Part 19

“A veteran Chasseur,” says the same author, “who had wrapped his frost-bitten extremities in strips of sheep-skin, sat down by our fire. He cursed the name of the Emperor Alexander, and he cursed Russia and all the saints; then he asked whether any brandy had been served out. When he heard the answer—‘No, none has been served out, and none will be,’ he exclaimed—‘Well, there is but one thing left, and that is death!’

“On the road we came upon a Hussar in his death agony, now rising to his feet, now falling to the ground again. We tried to help him along, but he fell again, and for the last time. Further on we came upon three men engaged upon a fallen horse. Two were standing up, reeling so fearfully that they looked like drunken men. The third, a German, lay across the horse—the poor devil, half dead with hunger and too feeble to cut a piece off, was trying to bite out a mouthful, but he died in the endeavour.”

The unfortunate women who still managed to drag on a miserable existence suffered, if possible, still more. “Throughout this terrible march,” says Madame Fusil, “I said to myself each day that I should probably not see the end of it; but I could not tell by what death I should die. When we halted and camped in the hope of warming ourselves and eating something, we generally sat on the bodies of those who had fallen victims to the cold, settling ourselves upon them with as little concern as if they were so many sofas. All day long one might hear people exclaiming—‘Great heavens, my purse has been stolen!’ or ‘my bag,’ or ‘my bread,’ or ‘my horse.’ It was just the same with every one, from generals to privates. People were perpetually trying to push their way through the crowd, with—‘Room for Marshal So-and-so’s carriage!’ or ‘His Excellency So-and-so’s,’ or ‘General So-and-so’s.’ When there was a bridge to be crossed, generals and colonels would range themselves on either side, in spite of the general confusion, so as to expedite the passage of their own vehicles as much as possible, for the Cossacks were never far off.”

“The Frenchwomen who had fled from Moscow to escape the vengeance of the Russians,” says Labaume, “and who had counted on perfect safety in our midst, presented a most pitiable spectacle. Most of them had to go on foot, shod in summer shoes and clad in the flimsiest of silks and satins, in torn fur cloaks and military great-coats taken from the shoulders of the dead. Their plight would have been enough to wring tears from the hardest heart had not every sentiment of sympathy been stifled by each man’s individual privations.

“Of all the victims of this war, not one presents such an interesting figure as the young and lovely Fanny. Modest, amiable, and witty, a talented linguist, adorned with qualities calculated to captivate the least impressionable—she was reduced to begging for the slightest services almost upon her knees, and compelled to pay for every crust of bread at the price of her shame. Her benefactors abused their position to demand the most debasing return for the nourishment they afforded her. I saw her at Smolensk unable to walk, clinging to a horse’s tail, until she fell at last upon the snow, and there she probably remained, her fate provoking no sign of sympathy or look of pity.”

“The unhappy P.,” continues Labaume, “still succeeded in keeping up with us, sharing with servile fidelity in our sorrows and privations. The story of this unfortunate girl is worth narrating. Whether she had lost herself, or whether her romantic spirit prompted her to seek for adventure, I do not know, but she was found secreted in the crypt of the Cathedral of St. Michael. They brought her to one of the French generals, who took her under his protection. He afterwards pretended to be in love with her, and made her his mistress under promise of marriage. With the true heroism of virtue she suffered every misery and privation. She was about to become a mother, and was proud of her condition and of her fidelity in following her husband. But when the man on whose promises she relied learned that the army was not to stay at Smolensk, he resolved to sever a tie which he had never regarded otherwise than as a pastime. This black-hearted scoundrel, whose bosom was closed to every sentiment of pity, announced to the innocent girl, under some plausible pretext, that they must part. The unhappy creature uttered a cry of despair. She declared that having sacrificed her home and her good name for one whom she already regarded as her lawful husband, she looked upon it as her duty to follow him to the world’s end—that neither fatigue nor danger should deter her in her resolution to cling to the man she loved.

“The general, unmoved by her fidelity, curtly repeated that they must part—in the first place because circumstances rendered it impossible to maintain women on the march; and secondly, because he was already married; in short, she had best return to Moscow, where no doubt a handsome sweetheart awaited her. The wretched girl was stricken dumb with despair at this announcement. Pale as death, paler than when they found her among the vaults of the Cathedral in the Kremlin, she was unable for many minutes to open her lips. Then she began to weep and moan, and, overwhelmed with grief, she fell into a swoon, of which her betrayer availed himself—not to escape a trying farewell, but to fly from the Russians whose cries were drawing nearer and nearer.”

“The scarcity of fodder for the horses,” says René Bourgeois, “was appalling. Handfuls of decaying straw, the broken and trampled remnants of former bivouacs, or thatch torn from the roofs of what few huts remained, furnished all their provender, and they perished in the camp by thousands. The sheets of ice that covered the roads gave them their _coup de grâce_—in a short time the cavalry was a thing of the past, and dismounted horsemen swelled the ranks of the pedestrians. The regiments became hopelessly mixed up, order and discipline were no longer maintained. The soldiers took no notice of their officers, and the officers took no thought for the soldiers, every one plodded along at his own sweet will.

“This disorderly rabble was clad in the most extraordinary garments—in the skins and hides of various animals, in women’s petticoats of every conceivable hue, in great shawls, in scraps of blankets, in old horse-cloths with a hole in the middle for the head, and hanging down all round. As their boots were gone, their feet were wrapped in tattered rags and shreds of felt and sheep-skin, tied up with bits of straw.... Above these vermin-infested rags were to be seen sunken faces black with the smoke of camp-fires, smeared with all manner of filth—faces on which were imprinted horror, despair, and the haunting terror of hunger, cold, and all their other ills. There was no centre or flank; the whole army was huddled into a heap, with no cavalry or artillery, and moved forward, baggage and all, in indescribable confusion.”

* * * * *

At last the French army arrived at the Beresina, where it must have been annihilated but for the folly of the Russian General Chichagof, who had been directed to cut off its retreat.

“It must be admitted,” says René Bourgeois, “that throughout the campaign the Russians made the most astounding blunders. At the Beresina, in particular, they might have taken the whole French army prisoner without spilling a drop of blood. Our escape was due solely to the incapacity of the Russian commander, Admiral Chichagof, who took over the command of the army of Moldavia from Kutuzof.... He was a young courtier, self-confident and vain, who enjoyed the fullest confidence and favour of the Emperor Alexander.”

A perusal of the despatches which this youthful favourite wrote, with the pompous French periods, the confident and condescending criticisms of anybody and everybody, not even excepting Kutuzof, enables us to appreciate his fatuity and incompetence.

The French, having hoodwinked the Russian general—or rather, admiral—proceeded to throw bridges over the Beresina.

“_Esprit de corps_ in the different arms of the service,” says Marbot, “is of course worthy of all honour, but it does no harm now and then to moderate it under certain circumstances. This was a task beyond the powers of those in command of the artillery and engineers at the passage of the Beresina; for sappers and gunners each insisted that they alone, and no others, were going to build the bridges. The result was that the work remained at a complete standstill until the Emperor, who arrived on the 26/14, settled the dispute by ordering the artillery to build one bridge and the engineers the other.”

“Who shall number the victims of this passage,” says S. U., “or describe the scenes of horror and destruction? Amid inconceivable confusion the Emperor endeavoured to facilitate the passage by ordering a multitude of vehicles to be burned under his own eyes; the Prince of Neufchâtel led several horses over with his own hands.”

“One’s pen,” says Constant, “simply refuses to depict the scenes of horror that were witnessed at the Beresina. Vehicles of all kinds drove up to the bridge literally over heaps of bodies that lay blocking up the road. Whole crowds of wretched soldiers fell into the river and perished among the blocks of ice. Others clung to the planks of the bridge, suspended over the abyss, until the wheels of the carts passed over their fingers and compelled them to relinquish their hold. Caissons, wagons, drivers, and horses went down together.”

“One woman was seen,” says de B., “caught between the blocks of ice, holding up her baby in the air and imploring the passers-by to save it from a watery grave.”

“I saw soldiers,” says the author of the _Journal de la Guerre_, “clinging to their neighbours to save themselves from falling. I saw the feeble, tottering as they went, yet still pressing feverishly forward, jostling one another so that whole rows of them fell into the water together, toppling over like houses of cards. If a Cossack showed himself, or any one repeated the word ‘Cossack’ two or three times, the whole army of fugitives were seized with such panic that they dashed hither and thither, backwards and forwards, slipping and falling headlong into the river.”

* * * * *

Beyond the Beresina the cold became even more severe. The whole country round was covered with snow. Even the villages, buried in the drifts, no longer broke the monotony of the horizon, and they could only be distinguished by the smoke and flame of burning houses fired by the inhabitants or by fugitives from the French army.

“The soldiers,” says Ségur, “were perpetually burning down whole houses, merely for the sake of warming themselves for a few minutes at the blaze. The glare would attract some poor creatures who had partly lost their wits through cold and privation. Grinding their teeth, and yelling with unearthly laughter, they would leap into and perish in the flames, while their comrades looked on with calm unconcerned countenances. The bystanders sometimes pulled out their burnt and disfigured bodies and, horrible to relate, devoured them.”

“The road was so thickly covered with dead and dying,” says the author of the _Journal de la Guerre_, “that one had to exercise the greatest care to avoid treading on them. Marching, as we were, in a compact mass, one had no choice but to step on or over these poor wretches who lay writhing in their death agony. One could hear the death rattle in their throats, but it was useless to think of giving them any assistance.”

“In the sheds by the roadside,” says Ségur, “were to be seen spectacles of indescribable horror. Many of our men who sheltered there for the night found their comrades in the morning frozen by scores around the remains of the fires. In order to get out of these charnel-houses one had to clamber over heaps of poor wretches, many of whom were still breathing.”

“I could never understand,” says Constant, “why in our wretched plight we must needs continue to play the _rôle_ of conquerors, and drag captives along with us, to the infinite discomfort of our own men. The unfortunate Russians, half dead with fatigue and famine, were herded together in a large open space like cattle. A multitude of them died in the night; the rest sat huddled together for the sake of warmth. Those who died of the cold continued to sit cheek by jowl with the living. Some of the prisoners ate the bodies of their dead comrades.”

It is interesting to note that all this went on within a few yards of Napoleon’s head-quarters—a wooden house, the windows of which had to be stuffed with hay and straw.

When Napoleon left the troops, their confusion, and consequently their misery, became, if possible, worse than before. The army needed the arm of a giant to help it to bear its miseries, but meanwhile the giant abandoned it. On the very first night one of the generals refused to obey orders, and the Marshal in command of the rear-guard had to attend the King’s head-quarters almost alone. Round these head-quarters lay all that was left of the Grande Armée, 3000 files of the Old and Young Guard. When Napoleon’s departure became known, discipline suffered a severe blow, even among these seasoned veterans.

“There were some among them who had covered two hundred leagues without daring to look back; _sauve qui peut_ was the order of the day.

“All that were left of the baggage-wagons after the passage of the Beresina, including the Emperor’s, had to be finally abandoned near the Tamari post-house at the foot of an ice-covered declivity on the further side of Vilna. The continual arrival of more vehicles behind those that had been abandoned intensified the prevailing lawlessness and disorder. Russians and French were soon mingled in an inextinguishable crowd round the wagon-loads of French treasure.”

“Every one,” says the author of the _Journal de la Guerre_, “took what he pleased from the contents of the carriages and carts. I saw wagons full of gold and silver looted in the middle of the road, partly by Frenchmen, partly by Cossacks, without any display of hostility between them. I made my way into the midst of them, and not one of the Russians attempted to molest me.”

At the Russian frontier, two kings, one prince, eight marshals, a few generals and officers, roaming aimlessly about, together with a few men of the Old Guard who still carried muskets, were all that remained of the Grande Armée.

V

THE MARSHALS

The lack of discipline in the army must in great measure be ascribed to the fact that the kings, marshals, princes, and dukes who held the chief command were wanting in self-restraint and in the virtue of unmurmuring obedience to the Emperor.

As is well known, at the beginning of the campaign the King of Westphalia took umbrage at a well-deserved rebuke which his lack of energy had drawn upon him, and went home, leaving his army corps without even transferring the command, or communicating to any one the orders he had received.

The relations between Marshal Berthier, the chief of the staff, and Marshal Davout, between the latter and Murat, and, indeed, between many of the other commanders, were so strained that they distinctly hindered the progress of the campaign. In 1809 Berthier had been for some days Davout’s superior officer. Disregarding his orders, Davout won a battle and saved the army from annihilation; but he incurred the bitter hatred of his chief. When they met again at the opening of the last campaign they had a fierce altercation in the presence of the Emperor. Davout went so far as to say that Berthier must be “either a fool or a traitor,” and they threatened one another with personal violence. Berthier, as is well known, was incapable of initiative: He merely served as an echo of Napoleon’s wishes; but he was very docile and industrious. A firm believer in the Emperor’s maxim—“Never attempt two things at the same time; concentrate all your efforts on one,” he did not approve of the war of 1812, but bowed to necessity. He entered upon the campaign without conviction or enthusiasm, deeply disquieted by the position of the French armies in Spain.

In the campaign of 1812 the Duke of Neufchâtel displayed, to say the least, very little foresight. Davout was no doubt the best strategist in the whole galaxy of Napoleon’s satellites, but he was of a quarrelsome, envious, and vindictive disposition. The methodical and patient genius of Davout formed a striking contrast to the impulsiveness of Murat. This was the cause of many misunderstandings between these two commanders, old comrades though they were, and almost of the same age, who had risen side by side through the various grades. They were accustomed to obey Napoleon, but were wanting in command over themselves. This was especially the case with Murat. The relations of Murat and Davout throw so interesting a light on the system of command in the Grande Armée that they are worthy of some attention.

Davout was put at one time under Murat’s command. He submitted to his orders, but most unwillingly, and although he swallowed his wrath, he ceased all direct communication with the Emperor. Napoleon, however, ordered him to send in his reports as before, for Murat’s despatches were hopeless. This was just what Davout wanted, and from that time forth he ceased to recognize the authority of the King of Naples. The extent of their jealousy may be judged from the fact that in an engagement one of Davout’s batteries refused to fire on the orders of Murat. The commander of the battery urged the Marshal’s own orders in justification of his refusal; he had been told to take orders from no one but Davout under pain of losing his command.

The next day the two rivals had a lively altercation in Napoleon’s presence. The King accused the Duke of obstinate resistance to his wishes, and with secret enmity towards himself, an enmity, he averred, that had its origin in Egypt. He went so far as to propose a settlement of the quarrel man to man, urging that the army should not be allowed to suffer through their private differences. Davout, on the other hand, attacked the King furiously for his wanton recklessness, and painted a lively picture of the disorder that reigned in the advance-guard of the army. “I must admit,” said he, according to Ségur, “that the Russians are effecting their retreat in the most admirable order. They halt wherever they find it convenient instead of consulting the wishes of our boastful friend Murat. They select their positions so well, and defend them so skilfully, with an eye to the forces at their disposal, and the time they wish to gain, that their tactics must have been carefully thought out long ago.

“They never abandon a position until it becomes untenable. At night they turn in early and leave only as many troops under arms as are absolutely necessary for the defence of their positions and for allowing the rest of the troops an opportunity for sleep and refreshment.

“But the King, instead of profiting by this excellent example, takes no account of time or of the position and strength of the enemy. He is always appearing in the skirmishing line, prancing up and down in front of the enemy or trying to worry them on the flanks, losing his temper, yelling himself hoarse with orders, wasting cartridges and ammunition, men and horses, for no reason whatever, and keeping all the troops under arms until late into the night.

“It wrings my heart to see the wretched men jostling one another in the dark, and groping for fodder and water, firewood and eatables, unable to find their own quarters, and spending the night shouting to one another. It is not only the advance-guard that suffers by this—the whole of our cavalry is visibly worn out. Let Murat do what he likes with his own cavalry, but so long as Davout is in command of the infantry of the Ist Army Corps, he will not let him worry them to death.”

“The King in reply hit as hard as his opponent. The Emperor heard them out, rolling a Russian cannon-ball about with his foot. It seemed as if he enjoyed the differences between his officers,” says Ségur.

When he dismissed them he cautiously remarked to Davout that “no one man could combine all the virtues; that even if the Duke of Eckmühl—Davout—knew how to win battles, it did not follow that he could lead an advance-guard; and that if Murat had been told off to pursue Bagration in Lithuania he would very likely have prevented his escape.”

Napoleon subsequently advised the two rivals to do their best to pull better together for the future; but how much they profited by this recommendation may be gathered from Belliard’s despatch to the Emperor on the battle of Viazma. “On the far side of the town the enemy appeared in a convenient position behind a trench, apparently quite prepared for an engagement. The cavalry at once went into action on either flank; but when the time came for the infantry, and the King in person was heading one of Davout’s divisions, the Marshal galloped up and ordered the men to halt. He then expressed loud disapproval of the intended movement, and had high words with the King, flatly forbidding the generals to obey his orders. Murat endeavoured to insist, and reminded Davout of his position, but his protests were useless. Meanwhile the chance was gone. The King had to content himself with sending word to the Emperor that it was absolutely impossible to carry on the command under the circumstances, and asking him to choose between him and Davout.

“Napoleon was very angry. He sided with Murat against Davout, but the former could not forget the insult to which his old enemy had given public expression. The longer he considered the matter the fiercer grew his indignation. The affront, he determined, was one that his sword alone could avenge. What mattered the Emperor’s decision, or the Emperor’s anger? He must wipe out the insult with his own hand!

“He was about to demand satisfaction of Davout, when Belliard stopped him, and represented the consequences of such an act, and the bad example it would set.”

On the whole, Davout’s accusations were fully justified. In the course of the campaign Murat’s precipitation was on more than one occasion the cause of serious loss to the invading army. The repeated attacks of the cavalry on the square formed by Neverofsky’s retreating division, when the Russians coolly and successfully sustained forty charges led by the King of Naples in person, is an example in point. When he had sacrificed the whole of his cavalry Murat practically took no further part in the campaign. He merely drove about in the carriage with Napoleon, or followed him on foot, with a stick in his hand and a fur-coat buttoned up to his chin.

The order and discipline of Davout’s own division were not, however, proof against the miseries of the retreat, and after the battle of Viazma Napoleon received a very clear report from Ney informing him of the disastrous result of the battle.

“If better order had been maintained,” said Ney, “the result would probably have been very different. The most appalling feature of the whole business was the disorganization of Davout’s division, which unfortunately spread to the other troops. I feel obliged to tell your Majesty the whole truth, and however unpleasant it is to have to find fault with any of my fellow-officers, I am compelled to state that under the circumstances I cannot answer for the safety of the retreat.”