The pen has no colors to depict the horrors of the grand army’s retreat
amid the fierce storms of a Russian winter. Though “horrors upon
horror’s head” accumulate, there is always lacking something which shall
picture to the heart the full truth of that disastrous march.
The Emperor reached Wiazma in two days’ march from Gjatz. Here he halted
for the arrival of Prince Eugene and Davoust; and to reconnoitre the
road from Medyn and Juknof. Hearing no tidings of the Russians, he set
off after thirty-six hours’ stay, leaving Ney at Wiazma to relieve
Davoust, who was accused of dilatoriness; but he said that the artillery
and wagons were constantly precipitated into deep ravines which crossed
the road, and that it was nearly impossible to drag them up the opposite
icy slope, the horses’ shoes not having been turned. Nevertheless, both
he and the Viceroy arrived within two leagues of Wiazma on the 2d of
November, and might have passed through it; but neglecting to do so, the
Russian advanced-guard under Miloradowich (called the Russian Murat)
turned their bivouacs in the night, and posted themselves along the left
bank of the road, between the French generals and Wiazma. On the 3d of
November, Prince Eugene was preparing to take the road to that town,
when the first dawn of day showed him his situation, his rear-guard cut
off, and Ney, who was to have come to his assistance, fighting in his
own defence in the direction of Wiazma. He immediately took his
resolution. He stopped, faced about, formed in line along the main-road,
and kept the foremost of the enemy’s troops in check, till Ney marched
up one of his regiments, and attacking them in the rear, compelled them
to retire. At the same time, Compans, one of Davoust’s generals, joined
his division to the Italian guard; and while they fought together,
Davoust passed, and got between Wiazma and the Russians. The battle was
not over, but begun. The French amounted to thirty thousand, but were in
great disorder. The Russian artillery, superior in number, advanced at a
gallop, and mowed down their lines. Davoust and his generals were still
surrounded with many of their bravest men. Several of the officers who
had been wounded at the Mosqua were still seen, one with his arm in a
sling, another with his head covered with bandages, encouraging the
soldiers, keeping them together, throwing themselves upon the enemy’s
field-pieces and seizing them, and thus preventing the effects of bad
example by good. Miloradowich saw that his prey would escape him, and
sent the Englishman Wilson to summon Kutusoff to his aid; but the old
general laughed at him. The fight had already lasted seven hours; when
night approached, the French began to retire. This retrogade movement
encouraged the enemy; and had it not been for a signal effort of the
25th, 57th, and 85th regiments, Davoust’s corps would have been turned,
broken, and destroyed. Prince Eugene made good his retreat to Wiazma;
Davoust followed, but Morand’s division, which entered first, found a
number of Russians there before them, and had to cut their way through
them. Compans, who brought up the rear, put an end to the affair by
facing about, and making a furious assault upon Miloradowich. The
bivouacs were set up by the light of the burning of Wiazma, and amidst
repeated discharges of artillery. During the night the alarm continued.
Several times the troops thought they were attacked, and groped about
for their arms. On the following morning, when they returned to their
ranks, they were astonished at the smallness of their numbers.
Nevertheless, the example of the chiefs and the hope of finding rest at
Smolensk kept up the men’s spirits. Besides, so far they had been
cheered by the sight of the sun; but on the 6th of November, the snow
came on, and every thing underwent a total change. The consequences were
most disastrous. The troops marched on without knowing where, and
without distinguishing any object; and while they strove to force their
way through the whirlwinds of sleet, the snow drifted in the cavities
where they fell, and the weakest rose no more. The wind drove in their
faces not only the falling snow, but that which it raised in furious
eddies from the earth. The Muscovite winter attacked them in every part,
penetrated through their thin dress and ragged shoes. Their wet clothes
froze upon them; this covering of ice chilled their bodies, and
stiffened all their limbs. A cutting and violent wind stopped their
breath or seized upon it as it was exhaled, and converted it into
icicles, which hung from their beards. The unhappy men crawled on with
trembling limbs and chattering teeth till the snow, collecting round
their feet in hard lumps, like stones, some scattered fragment, a branch
of a tree, or the body of one of their companions, made them stagger and
fall. Their cries and groans were vain; soon the snow covered them, and
small hillocks marked where they lay. Such was their sepulture. The road
was filled with these undulations, like a burying-place. A number of
them froze as they stood still, and looked like posts, covered with
snow. The most intrepid or obdurate were affected; they hurried past
with averted eyes. But before them, around them, all was snow; the
horizon seemed one vast winding-sheet, in which nature was enveloping
the whole army. The only objects which came out from the bleak expanse
were a few gloomy pines skirting the plain, and adding to the horror of
the scene with their funeral green and the motionless erectness of their
black trunks! Even the weapons of the soldiers were a weight almost
insupportable to their benumbed limbs. In their frequent falls they
slipped out of their hands and were broken or lost in the snow. Many
others had their fingers frozen on the musket they still grasped. Some
broke up into parties; others wandered on alone. If they dispersed
themselves in the fields, or by the cross-paths, in search of bread or a
shelter for the night, they met nothing but Cossacks and an armed
population, who surrounded, wounded, and stripped them, and left them
with ferocious laughter to expire naked upon the snow. Then came the
night of sixteen hours. But on this universal covering of snow, they
knew not where to stop, where to sit, where to lie, where to find a few
roots for food, or dry sticks to light their fires. At length fatigue,
darkness, and repeated orders induced a pause, and they tried to
establish themselves for the night; but the storm scattered the
preparations for the bivouacs, and the branches of the pines covered
with ice and snow only melted away, and resisted the attempts of the
soldiers to kindle them into a blaze. When at length the fire got the
better, officers and soldiers gathered round it, to cook their wretched
meal of horse-flesh, and a few spoonfuls of rye mixed with snow-water.
Next morning, circles of stiffened corpses marked the situation of the
bivouacs, and the carcasses of thousands of horses were strewed round
them. From this time disorder and distrust began to prevail. A few
resisted the strong contagion of insubordination and despondency. These
were the officers, the subalterns, and some of the soldiers, whom
nothing could detach from their duty. They kept up each other’s spirits
by repeating the name of Smolensk, which they were approaching, and
looked forward to as the end of their sufferings.
At the lake of Semlewo, it was found necessary to sacrifice the spoils
of Moscow. Cannon, armor, the ornaments of the Kremlin, and the cross of
the Great Iwan, all sunk at once in the waters of the lake. On the 6th
of November, just as the snow was beginning to fall, Napoleon had
reached Mikalewska. There he took up his quarters in a palisaded house.
He had scarcely arrived, before news of Mallet’s conspiracy in Paris
reached him, and added new trouble to his already perturbed spirit.
Under all the gloomy circumstances of the time, when the fabric of his
power, which he had reared with so much skill, and maintained with such
vast energy, seemed to “totter to its fall,” the fortitude of the
Emperor was remarkable. He preserved a firm countenance, and strove to
induce those around him to believe that his star had not yet begun to
decline.
As the Emperor sat in his cheerless hut, with the white storm howling
far around, he was aroused by the entrance of Dalbignac, one of Ney’s
aid-de-camps.
From Wiazma that general had commenced protecting the retreat, which,
though fatal to so many others, conferred immortal renown upon him. As
far as Dorogobouje, he had been molested only by some bands of Cossacks,
troublesome insects, attracted by the dying, and the forsaken carriages,
flying away the moment a hand was lifted against them, but still
annoying from their continual return.
It was not these that were the subject of Ney’s message. On approaching
Dorogobouje, he was shocked at the traces of disorder left behind them
by the corps which had preceded him, and which it was not in his power
to efface. He had made up his mind to leave the baggage to the enemy;
but he blushed with shame at the sight of the first pieces of cannon
abandoned before Dorogobouje.
The marshal had halted there. After a dreadful night, during which snow,
wind, and famine had driven most of his men from the fires, the dawn,
which is always waited for with so much impatience in a bivouac, brought
with it at once a tempest, the enemy, and the spectacle of an almost
general defection. In vain he fought in person at the head of what men
and officers he had left; he had been obliged to retreat precipitately
behind the Dnieper; and of this he now sent to apprise the Emperor.
He wished him to know the worst. His aid-de-camp, Colonel Dalbignac, was
instructed to say that “the first movement of retreat from
Malo-Yaroslawetz, for soldiers who had never yet fallen back, had
greatly dispirited the army; that the affair at Wiazma had shaken its
firmness; that the deluge of snow, and the increased cold which it had
brought with it, had completed its disorganization; and that a multitude
of officers, having lost everything, their platoons, battalions,
regiments, and even divisions, had joined the roving masses; so that
generals, colonels, and officers of all ranks were seen mingled with the
privates, and marching at random, sometimes with one column, sometimes
with another; that, as order could not exist in the midst of disorder,
this example was seducing even the veteran regiments, which had served
through all the wars of the revolution; and that, accordingly, the best
soldiers were heard asking one another why they alone were required to
fight to secure the escape of the rest; and how it could be expected
that they should keep up their courage, when they heard the cries of
despair issuing from the neighboring woods, in which the large convoys
of them wounded, who had been dragged to no purpose all the way from
Moscow, had just been abandoned? Such, no doubt, was the fate which
awaited themselves; what had they, then, to gain by remaining with their
colors? Incessant toils and combats by day, and famine at night, with
shelterless bivouacs, still more destructive than battle; hunger and
cold effectually drove sleep from their eyes; or if, perchance, fatigue
got the better of these for a moment, the repose which should refresh
them put a period to their lives. In short, the eagles had ceased to
protect them—they only destroyed. Why, then, remain around them to
perish by battalions, by masses? It would be better to disperse; and,
since there was no other course than flight, to try who could run the
fastest. It would not then be the bravest and best that would fall; the
poltroons behind them would no longer have a chance to eat up the relics
of the high road.” Lastly, the aid-de-camp was commissioned to explain
to the Emperor all the horrors of the marshal’s situation, the
responsibility of which that commander absolutely refused to assume.
But Napoleon saw enough around himself to judge of the rest. The
fugitives were that moment passing by him; he was sensible that nothing
could now be done but to sacrifice the army successively, part by part,
beginning at the extremities, in order to save the head. When,
therefore, the aid-de-camp was beginning to state farther particulars,
he sharply interrupted him with these words: “Colonel, I do not ask you
for these details.” The colonel said no more; aware that, in the midst
of these terrible disasters, now irremediable, and in which every one
had occasion for all his energies, the Emperor was afraid of complaints,
which could have no other effect than to discourage as well those who
indulged in them as those who listened to them.
He remarked the attitude of Napoleon, the same as he retained throughout
the whole of this dismal retreat. It was grave, silent, and resigned;
suffering much less in body than others, but far more in mind, and
brooding with speechless agony over his misfortunes. At that moment
General Carpentier sent him from Smolensk a convoy of provisions.
Bessieres wished to take possession of them; but the Emperor instantly
ordered them to be forwarded to the Prince of Moskwa, saying that “those
who were fighting ought to eat before the rest.” At the same time, he
sent word to Ney to “defend himself long enough to allow him some stay
at Smolensk, where the army should eat, rest, and be reorganized.”
But if this hope kept some still to their duty, many others abandoned
every thing to hasten towards that promised goal of their sufferings. As
for Ney, he saw that a sacrifice was required, and that he was marked
out as the victim; he nobly resigned himself, therefore, prepared to
meet the whole of a danger great as his courage; and thenceforward he
neither attached his honor to baggage, nor to cannon, which the winter
alone wrested from him. An elbow of the Borysthenes stopped and kept
back part of his guns at the foot of its icy slopes: he sacrificed them
without hesitation, passed that obstacle, faced about, and made the
hostile river, which crossed his route, serve him as the means of
defence.
The Russians, however, advanced under favor of a wood and of the
forsaken carriages, whence they kept up a fire of musketry on Ney’s
troops. Half of the latter, whose icy arms froze their stiffened
fingers, became discouraged; they gave way, excusing themselves by their
want of firmness on the preceding day; and fleeing because they had
before fled, which, but for this, they would have considered as
impossible. But Ney, rushing in among them, seized one of their muskets,
and led them back to action, which he was himself the first to renew;
exposing his life like a private soldier, with a firelock in his hand,
the same as though he had been neither possessed of wealth, nor power,
nor consideration; in short, as if he had still every thing to gain,
when in fact he had every thing to lose. But, though he had again turned
soldier, he ceased not to be general: he took advantage of the ground,
supported himself against a height, and covered his approach by
occupying a palisaded house. His generals and colonels, among whom he
particularly remarked Fezenzac, strenuously seconded him; and the enemy,
who had expected to pursue, was obliged to retreat.
By this action Ney afforded the army a respite of twenty-four hours; and
it profited by it to proceed towards Smolensk. The next day, and every
succeeding day, he displayed the same heroism. Between Wiazma and
Smolensk he fought ten whole days.
On the 13th of November, Ney was approaching that city, which he was not
to enter till the ensuing day, and had faced about to beat off the
enemy, when all at once the hills upon which he intended to support his
left were seen covered with a multitude of fugitives. In their terror,
these unfortunate wretches fell, and rolled down to where he was, upon
the frozen snow, which they stained with their blood. A band of
Cossacks, which was soon perceived in the midst of them, sufficiently
accounted for this disorder. The astonished marshal, having caused this
horde of enemies to be dispersed, discovered behind it the army of
Italy, returning completely stripped, without baggage and without
cannon.
Platoff had kept it besieged, as it were, all the way from Dorogobouje.
Near that town Prince Eugene had quitted the high road, and, in order to
proceed towards Witepsk, had taken that which, two months before, had
brought him from Smolensk; but the Wop, which, when he had crossed it
before, was a mere brook and had scarcely been noticed, he now found
swollen into a river. It ran over a muddy bed, and was bounded by two
steep banks. It was found necessary to cut a passage in these
precipitous and frozen banks, and to give orders for the demolition of
the neighboring houses during the night, for the purpose of building a
bridge with the materials. But those who had taken shelter in them
opposed their being destroyed; and, as the viceroy was more beloved than
feared, his instructions were not obeyed. The _pontonniers_ became
disheartened, and when daylight, with the Cossacks, appeared, the
bridge, after being twice broken down, was at last abandoned.
Five or six thousand soldiers still in order, twice the number of
disbanded men, the sick and wounded, upward of a hundred pieces of
cannon, ammunition wagons, and a multitude of vehicles of every kind,
lined the bank and covered a league of ground. An attempt was made to
ford the river, through the floating ice which was carried along by its
current. The first guns that were attempted to be got over reached the
opposite bank; but the water kept rising every moment, while at the same
time the bed of the stream at the place of passage was continually
deepened by the wheels and by the efforts of the horses, and at length
the stoppage became general.
Meanwhile the day was advancing; the men were exhausting themselves in
vain efforts; hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the
viceroy finally found himself compelled to order his artillery and all
his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The
owners were allowed scarcely a moment to part from their effects; while
they were selecting from them such articles as they most needed, and
loading their horses with them, a multitude of soldiers came rushing up;
they fell in preference upon the vehicles of luxury; these they broke in
pieces and rummaged every part, avenging their poverty on the wealth,
and their privations on the superfluities they here found, and snatching
them from the Cossacks, who were in the meantime looking on at a
distance.
But it was provisions of which most of them were in quest. They threw
aside embroidered clothes, pictures, ornaments of every kind, and gilt
bronzes for a few handfuls of flour. In the evening it was a strange
sight to behold the mingled riches of Paris and of Moscow, the luxuries
of two of the largest cities in the world, lying scattered and despised
on the snow of the desert.
At the same time, most of the artillerymen spiked their guns in despair,
and scattered their powder about. Others laid a train with it as far as
some ammunition wagons, which had been left at a considerable distance
behind the baggage. They waited till the most eager of the Cossacks had
come up to them, and when a great number, greedy of plunder, had
collected about them, they threw a brand from a bivouac upon the train.
The fire ran, and in a moment reached its destination; the wagons were
blown up, the shells exploded, and such of the Cossacks as were not
killed on the spot, dispersed in dismay.
A few hundred men, who were still called the 14th division, were opposed
to these hordes, and sufficed to keep them at a respectful distance till
the next day. All the rest, soldiers, sutlers, women, and children, sick
and wounded, driven by the enemy’s balls, crowded the bank of the river.
But at the sight of its swollen current, of the sharp and massive
fragments of ice floating down its stream, and the necessity of
aggravating their already intolerable sufferings from cold by plunging
into its chilling waves, they all started back.
Colonel Delfanti, an Italian, was obliged to set the example and cross
first. The soldiers then moved, and the crowd followed. The weakest, the
least resolute, and the most avaricious, stayed behind. Such as could
not make up their minds to part from their booty, and to forsake fortune
which was forsaking them, were surprised in the midst of their
hesitation. The next day, amid all this wealth, the savage Cossacks were
seen still covetous of the squalid and tattered garments of the
unfortunate creatures who had become their prisoners: they stripped
them, and then, collecting them in troops, drove them along over the
snow, hurrying their steps by hard blows with the shafts of their
lances.
The army of Italy, thus completely dismantled, soaked in the waters of
the Wop, without food, without shelter, passed the night on the snow
near a village where its officers expected to have found lodgings for
themselves. Their soldiers, however, beset its wooden houses. They
rushed like madmen, and in swarms, on every habitation, profiting by the
darkness, which prevented them from recognising their officers or being
known by them. They tore down every thing, doors, windows, and even the
woodwork of the roofs, feeling but little compunction in compelling
others, be they who they might, to bivouac like themselves.
Their generals attempted in vain to drive them off: they took their
blows without a murmur or the least opposition, but without
desisting—even the men of the royal and imperial guards; for, throughout
the whole army, such were the scenes that occurred every night. The
unfortunate fellows kept silently but actively at work on the wooden
walls, which they pulled in pieces on every side at once, and which,
after vain efforts, their officers were obliged to relinquish to them,
for fear they would fall upon their own heads. It was an extraordinary
mixture of perseverance in their design and of respect for the anger of
their superiors.
Having kindled good fires, they spent the night in drying themselves,
amid the shouts, imprecations, and groans of those who were still
crossing the torrent, or who, slipping from its banks, were precipitated
into it, and drowned.
It is a fact by no means creditable to the enemy, that during this
disaster, and in sight of so rich a booty, a few hundred men, left at
the distance of half a league from the viceroy, on the other side of the
Wop, were sufficient to curb for twenty hours not only the courage, but
even the cupidity of Platoff’s Cossacks.
It is possible, indeed, that the hetman made sure of destroying the
viceroy on the following day. In fact, all his measures were so well
planned, that at the moment when the army of Italy, after an unquiet and
disorderly march, came in sight of Dukhowtchina, a town yet uninjured,
and was joyfully hastening forward to shelter itself there, several
thousand Cossacks sallied forth from it with cannon, and suddenly
stopped its progress; while at the same time Platoff, with all his
hordes, came up and attacked its rear guard and both flanks.
Several eye-witnesses assert that a complete tumult and confusion then
ensued; that the disbanded men, the women, and the attendants ran
headlong over each other, and broke quite through the ranks; that, in
short, there was a moment when this unfortunate army was but a shapeless
mass, a mere rabble rout hurrying to and fro. All seemed to be lost; but
the coolness of the prince and the efforts of his officers, saved all.
The best men disengaged themselves, and the ranks were again formed.
They advanced, and, firing a few volleys, the enemy, who had every thing
on his side excepting courage, the only advantage yet left the French,
opened and retired, confining himself to a useless demonstration.
The army occupied his quarters still warm in that town, while he went
beyond to bivouac, and to prepare for similar surprises to the very
gates of Smolensk. For this disaster at the Wop had made the viceroy
give up the idea of separating from the Emperor, near to whom these
hordes became still bolder; they surrounded the 11th division. When
Prince Eugene would have gone to its relief, his men and officers,
stiffened with a cold of twenty degrees, which the wind rendered most
piercing, remained stretched on the warm ashes of the fires. To no
purpose did he point out to them their comrades surrounded, the enemy
approaching, the bullets and balls which were already reaching them;
they refused to rise, protesting that they would rather perish where
they were than any longer endure such cruel hardships. The videttes
themselves had abandoned their posts. Prince Eugene nevertheless
contrived to save his rear guard.
It was in returning with it towards Smolensk that his stragglers had
been driven back on Ney’s troops, to whom they communicated their panic;
all hurried confusedly towards the Dnieper, where they crowded together
at the entrance of the bridge, without thinking of defending themselves,
when a charge made by the 4th regiment stopped the advance of the enemy.
Its colonel, young Fezenzac, contrived to infuse fresh life into these
men, who were half perished with cold. There, as in every thing that can
be called action, was manifested the triumph of the sentiments of the
soul over the sensations of the body; for every physical feeling tended
to encourage despondency and flight; Nature advised it with her hundred
most urgent voices; and yet a few words of honor alone were sufficient
to produce the most heroic devotedness. The soldiers of the 4th regiment
rushed like furies upon the enemy, against the mountains of snow and ice
of which he had taken possession, and in the teeth of the northern
hurricane, for they had every thing against them. Ney himself was
obliged to moderate their impetuosity.
Such fighting could only be the work of heroes, who were determined to
triumph or perish. Ney proved himself worthy to command the rear guard,
upon which the safety of the army depended. He was equal to a host, and
around his stalwart form the troops rallied, as they would around a rock
of salvation. He seemed even determined to conquer the Russian storm.
At length the army once more came in sight of Smolensk: it had reached
the goal so often announced to it of all its sufferings. The soldiers
exultingly pointed it out to each other. _There_ was that land of
promise where their hunger was to find abundance, their fatigue rest;
where bivouacs in a cold of nineteen degrees would be forgotten in
houses warmed by good fires. _There_ they would enjoy refreshing sleep;
there they might repair their apparel; there they would be furnished
with new shoes, and clothing adapted to the climate.
But Smolensk was a heap of blackened ruins, and the commissary found
there, was compelled to own that he had not enough provisions to supply
half the army for the required time, fifteen days. If any thing was
wanted to increase the wretchedness of this doomed army it was this
disastrous disappointment. Napoleon himself displayed a consciousness of
the terrors by which he was surrounded, and seemed to apprehend the
destruction of his entire army.
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[Illustration: NAPOLEON AT KRASNOE. Page 389.]
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[Illustration]