Part 20

Napoleon himself had occasion to complain of Davout’s dilatoriness. He had fallen behind five days’ march when he should, at the most, have been only three days in the rear. These complaints were repeated in all quarters, and it was said that his movements against the Cossacks had no other effect than to detain the army.

“_Mon cousin_,” wrote Napoleon to Berthier, losing all patience, “tell the Duke of Elchingen—Ney—to take command of the rear-guard and to move as quickly as possible—the Duke of Eckmühl keeps the Regent and Prince Poniatowski waiting every time a Cossack shouts ‘Hurrah.’”

Napoleon could not have found a better person than the Duke of Eckmühl to carry out his plan of taking vengeance on the Russians by burning everything on the line of march. When he was in charge of the rear-guard he distinguished himself by the zeal and completeness with which he burned every manor and village within reach.

When snow and frost appeared Davout was utterly unable to meet the altered conditions. Thrown out of his ordinary routine, he was driven to despair by the disorder that prevailed, and was among the first to lose heart.

“Davout,” says Ségur, “entered Orcha with 4000 men, all that remained of 70,000! The Marshal lost all his personal belongings; he had no linen, and was literally dying of hunger. When he was offered a piece of bread he positively leaped upon it; when they gave him a handkerchief and he wiped his face for the first time for many days, it was covered with hoar-frost. ‘A man must be made of iron,’ cried the Marshal, ‘to stand such privations! There are such things as physical impossibilities; there is a limit to human endurance, and that limit we have long since passed!’”

Ney was made of very different metal. When Napoleon refused to let him have the Guards for a final attack in the plains of Borodino, he did not hesitate to proclaim aloud, that “if the Emperor is tired of fighting, let him take his d——d way to the Tuileries, and leave us to do what is necessary.”

Amid the universal despair and confusion of the retreat, Ney proved himself not only the “bravest of the brave,” as he had always been, but an obedient and efficient officer—he was the true hero of the retreat of the Grande Armée. Of a remarkably strong constitution, Ney was a man of action, not of sentiment. Highly characteristic was his answer to a wounded man who besought him to save him. “What would you have me do?” said he. “You are but one of the victims of the war—_voilà tout_!” When Ney was told of the death of the young de Noailles, he answered, without moving a muscle—“Well, well, his turn has come; it is better that we should lament his death than that he should lament ours.” The following incident is equally characteristic of the man. At Smolensk Ney was abandoned by Marshal Davout, and lost almost all his troops, artillery, and baggage. When, by circuitous roads, through bogs and forests, he overtook Napoleon with a handful of men, and the Duke of Eckmühl began to excuse his conduct, Ney merely replied—“I have not accused your Grace of anything. God sees us, and He is your Judge.”

“Ney saw,” says Ségur, “that some one must bear the brunt of the retreat, and of his own free will he accepted the post of danger, undertaking to cover the rear of the army.”

“The Russians were advancing,” says an eye-witness of one engagement, “under cover of the forest and of the wagons we had abandoned, and firing on Ney’s troops with great effect. The latter were on the point of taking to flight when the Marshal seized a rifle, rushed up, and led them into action. He replied to the Russian fire with as little concern for his own safety as if he did not know what it was to be a father and a husband, wealthy, noble, and respected. Although playing the part of a private soldier he did not cease to be a general. Taking advantage of the ground, he made full use of the cover afforded by hills and houses. In this way he secured for the army a respite of twenty-four hours. On the two following days he displayed the same heroism; from Viazma to Smolensk he was fighting for ten days without a break.”

Military history probably furnishes few instances in which a commander has extricated himself from so difficult a position as that in which Ney found himself when, as we have already said, he was abandoned by Davout on the road from Smolensk to Krasnoye. The rear-guard of the Grande Armée was caught in a trap; Dorogomilovsky’s forces lay across the road and on either flank, so that it was absolutely impossible to pass. Ney, however, could not bring himself to yield, and did his best to cut his way through. Again and again he led his exhausted troops against the enemy’s bayonets; but musketry volleys and the fire of 40 guns at a range of 250 paces could not fail of their effect. At last the greater portion of the French division, consisting of 12,000 men, surrendered, and all their artillery, 27 guns, baggage, etc., passed into the hands of the enemy. Marshal Ney, however, was not one of the prisoners. He took advantage of the darkness to escape with 3000 men, who readily followed him.

The means which he employed to effect his escape were perhaps not quite legitimate. The Marshal detained the officer who came from General Dorogomilovsky with an offer of surrender, and while he was awaiting a final answer, slipped away, first in the direction of Smolensk, and then by a circuitous flank march to Orcha.

The details of this retreat and final escape have an air rather of romance than of stern fact. The boldness with which the operation was conceived and executed is nothing less than astounding. “The eyes of every man in the little detachment that slipped so quietly out of the hands of the Russians,” says Fezensac, “were turned towards the Marshal. He showed no trace of anxiety or irresolution, but no one dared to question him. Ney said to one of his staff-officers who was standing by—

“_Nous ne sommes pas bien._”

“_Qu’allez vous faire?_” asked the officer.

“_Passer le Dniéper._”

“_Où est le chemin?_”

“_Nous le trouverons._”

“_Et s’il n’est pas gelé?_”

“_Il le sera._”

It was as he said. The fugitives came upon a lame peasant who served them as a guide. The ice was only just strong enough to bear. Nevertheless, most of the troops got across safely after abandoning all their baggage. The Cossacks started in pursuit the following day, but in forty-eight hours Ney made his way by river and forest, after much fighting, to the town of Orcha.

It is said that when Napoleon heard of Ney’s arrival, he exclaimed with delight—“I have 200,000,000 francs stored in the cellars of the Tuileries. I would willingly give them all to save such a man as Ney.”

However brilliant Ney’s movements at the battle of Krasnoye may have been, it is impossible to read Napoleon’s account of the engagement, in Despatch XXIX., without a smile. With the most ludicrous perversity Napoleon represents the Marshal as victorious.

General Dumas says that after crossing the frontier, he was one day taking coffee at an hotel in Gumbinen, when a stranger entered. He was dressed in a dark overcoat, and wore a long beard. His face was blackened as if it had been burned, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Here I am at last!” he said. “Why, General Dumas, don’t you know me?”

“No. Who are you?”

“I am the rear-guard of the Grande Armée—Marshal Ney.”

_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._

Transcriber’s note:

Silently corrected typographical errors and inconsistencies; retained non-standard spelling.

Small captionless hand sketches were not retained.