Part 11

“The troops,” says René Bourgeois, “and especially the Guards, were laden with gold, silver, and precious things, stuffed into every possible place, regardless of the provisions. The result was that they had not got far from Moscow before the army began to want for the first necessaries of life. There were few of the officers who were not provided with furs, but the majority of the soldiers had no clothing beyond their uniforms and great-coats, while their boots were in a most lamentable plight.”

The French army slowly made its way to Malo Jaroslavetz. The advance-guard had already occupied the town, and the principal obstacle to their progress seemed to be successfully surmounted. Napoleon was taking his _déjeuner_ in the open with Murat, Berthier, and General Lariboisière, when he suddenly heard artillery fire from the direction of the advance-guard. Fighting had begun at Malo Jaroslavetz. The Emperor mounted and galloped in the direction of the cannonade. The Viceroy’s aide-de-camp, who brought news that all the available forces had gone into action, received the answer—“Ride back to the Viceroy and tell him that now he has begun he must drink the cup to the dregs. I have ordered Davout to support him!”

The battle was a sharp one. Malo Jaroslavetz was captured and re-captured eleven times. The town was utterly destroyed, and the course of the streets was indicated only by the piles of corpses with which they were strewn. The houses were mere heaps of ruins, among which might be seen the limbs of charred corpses. When the Emperor reached the scene of action, he was shown redoubts which the Russians, when repulsed, had hastily constructed. The general opinion of the French was that Kutuzof would not retire, and that the action would end in a general engagement, to which the vigour of the French troops and the ammunition of their artillery were alike unequal.

“At Malo Jaroslavetz,” says Fezensac, “the advantage of the day rested with the French, but Kutuzof fell back upon a new position and strengthened it with redoubts. One of his divisions actually began to make its way round our right along the Medyn road. We were obliged either to retreat or engage in a serious battle.”

The position was extremely grave. In the village of Goròdnya, on the road to Malo Jaroslavetz, a Council of War was summoned to consider the question. Marshal Bessières and the other generals were of opinion that they must retreat—not that they were doubtful of victory, but they dreaded the losses that must ensue, and the probable demoralization and disorganization of the army. The cavalry and the artillery horses were worn out with work and want of food, and it was impossible to replace those that were lost. How were they to transport their artillery, their ammunition, and the wounded, of whom there would certainly be a large number? Under these circumstances the march to Kaluga seemed a very risky enterprise, and prudence counselled retreat through Mozjaisk to Smolensk. Bessières was the first to suggest retreat, and the others followed suit. Napoleon hesitated for a long time, but at last, after passing the whole day in inspecting and studying the locality and in hearing the opinion and advice of his generals, he resolved to retire to Mozjaisk, and thence to retreat along the devastated route of his advance.

In Bulletin XXII. Napoleon gave the following account of the important battle of Malo Jaroslavetz and the subsequent decision to retire—

“At Malo Jaroslavetz the Russians brought two or three armies into action, but without effect. The enemy retired in such disorder that they were obliged to throw twenty guns into the river. The Emperor rode into Malo Jaroslavetz and inspected the enemy’s position. He ordered an attack, but the enemy escaped in the night. The Emperor then returned by way of Vereya to Smolensk, i.e. to the road on which he had previously travelled.... The weather is brilliant and the roads are excellent. The Italian Guards have distinguished themselves. General Baron Delsome, a first-rate officer, received three bullet wounds and was killed. The old Russian infantry was annihilated. It is stated upon good authority that only the front ranks of the Russians consist of soldiers. The rest are made up of recruits and militiamen, with whom the Government has broken faith in keeping them under arms.” And so forth.

Napoleon now increased the rate of march, and reprimanded Davout continually for the slowness of the rear-guard. What this slowness really amounted to may be gathered from the report given by Platof, Hetman of the Cossacks, who followed Davout from Mozjaisk. He stated that the enemy was in flight—“no army can be said to retire under such circumstances—they abandon their wounded, their sick, and their heavy baggage by the way.”

After leaving Mozjaisk the French army passed by the plain of Borodino, on which more than 30,000 corpses had been left. At the approach of the troops, flocks of carrion-crows rose with hideous cries from the torn and mangled bodies of the dead. In spite of the cold, the latter emitted a most nauseating odour. Napoleon neither turned his head nor uttered a word, he merely quickened his step—for he was on foot.

It is said that when the Emperor’s column approached Gzhatsk they found the road strewn with freshly-slain Russians, all with their heads blown open in the same manner, by a point-blank shot, and their blood and brains scattered around. They knew that 2000 Russian prisoners had gone on in front under escort, and they understood that these were the bodies of those who could not keep up with the rest, and who had been shot to save further trouble. Some of the suite were filled with indignation, others held their peace, while yet others justified this cold-blooded butchery. None of those who were with the Emperor dared to express their feelings, except Caulaincourt, who exclaimed—“This is the foulest brutality! And this is the civilization which we have imported into Russia! The enemy will requite our barbarity; there are numbers of wounded and captive Frenchmen in their hands, and there is nothing to prevent them revenging themselves on us.” Napoleon was stern and silent, but next day the butchery ceased—no doubt he had taken measures to stop it.

With regard to these prisoners, the testimony of eye-witnesses at head-quarters is all to the same effect. “There was a column of Russian prisoners marching in front of us,” says Fain, “guarded by soldiers of the Rhine Federation. They flung them fragments of horse-flesh for their food, and their guards had orders to kill those who fainted by the way and could not proceed. The road was scattered with their dead bodies, their brains blown out.”

“The Baden Grenadiers,” says Rooss, “who escorted Napoleon’s baggage, had orders, if any of the Russian prisoners succumbed and were unable to proceed, to shoot them on the spot. Two of these Grenadiers informed me that it was Napoleon himself who gave the order.”

“My pen positively refuses,” says M. de B., “to describe our treatment of the Russian prisoners during the retreat, the cruelty and savagery of which it has in vain been sought to excuse by the law of necessity, and by the exceptional circumstances in which the French troops were placed.”

Labaume describes what he himself saw. “On the road they had no means of feeding the 3000 Russian prisoners taken in Moscow. They drove them along like so many cattle, and would not allow them to leave the narrow space allotted to them under any pretext. Fireless and frozen, they lay upon snow and ice, and in their unwillingness to die, longing to stay the pangs of hunger with any nourishment, they ate the bodies of such of their comrades as succumbed. It must be added that these were not captives taken with arms in their hands, but a rabble composed of men of every class who were found in the streets of Moscow.”

Petrofsky, an officer of noble birth, who was kept prisoner in spite of all the rules of war, gives the following account of this butchery. “Suddenly, a few paces in our rear we heard a rifle-shot, to which I at first paid no attention. A non-commissioned officer came and reported to the officer in command that he had shot one of the prisoners. I could not believe my ears, and I asked the officer to explain the statement. ‘I have written instructions,’ he replied politely, ‘to shoot all prisoners who, from fatigue or any other cause, fall more than fifty paces behind the rear of the column. The escort has received decisive orders to that effect.’ In the course of the day some six or seven men were shot, and among them was one of the civil officials. Sometimes we heard as many as fifteen shots in a day. I once saw a veteran sink upon the road from fatigue; three times the Frenchman who stopped to shoot him put the muzzle of his gun to the Russian’s head, three times did he pull the trigger—the rifle missed fire! At last he left him, and sent a comrade whose musket proved more effective. Some of the prisoners, when they saw that their end was approaching, espied a church ahead in the distance. They strove to drag themselves to the porch, and were there shot dead with prayers upon their lips.”

The author of this last statement, who afterwards became a count, would doubtless have shared their fate but for his deliverance by a band of free-lances under the command of Cheznyshof.

On October 31, Napoleon reached Vyazma. For the first time since leaving Moscow he wore a sable cap, a green pelisse edged with sable, and slashed with gold frogs, and fur-lined boots. He continued to wear this costume during the rest of the retreat, and when the severe frosts began, and it was impossible to sit in the saddle, he either drove in a carriage or went on foot. The infantry of the Old Guard camped round his head-quarters as before in a square, finding shelter, as far as possible, in such houses as were still standing.

The troops, who had orders to burn everything, smashed in the doors and windows of the houses and set fire to them with torches, cartridges, and even ammunition-boxes. The towns and villages were filled with the smoke of burning houses and the stench of decomposing corpses. Davout, who despaired of preserving his men under such circumstances, wrote to Napoleon saying—“It should be left for the rear-guard to fire such villages as remain.” The daily losses of the army in men and horses were greatly increased by this destruction of every dwelling on the road.

The battle of Vyazma was most disastrous to the French. Dorogomilovsky took a number of prisoners, artillery, and baggage. Napoleon, however, only informed France of the loss of a few individuals who had been captured by the Cossacks,—some engineers and topographers who were taking plans, and a few wounded officers who were marching without sufficient caution, running into danger instead of marching in their place with the baggage.

“On November 6,” says Ségur, “there was a complete change in the weather, and the blue sky entirely disappeared. The French army had for some time past been moving through a frosty mist which grew constantly thicker and thicker; but on that day the mist turned into flakes of snow—it seemed as if the icy sky had united with the frozen earth. Everything took on a new and unknown form. The troops marched without knowing where they were or where they were going to, meeting obstacles at every step. While the soldiers were struggling forward against the icy hurricane, the snow, whirled up by the wind, drifted over the hollows and concealed their depth; the soldiers fell into them and were buried in the drifts, and many who were already enfeebled lay where they fell. Those who came behind them tried in vain to turn aside; the wind blinded their eyes with falling and drifting snow, buffeted and confused them, and prevented them from advancing. Their wet clothing froze upon them, and a garment of ice clung to their bodies and numbed their limbs. The strong bitterly cold wind caught their breath as it issued from their mouths and turned it into icicles on their beards and coats. Trembling in every limb they would plod on until the snow, forming balls under their feet, absolutely prevented all progress; then, stumbling over a piece of wood or the dead body of a comrade, they would fall and lie groaning and lamenting while the snow covered them up, leaving on the surface nothing but an almost invisible hillock—a soldier’s grave. The whole road was scattered with these tiny eminences, like a churchyard. There was snow, snow everywhere, as far as the eye could see nothing but a melancholy vista of snow. The effect on the imagination was profound; it seemed to be a winding-sheet which Nature was wrapping around the unfortunate French army! The only objects that stood out were the fir-trees with their funereal green, standing motionless and huge, their black boughs outspread, filling the heart with sadness and foreboding.

“Everything, even their weapons which had been serviceable at Malo Jaroslavetz, but were now only contemptible, hindered the wretched soldiers in their progress. They seemed insufferably heavy; when the miserable men stumbled, their muskets would fall and break or become buried in the snow. They would rise to their feet without them—not that they lost them intentionally—hunger and cold had snatched them from their grasp. Many had their hands frost-bitten, while their fingers clung stiff and numbed to their muskets.

“Then came the sixteen-hour nights. With the snow everywhere, covering everything, there was no place to lean against, to stop at, to sit or rest upon, there was no spot in which they could dig for roots to stay the pangs of hunger or obtain fuel for fires. The troops did their best to form a camp, but the wind cared for nobody, and rudely scattered all their preparations. The fir-wood was covered with hoar-frost and would not take fire, fresh snow fell from the sky, the old snow melted beneath, and even when, at infinite pains, the fire was kindled, it could not be kept alight. At last something like a fire might be obtained, and officers and soldiers began to prepare their wretched supper of scraps of lean meat from horses slaughtered or dead of fatigue, with perhaps a few spoonfuls of oatmeal soaked in melting snow. Next day a heap of frozen soldiers marked the position of the camp-fires, and all around lay thousands of dead horses!”

On the day on which winter broke in all its horror on the unfortunate French army, Count Daru stopped the head-quarters staff on the march and made a secret communication to the Emperor. It appeared that an _estafette_, the first that had arrived for a whole week, had reached the army with news of Malet’s conspiracy. On the march, under the public gaze, Napoleon received the news with the utmost _sang-froid_, but afterwards in camp he expressed the greatest wrath.

He was still more angry at Smolensk, where the army, after all its expectations of rest, found an insufficiency both of quarters and provisions. The Emperor was simply furious. “I never saw him,” says his servant Constant, “forget himself to such an extent. He sent for the Intendant; I could hear his cries from the adjoining room. Napoleon gave orders that this officer should be shot, and it was only by grovelling at the Emperor’s feet that the wretched man managed to get off.”

The calamities of this stage of the retreat were accentuated by the fact that no notice had been received of the return of the army, and officials at Smolensk and elsewhere, taken by surprise, completely lost their heads when they saw these crowds of ravenous fugitives storming and plundering their stores without much advantage to themselves, but to the ruin of all who came after them.

The army not only obtained no respite in Smolensk, it proceeded on its march in a worse condition than ever. There is no doubt that the Emperor hoped to give his disordered flight the air of a dignified and regular retreat, for, among other things, he directed that the walls of Smolensk should be razed to the ground, in order, to use his own expression, “that they might not stand in his way another time;” as if, at this moment of disaster, he could have dreamt of a new invasion.

As we have already said, Napoleon rode the first part of the way in a carriage. In this vehicle, which was closed and contained an abundant supply of furs, the Emperor, who was warmly clad, did not of course feel the cold himself. Moreover, shut up with Murat in his carriage, he ran less risk of being subjected to insults from his angry soldiery, nor was he haunted by the spectacle of their famine and despair, or the sound of their clamour for bread, bread, bread!

After Smolensk he covered a great part of the distance on foot, and in the course of the march he of course had ample opportunity of assuring himself of the terrible plight of his troops, who were suffering unspeakable hardships.

The Emperor gave orders that the greater part of the ill-starred trophies, as well as a quantity of cannon and weapons of every description, should be sunk in the Dnieper and in the Semlefsky Lake. But, come what might, he wished to convey the cross of Ivan the Great to Paris, and he seems to have brought it as far as Vilna.

We have already given some description of the sufferings which the army underwent on its retreat, but the details furnished by eye-witnesses are so full of character, interest, and instruction, that I may add a few more extracts.

At every step were to be seen gallant officers, dressed in tatters, and leaning on sticks of pinewood, with their hair and beards covered with icicles. Again and again one might hear them imploring assistance. “Comrades,” cried one in piteous tones, “help me to rise, give me a hand; I cannot be left behind!” Every one passed on without even glancing at him. Misery levelled all ranks and abolished all distinctions. In vain did many of the officers insist upon their right to command—no one paid any attention to their orders; the starving colonel had to beg for a scrap of biscuit from the common soldier; he who had a store of provisions, were he merely a simple officer’s orderly, was surrounded by a little court of sycophants, who laid aside rank and distinction, and flattered and fawned upon their more fortunate comrade. Officers accustomed to command, and unacquainted with want, were in the most grievous plight of all—every one shunned them to avoid rendering them any service.

“_À moi, mes amis!_ help me to rise, I am a Captain of Engineers,” cried an officer piteously. A passing grenadier stopped, “What, you are a Captain of Engineers?”—“Yes, dear friend, I am!”—“Work away at your plans then!” The road was covered with soldiers who no longer bore the semblance of humanity, and whom the enemy would not even trouble to take prisoners. Many were reduced by cold and hunger to idiocy; they cooked and ate the dead bodies of their fellow-soldiers or gnawed their own arms. Others were so weak that they could not fetch a log of wood nor carry a stone to sit upon; they seated themselves on the bodies of their comrades and turned a dull fixed stare upon the burning embers. Soon the fire would die out, and these living skeletons, having no strength to rise, would fall dead beside the bodies on which they sat. Many tried to warm themselves by thrusting their naked feet into the midst of the fire.

All the corps were mixed up: the remnants formed a number of little detachments, or rather groups, of eight or ten men, who kept together and had everything in common. Each group had a Russian horse—a _conya_ as they called it, under the impression they were speaking Russian—for their baggage, their cooking apparatus, and provisions; and every member of the group had also a sack for provisions. Each of these little communities lived apart from all the rest, repulsing every one who did not belong to them. The members kept close together and did their utmost not to get separated in the crowd, and woe betide him who lost sight of his mates—he would certainly find no one else to take the least interest in him or give him any assistance.

“We were a gang of ruffians,” says Labaume, “respecting neither person nor property. Necessity made thieves and rogues of us. Without the slightest feeling of shame we stole from one another whatever we wanted. Arson, murder, and destruction of every kind were incidents of everyday life, and crime became second nature. With the same indifference with which the soldiers set houses on fire for the sake of a moment’s warmth, they would deprive a weaker comrade of all his little store for their own maintenance.”

In spite of the fearful condition of the troops, Napoleon ordered occasional manœuvres—with what result may be imagined. Such divisions as could still be made to perform any evolutions, after wandering about over snow-blocked roads, would end the day by retiring without their artillery and baggage, which had been abandoned in the ditches.

The staff encampment, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, presented a sad and pitiable spectacle. “In a wretched outhouse, with a crazy roof, some twenty officers, sandwiched with as many servants, were gathered round a little fire. Behind them stood their horses, ranged in a circle to keep off the wind. The smoke was so thick that one could hardly discern the forms even of those who were sitting close to the fire blowing up a flame under the cauldron in which their food was simmering. The rest, wrapped in cloaks and fur-coats, were lying side by side almost on the top of one another for the sake of warmth. They did not stir a limb, but every now and then one might hear the voice of a man abusing his comrades for moving about and treading on him, or cursing the neighing of the horses, or the sparks from the fire that burnt his coat.”

Napoleon, who now travelled for the most part on foot, clearly recognized the condition of the army, but he saw no need for giving Europe any inkling of the truth in his bulletins. “The roads are very slippery,” he says in Bulletin XXVIII., “and are difficult travelling for the draught-horses—we have lost a considerable number through cold and fatigue.” From Vyazma he wrote—“Twelve thousand Russian infantry, under cover of swarms of Cossacks, cut the road between the Duke of Eckmühl and the Viceroy. The Duke and the Viceroy attacked them, drove them from the line of march, pursued them into the forest, and took a number of prisoners, including a general and six guns. Since then we have heard no more of the Russian infantry; only the Cossacks are to be seen moving about in the distance.”

Not a word about the number of prisoners, guns, and baggage taken by Dorogomilovsky in this battle, which proved so disastrous to the French army, or of the fact that the French had by this time lost some 40,000 prisoners, about 25 generals, 500 guns, 30 flags, and, in addition to a stupendous quantity of other baggage, all the trophies from Moscow which they had not yet burnt or destroyed! If to this total we add some 50,000 who had died of their sufferings, or been killed in different engagements since they left Moscow, we may calculate that the army contained not more than 70,000 men, and of these, inclusive of the Imperial Guard, there were only about 10,000 able to carry arms.