Dantzic appears made by nature for a fortress: washed on the north by
the Vistula, protected on the south-west by a chain of precipitous
heights, it is defended on all other sides by an inundation, which is
spread by means of two rivers which traverse it, the Radaune, and the
Mottlaw. Struck with the advantages of so fine a situation, Napoleon
had resolved to render it impregnable; he had caused some immense
works to be began. _Têtes-de-pont_, forts, intrenched camps, were
to protect it from insult and overlook the course of the river; but
time had been wanting, and most of the works were either imperfect
or scarcely traced out. No magazine was bomb-proof, no shelter
sufficiently solid to keep the garrison in security; the casemates
were uninhabitable, the quarters were in ruins, and the parapets
tumbling down. The cold, still very severe, had frozen the waters; and
Dantzic, the situation of which is naturally so happy and so strong,
was nothing more than a place open at every point.
The garrison was not in a better state; it was composed of a confused
mass of soldiers of all kinds and of all nations: there were French,
Germans, Poles, Africans, Spaniards, Dutch, and Italians. The greater
number, worn out or diseased, had been thrown into Dantzic because
they were unable to continue their march: they had hoped to find
some relief there; but destitute of all medicines, of animal food
and vegetables, without spirits or forage, I was obliged to send
away those who were not absolutely incapable of leaving the place.
Nevertheless I had 35,000 left, out of which there were not above 8
or 10,000 fighting men; even these were nearly all recruits who had
neither experience nor discipline. This circumstance, indeed, did not
much alarm me; I was acquainted with our soldiers; I knew that for
them to fight well they only wanted an example. I was resolved not to
spare myself.
Such was the deplorable state in which the place and the troops
charged with defending it were found. It was necessary first to
provide for the most important point—to shelter ourselves from
attack. The thing was not easy; the snow covered the fortifications;
it obstructed all the covert ways, all the avenues: the cold was
extreme; the thermometer was more than twenty degrees below zero[2],
and the ice was already several inches thick. Nevertheless there was
no time for hesitation; it was necessary to resolve to be carried by
assault, or to submit to fresh fatigues almost as excessive as those
we had experienced. I concerted with two men whose devotedness was
equal to their intelligence; these were Colonel Richemont and General
Campredon, both were attached to the engineer corps of which the
latter had the command.
[2] Of Reaumur. _Translator._
I gave orders to raise new works, and to clear the waters of the
Vistula. This undertaking appeared impracticable, on account of the
severity of the season; nevertheless the troops undertook it with
their accustomed zeal. Notwithstanding the cold which overwhelmed
them, they never suffered a murmur or a complaint to escape them. They
executed the tasks which were prescribed to them with a devotion and
constancy beyond all praise. At last, after unparalleled difficulties,
they surmounted every obstacle; the ice, broken by hatchets and moved
with levers towards the sea, assisted by the force of the stream,
opened in the middle of the river a channel from sixteen to seventeen
metres broad, and two leagues and a half in length. But we were
destined to see difficulties return as soon as they were overcome:
scarcely had an unexpected success crowned our efforts, when the cold
set in with redoubled severity; in one night the Vistula, the ditches,
were covered with a sheet of ice almost as thick as the one we had
broken. In vain were boats moved up and down incessantly, to keep up
by agitation the fluidity of the water; neither these precautions
nor the rapidity of the river could preserve it. It was necessary to
resume those labours, which had cost us so much, and which a moment
had destroyed. Day and night were employed in breaking the ice; we
could not nevertheless prevent its forming again a third time: but
more obstinate even than the elements which combined against us,
our soldiers opposed their courage to these obstacles, and at last
succeeded in triumphing over them.
On all the remainder of the front of the plain the same zeal was
shown and the same difficulties occurred: the earth, frozen several
feet deep, resisted the spade and braved the efforts of the pioneers;
nothing could separate this compact mass;—even the axe rebounded. It
was necessary to have recourse to fire to melt it; great piles of
wood, placed at distances from each other, and kept up for a long
time, were the only means which enabled us to make excavations and to
raise the necessary palisades. With great labour and perseverance, we
had at last the satisfaction of seeing in a state of defence works
that had only just been begun. The Holm, Weichselmunde, the entrenched
camp of Neufahrwasser, and the multitude of forts which protect the
approaches of Dantzic, were put in a situation to be able to offer
a noble resistance; and, if this town was not raised to the degree
of strength of which it was susceptible, it was at least capable of
supporting a siege, the duration and adventures of which are not
amongst those events which do most honour to foreign arms.
These fatigues were more than human power could support. Bivouacking,
privations, continual service, aggravated their severity: disease,
consequently, was not slow in making its appearance. From the first
days of January every sun took from us fifty men: at the end of the
following month we were losing as many as a hundred and thirty; and
we counted more than 15,000 sick. From the troops, the epidemic had
passed to the inhabitants: it committed among them the most dreadful
ravages; no age nor sex was spared; those who were afflicted by
poverty, and those who were surrounded by ease and luxury, were alike
its prey. All gave way, all perished; the young, first entering on
the path of life—the old, whose career was nearly run. Grief reigned
in every family; consternation was in every breast. Dantzic, at other
times so lively, now plunged in a melancholy silence, only offered
in every direction to the saddened eye the pomp and processions of
funerals. The sound of the bells, the hearses, the images of death
reproduced under every form, aggravated a situation already so
deplorable. The minds of the troops began to be shaken. I hastened to
cut up the evil by its root; I interdicted these funeral solemnities
which the piety of the living consecrates to the dead.
I had not waited for the epidemic to rage in all its violence before
I opposed it. As soon as the first symptoms had been observed, I
had caused hospitals to be opened, medicines, beds, and every thing
which is necessary for this part of the service to be purchased. A
wholesome and plentiful food would have been more efficacious; but
we were so badly provisioned, that we could scarcely furnish for
each day's allowance two ounces of fresh meat. A little salt meat,
some dried beans, composed all that we had in our power to offer to
men worn out by long privations. This state of things was cruel; I
could not, however, remedy it any way. I had, in vain, despatched a
vessel for Stralsund, in order to draw from Swedish Pomerania, which
we still possessed, food and medicines; the sloop, charged with my
despatches, assailed by a violent tempest, was driven on shore. We
were approaching the Equinox: the Baltic was already agitated by
storms: it was not possible to make a second attempt.
Courage was the only resource we had left. It was only at the point of
the sword that we could obtain the means of subsistence; but, whatever
was the devotedness of the troops, prudence did not warrant conducting
them against the enemy, exhausted as they were by disease and misery.
It was necessary to resign ourselves to fate, and patiently hope
that the gentle influence of the fine season would come to recruit
our strength: this was not far distant; all the signs which announce
it were already showing themselves The weather was milder, the ice
was beginning to melt, the breaking up of the frost was near, and we
flattered ourselves that the inundation would relieve, to a certain
degree, the fatigues that we were suffering; but that which was
expected to solace our misfortunes was always that which raised them
to their height.
The Vistula cleared itself with violence: since 1775 there had never
been an example of such impetuosity in the current: the finest part
of Dantzic, its magazines, its arsenals, became a prey to the waves;
the country was covered with water; nothing presented itself, for the
extent of several leagues, but the afflicting spectacle of trees torn
up by their roots, of houses in ruins, of men, of cattle floating
lifeless and in confusion among the loose ice. Our destruction
appeared inevitable: all our works were demolished; our palisades
carried away, our sluices broken, our forts opened and undermined by
the waves, left us without the means of defence before a numerous
enemy. We could no longer communicate with the Holm, a position so
important, and of which the fortifications were nearly annihilated.
The island of Heubude was in a deplorable state: our posts of the
Werder, those of the Nerhung, had been submerged. To complete our
misfortunes, we were threatened, when the Vistula should resume its
course, with seeing the inundation which habitually surrounded the
place dried up.