Part 10
Seeing the stubbornness of his marshals, and Russia’s unwillingness to take the hand which he had proffered too late, Napoleon showed remarkable consideration for the happiness of the two contending nations, and resolved to secure peace at any price. In vain did Caulaincourt, whom he wished at first to send as an envoy to St. Petersburg, represent that at this season of the year Russia must feel her own strength and superiority, and that any such attempt would do more harm than good, inasmuch as it would betray the difficulty of his position. Napoleon, whose chief fear was lest he should have to utter the word “Retreat,” resolved once more to try the charm of his own personality. He could not admit, with Tilsit and Erfurt in his mind, that this charm would be less effective in Moscow than in Paris, and resolved to send General Lauriston to Kutuzof’s head-quarters. Lauriston also ventured to submit that at this season of the year it was time, not to be negotiating from Moscow, but to be retiring to Kaluga, and that as quickly as might be. Napoleon answered bitterly that he himself was in favour of the simplest plan, and the straightest road—the high-road—and in the present case the road by which they had come; but he would not travel along it until peace had been concluded. He then showed to Lauriston, as he had showed to Caulaincourt, his letter to Alexander, bade him approach Kutuzof and request a pass to St. Petersburg. The hopelessness of Napoleon’s position was expressed at this interview in his last words to Lauriston—“I desire peace; you hear my words. Get me peace, _coûte que coûte_! But save my honour by any means you can!”
The “old fox,” Kutuzof, fully appreciated the necessity of keeping Napoleon in Moscow, and humoured Lauriston so cleverly that the poor envoy flattered himself with the most extravagant hopes of a speedy peace, and, what is more, inspired his Emperor with the same delusion.
The position of the French army, however, began in the meanwhile to assume a critical aspect. A desultory guerilla warfare broke out, and in order to procure forage it was necessary to send large detachments with a powerful escort of cavalry and artillery. Every measure of oats and every truss of hay was obtained by hard fighting. Then the peasants began to take part in the war. These men whom Napoleon had taught his troops to look upon as hereditary helots and barbarians, exhibited an unlooked-for independence, and refused to accept the favours which the foreigner endeavoured to foist upon them.
Recognizing the danger of his position, and feeling that he was being hoodwinked, yet not daring to break off his overtures to the Russian Government, Napoleon cast around for some means of making peace necessary to his adversary. He began to collect information regarding Pugachof’s rebellion, and endeavoured to procure a copy of one of the Pretender’s latest manifestoes, expecting to find in it a guide to the families that could lay claim to the Russian throne. In the course of his inquiry he was ready to turn for advice to any one whom he chanced to meet. He soon saw, however, that it would be difficult to effect anything by this means, and abandoned the idea of using Pugachof.
The Tartars were invited to go to Kazan and summon their brethren to declare their independence. They were promised support as soon as they should rise; but nothing came of this proposal. False reports of all kinds were then circulated. It was pretended that Riga had been taken by assault, that the whole length of the road from Vilna to Smolensk was covered with a train of wagons bearing winter clothing to the army, that Marshal Victor was bringing up large reinforcements, that next spring the army would be as strong and well-equipped as when it crossed the frontier; in short, that if the Russians did not make peace that winter the Emperor would adopt stern measures.
None of these reports and projects, however, came to anything. No reply was received from St. Petersburg, and the war assumed a more and more serious aspect. An armed band, with a priest at its head, captured the town of Vereya, near Moscow, under the very nose of the Grande Armée. Others seized two immense convoys on the high-road to Smolensk, the only route by which Napoleon was able to communicate with Europe, and with France. It was becoming clear that the great invasion was a fiasco, and Napoleon was obliged to reconsider his opinion as to the system by which the Russians should defend their country. When they were attacked in the centre they directed all their forces on the flanks, and seemed almost as if they would overpower them.
Worst of all, winter was now approaching. Napoleon at last realized the fact. He grew uneasy, and began to make unobtrusive preparations for departure.
Poor Moscow bore the brunt of his resentment. He gave orders to strip the covers from the _ikons_ and fling them, with the censers, crosses, and plates, into the melting-pot. Two and a quarter hundred-weight of gold and six tons of silver were converted into bullion for transmission to France. In addition to this Napoleon took a number of so-called “trophies”—the arms of Moscow from the Senate House, the eagle from the gates of St. Nicholas, the cross from the belfry of John the Great. The removal of this gigantic cross cost no little time and labour. The Emperor wished to use it as an adornment for the Church of the Hôtel des Invalides. While personally superintending its removal he lost all patience with the clouds of “accursed jackdaws which hovered over the belfry as if they had a mind to defend the cross!” It is said that Berthier, the Duke of Wagram, who was standing with General Dumas on a balcony outside the Empress’ apartments while the work of removing the cross was in progress, unable to restrain his anger, exclaimed—“To think of a man doing a thing like this when he as good as has peace in his pocket!”[7]
Shortly before the departure from Moscow a very curious order was issued. The Commanders of Army Corps were directed to present tables showing the number of sick who could recover, (1) within a week; (2) within a fortnight; (3) within a month; and secondly, the number who would probably die, (1) within a fortnight; (2) within three weeks. Provision was to be made only for the departure of Class 1—all the rest were to be left behind. Not less extraordinary, considering the depopulated and devastated state of the country, was the order to purchase exactly 20,000 horses, neither more nor less; and to procure fodder for two months—and that in a position where even the most distant and dangerous expeditions were insufficient to procure enough forage for daily needs.
During the latter half of his stay in Moscow Napoleon’s anxieties once more gave rise to constant outbursts of temper. At his morning _levées_, for instance, when he was surrounded by his chief officers, he would challenge their inquiring looks, which seemed to him to be full of reproach, with his stern impassive glance; but his hard abrupt way of speaking and the pallor of his countenance showed that he knew the truth, and that it gave him no peace. He would vent his wrath at times in harsh, even cruel, reproaches, which afforded him no relief, but rather added to the tension of his feelings by the consciousness of his injustice.
It was only, according to Ségur, in his conversations with Count Daru during his sleepless nights, that he entirely unburdened his mind. “He wished,” he said, “to attack Kutuzof and either annihilate or drive him from before him, and then to fall rapidly back upon Smolensk.” But Daru answered that though this might have been done before, it was now no longer feasible. The Russian army, he pointed out, was stronger than ever, and his own weaker; the victory of Mozjaisk was already forgotten; and as soon as his army turned back towards France it would slip like water through his fingers, for every soldier was loaded with booty, and would hurry forward into France to dispose of it.
“Then what am I to do?”
“Stay here,” said Daru; “turn Moscow into a great fortified camp, and so pass the winter. There is plenty of ‘bread and salt’—I can answer for that. For all else, great foraging expeditions can provide. I will salt down all the horses for which there is no forage. As for quarters, if there are not houses enough, there are plenty of cellars. This will help us to last out till the spring, when our reinforcements, backed by all Lithuania in arms, will come to the rescue and help us to complete our conquest.”
At this suggestion, the Emperor was silent a while, evidently buried in thought; then he answered, “_Conseil de lion!_ but what will Paris say? What will they do? What have they been doing these past three weeks? No one can foresee the impression which six months of uncertainty may have upon the Parisians. No; France is not accustomed to my absence. Prussia and Austria will take advantage of it.”
Napoleon was already engaged in imparting an artificial warmth to the zeal of his allies. In confirming the instructions he had before given to Schwarzenberg, and adding new ones, he did not forget to allow him “12,000 francs per month for secret expenses; and ordered 500,000 to be paid to the account of the future;” nor did he refuse any of the rewards solicited by Schwarzenberg for his nominees. He even begged the Emperor of Austria to confer upon him the dignity of Field-Marshal, and suggested various distinctions for his army.
Schwarzenberg, requiting one good turn with another, secretly informed Berthier that the Emperor could count on him personally, but that he must not rely upon Austria.
Napoleon, however, was still reluctant to announce his intention of retreating. Already half defeated, he deferred from day to day a public avowal of the disaster that had overtaken his arms. Amid the gathering clouds of military and political disaster, Napoleon, who had always shown a morbid activity, was absolutely inert. He spent his days in discussing the merits of various odes and sonnets that had lately arrived from France, specimens of which we have given above, or in revising the regulations for the Comédie Française—a task on which he spent three evenings.
It was generally remarked that his dinners and suppers, usually simple and short, were now prolonged, and that he began to sustain his flagging energies with spirits. He grew heavy and sluggish, and would pass whole hours half-sitting, half-lying, with a novel in his hand, his eyes fixed upon vacancy, awaiting the _dénouement_ of this terrible drama. The letter to Alexander at St. Petersburg, which he sent by Lauriston under the escort of Volkonsky, should have arrived on September 24. A reply could not be expected until October 20, and Napoleon was evidently awaiting that date. According to Constant, “the last days spent at Moscow, preceding October 18, were terribly gloomy; his Majesty seemed deliberately cold and uncommunicative; for whole hours together no one who was with him would dare to begin a conversation.”
Throughout this period the official sources of information, the despatches and the _Moniteur_, carefully concealed the truth. Thus we read—“On October 3 winter began to make itself felt in Moscow. Our troops are in quarters, and preserve the most excellent discipline. We found in Moscow all the Turkish standards taken during the last hundred years and more.”
Murat at this time sent a despairing report from the advance-guard regarding the scarcity from which they were suffering and the rapid disappearance of the remains of the cavalry. Berthier was alarmed at this information. Napoleon summoned the officer who brought the report, and so questioned and cross-questioned him that in the end he began to doubt his own information. Napoleon at once availed himself of this hesitation to support Berthier’s flagging hopes, and assure him that they were still in a position to wait, and finally sent the officer back to Murat with the full conviction that he would spread the notion in the advance-guard that the Emperor had his plans fully thought out and decided upon.
It is impossible to believe that Napoleon had entire confidence in his own optimism, for his every action was stamped with the mark of indecision. All who came into contact with him were astounded by the entire absence of his former promptitude and audacity, which had always been equal to the necessities of the moment. They recognized that his genius was no longer able to adapt itself to circumstances, as in the days when his star was in the ascendant. He was now obstinate and rebellious, and could not reconcile himself to the shipwreck of his plans. Not only his military projects, but all his other schemes—which the world regards as strokes of genius if they are sanctified by success, and dishonourable cunning if they fail—missed their aim and vanished in smoke. To the list of these abortive plans—besides the endeavours of which we have spoken to raise the peasants and the Tartars—we must add the miserable fiasco of the bank-notes, which he had forged to the extent of 100,000,000 roubles. It is impossible to refuse to credit the existence of these hundred-rouble notes of Parisian manufacture. Berthier, in one of his letters, laments the loss of his last carriage which contained “the most secret papers.” In this carriage was found a _pièce de conviction_ of the most damning character—a plate for printing Russian hundred-rouble notes.
Every precaution was taken before the war to prevent the Parisian artists, who were engaged to engrave the plates, from learning the true character of the nefarious task upon which they were employed. The forgery was carried on very slowly, to Napoleon’s great annoyance; he more than once insisted upon the work being advanced more quickly. The campaign had already begun when they brought him twenty-eight cases of forged notes, and if he did not succeed in uttering them, it was only because there were no inhabitants on his road—there was no one to pay and no one to reward.
In the spring of 1812 the Duke of Bassano handed over to Frenckel, a banker of Warsaw, forged notes to the amount of 20,000,000 roubles, with instructions to circulate them beyond the Russian frontier as the French advanced. In order to facilitate this operation, a rumour was spread that when the French occupied Vilna they seized notes to the amount of many millions, but the report proved ineffectual. The merchant Nakhodkin, who was acting as Mayor of Moscow, received 100,000 roubles for his services. Pozdnykof, Kolchúgin, and others were rewarded in the same way, but they could not bring themselves to put the notes into circulation. Tutolmin, the honourable director of the Foundling, refused outright to accept any bribe. “It was mere maliciousness on their part,” he wrote in his report to the Emperor, “that led them to offer me forged notes, of which they had brought a great quantity, and with which they even paid the troops at Napoleon’s own order.” It was with great reluctance that the Guards accepted these notes in payment, though the forgeries were cleverly executed, and afterwards accepted in error even by the Russian banks.
Napoleon’s inactivity was infectious. It was not until October 7 that leather was distributed, by the orders of Berthier, the head of the staff, to repair the soldiers’ boots, and then it was too late. It was also too late when the slightly wounded and the convalescent, together with the trophies that had been captured, were despatched to Mozjaisk. The rest of the sick and wounded were moved into the Foundling, and French doctors were told off to attend them, in the hope that the Russian wounded who were among them would serve as a kind of protection.
Napoleon concentrated the various army corps that were stationed outside the city on the Moskva, and reviewed them even more frequently than before. The obvious weakness of the battalions was a constant source of annoyance to him, and he ordered the troops to be drawn up two instead of three deep. It is difficult to find a reason for this change, unless we assume that Napoleon was endeavouring to deceive himself and others by lengthening the lines.
During one of these reviews in the courtyard of the Kremlin, a rumour was circulated among his suite that artillery fire was to be heard in the direction of the advance-guard. At first no one dared to call Napoleon’s attention to the fact; but Duroc summoned up courage to inform him of the news, and all observed that the Emperor was seriously disturbed. He soon recovered himself and was about to continue the review, when an aide-de-camp from Murat came galloping up with the information that the King’s first line had been taken by surprise and routed; that his left flank had been surrounded under cover of the woods, his right attacked, and his communications cut. Twelve guns, twenty caissons, and a number of baggage-wagons had been captured, two generals killed, and three to four thousand men lost. He added that the King himself had been wounded, but he had saved the remnants of his command by means of repeated attacks on the overwhelming forces of the enemy, who had just begun to occupy the only road by which he could retreat. Murat’s report was that “the advance-guard no longer exists, for the exhausted remnant of it could certainly not survive more than one more battle with the enemy, who have become bolder than ever.”
This was on October 18. The war was being renewed, said the French—it was just beginning, said Kutuzof.
At the news of this attack, Napoleon recovered all his former energy. He issued a thousand orders, embracing the most important movements and the most trivial details, and before nightfall the whole army was in motion. At dawn on the 19th, the Emperor himself left Moscow, with a bold declaration that he was moving on Kaluga—“And woe to him who tries to bar my way.”
He left Moscow by the old Kaluga road, meaning to reach the frontier of Poland by way of Kaluga, Medyn, Yelnya, and Smolensk. Rapp, who accompanied him, observed that it was getting late in the year and winter would overtake them on the way; but the Emperor replied that the soldiers must be given time to rest and recover, and the sick must be moved from Mozjaisk, Moscow, and the Kolotzky monastery to Smolensk. Then he pointed to the clear blue sky, and asked if they did not see the star of his fortune in the sun above them and in the continued fine weather. “The sinister expression of his countenance,” says an eye-witness, “gave the lie direct to these words of hope and simulated confidence.”
In this instance, as in every other, it was hard even for those who were brought most closely into contact with him to decide whether he spoke from conviction or not. Considering the explicit nature of the reports that were sent in to him, it is impossible to suppose, for instance, that it was through ignorance that he so entirely misrepresented the truth as to the engagement of the advance-guard under Murat. This was the celebrated battle of Tarutina, the real beginning of the _débâcle_ of the French army. About 50,000 were engaged and utterly routed, losing some 4000 killed and wounded, thirty-eight guns, one flag, and the whole of the baggage.[8]
Napoleon in his despatches gives the following account of the engagement—“A number of Cossacks have begun to make their appearance, and given our cavalry some trouble. The cavalry advance-guard, which was stationed by Vinkovo, was surprised by a mob of these Cossacks, who made their way into the camp before our men had time to mount, captured General Sebastiani’s baggage, consisting of 100 wagons, and made about 100 prisoners. The King of Naples placed himself at the head of his Cuirassiers and Carabineers and attacked a column of the enemy’s light infantry, consisting of four battalions, which had been sent to support the Cossacks, with such success that he routed and annihilated it. General Desi, the King’s adjutant, and a brave officer, was killed in this skirmish. The Carabineers distinguished themselves.”
When Napoleon learned from a new envoy to the Russian camp that Kutuzof had made no forward movement, he started for Kaluga, making a circuit round the Russian troops with the object of avoiding an engagement. We are forced to the conclusion that he only spoke of dashing Kutuzof to pieces, and opening the road before his troops, with a view to rousing the drooping spirits of his men, and distracting the attention of Europe. He must have seen that though his troops could fight in defence of the enormous booty they had taken, they could no longer win victories.[9]
The retreating French army covered a vast extent of ground. Of the column—which consisted of nearly 150,000 men, with 50,000 horses—the 100,000 who formed the vanguard, with haversacks and rifles, 550 guns, and 2000 artillery-wagons, still recalled the warriors who had conquered Europe. The rest resembled a Tartar horde returning from a successful raid. Along three or four endless lines of march there was a hopeless tangle of carriages and caissons, of smart barouches mixed up with wagons of every description. In one place were trophies of Russian, Turkish, and Persian flags, and the huge cross of Ivan the Great; in another were bearded Russian peasants dragging along French booty of which they themselves formed part. Others were drawing wagons laden with everything on which they had been able to lay hands. They had no chance of reaching even the first _étape_, but their greed made nothing of 2000 miles or more. Elegant carriages passed along drawn by undersized horses harnessed with ropes. These carriages were filled with plunder and with French women, former inhabitants of Moscow, flying before the anticipated vengeance of the Muscovites. Many Russian women were also to be seen, some following the army of necessity, and some of their own free will. One might have fancied, say those who witnessed the scene, that this was some caravan of nomads, or some army of early days returning from a foray with women, slaves, and all kinds of spoil.
In spite of the breadth of the road and the cries of his body-guard, Napoleon could scarcely manage to make his way through this endless host—they no longer paid much attention to him. He pushed forward in silence, and proceeded along the old Kaluga road. For some hours he pursued this direction, but at mid-day, on the heights of Krasnaya Pakhra, he turned the line of march suddenly to the right and reached the new road to Kaluga in three marches across country, the movement being covered by Ney’s corps and the remains of Murat’s cavalry. Berthier’s letter to Kutuzof, received on the day of the evacuation of Moscow, descanting upon the theme of humanity and love of one’s fellows, was a military stratagem intended to throw dust in the eyes of the Russians and gain a day of undisturbed retreat.
This ruse very nearly achieved its end; but it so happened that the Russian free-lance, Figner, detected the retreat of the army and carried the news to Kutuzof, who was lying without precaution at Letashefka. The Russian general immediately moved parallel to Napoleon upon Kaluga.
There can be no doubt that if Napoleon had cared less for the preservation of his plunder and more for speed he would have arrived before the Russians; but moving as he did without haste, no faster than circumstances conveniently permitted, he made the irretrievable mistake of arriving too late.
“Never,” says Fezensac, “did the French army carry such a quantity of baggage. Every squadron was provided with a wagon for its provisions, and burnt what it could not carry without the formality of asking permission from the battalion commander.”