The March of Humiliation
(1812)
For several weeks the Emperor remained in Moscow anxiously awaiting
what he hoped would be a favourable answer to his proposals to
Alexander. “I am blamed,” he said, according to Ségur, “for not
retreating; but those who censure me do not consider that it requires
a month to reorganise the army and evacuate the hospitals; that, if
we abandon the wounded, the Cossacks will daily triumph over the sick
and the isolated men. A retreat will appear a flight; and Europe
will re-echo with the news. What a frightful course of perilous wars
will date from my first retrograde step! I knew well that Moscow, as
a military position, is worth nothing; but as a political point its
preservation is of inestimable value. The world regards me only as a
general, forgetting that I am an Emperor. In politics, you must never
retrace your steps: if you have committed a fault, you must never show
that you are conscious of it; error, steadily adhered to, becomes a
virtue in the eyes of posterity.”
The Czar refusing to treat with the enemy at Moscow, Napoleon offered
in his desperation to withdraw his opposition to Russian plans
regarding Constantinople, hitherto the cause of so much bitterness--all
to no purpose. Alexander remained as adamant, and having previously
told Sir Robert Wilson, the British commissioner, that he would sooner
dig potatoes in Siberia than negotiate while a French soldier remained
in Russian territory, neither went back on his word nor regretted
it. European affairs were far too unsettled for Napoleon to take up
winter quarters. There was no alternative but to order a retreat, to
“pocket his pride,” as schoolboys say. So the march which he knew must
humiliate him in the sight of both his allies and his enemies was begun
with what speed was possible in the circumstances.
Gallant and gay they marched along,
Fair Russia to subdue.
Sneaking and sad they back return,
While brave Cossacks pursue.
Cossacks in clouds, and crows and kites,
Surround them as they go,
And when they fall and sink in death,
Their winding sheet is snow.
Thus run two stanzas of a poem written in the manner of the famous
“John Gilpin” and published in London. If it is not particularly
good poetry it is true history. At first Napoleon hoped by marching
southward to find territory less devastated and poverty-stricken than
that through which he had passed. In this he was frustrated by a
conflict which took place between Eugène’s corps and the army under
Kutusoff. The Viceroy of Italy captured Malojaroslavetz only to find
that he had won a barren victory at extreme cost, leaving the Russians
posted securely on the hills at the back of the ruined town. The
Emperor had wished to push on; the enemy’s position prevented it. Had
he known that Kutusoff had previously arranged to retreat if he were
attacked, Napoleon would not have hesitated. He weighed the matter in
his own mind and discussed it with his Marshals, finally coming to the
conclusion that his army must of necessity retire by the road along
which it had advanced, or in the expressive terms of Labaume, via “the
desert which we ourselves had made.”
Werestchagin’s picture of the retreat conveys some idea of the tragedy.
There is the stern and unbending Emperor wearing the crown of fir cones
which he wore at this time, and followed by his dejected staff and the
empty carriage. We can almost hear the crunch of the snow as it powders
under foot, catch the low murmurings of the disillusioned men as they
trudge along the uneven roadway, and feel the icy grip and stinging
smart of the cruel wind. And yet the artist’s conception, vivid beyond
question, cannot bring home to us a tithe of the terrors and misery of
that awful march. Horses stumbled and perished, men fell by the wayside
and died of hunger and cold, some flung away their arms in sheer
despair, others tramped on like machines, cognisant only of the bitter
blast which froze their moustaches and whistled through their tattered
garments.
According to Labaume, the first snow fell on the 6th November, when the
army was tramping towards Smolensk comforted by the thought that in
three days they would reach their destination and secure some kind of
rude shelter, “when suddenly the atmosphere, which had hitherto been
brilliant, was clouded by cold and dense vapours. The sun, enveloped by
the thickest mists, disappeared from our sight, and the snow falling in
large flakes, in an instant obscured the day, and confounded the earth
with the sky. The wind, furiously blowing, howled dreadfully through
the forests, and overwhelmed the firs already bent down with the ice;
while the country around, as far as the eye could reach, presented
unbroken one white and savage appearance.
“The soldiers, vainly struggling with the snow and the wind, that
rushed upon them with tempestuous violence, could no longer distinguish
the road; and falling into the ditches which bordered it, there found
a grave. Others pressed on their journey, though scarcely able to drag
themselves along. They were badly mounted, badly clothed, with nothing
to eat, nothing to drink, shivering with cold, and groaning with pain.
Becoming selfish through despair, they afforded neither succour nor
even one glance of pity to those who, exhausted by fatigue and disease,
expired around them. On that dreadful day, how many unfortunate beings,
perishing by cold and famine, struggled hard with the agonies of death!
We heard some of them faintly bidding adieu to their friends and
comrades. Others, as they drew their last breath, pronounced the name
of their mothers, their wives, their native country, which they were
never more to see; the rigour of the frost seized on their benumbed
limbs, and penetrated through their whole frame. Stretched on the road,
we could distinguish only the heaps of snow that covered them, and
which, at almost every step, formed little undulations, like so many
graves. At the same time vast flights of ravens, abandoning the plain
to take refuge in the neighbouring forests, croaked ominously as they
passed over our heads; and troops of dogs, which had followed us from
Moscow, and lived solely on our mangled remains, howled around us, as
if they would hasten the period when we were to become their prey.
“From that day the army lost its courage and its military attitude.
The soldier no longer obeyed his officer; the officer separated
himself from his general; the disbanded regiments marched in disorder;
searching for food, they spread themselves over the plain, pillaging
whatever fell in their way. No sooner had the soldiers separated from
the ranks, than they were assailed by a population eager to avenge
the horrors of which it had been the victim. The Cossacks came to the
succour of the peasants, and drove back to the great road, already
filled with the dying and the dead, those of the followers who escaped
from the carnage made among them.”
[Illustration: Marshal Ney defending the Rearguard
By Adolphe Yvon
By permission of Braun, Clément & Co., Dornach (Alsace)]
At the little town of Dorogobuï, previously burnt by the Emperor’s
orders, practically no comfort could be obtained. “The few houses that
remained,” says Labaume, “were occupied exclusively by a small number
of generals and staff-officers. The soldiers who yet dared to face the
enemy, had little shelter from the rigours of the season, while the
others, who had wandered from their proper corps, were repulsed on
every side, and found no asylum in any part of the camp. How deplorable
was then the situation of these poor wretches! Tormented by hunger, we
saw them run after every horse the moment it fell. They devoured it
raw, like dogs, and fought among themselves for the mangled limbs. Worn
out by want of sleep and long marches, they saw nothing around them but
snow; not one spot appeared on which they could sit or lie. Penetrated
with the cold, they wandered on every side to find wood, but the snow
had caused it entirely to disappear; if perchance they found a little,
they knew not where to light it. Did they discover a spot less exposed
than others, it afforded them but a momentary shelter, for scarcely
had their fire kindled, when the violence of the wind extinguished
it, and deprived them of the only consolation which remained in their
extreme distress. We saw crowds of them huddled together like beasts at
the root of a beech or pine, or under a waggon. Others were employed in
tearing huge branches from the trees, or pulling down by main force,
and burning the houses at which the officers lodged. Although they were
exhausted by fatigue, they stood erect; they wandered like spectres
through the livelong night, or stood immovable around some enormous
fire.”
Smolensk was reached on the 9th November. During the few days that were
spent there the soldiers lost all idea of discipline and pillaged the
rations, with the result that while some had plenty others starved.
After having made his way to Krasnoi, largely owing to the slow advance
of the enemy, Napoleon was joined by Eugène and Davout, and on the
19th the ice-bound Dnieper was crossed. Ney and the rear-guard, unable
to come up with the Emperor in time, sustained a heavy loss. But they
fought on, and when they rejoined the main army the corps had dwindled
to such an extent that it numbered but 900 men.
Marching towards the Beresina river, Napoleon gave orders for bridges
to be hastily constructed. Although there were frequent delays owing to
breakdowns, many of the troops and some of the artillery passed over in
safety. Consequently, when the Russians appeared they found the French
on both banks. Victor, Oudinot, and Ney, recognising the extremely
serious predicament in which they were placed, fought so determinedly
that the remaining troops, excepting only Victor’s rear-guard and
some thousands of undesirable camp-followers, were enabled to cross
the river. The undertaking was attended by a frightful loss of life,
variously estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000 men. At Smorgoni the
Emperor, filled with anxiety for the future of his throne and of
France, took leave of his Marshals after telling them that he would
raise another powerful army, entered his travelling-carriage and was
whirled away to Paris as fast as the horses could draw the lumbering
vehicle. Twice he narrowly escaped assassination, and the knowledge of
a conspiracy engineered by Malet to shatter the Napoleonic dynasty, as
well as of continued disasters in the Peninsula, did not tend to sooth
his overwrought nerves. The mighty edifice he had erected seemed to be
crumbling away at the very moment when he had hoped to complete it.
The remnants of the Grand Army dragged their flagging footsteps
to Vilna, commanded, if that word may properly be used, by Murat.
Disaster still dogged them, their strength grew feebler and feebler.
Only 100,000 troops, chiefly consisting of those under Schwarzenberg
and Macdonald, returned to their native land. Doubtless the survivors
thought sadly of the fate of half a million comrades, some of whom
still lived as prisoners or wanderers, while the majority lay stiff
and gaunt on the plains and in the forests of victorious Russia, their
winding-sheet the snow. At least 150,000 of the enemy kept them company
in death. No priest gave them holy sepulture, but the crows cawed a
funeral requiem.