
Napoleon spent several days at Eylau, partly to collect the
wounded and partly to reorganise his forces. The survivors of
Augereau's corps were spread amongst other units and the marshal
was given leave to return to France for the treatment of his
wound. The Emperor, seeing that the bulk of the Russian army was
now at a distance, put his troops into billets in the towns and
villages in front of the lower Vistula. There was no interesting
event during the rest of the winter, except the taking of Danzig
by our troops. Hostilities in the open country would not begin
again until the month of june, as we shall see later.
Chap. 34.
I did not want to interrupt the story of the battle of Eylau to
tell you what happened to me in this terrible conflict; a sad
tale, to understand which we must go back to the autumn of 1805
when the officers of the Grande Armee were equipping themselves
in preparation for the Battle of Austerlitz. I had two good
horses and was looking for a third of a better quality, a
charger. This was something difficult to find, for although
horses were infinitely cheaper than they are today, they were
still expensive, and I did not have much money; but I had a piece
of very good luck.
I ran into a German scholar, named M. d'Aister, whom I had known
when he was teaching at Soreze; he was now tutor to the children
of a rich Swiss banker, M. Scherer, who lived in Paris and was an
associate of M. Finguerlin, who was a very wealthy man who kept
up great state, and had a stable of many horses, amongst which
was a charming mare called Lisette, an excellent animal from
Mecklemberg, good-looking, swift as a stag, and so well schooled
that a child could ride her. But this mare had a dreadful and
fortunately rare vice: she bit like a bulldog, and attacked
furiously anyone who displeased her, which decided M. Finguerlin
to sell her. She was bought by Mme. de Lauriston, whose husband,
an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, had written to her to ask her to
buy him a charger.
M. Finguerlin, when he sold the mare, had omitted to mention her
behaviour, and on the evening of her purchase, a groom, whom she
had torn open, was found lying at her feet. Mme. de Lauriston was
justly alarmed and demanded cancellation of the sale. Not only
was this done, but the police, in order to prevent another such
accident, required that a notice be fixed to Lisette's loose-box
informing any potential buyer of her ferocity, and that any sale
would be null and void unless the buyer declared in writing that
he was aware of this notice.
As you may imagine, with such a recommendation, the mare was very
difficult to sell; M. d'Aister told me that her owner was
prepared to let her go for whatever was offered. I offered a
thousand francs and M. Finguerlin handed Lisette over to me,
although she had cost five thousand. For several months she gave
me a great deal of trouble; it took four or five men to saddle
her, and she could not be bridled without being blindfolded and
having all four legs tied; but once on her back one found her a
matchless ride.
However, since during the time I had owned her she had bitten
several people, including me, I was thinking of getting rid of
her, when, having taken into my service a man called Francis
Woirland, who was scared of nothing, he, before approaching
Lisette, about whose bad character I had warned him, armed
himself with a very hot leg of roast mutton, and when she
attempted to bite him, he offered this to her, which she seized
in her teeth; but having burned her mouth and her tongue, the
mare gave a cry and dropped the gigot, and from that moment she
submitted herself to Woirland, whom she no longer dared to bite.
I tried the same trick and achieved the same result. Lisette, as
docile as a dog, allowed herself to be handled by myself and my
servant; she even became a little more tractable with the grooms
whom she saw every day, but woe betide any stranger passing too
close to her. I could give many examples of her ferocity, but I
shall limit myself to one.
While Marshal Augereau was staying at the chateau of Bellevue,
near Berlin, the servants, having noticed that while they were at
diner, someone was coming to steal the sacks of oats from the
stable, asked Woirland to leave Lisette loose near the door. The
thief arrived, slipped into the stable and was already carrying
off one of the sacks when the mare grabbed him by the neck,
dragged him into the yard and broke two of his ribs by trampling
on him. People came running to the cries of the terrified thief,
whom Lisette was unwilling to abandon until my servant and I
persuaded her, for in her rage she would have savaged anyone
else. The wickedness of this animal had got worse since the
officer of the Saxon Hussars had treacherously stabbed her in the
shoulder on the battlefield of Jena.
It was this mare that I was riding at the time when the remains
of Marshal Augereau's corps, shattered by a hail of cannon and
grape shot, were attempting to re-form in the area of the
cemetery. You will recall that the 14th Line regiment had stayed
alone on the little hill, which it might leave only if ordered to
do so by the Emperor. The snow having stopped for a moment, one
could see this gallant regiment almost completely surrounded by
the enemy, waving its Eagle aloft to show that it still stood
fast and needed help. The Emperor, touched by the devotion to
duty of these brave men, decided to attempt their rescue; he told
Marshal Augereau to send an officer with orders to them to quit
the hillock, form a small square and withdraw towards us; while a
brigade of cavalry would go to meet them and second their
efforts.