Upon the retreat from Smolensk, the grand army, reduced to thirty-six
thousand effective men, had been divided into four columns, commanded by
Napoleon, Eugene, Davoust and Ney. These were separated by the march of
a few days from each other. The Emperor reached the town of Krasnoe
without difficulty; but the second division, under Prince Eugene, was
compelled to fight against forces immensely superior in numbers.
It was the night of the 16th of November. The weather was bitter cold;
and though Krasnoe fairly blazed with camp-fires, the soldiers of the
guard shivered in spite of the sternest efforts of their wills.
The Emperor had waited for the viceroy during the whole of the preceding
day. The noise of an engagement had agitated him. An effort to break
through the enemy, in order to join him, had been ineffectually
attempted; and when night came on without his making his appearance, the
uneasiness of Napoleon was at its height. “Eugene and the army of Italy,
and this long day of baffled expectation, had they then terminated
together?” Only one hope remained, and that was, that the viceroy,
driven back towards Smolensk, had there joined Davoust and Ney, and that
on the following day they would, with united forces, attempt a decisive
effort.
In his anxiety, the Emperor assembled the marshals who were with him.
These were Berthier, Bessieres, Mortier and Lefebvre; they were safe;
they had cleared the obstacles; they had only to continue their retreat
through Lithuania, which was open to them; but would they abandon their
companions in the midst of the Russian army? No, certainly; and they
determined once more to enter Russia, either to deliver or to perish
with them.
No sooner was this resolution taken, than Napoleon coolly made his
arrangements to carry it into effect. He was not at all shaken by the
great movements which the enemy was evidently making around him. He saw
that Kutusoff was advancing in order to surround and take him prisoner
in Krasnoe. The very night before he had learned that Ojarowski, with a
vanguard of Russian infantry, had got beyond him, and taken a position
at Maliewo, a village on his left. Irritated instead of being depressed
by misfortune, he called his aid-de-camp Rapp, and told him “that he
must set out immediately, and during the darkness attack that body of
the enemy with the bayonet; this was the first time of his exhibiting so
much audacity, and that he was determined to make him repent it, in such
a way that he should never again dare approach so near to his
head-quarters.” Then instantly recalling him, he exclaimed, “But no: let
Roguet and his division go alone. As for you, remain where you are; I
don’t wish you killed here; I shall have occasion for you at Dantzic.”
Rapp, as he was carrying this order to Roguet, could not help feeling
astonished that his chief, surrounded by eighty thousand of the enemy,
whom he was going to attack the next day with nine thousand, should have
so little doubt about his safety as to be thinking of what he should
have to do at Dantzic, a city from which he was separated by the winter,
two hostile armies, famine, and a hundred and eighty leagues of
distance.
The nocturnal attack on Ojarowski at Chirkowa and Maliewo proved
successful. Roguet formed his idea of the enemy’s position by the
direction of their fires: they occupied two villages, connected by a
causeway, defended by a ravine. He disposed his troops into three
columns of attack: those on the right and left were to advance silently,
as close as possible to the Russians; then, at the signal to charge,
which he himself would give them from the centre, they were to rush into
the midst of the hostile corps without firing a shot, and make use only
of their bayonets.
Immediately the two wings of the young guard commenced the action. While
the Russians, taken by surprise, and not knowing on which side to defend
themselves, were wavering from their right to their left, Roguet, with
his column, rushed suddenly upon their centre, and into the midst of
their camp, which he entered pell-mell along with them. Thus divided,
and in utter confusion, they had barely time to throw the best part of
their cannon and small arms into a neighboring lake, and to set fire to
their tents, the flames of which, instead of saving them, only gave
light to their destruction.
This check stopped the movements of the Russian army for four-and-twenty
hours, put it in the Emperor’s power to remain at Krasnoe, and enabled
Eugene to rejoin him during the following night. He was received by
Napoleon with the greatest joy; whose uneasiness, however, respecting
Davoust and Ney, now became proportionably greater.
Around the French, the camp of the Russians presented a spectacle
similar to what it had done at Vinkowo, Malo-Yaroslawetz, and Wiazma.
Every evening, close to the general’s tent, the relics of the Russian
saints, surrounded by an immense number of wax tapers, were exposed to
the adoration of the soldiers. While these, according to their custom,
were giving proofs of their devotion by endless crossings and
genuflexions, the priests were employed in exciting their fanaticism
with exhortations that would have been deemed barbarous and absurd by a
civilized nation.
It is asserted that a spy had represented to Kutusoff, Krasnoe as being
filled with an immense number of the imperial guard, and that the old
marshal was afraid of hazarding his reputation by attacking it. But the
sight of the distress emboldened Bennigsen; this officer, who was chief
of the staff, prevailed upon Strogonoff, Gallitzin, and Miloradowitch,
with a force of more than fifty thousand Russians, and one hundred
pieces of cannon, to venture to attack at daylight, in spite of
Kutusoff, fourteen thousand famished, enfeebled, and half-frozen French
and Italians.
This was a danger, the imminence of which Napoleon fully comprehended.
He might have escaped from it, for the day had not yet appeared. He was
still at liberty to avoid this fatal engagement; by rapid marches along
with Eugene and his guard, he might have gained Orcha and Borizoff;
there he could have rallied his forces, and strengthened himself with
thirty thousand French, under Victor and Oudinot, with the corps of
Dombrowski, Regnier, and Schwartzenberg, been within reach of all his
depots, and, by the following year, have made himself as formidable as
ever.
On the 17th, before daylight, he issued his orders, armed himself, and
going out on foot at the head of his Old Guard, began his march. But it
was not towards Poland, his ally, that he directed it, nor towards
France, where he would still be received as the head of a new dynasty,
and the Emperor of the West. His words on grasping his sword on this
occasion were, “I have sufficiently acted the emperor; it is time I
should become the general.” He turned back upon eighty thousand of the
enemy, plunging into the thickest of them, in order to draw all their
efforts against himself, to make a diversion in favor of Davoust and
Ney, and to rescue them from a country, the gates of which were closed
against them.
Daylight at last appeared, exhibiting on the one part the Russian
battalions and batteries, which on three sides, in front, on the right,
and in the rear, bounded the horizon, and on the other Napoleon, with
his six thousand guards, advancing with a firm step, and proceeding to
take his place in the centre of that terrible circle. At the same time,
Mortier, a few yards in front of the Emperor, deployed, in the face of
the whole Russian army, with the five thousand men still remaining to
him.
Every moment strengthened the enemy and weakened Napoleon. The noise of
artillery, as well as Claparede, apprized him that in the rear of
Krasnoe and his army, Bennigsen was proceeding to take possession of the
road to Liady, and entirely cut off his retreat. The east, the west, and
the south were flashing with the enemy’s fires; one side alone remained
open, that of the north and the Dnieper, towards an eminence, at the
foot of which were the high road and the Emperor. The French fancied
they saw the enemy already covering this eminence with their cannon. In
that situation they would have been just over Napoleon’s head, and might
have crushed him at a few yards’ distance. He was apprized of his
danger, cast his eyes for an instant towards the height, and uttered
merely these words, “Very well, let a battalion of my chasseurs take
possession of it!” Immediately afterward, without giving farther heed to
it, his whole attention was directed to the perilous situation of
Mortier.
Then, at last, Davoust made his appearance, forcing his way through a
swarm of Cossacks, whom he dispersed by a precipitate movement. At the
sight of Krasnoe this marshal’s troops disbanded themselves, running
across the fields to get beyond the right of the enemy’s line, in the
rear of which they had come up; and Davoust and his generals could only
rally them at that place.
The first corps was thus preserved; but it was learned at the same time
that the rear guard could no longer defend itself at Krasnoe; that Ney
was probably still at Smolensk, and that they must give up waiting for
him any longer. Napoleon, however, still hesitated: he could not
determine on making this great sacrifice.
But at last, as all were likely to perish, his resolution was taken. He
called Mortier, and pressing his hand sorrowfully, told him “that he had
not a moment to lose; that the enemy were overwhelming him in all
directions; that Kutusoff might already reach Liady, perhaps Orcha, and
the last elbow of the Borysthenes before him; and that he would
therefore proceed thither rapidly, with his Old Guard, in order to
occupy that passage. Davoust would relieve him, Mortier, but both of
them must endeavor to hold out in Krasnoe until night, after which they
must advance and rejoin him.” Then, with his heart full of Ney’s
misfortune, and of despair at abandoning him, he withdrew slowly from
the field of battle, traversed Krasnoe, where he again halted, and
thence cleared his way to Liady.
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