Grand Duchy of Warsaw commanded by Prince Poniatovski, fought so
badly that the Emperor sent his major general to upbraid them. In
this battle of Moscow, General Rapp was wounded for the
twenty-first time.
Although the Russians had been defeated and forced to leave the
field of battle, their generalissimo, Koutousoff, had the
impudence to write to the Emperor Alexander, claiming that he had
just won a great victory over the French. This falsehood, which
arrived in St. Petersburg on Alexander's birthday, gave rise to
much rejoicing. A Te Deum was sung and Koutousoff was promoted to
field-marshal. However it was not long before the truth was known
and the joy turned to grief; but Koutousoff was now a
field-marshal, which was what he wanted. Anyone but the timid
Alexander would have severely punished the new field-marshal for
this outrageous lie; but Koutousoff was needed, and so he
remained head of the army.
Chap. 13.
The Russians, retreating towards Moscow, were contacted on the
morning of the eighth, when there was a sharp cavalry engagement
in which General Belliard was wounded. Napoleon spent three days
at Mojaisk, partly to draw up the orders necessary in the
circumstances and partly to reply to the back-log of despatches.
One of these, which had arrived on the eve of the battle, had
affected him greatly and had contributed to making him ill, for
it announced that the so-called army of Portugal, commanded by
Marshal Marmont, had suffered a severe defeat at Arpiles, near
Salamanca, in Spain.
Marmont was one of Napoleon's mistakes. He had been one of
Napoleon's companions at the college of Brienne and later in the
artillery, and Napoleon took an interest in him. Misled by some
success achieved by Marmont at school, the Emperor had a belief
in the Marshal's military talents which his performance in the
field never justified. In 1811, Marmont had replaced Massena as
commander of the army of Portugal, proclaiming that he would
defeat Wellington, but the contrary proved to be the case.
Marmont, defeated, wounded, with his army in disarray and obliged
to abandon several provinces, would have suffered even worse
reverses if General Clausel had not come to his aid.
When he learned of this disaster, the Emperor must have reflected
deeply on the present operation, for while he was about to enter
Moscow at the head of his largest army, a thousand leagues away
another army had just been defeated. By invading Russia was he
about to lose Spain? Major Fabvier, who brought this despatch,
volunteered to join in the battle for Moscow and was wounded in
the assault on the great redout. It was a long way to come to be
hit by a bullet.
On the 12th of September Napoleon left Mojaisk, and on the 15th
he entered Moscow. This enormous city was deserted. General
Rostopschine, its governor, had forced all the inhabitants to
leave. This Rostopschine, whom some have described as a hero,
was a barbarian, who would shrink from nothing to achieve his
aims. He had allowed the populace to strangle a number of foreign
merchants, mainly the French, who were living in Moscow, on the
sole grounds that they were suspected of hoping for the arrival
of Napoleon's troops. Some days before the battle of Moscow, the
Cossacks having captured about a hundred sick Frenchmen,
Koutousoff sent them by a roundabout road to the governor of
Moscow, who, regardless of their condition, left them for
forty-eight hours without food and then paraded them triumphantly
through the streets, where a number of these unfortunates
collapsed and died of starvation. As this was happening,
policemen read to the populace a proclamation by Rostopschine in
which, to encourage them to take up arms, he declared that all
the French were in a similar feeble state and would be easily
overcome. When this disgusting performance was over, the majority
of the soldiers still alive were killed by the mob, without
Rostopschine doing anything to protect them.
The defeated Russian troops had only passed through Moscow, and
had gone to re-group some thirty leagues from there, around
Kalouga. Murat followed them with all his cavalry and several
infantry corps. The Imperial Guard stayed in the town and
Napoleon took up residence in the Kremlin, the ancient fortified
palace of the Czars. Everything seemed peaceful, when, during
the night 15th-16th September, some French and German merchants
who had escaped the governor's attentions came to warn Napoleon's
staff that the city was to be set on fire. This information was
confirmed by a Russian policeman, who refused to carry out the
orders of his superiors: he stated that before leaving Moscow,
Rostopschine had thrown open all the prisons and released the
prisoners and convicts, to whom he had given torches said to have
been supplied by the British, and that these persons were lying
hidden in the abandoned houses waiting for the signal. When the
Emperor heard of this he instituted the strictest precautionary
measures. Patrols went about the streets and killed a number of
those caught setting fires alight, but it was too late; fire
broke out in various parts of the city and spread rapidly owing
to the fact that Rostopschine had taken away all the
fire-fighting equipment. It was not long before the whole of
Moscow was ablaze. The Emperor left the Kremlin and went to the
chateau of Peterskoe. He did not return until three days later,
when the fire was beginning to subside for lack of fuel. I shall
not go into any details about the fire itself, as there are
several eye-witness accounts, but later I shall examine the
consequences of this catastrophic conflagration.
Napoleon, who did not understand the position in which Alexander
found himself, hoped always for some accommodation and
eventually, tired of waiting, he decided to write to him
personally. In the meantime the Russian army was being
reorganised in the area of Kalouga, from where agents were sent
to direct stray soldiers back to their units. It was estimated
that there were about 15,000 of them concealed in the suburbs and
able to wander about our bivouacs without being challenged. They
sat round the fires with our men and ate with them, yet no one
thought of making them prisoners. This was a great mistake, for
they gradually returned to the Russian army, while our strength
diminished daily owing to sickness and the increasing cold. We
lost an enormous number of horses, which was thought due to the
extraordinary efforts demanded by Murat from the cavalry, of
which he was the commander. Murat, recalling the brilliant
successes obtained against the Prussians in 1806 and 1807 by
pursuing them closely, thought that the cavalry should be equal
to any demands and should march twelve to fifteen leagues a day
without worrying about the fatigue of the horses, the essential
being to reach the enemy with at least some of the columns.
However the climate, the shortage of rations and fodder, the long
duration of the campaign and above all the tenacious resistance
of the Russians had greatly changed the situation, so that by the
time we reached Moscow, half our cavalrymen had no horses, and
Murat managed to finish off the rest at Kalouga. Prince Murat was
proud of his tall stature and his bravery; and being always
decked out in strange but brilliant uniforms, he had attracted
the notice of the enemy, with whom he was pleased to parley, even
exchanging gifts with the Cossack officers. Koutousoff took
advantage of these meetings to encourage in the French the false
hopes of a peace, hopes which Murat passed on to the Emperor. One
day, however, this enemy who claimed to be so weakened, arose,
slipped into our cantonments and captured some supplies, a
squadron of dragoons and a battalion of troops. After this
Napoleon forbade, under pain of death, any communication with the
Russians which he had not authorised.
The Emperor never entirely lost hope of concluding a peace, on
the 4th of October he sent General Lauriston, his aide-de-camp,
to General Koutousoff's headquarters. The cunning Russian showed
General Lauriston a letter which he had addressed to the Emperor
Alexander, urging him to agree to the French proposals, seeing
that, as he alleged, the Russian army was in no state to continue
the war. The officer carrying this despatch had hardly left for
St. Petersburg, armed with a pass from Lauriston which would
preserve him from attack by any of our men who were in the area
between the two armies, when Koutousoff sent off a second
aide-de-camp to his Emperor. This officer, having no French
laissez-passer, was stopped by one of our patrols, taken prisoner
and his despatches sent to Napoleon. The contents were the exact
opposite to what had been shown to Lauriston. After imploring his
sovereign not to treat with the French, he informed him that
Admiral Tchitchakoff's army, freed from its duties on the
frontier by the peace with Turkey, was moving towards Minsk in
order to cut the French line of retreat. He also told Alexander
of the discussions he had conducted freely with Murat, with the
aim of encouraging the false sense of security entertained by the
French in remaining in Moscow so late in the year.
When he saw this letter, Napoleon, realising that he had been
tricked, fell into a furious rage, and is said to have
contemplated marching on St. Petersburg; but beyond the
diminished strength of the army and the rigours of the winter,
which militated against such an undertaking, there were pressing
reasons for the Emperor to get closer to Germany, in order to
watch over that country and to see what was going on in France,
where there had been a conspiracy whose leaders had been, for one
day, in control of the capital. A fanatic, General Malet, had
tossed a spark into Paris which could have started a fire, which,
had he not encountered a man as far-seeing and energetic as
Adjutant-major Laborde, might have put an end to the imperial
government.
This was not heartening, and one can imagine the anxiety of
Napoleon when he learned of the danger which had threatened his
family and his government.
Chap. 14.
In Moscow, Napoleon's position grew worse daily. The cold was
already bitter and only the French-born soldiers maintained their
morale, but they composed no more than half the force which
Napoleon had led into Russia. The remainder was made up of
Germans, Swiss, Croats, Lombards, Romanians, Piedmontais,
Spaniards, and Portuguese. All these foreigners, who stayed
loyal as long as the army was successful, now began to complain
and, led astray by the leaflets in various languages which the
Russians spread widely through our camps, they deserted in droves
to the enemy, who promised to repatriate them.
Added to this, the two wings of the Grande Armee, which consisted
entirely of Austrians and Prussians, were now no longer in line
with the centre as they had been at the beginning of the
campaign, but were in our rear, ready to bar our way on the first
command of their sovereigns, ancient and irreconcilable enemies
of France. The position was critical, and although it would
greatly hurt Napoleon's pride to display to the whole world that
he had failed in his objective of imposing a peace on Alexander,
the word "retreat" was at last uttered. But neither the Emperor
nor the marshals nor anyone else thought of abandoning Russia and
recrossing the Nieman; the idea was to go into winter quarters in
the least unpleasant of the Polish provinces.
The evacuation of Moscow was agreed on in principle, but before
taking this step, Napoleon, in a last endeavour to obtain a
settlement, sent an emissary to Marshal Koutousoff, who did not
make any response.
During these delays our army was melting away, day by day, and in
blind overconfidence our outposts remained at risk in the
province of Kalouga in untactical positions, when suddenly a
wholly unforeseen event occurred which opened the eyes of the
most incredulous and destroyed any illusions which the Emperor
still had of achieving peace.
General Sebastiani, whom we saw allowing himself to be surprised
at Drouia, had replaced General Montbrun as commander of the 2nd
Cavalry Corps and, although close to the enemy, he spent his days
in his slippers, reading Italian poetry and carrying out no
reconnaissance. Taking advantage of this negligence, Koutousoff
attacked Sebastiani on the 18th of October, surrounded him and
overwhelmed him by numbers, forcing him to abandon part of his
artillery. Sebastiani's three divisions of cavalry, separated
from the rest of Murat's troops, were able to rejoin them only
after fighting their way through several enemy battalions who
stood in their way. In the course of this savage combat,
Sebastiani displayed his valour, for he was a brave man, if a
noticeably mediocre general, something which will be demonstrated
anew when we come to the campaign of 1813.
At the same time as he surprised Sebastiani, Koutousoff ordered
an attack on Murat's lines, in which the Prince was slightly
wounded. Having learned of this unsatisfactory affair, and on
the same day been told of the arrival in the enemy camp of a
reinforcement of ten thousand cavalry from the Russian army in
Wallachia (The Russian border with the Turks, in southern
Romania. Ed.) which the Austrians, our allies, had allowed to
pass, the Emperor gave the order for the departure to begin on
the following day.
In the morning of the 19th of October, the Emperor left Moscow,
which he had entered on the 15th of September. His Majesty, the
old guard and the bulk of the army took the road to Kalouga;
Marshal Mortier and two divisions of the Young Guard remained
behind for twenty-four hours to complete the destruction of the
city and blow up the Kremlin, after which they brought up the
rear of the march.
The army trailed behind it more than forty thousand carriages,
which caused an obstruction whenever the road narrowed. When this
was remarked on to the Emperor, he replied that each of these
coaches could carry two wounded men and food for several, and
that their number would gradually diminish. The employment of
this philanthropic system could, I think, be objected to, on the
grounds that the need to speed the march of a retreating army
seems to me to outweigh all other considerations.
During the French occupation of Moscow, Murat and the cavalry
corps had been stationed in part of the fertile province of
Kalouga, but without seizing the town of that name. The Emperor
wished to avoid passing through the area of the battle of Moscow
(Borodino) and down the road to Mojaisk, which had been stripped
of resources by the army on its approach to Moscow; and for this
reason he took the road to Kalouga, from where he counted on
getting to Smolensk through fertile and, as it were, unspoiled
country. But at the end of several day's march, the army, which
after joining with Murat's force amounted, still, to more than
100,000 men, found itself confronting the Russian army which
occupied the little town of Malo-Iaroslawetz. The enemy was in
an exceedingly strong position; nevertheless the Emperor sent
into the attack Prince Eugene, at the head of the Italian Corps
and the French divisions of Morand and Gerard. Nothing could
stand in the way of these men and they took the town after a long
and murderous fight which cost us 4000 killed or wounded. Among
the dead was General Delzons, a very fine officer.
The next day, the 24th of October, the Emperor, surprised at the
degree of resistance he had encountered, and knowing that the
whole Russian army barred his way, halted the march and spent
three days considering what course he should follow.
On one occasion, during a reconnaissance of the enemy line, the
Emperor nearly fell into their hands. There was a very thick fog,
and suddenly shouts of "Hourra! Hourra!" were heard. It was a
group of Cossacks who were emerging from a wood bordering the
road, which they had been going through not twenty paces from the
Emperor, knocking down and spearing anyone that they came across:
but General Rapp rushed forward with the two squadrons of
Chasseurs and mounted Grenadiers which went everywhere with the
Emperor who, wielding their sabres, put the enemies to flight. It
was during this encounter that M. Le Couteulx, my former
companion on the staff of Marshal Lannes, and now an aide-de-camp
to Prince Berthier, having armed himself with the lance belonging
to a Cossack whom he had killed, was unwise enough to come back
brandishing this weapon, and, furthermore, dressed in a pelisse
and a fur hat, which concealed the French uniform. A mounted
Grenadier of the Guard mistook him for a Cossack officer, and
seeing him heading towards the Emperor, went after him and
slashed him across the body with his heavy sabre. In spite of
this serious wound, M. Le Couteulx, placed in one of the
Emperor's carriages, survived the cold and the exhaustion of the
retreat, and managed to reach France.
The reconnaissance carried out by the Emperor had convinced him
that it would be impossible to continue his march towards Kalouga
without fighting a sanguinary battle against the large force
commanded by Koutousoff. He decided, therefore, to reach Smolensk
by taking the road leading through Mojaisk. The army then left
the fertile countryside to take once more the now devastated
route along which, marking their passage with fires and dead
bodies, they had travelled in September. This movement by the
Emperor left him, after ten weary days, no more than twelve
leagues from Moscow, and caused the troops to feel increasing
anxiety about the future. The weather turned much worse; Marshal
Mortier rejoined the Emperor after having blown up the Kremlin.
The army saw once more Mojaisk and the battlefield of Borodino.
The ground, furrowed by cannon-balls, was covered with the debris
of helmets, cuirasses, wheels, weapons, fragments of uniform and
thirty thousand bodies, partly eaten by wolves. The Emperor and
the troops passed by quickly, casting a sad look at this immense
graveyard.
After they had reached Vyazma the snow began to fall and a bitter
wind to blow, which slowed their progress. Many of the vehicles
were abandoned, and some thousands of men and horses perished of
cold by the roadside. The flesh of the horses provided some
nourishment for the men and also for the officers. The command of
the rearguard passed successively from Davout to Prince Eugene
and finally to Marshal Ney, who kept this unpleasant job for the
rest of the campaign.
Smolensk was reached on the 1st of November. The Emperor had
arranged for a great quantity of food clothing and footwear to be
collected there, but those in charge of these supplies did not
realise the state of disorganisation into which the army had
fallen, and insisted on the paperwork and formalities of a normal
distribution. This delay so exasperated the men, who were dying
of cold and hunger, that they broke into the stores and took,
forcibly, whatever they could. With the result that some had too
much, some enough and some nothing.
As long as the troops had maintained a proper order of march, the
mixture of nationalities had given rise to no more than minor
inconveniences, but once fatigue and privation had broken the
ranks, discipline was lost. There was no way in which it could be
maintained in a vast body of isolated individuals, lacking every
necessity, walking on their own, without understanding why; for
in this disorderly mass there ruled a veritable babel of tongues.
A few regiments, mainly those in the Guard, held together. Almost
all the troopers of the cavalry, having lost their horses, were
formed into infantry battalions, and those of their officers who
still were mounted were made into special squadrons, commanded by
Generals Latour-Mauberg, Grouchy and Sebastiani, who acted as
ordinary captains, while brigade commanders and colonels filled
the post of sergeant and corporal. This resort alone, shows to
what extremity the army was reduced.
In this critical position, the Emperor had counted on a strong
division of troops of all arms, which General Baraguey d'Hilliers
was supposed to bring to Smolensk; but, as we neared the town, we
heard the General had laid down his arms before a Russian column,
with the provision that he alone would not be made prisoner and
would be allowed to rejoin the French army in order to explain
his actions. The Emperor, however, refused to see Baraguey
d'Hilliers and ordered him to return to France and to consider
himself under arrest until he was brought before a court-martial.
Baraguey d'Hilliers avoided court-martial by dying in Berlin, it
was said, of despair.
This General was another of Napoleon's mistakes. He had been
impressed by him at the time of the encampments at Boulogne when
he had promised that he could train dragoons to serve either as
cavalry or infantry. However, when this system was tried out in
1805, during the Austrian campaign, the Dragoons, now on foot and
commanded by Baraguey d'Hilliers in person, were defeated at
Wertingen before the eyes of the Emperor, and when placed once
more on horseback, they once more suffered the same fate. It was
several years before the unit recovered from the effects of this
experiment. The originator of the system, having fallen from
favour and hoping to re-establish himself by asking to come to
Russia, had completed his downfall by capitulating without a
struggle, and violating a decree stating that a commander forced
to surrender should accompany his men into captivity, and
forbidding him from negotiating terms favourable only to himself.
After spending several days at Smolensk to allow stragglers to
catch up with him, the Emperor went to Krasnoe, from where he
despatched an officer to 2nd Corps, which was still by the Dvina
and was now his only hope of safety.
The regiments of this corps, although they had not suffered the
hardship and privation of those who had gone to Moscow, had
however been more often in action against the enemy. Napoleon,
wishing to reward them by appointments to vacant positions, had
brought to him for his approval a number of proposals for
promotions, several of which related to me. One of these
recommended me for the rank only of lieutenant-colonel and it was
this that was put before the Emperor for his signature. I have it
from General Grundler who, having been detailed to carry the
despatch, found himself in the Emperor's office during the
signing, that the Emperor scratched out with his own hand the
words Lieutenant-colonel and wrote in the word Colonel, saying "I
am paying off an old debt." So, on the 15th of November, I at
last became Colonel of the 23rd Chasseurs, although I did not
know it until some time later.
The painful retreat was resumed. The enemy, whose strength
increased continually, cut off from the rest of the army the
Corps of Prince Eugene, Davout and Ney. The first two managed to
fight their way through to join the Emperor, who was very
distressed at the absence of Ney, of whom he had had no news for
several days.
On the 19th of November Napoleon reached Orscha. It was now a
month since he had left Moscow and there was still a hundred and
twenty leagues to cover before reaching the Nieman. The cold was
intense.
While the Emperor worried unhappily about the fate of his
rear-guard and the gallant Marshal Ney, the latter was engaged in
one of the finest feats of arms recorded in history. Leaving
Smolensk on the morning of the 17th, after blowing up the
ramparts, the Marshal had hardly begun his march when he was
assailed by a myriad of the enemy, who attacked both flanks and
the front and rear of his column.
Driving them off continually, Ney marched, surrounded by them for
three days, to halt eventually before the dangerous pass of the
Krasnoe ravine, beyond which could be seen a great mass of
Russian troops and an array of guns which opened a lively and
sustained fire.