Part 18

“In proportion as our strength and energy fell,” says the same author, “so did the boldness of the Cossacks rise. It increased to such a pitch that they actually attacked an artillery convoy on its road from Viazma, and repeated the experiment on another artillery convoy coming from Italy. These Tartar hordes dashed in whenever they found a gap between our armies, and availed themselves of the advantages of their position to display the most impudent daring.”

The King of Naples, whose cavalry had almost reached the vanishing point, daily implored that something should be done; that peace should be concluded or a retreat begun. But the Emperor was both deaf and blind.

“The spell was broken at last!” exclaims Ségur, “and by a mere Cossack. This barbarian fired at Murat as he was visiting an outpost. Murat was highly indignant, and explained to Dorogomilovsky that an armistice that existed only to be broken was not worth prolonging.”

The position of the French army then became intolerable. It was impossible to remain in Moscow, but it was equally impossible to retreat without preparation. The Emperor of the French nevertheless continued to issue the same characteristic bulletins. “Some think,” he said, “that the Emperor ought to set fire to the public buildings, march to Tula in order to be near Poland, and spend the winter in a friendly country where he can easily obtain all he requires from the stores of Dantzic, Kovno, Vilna, and Minsk. Others point out that between Moscow and St. Petersburg there are 180 leagues of bad road, while the distance from Vitebsk to St. Petersburg is only 130 leagues, and conclude that Moscow is worthless as a strategic position, while in its ruined condition it must lose its political importance for a century to come. There are a number of Cossacks with the enemy who give our cavalry some trouble.... Everything points to the necessity of seeing to our winter quarters. The cavalry especially are in need of rest.”

The battle of Tarutina opened Napoleon’s eyes. He now saw that Kutuzof was merely playing with him, and he resolved to retreat. But what a retreat! “From the very first,” says Fezensac, “it resembled a rout.” Some companies were dying from sheer starvation, whilst others did not know what to do with their provisions. Those soldiers who straggled from the line of march in search of food, fell into the hands of the Cossacks and the armed peasants. The road was filled with caissons which had been blown up, with guns and carts that had been abandoned.

The soldiers were unwilling to sacrifice their loot, and marched heavily laden. One of them gives an inventory of his share—“I had furs, pictures by old masters, rolled up for convenience of transport, and some precious stones. One of my comrades carried a huge case of quinine. Another had a whole library of beautiful books with gilt edges, and bound in red morocco. I had not forgotten the inner man, and had provided myself with rice, sugar, and coffee, besides in reserve three big pots of jam—two cherry and one gooseberry.”

Bourgogne gives similar details—“We were obliged to halt and wait for the left column. I took this opportunity to overhaul my knapsack, which seemed too heavy. It was well loaded. I had several pounds of sugar and rice, some biscuits, half a bottle of liqueur, the silk dress of a Chinese woman embroidered in gold and silver thread, several gold and silver ornaments, among them a fragment of the cross of St. Ivan, or rather the cover which surrounded it. I should state that in the middle of the great cross of St. Ivan was a smaller one, in massive gold, a foot in length. I had also my full-dress uniform, a woman’s large cape for riding, two silver pictures, a foot wide by eight inches high, the figures in relief, and several medals and stars set in diamonds belonging to a Russian prince. All these I kept to give away. Moreover, I had on my shirt, a waistcoat of yellow silk, embroidered and wadded, which I had cut out of a woman’s petticoat, and over that again a large collar, lined with ermine. A game-bag was slung at my side and held up under the collar by a heavy piece of silver braid. This bag held many precious things, among them a figure of Christ in gold and silver, a china porcelain vase, both of which escaped the general wreck as if by a miracle.... Then came my cross-belts, my arms, and sixty rounds of cartridges in my pouch.”

The Russian witness, A. F. de B., gives the last touch to this picture—“Every French officer had two or three carriages, and each took with him a Russian or French woman; for a number of women had in one way or another managed to follow the army. Some of them, suspecting the hard fate that awaited them, changed their minds at the gates of the city and returned. Others were robbed on the road of their horses, their provisions, and their furs. These wretched beings lived to see their children buried under the snow, and later on the greater number of them perished miserably. Very few escaped, and not one of them was seen to cross the frontier.”

Speaking of the women who accompanied the Grande Armée, Duverger relates a characteristic episode—“We had orders to prevent any carriage from getting between the guns. A magnificent carriage, drawn by four horses, approached us rapidly. I signalled to the coachman to stop, but he refused, and continued to drive on. My comrades and I seized the bridle, and the carriage was close to the edge of a ditch when a young and pretty woman put her head out of the window. Her handsome new clothes, as well as the luxury which surrounded her, plainly showed that she enjoyed the favour of some very important personage. She ordered us in the name of the Emperor, and of the Major-General, to let her pass, but we refused.”

After Malo Jaroslavetz the situation of the army became more and more critical. On November 5, hand-mills, and rather heavy ones, too, were served out to the Guard. It seemed like a practical joke, for there was nothing to grind. The troops threw away these cumbersome and useless utensils within twenty-four hours.

On the following day snow began to fall heavily. The men were blinded by the flakes and numbed by the intense cold.

“Within a few nights,” writes Baron Fain, “everything is changed. Horses fall by thousands, cavalrymen march on foot, the artillery are without harness, the edge of the road is strewn with our unfortunate comrades. An entire brigade under General Augereau, the brother of the marshal, is surprised on the 9th, by the Cossacks of Orlov-Davidov and Seslavin, and surrenders! Napoleon has still enough natural feeling to be moved by this new misfortune. He sends General Baraguay d’Illiers—an old comrade of the army of Italy, and one of his most distinguished generals—on to France, with orders to remain under arrest in his own house until he can be tried by court-martial.”

Prince Eugène reported the loss of all his artillery and ammunition. On the road into Doukovstchina he met with a terrible disaster crossing the little river Vop. The scene is dramatically described by Labaume—“There was a general panic, for in spite of the efforts made to keep the Russians in check, we knew but too surely that they were advancing. The prevailing panic, moreover, increased our danger. The river, being only half frozen, would not bear the weight of the wagons and droshkies which contained our few remaining provisions. Every one then struggled to transfer his most precious possessions from the wagons to the horses’ backs. No sooner were the horses out of a cart than a crowd of soldiers, without giving the owners time to rescue their effects, began to plunder it. Their search was particularly keen for flour and wine.... The cries of those who were crossing the river, the terror of those who were preparing for the plunge from the steep and slippery bank, the distress of the women, the weeping of children, and the panic of the soldiers themselves, made the passage of this river so harrowing a scene that it is impossible to recall it without a shudder. For a whole league around, on the edge of the road and the banks of the river, lay abandoned guns, caissons and elegant carriages that had come from Moscow. On every side lay articles that had been flung from the wagons; they were of course especially conspicuous on the dazzling snow. There were candelabra, bronze antiques, old masters, and rare and costly porcelain services.”

“On every side reigned terror and despair,” says Bourgeois. “Safety seemed to lie only in flight, and of course no one wished to be the last. If the crowd jostled you beneath the wheels of the carriages, you might abandon all hope of the horses pulling up and allowing you to extricate yourself. No one would listen to your cries. In the throng it was impossible to distinguish generals from common soldiers; they were dressed like scarecrows, in tattered garments, suffering the pangs of cold and hunger, and reduced to beg favours of the soldiers under their command.”

Chambray relates, for instance—“One day when some soldiers were warming themselves round a fire, a general came up half dead with cold, and begged for a place. No one vouchsafed a word in reply, and it was only on his repeating his petition that one of the men answered—‘All right, if you’ll fetch another log.’

“Lawlessness and insubordination reached their climax; there was no thought of discipline, and obedience was out of the question. All distinctions of rank were levelled—we were a wretched mass of shrunken, decivilized humanity. When some poor wretch, wearied with the long struggle, fell at last, a prey to his miseries, his neighbours, fully assured that all was over with him, and that he would never rise again, flung themselves upon their wretched comrade, before the breath was out of his body, and stripped him of the remnants of his clothing. In a few moments he would be left naked on the ground, to die a lingering and painful death. One might often see the spectral semblance of a man dragging himself painfully along to reach the halting-place, striving his utmost to put one leg before the other, until he realized at last that his strength was leaving him. A deep groan would be heard, the man’s eyes would fill with tears, his legs would begin to fail him, he would totter along for a few yards, swaying from side to side, then fall to the ground, never to rise again. If the poor wretch’s body fell across the road, his comrades would step indifferently over it as if nothing had occurred.

“The courage of which the troops had at first afforded so many signal proofs, gave place to the most hopeless cowardice. They had no thought but of flight. The idea of defending themselves never seemed to occur to them. In many instances they refused to raise a hand to save their own lives.

“At the approach of a handful of Cossacks, or a band of peasants with clubs, there was a general stampede. Even those who carried muskets would fling them away in order to run the more quickly. Those who were taken prisoners never dreamed of resistance—a company of Grenadiers would fall an easy prey to these unarmed peasants.”

“The Cossacks and the militia,” says the author of _The War of 1812_, “were more formidable to the captives than the regular forces.” The Russian generals did all that was in their power to restrain their ferocity, but their animosity was such that the officers would have had to be everywhere at once in order to save the prisoners.

“It was like marching over an endless battle-field,” says Fezensac. “Some lay in the snow with frost-bitten limbs; others fell asleep and perished in the burning villages. I remember a private in my battalion who acted like a drunken man. He marched at our side without recognizing any of his comrades, asked after his regiment, named the men of his company, and yet conversed with them as if they were complete strangers. He swayed from side to side as he walked, and his expression was dazed and wandering....

“The soldiers, blinded by the whirl of drifting snow, could not even distinguish the road, and often fell into ditches which became their graves. Ill-shod and worse clad, without meat or drink, huddled and shivering, hardly able to move a limb, they pressed forward at all costs, without paying the slightest attention to those who were failing, falling, and dying around them. Alas! what a mass of poor wretches there was upon that road, perishing of sheer exhaustion, yet still struggling to ward off the approach of death! Some cried ‘Farewell’ to their brethren and comrades, some with their last breath murmured the names of their mothers and their homes. The cold soon stiffened their limbs and struck into the very marrow of their bones. The place where they fell was marked only by little heaps of snow along the wayside, covering their bodies like the hillocks in the churchyard.

“Flocks of carrion rose up from the valleys and hovered in the air above them, uttering cries of ill omen. The innumerable dogs which had followed the army from Moscow, fattening on carrion, slunk around and howled on every side, awaiting fresh prey.”

It should be mentioned that when the retreat began most of the men had furs of different kinds, but in the nightly bivouacs, the snow, melted by the heat of the fires, soaked them through and through, and they afterwards froze again into solid blocks of ice. The result of the alternate freezing and thawing was that at last the fur rotted away and dropped off, and nothing was left of the splendid sables and ermines but a few wretched brown rags.

Stragglers who had deserted from their regiments were repulsed wherever they went, and could find no place in the bivouacs. One can imagine the plight of these poor wretches. Tortured with hunger they flung themselves on every horse that fell, and fought like savage dogs over the carcase. Exhausted with long marches and want of sleep, they could find in the snow no rest for their weary limbs. Half dead with cold, they wandered in every direction, searching the snow for fuel, and even when they were successful, the sodden wood was difficult to kindle and the fire was easily extinguished by the wind. “Then they huddled together like cattle,” says an eye-witness, “around birches and pines, or under carts. Sometimes they would set fire to the houses in which the officers had taken refuge, and sit motionless through the night around these monster bonfires.”

The soldiers’ frost-bitten limbs were covered with sores, which turned into black patches when they warmed them at the fire, and he was a lucky man who could boast of having escaped frost-bite altogether.

In their miseries they forgot their booty. “The road was covered,” says Duverger, “with useless plunder, which they had flung away. The famous chest of quinine was left to its fate. I tried to sell my pictures, but no one seemed to want them. I gave my furs away for nothing. The man who brought away the library was struck with the happy thought of selling it in lots, but no one would make a bid.”

They had even to abandon the famous trophies from Moscow, casting them into Lake Semlefsky, between Gjatsk and Mikhailov. The guns, the various knights’ trappings, and the ornaments from the Kremlin were buried close by. Ségur says that the famous cross from the belfry of John the Great was also sunk in the lake, but according to other authorities it was dragged on as far as the first post-house beyond Vilna. “How did it happen,” he asks, “that nothing had been provided for before the army left Moscow? How was it that these masses of soldiers who died of cold and starvation, were found laden with gold and silver instead of the food and clothing they required? How was it that during a rest of thirty-three days they never thought of roughing the horses’ feet so that they might get along with more speed and safety? How was it that, even if Napoleon himself gave no orders, these obvious precautions did not occur to the other authorities—the kings, princes, and marshals? Were they not aware that even in Russia autumn is followed by winter? Can we suppose that Napoleon relied upon the sagacity of his men, and left them to look after themselves?

“Was he perhaps misled by his experience of campaigning in Poland, where the winter is no more severe than in France? Was he deceived by those sunny October days, which surprised even the Russians themselves? What midsummer madness was it that scattered the wits of Napoleon and his army? What mist was it that obscured their vision? What was the resource on which they counted? Even if all heads were turned by the notion of concluding a treaty of peace within the walls of Moscow, they had still in any case to march back again. Yet not the slightest preparation was made even for the most peaceful return.”

“At last,” continues Ségur, “the army cast its eyes once more upon Smolensk. Before them lay the promised land, where the hungry should be filled and the weary be at rest, where they were to lie in warm and comfortable rooms and forget their nightly bivouacs in forty degrees of frost. ‘Now,’ they thought, ‘we can sleep as long as we wish, mend our clothes, and provide ourselves with boots!’ But the skeletons of horses lying in the streets show that even here there is a scarcity of provender. Broken doors and window-frames serve as fuel for camp-fires, and the warm houses and promised winter quarters—where are they? The sick and wounded lie neglected in the street, in the vans in which they arrived. This is but another camp, still colder than the forests through which the march has hitherto lain.

“The greatest care was needed to prevent detachments of the different corps from coming to blows at the doors of the store-houses. When the rations were at last served out the soldiers refused to carry them to their various regiments. They sprang eagerly upon the sacks, seized a few pounds of flour and bore it off to gorge themselves. The same thing happened with the brandy. Next day the houses were filled with the bodies of these poor wretches, dead of their surfeit of food and drink. It was evident that Smolensk, which the army had regarded as the end of its sufferings, was but the beginning. An endless vista of misery opened out before it. There remained forty more days of marching—forty more such days as they had already experienced.”

The Emperor arrived on November 9, when their despair was at its height. He locked himself in a house in the market-place, and left it on the 14th, to continue his retreat. He had been counting on a fortnight’s full rations for a force of 100,000 men, and he found only half that quantity in flour, rice, and brandy—meat there was none.

“Ever since Napoleon arrived,” writes the author of _The War of 1812_, “I have been engaged in serving out rations to the troops of the various corps. I am afraid that the seven sentries who keep guard over me day and night will hardly manage to save me from being torn to pieces by the famishing soldiers.... Some of the very highest officers broke one of my windows the other night and climbed in.”

Every eye-witness speaks of the bitter disappointment of the soldiers at Smolensk.

“Our horror,” says Labaume, “was indescribable when we first learned on the outskirts of Smolensk that the 9th Army Corps had already marched on, that the troops were not to stay at Smolensk, and that such provisions as there were had already been exhausted. Had a thunder-bolt fallen at our feet, we could not have been more astounded than at this news; it was so overwhelming that we refused to believe it. We soon found out, however, that downright famine prevailed in the town—the town which we had pictured a veritable Land of Promise.”

Those soldiers who could find no quarters lay in the streets; and within a few hours they would be found dead by their fires. The hospitals, the churches, and all the public buildings were crowded with the sick who flocked thither in thousands. Those who could find no room were left to die in the vans and on the caissons and gun-carriages on which they had been brought.

“One Cuirassier,” says an eye-witness, “moaning with hunger, flung himself upon the flayed body of a dead horse, thrust his head in between the naked ribs, and began tearing out the entrails with his teeth. So fierce were the pangs they suffered that the Russians found dead bodies of Frenchmen half devoured by their comrades.”

They left 5000 sick and wounded in Smolensk without provisions of any kind. The doctors and officials charged with the duty of attending upon them took to flight, in fear of being massacred or taken prisoners.

Chambray is our authority for saying that, contrary to custom, the sick were not even commended to the generosity of the enemy—they were simply abandoned as so much useless rubbish.

“The war now became so barbarous,” says the author of _The War of 1812_, “that it is impossible to imagine within what limits an enemy whose wrath has been aroused by wholesale ruin and destruction will confine his vengeance. Before planning the cruel and wanton destruction of Moscow and Smolensk, the French should have remembered that they were leaving 10,000 of their men in the hospitals and on the road as hostages in the hands of the enemy.”

“When they found themselves left to perish of starvation,” writes René Bourgeois, “compelled to shift for themselves, these poor wretches crawled about the fields digging up roots and picking up the refuse of cabbages and other vegetables. They lay about on rotten grass and straw, on rags and scraps; they were covered with vermin and filth and surrounded by the decomposing bodies of their comrades. For a distance of eighty leagues the road was impassable; one had, so to speak, to cut a way through corpses and _débris_ of every kind. At every halting-place were huge cemeteries, miscalled hospitals, which made their presence known for miles around by their nauseating odour due to the heaps of unburied dead, and the filth of every sort that lay weltering in foul pools.”

The fugitives, too, were covered with every sort of vermin. The stench that arose from these living corpses was due both to their disorders, and the fact that through dread of the cold they never removed their clothing for any purpose whatever. Their hands were smeared with horses’ blood, and their faces and tattered garments reeked with its effluvium. Many whose faces and arms were frost-bitten resembled the rounded figures of ivory chessmen.

“What I dreaded most,” says a German writer, “was the approach of night; not so much because our sufferings were greatly intensified at night, as because when we halted all the soldiers collected together and huddled close to one another so as to keep as warm as circumstances would permit. In the general silence one might hear on different sides, sometimes on all sides at once, the dull thud of men and horses falling on to the frozen ground, dead of cold and privation.”

“In one encampment,” says Bourgogne, “I was horrified to find that all the men and horses were dead and already covered with snow. The men’s bodies lay in the most natural manner round the camp-fires, and the horses remained harnessed to the guns. There were five men snarling and fighting like dogs—on one side lay the hindleg of a horse, the subject of their dispute.

“They had been buoyed up by the expectation of finding food and lodging in Smolensk, but now they had no further hope; they marched along mechanically wherever they were led, and halted when others halted.”