Chapter 31

THE RETREAT FROM RUSSIA[44]

[Footnote 44: References as in the preceding chapter. Also: Cathcart: Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany, 1812 to 1813. Clausewitz: Der Feldzug von 1812 in Russland, der Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von 1814 in Frankreich. Combe: Memoires sur les campagnes de Russie 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France 1814 et 1815. Jomini: Precis politique et militaire des campagnes de 1812 a 1814. Labaume: Relation circonstanciee de la campagne de Russie. Gentz: Oesterreichs Theilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jahre 1813-1815, nach Aufzeichnungen von F. von Gentz, nebst einem Anhang: "Briefwechsel zwischen dem Fuersten Schwarzenberg und Metternich." Porter: A Narrative of the Campaign in Russia in 1812. Segur: Histoire de Napoleon et de la grande armee pendant l'annee 1812. Gourgaud: Napoleon et la grande armee en Russie, ou examen critique de l'ouvrage de M. le C^te Ph. de Segur. Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier. Wilson: Private diary of travels, personal services and public events during mission and employment with the European armies in the campaigns of 1812, 1813 and 1814; ed. by his nephew, H. Murray. Wolseley: The Decline and Fall of Napoleon.]

State of Napoleon's Mind -- Destruction Imminent -- The Affair at Wiazma -- Kutusoff's Timidity -- Napoleon's Despair -- Arrival at Smolensk -- The Army Reorganized -- Napoleon's Daring at Krasnoi -- Ney's Great Feat -- Sufferings of the Army -- The Russian Plan -- Tchitchagoff's Capture of Borrissoff.

For nine days the retreat went steadily on. Mortier came in on October twenty-seventh; Davout was assigned to keep the rear. Napoleon was no longer seen on horseback; sometimes he drove, but generally he trudged among the men, to all outward appearance as spiritless as any one. To Junot he wrote that he had taken his decision in consequence of the cold and in order to provide for his wounded from the depot at Mozhaisk. There was as yet no severe cold, and there was a far shorter road to Smolensk. The writer's mind was chaotic, confusing what he knew soon would be with present realities. His maps were worthless, and clinging to experience, he showed none of his accustomed venturesomeness. The well-worn summer uniforms of his men were no protection even against the coolness of autumn nights. What a prospect when winter's cold should come! It was enough to stun even a Napoleon.

But the present was bad enough, and momentarily grew worse. The road was lined with charred ruins and devastated fields, and the waysides were dotted with groups of listless, desperate soldiers who fell out and sank on the ground as the straggling ranks of their comrades tramped on. Skirting the battle-field of Borodino, the marching battalions looked askance on the ghastly heaps of unburied corpses; but the wounded survivors were dragged from field hospitals and other cavernous shelters to be carried onward with the departing army. They were a sight which in some cases turned melancholy into madness. In order to transport them the wagons were lightened by throwing the spoils of Moscow into the pond at Semlino. On the thirtieth despatches of grave import reached the Emperor informing him that Schwarzenberg had retreated behind the Bug, leaving an open road from Brest for Tchitchagoff's veterans to attack the right flank of the columns flying from Moscow. Victor, learning of Napoleon's straits, had left fifteen thousand men in Smolensk, and was advancing to join Saint-Cyr on the Dwina in order to assure the safety of the main army from that side. To him came the dismal news that Wittgenstein had resumed the offensive against Saint-Cyr, and that the line of attack on the French left was as open from the north as was that on the other side from the south. Davout's rear-guard was steadily disintegrating under hardships and before the harassing attacks of the Russian riders under Platoff. Partizan warfare was assuming alarming dimensions. In a single swoop two thousand French recruits under Baraguey d'Hilliers had been made prisoners, and similar events were growing all too frequent. In consequence of these crushing discouragements the whole army was rearrayed. "We must march as we did in Egypt," ran the order: "the baggage in the middle, as densely surrounded as the road will permit, with a half battalion in front, a half battalion behind, battalions right and left, so that when we face we can fire in every direction." Ney's corps was then assigned to the place of danger in the rear--a place he kept with desperate gallantry until he earned the title "bravest of the brave."

The early promise of substantially reinforcing Kutusoff's army had not been fulfilled. The fanatic zeal at first displayed soon effervesced, the new levies were untrustworthy, and the long marches of the Russians told almost as terribly upon them as the retreat did upon their enemies. Kutusoff's army therefore, though available for defense, was a poor weapon for attack, especially when the object was a French army under the dreaded Napoleon. The Russian commander was only half-hearted in his pursuit; and when, having taken the short cut which was unknown to his enemy, his van came in contact with the French line at Wiazma on November third, the Russian soldiers had little heart to fight. The circumstances offered every chance for a powerful if not a decisive blow on the flying column from flank and rear; but the onset was feeble, the commander-in-chief held back his main force in anxious timidity, and a second time the opportunity was lost for annihilating the retreating foe, now reduced in number to about sixty thousand. Napoleon was far away on the front when Kutusoff attacked, and the battle was conducted on the French side by the marshals in consultation with Eugene and Poniatowski. The rear-guard was momentarily severed from the line, but these two generals wheeled and fiercely attacked the advancing Russians, engaging all within reach until Davout was able to evade the melee and rejoin the main army.

The French lost about four thousand, the Russians about half as many. Neither of the two armies had any courage to renew the struggle next morning, and each kept its way as best it could, both of them exhausted, both shrinking hourly in vigor and numbers. Kutusoff's conduct both at Malojaroslavetz and at Wiazma has been explained by his fixed resolution to leave the destruction of the invaders to his gaunt allies, want and winter. If, however, as was possible at either place, he had annihilated the retreating army, this might have been the last Napoleonic war, since it was not for a new army that the Emperor of the French appealed to his people, but for something quite different; namely, men to recruit the old one. As it was, Napoleon first learned of the conflict at Wiazma on the fourth, and contemplated a movement which might lead his pursuers into an ambush. But he found the three columns which had been engaged so pitifully disintegrated that he gave up in despair--a feeling heightened when, for the first time, snowflakes came ominously fluttering through the frosty air.

The weary march was therefore resumed, and there was some semblance of order in it, although Ney wrote Berthier that already on the fourth there were without exaggeration four thousand men of the grand army who refused to march in rank. The number was increasing daily. On the sixth Napoleon was informed that Victor, having effected a junction with Saint-Cyr, had checked Wittgenstein in a series of gallant struggles, but that step by step the two divisions had been driven back until now they were only thirty miles distant, having abandoned the line of the Dwina, including the depot of Vitebsk. "Seize the offensive; the safety of the army depends on it," was Napoleon's desperate reply. Terrible as this news was to the general, it was eclipsed in horror for the Emperor by the accounts he received at the same time from Paris describing Malet's conspiracy, a movement to overthrow the Empire based on the false rumor of his own death. "And Napoleon II, did no one think of him?" he cried in anguish. Grand army, reputation, personal prestige--all these he might lose and survive; but to lose France, that were ruin indeed.

That night a heavy frost fell; then, and no sooner, did the relentless severity of the Russian winter begin. This is proved by Napoleon's famous twenty-ninth bulletin, and by the journal of Castellane, the aide-de-camp who made the final copy of it; in spite of assertions put forth later to sustain the legend of an army conquered by the elements, the autumn had dallied far beyond its time. Next day the weary march began again; scarcely a word escaped the Emperor. He was pale, but his countenance gave no sign of panic; there was merely a grim, persistent silence. The enemy hung on flank and rear, harassing the demoralized column until it was more like a horde than an army. With numbed limbs and in the gnawing misery of bitter cold, the French straggled on. Men and horses died by the score; the survivors cut strips of carrion wherewith to sustain life, and desperately pressed forward, for all who left the highway fell into the enemy's hands. In some bivouacs three hundred died overnight; there are statements in the papers of officials which seem to indicate that in the struggle for life the weaker often perished at the hands of their own comrades. The half-crazed, frost-bitten, disorderly soldiers of the French van reached Smolensk on the ninth, and on the thirteenth the remnants of the rear, with many stragglers, came up and encamped. The heroes of the hour were Eugene and Ney. Ney's division had well-nigh vanished in their glory. Fighting without fear, and dying undaunted, they had saved the moiety of the grand army which reached Smolensk; the other half had perished by the way. Eugene had taken a long circuit, but his division had lost fewer and was less demoralized than those of his colleagues. Murat's recklessness in fighting the Cossacks had resulted in the loss of nearly all his horses; his men arrived on foot.

The scenes in Smolensk were shameful. At first the garrison shut the gates in the very faces of the human wolves who clamored for food and shelter. Discipline having been restored, the guard was admitted. The stores were ample for a fortnight's rations to all survivors; but the ravening mob could not be restrained, and the distribution was so irregular that precious supplies were tumbled into the streets; in the end it was discovered that the guard had secured sustenance for a fortnight, while the line had scarcely sufficient for a week. The sick and wounded were, however, housed and made fairly comfortable. These nauseating tumults over, the Emperor seemed to regain much of his bodily vigor, and with it returned his skill and ingenuity: stragglers were reincorporated into regiments; supply-wagons were destroyed in large numbers and the horses assigned to the artillery, many of the guns being abandoned so that the service of the remainder might be more efficient; the army was rearrayed in four divisions, under the Emperor, Eugene, Davout, and Ney respectively; and the French made ready to leave Smolensk with a bold front. Napoleon's contempt for his enemy was matched only by their palpitating fear of him. Most men would have abandoned hope in such a crisis. Napoleon was fertile not merely in strategic expedients, but in devices for realizing his plans. Accordingly he arranged that the four columns should move on parallel lines toward Lithuania, a day's march distant from each other, he with six thousand of the guard in the van; Ney, taking the other four thousand to strengthen his own line, was to keep the rear. The movement began on the twelfth, that is, before the last stragglers had come in; on the fourteenth Napoleon took his departure; and three days later, on the seventeenth, the towers of the ramparts having been blown up, the last of the newly ordered ranks marched out. The sick and wounded had found shelter in houses adjacent to the walls; many were killed by the explosions, the rest were abandoned to the foe and found humane treatment. Disorderly and mutinous French soldiers remained in considerable numbers to plunder; these were for the most part caught by the entering Russians, and inhumanly done to death. In all these days the cold had not abated, and at times the thermometer marked fifteen degrees below zero.

The further line of retreat was through Krasnoi, Borrissoff, and Minsk, the Emperor expecting Schwarzenberg, reinforced by fourteen thousand German recruits, to cover the crossing of the Beresina at Borrissoff. The Russians followed doggedly on their parallel line of pursuit, harassing the French rear and flanks. On the fifteenth their van came in touch with Napoleon's division near Krasnoi almost as he himself passed, and their artillery opened fire. The balls yelled as they sped by, and there was great excitement. Lebrun called attention to the fact as if it were remarkable. "Bah!" said Napoleon, as he pressed forward; "bullets have been flying about our legs these twenty years." He well knew that his anxious foe would not seriously attack him and his guard; but, justly considering that the case would be different in regard to his rear, he halted to await their arrival. Early on the morning of the seventeenth he sent out a reconnoitering party, as if about to wheel and give battle; Kutusoff, who for the moment was considerably inferior in numbers, fell instantly into the snare, and drawing back his van, as Napoleon had foreseen and desired, made ready for battle.

Eugene and Davout were within reach, but Ney's position was terrible: he was only then leaving Smolensk. Was he to be left to his fate? Around and behind his six thousand troops were swarming almost as many stragglers; and on the eighteenth the Russians, in spite of their momentary halt, threw forward their van with the hope of cutting off his hampered and sore-pressed division. But the short delay had been precious: Ney rose to the occasion, and on the nineteenth crossed the Dnieper over the ice, hoping to follow the right bank westward and rejoin the main army at Orcha. This was one of his most daring feats, perhaps his most brilliant deed of arms. Summoned by a flag of truce to surrender, he replied: "A marshal of the Empire has never surrendered!" Platoff and the Cossacks were hard on his heels; but fighting and marching throughout the weary, bitter day, at night the undaunted marshal found himself in touch with Eugene, who had turned out on the highway from Vitebsk to Orcha to meet him. When, on the twentieth, they effected a junction, Ney had only eight hundred men in the ranks with him; perhaps two thousand more were trudging behind in disorder.

On the eighteenth a thaw had set in; it had begun to rain, the crust broke under the men's feet, and the roads were lines of icy clods. The soldiers had no foot-gear but rags; every step was an agony, and thousands who had so far endured now gave up, and flung away their guns and equipments. There were not more than twenty-five thousand regularly marching. Already on the previous day the guard had shown signs of demoralization. The Emperor alone seemed impassive. For days he had shared the common hardships; clad in a long Polish coat of marten fur, a stout birch staff in his hand, without a sign of either physical or nervous exhaustion he had marched silently for long distances among his suffering men. If we picture him standing at Krasnoi, weighing how long he dared to brave an enemy which if consolidated and hurled upon his lines would have annihilated them, we must feel that collapse was prevented then only by his nerve and by the terror of his name. Once more he threw the influence of his presence into the scale, and, stepping before the guard on this dreadful day, he said simply: "You see the disorganization of my army. In unhappy infatuation most of the soldiers have thrown away their guns. If you follow this dangerous example no hope remains." The state of the men was, if possible, worse than ever; in fact, it was indescribable. Night after night they had bivouacked in the snow. What with the wet, the dazzling glitter, and the insufficient food,--for at best they had only a broth of horse-flesh thickened with flour,--some were attacked with blindness, some with acute mania, and some with a prostrating insensibility. Those who now remained in the ranks were clad in rags and scarcely recognizable as soldiers. It seemed, therefore, as if such an appeal could only awaken an echo in an empty vault; but such was the French character that, desperate as were the circumstances, the cry was heard. The response was grim and sullen, but the call was not in vain; and reaching Orcha on the nineteenth, there was still an army. As yet, however, there was no news of Ney.

The sky seemed dark and the prospect blank when it was learned that both Victor and Schwarzenberg had been steadily thrown back. The Russian plan was for Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff to drive in the extreme left and right divisions respectively of Napoleon's attenuated line, and then to concentrate at Borrissoff and attack the main French army retreating before Kutusoff. So far the various parts of this scheme had been successfully executed. Borrissoff and its bridge were still in possession of a Polish regiment; but the garrison was very small, and could not repulse the attack of the converging Russian columns or of any portion of them. It behooved Napoleon, therefore, to move swiftly if his few remaining troops were to cross the Beresina in safety. It was in this frightful dilemma that Ney at last appeared. Said Napoleon, when the news was brought to him: "If an hour ago I had been asked for the three millions I have in the Tuileries vaults as the price of this event, I would have handed them over." The marshal's presence was in itself a splendid encouragement.

Purchasing such stores as Jewish contractors offered, abandoning the heavy pontoons, and hitching the horses to a few field-pieces found in the park, the undaunted Emperor sent orders to both Victor and Oudinot, enjoining them to make forced marches and meet him at Borrissoff. On the twenty-first, amid the slush, mud, and broken cakes of crust, he started his own army on a swift despairing rush for that crucial point. It was too late; that very day Tchitchagoffs van, after a stubborn and bloody struggle, occupied the town and captured the all-important bridge. The thaw had opened the river, and its overflowing stream, more than sixty yards in width, was full of floating ice. To the Russians it seemed as if Napoleon were already taken in their snare, and Tchitchagoff issued a general order that all captives below medium stature should be brought to him. "He is short, stout, pale; has a short, thick neck, and black hair," ran his description of the "author of Europe's miseries." By a special decree of the Czar, all the French prisoners of war were kindly treated, each being furnished with warm clothing at an expense of about twenty dollars.